Soooo....Mass Effect 3

[Roland]

I'm not sure what stores you have in your area, but around here if you want to preorder a game it's a minimum $5.00 deposit. I went into gamestop around Christmas to grab a League of Legends point card for a friend and I even overheard the employee trying to manipulate the customer into paying the full price for a preorder claiming that "We are only going to get small supply for these games and people that have paid the full price are guaranteed to get it release day. If you only put down the minimum you may have to wait for later shipments." After hearing that I walked out and got my point card at Best Buy.

It's all one giant scam.

Having worked at Gamestop (many years ago), I can tell you that's part of the corporate literature that employees are forced to press upon "customers." Gamestop has always, and will always, treat customers like shit. The employees, for the most part, absolutely hate it. Gamestop as a corporation is a vile company, and I would hold no sympathy over their loss. They flat out do not care about anything except profit, and that has been consistently eroded over the years. I was sad enough to see EBGames / EBX go away, because they were the main competitor to Gamestop. These days, I'd be happy to support and old-school brick 'n' mortar game store that actually stood for games the way Newbury Comics used to stand for music, but those times are long gone.

As I said before, I don't know where you can pre-order a game for free aside from Amazon, as even Steam requires the payment in full ahead of time (although no one seems to mind it then, probably because they are guaranteed a game, without question or hassle). I can honestly say the only time I've gone to Gamestop recently was to get the Zelda branded 3DS (after I said I would pass on the system entirely), and even then it was because they were the only ones who had any left. They're just a horrible, rotten company right to the core, and they will never, ever change. Don't take it out on the grunts, though - I assure you they despise their employment as much as, if not more than, you do. The only reason I know of anyone staying in Gamestop is out of passion for games, and not any sort of corporate loyalty. They used to have an extremely high turnover rate (about the only people who ever stay were manages). I doubt that has changed, either.