Second Hand Shenanigans

[Family Fry]

Oh man don't talk to me about Konami, in them olds ps2 days. We used to have people flat out refuse to buy it unless it was sealed, pro evo.
Completely agree with the buy it, play it, flog it philosophy nowadays, back then though I was a different beast.

[elaniel]

Barring games being missing required codes or some such I don't see what all the fuss is about. We are talking mass produced disposable media, not art or collectibles. Buy it, play it, flog it. I really don't care if a new game isn't sealed, nor do the vast majority in my experience. It's just a very vocal minority of plastic fetishists who obsess over this stuff. A game doesn't have to be sealed to be new, for years most games weren't sealed. It's becoming the norm now though. I'm pretty sure Konami never sealed any PS2 or Xbox games. Does that make them used?

Working at GAME I have seen the way games get stored. Disc put into manual, spine up, and disc sticking out the bottom. Always a dust mark on the edge of the disc when you remove the game and put it in the box that doesn't come off unless you wipe it with a cloth quite harshly. I always refuse to buy discs like this as it's effectively a damaged disc. Sure, it may work but who knows how long that game has been in that drawer.

If it's not sealed by the manufacturer and the store is selling it in the box that's fine, but it's when i know a game is supposed to be sealed that has been opened by someone else, I don't want that copy. Not everyone flogs the games they buy, I keep an awful load of them.

Just seeing some of the practices whilst working there has put me off buying pre-owned and unwrapped games. I've even had multiple friend buy "new"games that are resealed by GAME and when they get home they are completely wrecked. One was even refused to be taken back to the store, which is preposterous.
Compare it to working in a fast food restaurant and seeing some of the practices that go on there in the kitchen. It could put you off that place.

[EvilBoris]

I totally got caught by project 10 dollar today, traded in modern warfare 3 at ganestation (they weren't pleased when I asked them to prove match with hmv) and grabbed Saints row 3.

?35 for it preowned at ?40 for it new.
Wasn't fussed about the bits of Dlc I got with the new copy so grabbed the preowned and saved myself a fiver....

Took it home and it turns out there was also an 'online pass required to play co-op. balls. So I had to take it back.

Now is it me but shouldn't there be a bit of a bigger price difference than ?5 if such a massive part of the game is missing, given that it costs ?6 to purchase that online pass by itself and the game is used?

[Brad]

Yes. Of course it should be MUCH more that ?5 less.

Buying second hand is fine. I buy used from folk on here all the time. Not from a shop though. New or not at all.

[teddymeow]

As an ex-Game employee I can say that lending games out to staff was stopped quite some time ago and that was official company policy. I can't speak for every store of course but I never saw or heard of anyone trying pass a preowned game off as brand new.

Yeah. Lending is allowed again but ONLY on pre-owned items. Some of the accusations here are comical. The way the stock system works in Game now is that only 2 copies get emptied and everything else stays sealed. Even chart games and front of store displays. Everything else is dummy boxes.

To say that pre-owned is sold as new is utter crap! Stock management is a serious matter in store selling pre-owned as new causes all sorts of issues with re-allocations and stock takes.

[EvilBoris]

Yes. Of course it should be MUCH more that ?5 less.

Buying second hand is fine. I buy used from folk on here all the time. Not from a shop though. New or not at all.

I ended up taking it back in the end and getting a new copy instead. It's the first time I've bought anything new releaseish in a long time,don't think I'll bother again.

[Fader209]

Barring games being missing required codes or some such I don't see what all the fuss is about. We are talking mass produced disposable media, not art or collectibles. Buy it, play it, flog it. I really don't care if a new game isn't sealed, nor do the vast majority in my experience. It's just a very vocal minority of plastic fetishists who obsess over this stuff. A game doesn't have to be sealed to be new, for years most games weren't sealed. It's becoming the norm now though. I'm pretty sure Konami never sealed any PS2 or Xbox games. Does that make them used?

The point is that this is blatant false advertising. If you pay the price for something new you should get something new and un-opened. If I want to buy a game that has been opened I will pay the pre-owned price. Simples.

Most important fact is that an opened game doesn't have the same "new game" smell!

[Decider-VT]

The point is that this is blatant false advertising. If you pay the price for something new you should get something new and un-opened.

Which isn't always a practical reality in a brick and mortar store. As I said before, there's a lot of complaining about this issue but very little in the way of realistic alternatives suggested. What would you do if you were a retailer?

[Fader209]

So the customers have to think up solutions now for retail problems and waste their time complaining in writing/phonecalls? I don't think so, that is somebody's job within that company to find these solutions. The customers will just refuse to shop in these outlets and order online, as appealing as the idea is that massive groups of gamers join forces and help stores out rather than complain about certain issues.
You do sound very passionate about your work and I would love if everybody in these shops had your enthusiasm and dedication but from my experience your type are a rare breed. Agreed there has to be a change to the way things are run, maybe a return to the glass cabinet system would work out better.

[Mr M0by]

Do you really appreciate the volume of space that would be required behind the counter to keep a sealed copy of every available game for sale?! It's not physically possible, let alone practical, in a retail enviroment where you get the range of items that GAME/Gamestation/hmv would stock.

[Fader209]

Obviously the way the store is laid out would have to be changed...
This isn't a wildly insane idea as there used to be stores that did this in the past. Some how the practice of rows and rows of empty cases has become the accepted norm yet could be seen as a waste of space as the actual games still take up physical space in some form else where.

[Mr M0by]

Obviously the way the store is laid out would have to be changed...

But space is a premium (The rent on my store is over ?30k/month - excluding rates etc) & retailers cannot afford, especially in this climate to suddenly give more of it over to non-sale space. Not to mention most of these stores counters & layouts were designed years before so many formats/titles & the overall demand for games became so high. It's an unfortunate compromise but one I'm convinced the 'numbers' justify. You mention about the rows of empty cases that has become the norm, are you referring to the merchandised stock on shelves? That's not a waste of space. If they're not there, customers have nothing to browse/buy! We'd all love to keep our games out live, the workload resource saving alone would be massive but the high ticket price makes the product too desirable for thieves.

['Press Start']

the high ticket price makes the product too desirable for thieves.

Also, in this financial climate theft off the shop floor is up. In our business we made the decision not to have any product stacked on shop floors as thieves were becoming more daring and desperate. Re-sellers of our product have taken the same decision.

[Decider-VT]

So the customers have to think up solutions now for retail problems and waste their time complaining in writing/phonecalls? I don't think so, that is somebody's job within that company to find these solutions. The customers will just refuse to shop in these outlets and order online, as appealing as the idea is that massive groups of gamers join forces and help stores out rather than complain about certain issues.
You do sound very passionate about your work and I would love if everybody in these shops had your enthusiasm and dedication but from my experience your type are a rare breed. Agreed there has to be a change to the way things are run, maybe a return to the glass cabinet system would work out better.

Thanks. If I come across as passionate it's probably frustration borne of spending a lot of time arguing against the practice when I worked full-time, and I often lobbied head office to get publishers to supply dummy cases to no avail. Post-release day we'd usually end up throwing reams of dummy sleeves for pre-order awareness out, which seemed like a terrible waste when those sleeves could've been reused but for the garish pre-order slogans slapped across them. Unfortunately people not involved in the buying/selling process directly don't have the same level of care about the product, but that's to be expected when the games are just units on reports at their level. The Gamestop practice in the original post is deplorable, though- not quite stickering used stock as new but misleading nonetheless. It tars the rest of us with the same brush unfortunately- mistrust between retailers and customers only worsens when that sort of practice is implemented.

I wouldn't say that complaining to somebody that can actually do something is any less a waste of time than people discussing it anonymously on a forum like this, though. It's not blindly idealistic to suggest that the people that can change the practice are more likely to listen to complaints from the public than the mithering of a lowly shop assistant bothering them with phone calls and e-mails. Store layouts won't be changing, either. When companies take a 90% hit on the value of their shares in one year re-merchandising flies right out of the window. Belts would be far too tight to start changing units and installing cabinets. This whole discussion will probably be moot in a couple of years anyway, as the only places to buy games from that aren't online stores will be supermarkets or indies.

[NW2013]

It wouldn't take that much of a change though would it? Just display one empty case on the shop floor for each format and leave the sealed ones in drawers/'out the back'. Of course, this would rely on the shop staff quickly putting the cases back on the shelf when they have a gap in serving people. I'd imagine even if it wasn't on the shop floor people would just ask, especially for big releases.