Gamestop is the biggest punch in the dick to a gamer for several reasons:
1) reserving titles leads to dealing with a douche clerk. Allow me to explain. I’m going to go out on a limb to assume that 90% of all gamestop customers on a day-to-day basis are well within the ‘male age 18-32 range’ that already know what titles are coming out and when. They also know when to reserve titles and when there is no need. It’s a simple economics lesson: If there’s a new Grand Theft Auto coming out….YOU DON’T NEED TO RESERVE IT, ASSHOLE. It will be everywhere. Supply/Demand, come on!

on a random Saturday, i walked into Gamestop to reserve a copy of Suikoden III for the PS2 (because Gamestop would only get 3 copies or so). As i was perusing the selection, some asshole manager came up to me and asked me if i wanted to pre-order Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. I told him that i’ve never played a GTA game, and that I had already reserved another game and just wanted to look around. Instead of saying “that’s cool, let me know if you have any questions,” He replied “I guarantee that you won’t find that game ANYWHERE when it comes out!” I told him that i didn’t care, because i never played GTA, and I said thanks for asking. He replied (obviously not getting the hint): “if you can find GTA: Vice City anywhere on day 1, i’ll give you any game in the store.” I said ok, whatever and walked out. I was angry because i kinda felt violated in my butt-hole. Why would you harass a gamer to that extent unless you had a quota of reserves to meet? Douche. Gamestop Corporation is run and owned by Satan. Satan cares not for gamer preferences, only making money.

Three months later, i was walking in Best Buy, and it happened to be the day that GTA: Vice City came out. They had 150 copies on the shelf, at least. They were organized into a fucking pyramid, that’s how many copies they had. I was immediately enraged, and remembered my moment of anal fingering by the store manager at Gamestop. I purchased a copy, had the cashier sign and note on the receipt that i did not pre-order the copy, and went back to Gamestop. I showed the manager the copy and reminded him of his ridiculous promise to give me any game in the store. The store clerks laughed at him as he wrote out a gift card to me for $25 (not what i expected, but hey it’s free) and immediately purchased Resident Evil for the Gamecube. Fuck him, and fuck pushy sales clerks that don’t know their demographics.

2) trading games in is a SHAM: If you buy a game there, beat it and trade it in….you get barebones bullshit for it. I remember trading in a $60 game and they wanted to give me $20 for it a week after it came out. No way. THEN, i noticed that the USED PRICE for the game was $54.99. That’s only five bucks cheaper than the new price. SHENANIGANS. The store makes, like, fifty cents or so on selling a new game, while making over $35 dollars on used games. And if a game is rare, they won’t tell you and jack the used price even more when they turn around and sell it.

My advice to you: sell your used games on eBay or some other website, you’ll get the money you should there. Know when to reserve titles, and don’t be afraid to lay into those asshole sales clerks for selling stupid shit to you. They should be ashamed of themselves for selling out as corporate slaves.