funny i was at an eb world today and picked up some stuff, this is sad to hear though, i hope they dont start raising the prices.
Gamestop family. Yep, Gamestop is is all stores formerly known as Babbages, Software Etcetera, Funcoland and now Electronics Boutique. Gamestop is actually under the Barnes & Noble parent company (I discovered this when my fiancee [a former Gamestop manager] showed me her discount was good at B&N). ~Krelian
Hey, I'm an Assistant Manager at a GameStop so here's some info to set the record straight: GameStop is made up of the following stores: GameStop MovieStop Babbages Funcoland Software Etc. Planet X GameStop WAS owned by Barnes & Noble untill mid-last year. We split off but still honor discounts to Barnes & Noble employees (and vice versa). Prices between EB and GameStop actually vary depending on which one you're at. If they're close enought to each other, competitive pricing and trade-in values are turned on in the registers. I'll be the first to tell you though that I don't like this buy out at all. Competition is a wonderful thing and now it's going to go to shit. There's still a chance this could be shot down by the fair trade commission... though it's looking unlikely...
lol, if mergers between huge oil corporations like chevron/texaco buying unocal go through, this will.
in the past ive only bought used stuff from these stores...the fact that they unwrap the games and brake the factory seal and then try and sell it to you as new makes me angry. it seems like its a violation of some basic law...if it isnt i think it should be. i seriously hope they both go out of business and lose millions of dallors...maybe someone could sue them for monopolising the market.
Gamestop is the name of the parent corporation, but their retail stores can be found as Gamestop, Babbages, Funcoland, and Software Etc. Personally, I'm glad Gamestop put those monkeys out of their misery - maybe now the EB retail stores will shape up. The local EB always has boxes of crap lying around on the show floor, and the salespeople aren't that knowledgeable about games - I've been in there when one of the salesgirls was trying to find the release date for Halo on PS2 for a customer. Of course, I could also be a little bitter that, when the store opened, they opted to hire overflow staff from the Gap instead of taking in new employees from outside the mall. Plus there's the thing about having to set people straight that come into the store where I work with their heads filled with conflicting, erroneous information courtesy of the EBGames staff. In general, every EB I've ever had dealings with was messy, poorly managed, and the employees were very unprofessional. If a merger means things might shape up, then I'm all for it. Although I must say it's not much of a surprise - I always suspected that in the corporate stratosphere, high above the reckoning of mere mortals, EB and Gamestop were the same thing anyways. I wonder what's going to happen to our Software Etc. and EB Games in the mall here? Of course, if the average customer doesn't know the difference, I guess having two stores isn't such a bad thing. EDIT: Dammit, didn't see a second page and Krelian & RabidPeanutButter's explanation of the structure. Three cheers for redundant information... :smt096
Sound planning. Back in my home town of Erie Pennsylvania there was a time when our mall had an Electronics Boutique, Gamestop (which was originally a Babbages) and Software Etc. in the mall and a Funcoland in the plaza directly outside the mall... then over the period of about two weeks the SoftEtc and Funco both converted to Gamestops, the mall had a total of THREE! Funny thing is which did they shutdown (because they obviously had too many)? Yep, the one that they closed was the one that STARTED in the mall as a Gamestop (Babbages), that was some brilliant planning to be sure. :smt043 ~Krelian
"Only" one? Man, consider yourself lucky, few little-to-medium sized towns in Holland & Belgium have specialized gamestores, only toy stores that sell games, and that sucks. It's a lot better in France though, there's a street in Rennes that has seven gamestores within a stretch of 300 meters rayer:
Sounds like in my home town in England (Yeovil, Somerset). There used to be an EB, and a Game also opened up a few years after nearby. But then Game bought out EB (in the UK anyway), so the last time I went there (about 2000 I think), there was a Game (which used to be EB), then about 100 metres up the same street, there was an even bigger, better... GAME! This is all kinda weird - I thought Game bought out EB in general, but now GameStop are buying out EB it must have been just in the UK. And are there GameStops anywhere else in Europe? We've had them since about 2001/2, when they bought out GameZone. According to the Wikipedia, they only have shops in the US, Puerto Rico and Ireland. Weird... why Ireland, FFS?
I guess we're just the start of GameStop's plan of world domination. There's already 2 in Limerick, and if they take over Game there'll be 3! I'm just happy we don't have a Starbucks yet ^_^
Disregarding the whole kooky 'world domination' conspiracies, Starbucks coffee is just plain BAD. What all you non-Oregonians need is a good dose of Dutch Bros. :smt045 :-D
I've never had a problem with this though I've heard rumors about it. The only time I've gotten re/unwrapped games is when it is the last one which is the display box and in those cases they've always told me up front and given me a discount.
We've went from no video game stores to two within the span of one year. It probably just takes time and a decently-sized town/city. Then again, it seems as though our city has been wanting to "expand". It's gotten quite large within the past few years.
Well the merger of these two companies is actually to compete against companies like Walmart and Best Buy. The only thing Walmart and/or best buy has to do in order to topple gamestop/eb is to start selling used games.
Yeah, if there's one thing they do well (here anyway) it's used games. Game's pre-owned section is a goddamn rip-off - most used PS2 games are €30, and some are even more! I actually saw some crappy game (that new Hitman one or something) that cost 20 quid more used than it did new! Actually Game's a rip-off in general. And let's not even get started about the crap PC hardware they have there - wow, a 56k modem - *only* €55! Or you can get some POS GeForce FX for €150!
