[:plant:] Zero Originality, A Rather Redundant Exposé. PEOPLE suck at shopping.

Hey guys! I figured this was interesting enough to generate its own bout of discussion.

It's a video in the style of Zero Punctuation, by Ben Croshaw. This fellow can't enunciate nearly as well, but it stands as a nice expose on Gamestop's practices. It's about 90 minutes long, too, so grab some popcorn.

I imagine most of you have seen this by now, but for those who haven't and those who want to discuss their shitty experiences with GameStop, here you are! Blast away!

Zero Originality, Episode 1, Part 1

How ya doing, buddy?

Lol. Thanks for posting that I had seen a couple videos by this guy but had forgotten about them. True, and also funny = comedy. I just feel like I'm entering a seedy dive when I go to the Gamestop in the mall. I really feel like these are the nerds that didn't make it into the crime syndicate when they were having try-outs down by the warf because they were too wimpy. Wimpy, yet extremely seedy.

On the other hand, the one out by my house is pretty decent. As far as Gamestops go.

I miss Software Etc. Maybe just because it existed around that prime time of PSX and FFVII, and also... PC games actually on shelves for cheap too! But I do miss it.

Ebay > Gamestop.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by speculative

Lol. Thanks for posting that I had seen a couple videos by this guy but had forgotten about them.

No you haven't, this isn't Yahtzee. If you watched this, you'd have noticed he said that multiple times.

Originally Posted by speculative

True, and also funny = comedy.

Neat.

How ya doing, buddy?

I can understand Yahtzee' British/Aussie combo meal mush accent, yet I can barely understand a word this guy's saying. But it's a Gamestop angst thing so;

"GAMESTOP'S SO SHIT I BOUGHT A GAME FOR FULL RETAIL PRICE THERE (I SAVED EIGHTY CENTS THOUGH BECAUSE I MADE USE OF THEIR 'TRADE FOUR NEW RELEASE GAMES SAVE EIGHTY CENTS ON YOUR NEXT PURCHASE' COUPON) AND THE CASE HAD A STICKER ON IT SO I WAS LIKE FUCK YOOOOOOU PERSON BEHIND THE COUNTER AND I FUCKED HIM, SURE TAUGHT HIM A LESSON DON'T MESS WITH ME, THE INTERNET FORUM GAME CONSUMER. THEN I SET THE STORE ON FIRE LOL PUNCHED THE MANAGER IN THE TESTICLES WITH A KNIFE AND STOLE HIS BUSINESS CARD SOME LADY WAS LIKE "YOU'RE SUCH A BADASS YOUNG MAN" AND I WAS ALL "SHUT IT HAG" THEN I BECAME THE PRESIDENT"
"Why don't you just buy your games from anywhere else and save money?"
"THEN WHAT WILL I COMPLAIN ABOUT?!"

How ya doing, buddy?

Yeah, moaning about a shop for 90 minutes seems like a collossal waste of time and effort. Why not just shop somewhere else? The only reason I ever go into games shops is to look for cheap second hand stuff. If I want something new I'll just use Froogle (Or Google Shopping as I think they call it now) or for older stuff, Goofbay to get decent second hand deals.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Good lord that is dull. Only watched a little bit of it, but that was more than enough. Sure there's some interesting tidbits of information in there... IF YOU'RE A NAIVE MORON. Who isn't already painful obvious that stores are generally scamming you with trade-ins? No, because it should be. Aside from the odd occasion you'll trade-in a title for a couple of quid and all the pre-owned titles will cost far more than that. It doesn't take a genius to work out who's benefitting here. But if you're happy with what you get at trade-in then you can't fucking complain.

Also, to the ripping off Zero Punctuation's style - no, bad monkey. The guy mumbles his way through words, which doesn't sit with the rapid fire speech required for that sort of delivery. Lack of British accent and dry humour also equals massive failure.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Well, this is pretty much old information to most of us (Though I think is nice to get more details on it), but do you guys think this video should be seen by the "soccor moms" and "frat boys" that he mentioned so more people can become better consumers?

Or is everything in those videos considered to be common knowledge to any consumer and everyone should already know this like they should know their ABCs?

Cause I doubt most non hardcore gaming people out there know about this. Personally I like people to become smarter consumers like the guy was suggesting...

FELIPE NO

Well, the trade-in shazbah is nothing new, of course, but I never knew anything about the employee side of Gamestop. This is what most interested me.

And I don't really consider Yahtzee to have so much dry humor, per se. His whole style is simply overtly funny. In emulating it, the only thing lost here was enunciation, as I mentioned. It made it annoying, yeah, but the overall style was still good enough to warrant watching, so any of you guys that stopped 5 minutes or 30 seconds in would do well to actually watch the video. It's not all bitching about the trade-in ripoff.

If you watched it all and still hate it, then that's ok, too.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I guess it got removed.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

The thing is it's a day late and a dollar short.

Everyone who is watching this KNEW about this already. We know about the rip offs, we know about the shit job conditions, we know about all that. (The only new thing I learned from this entire video was getting paid on the debit card thing). It's nothing new, this is just preaching to the choir.

In emulating an internet comedian who appeals to the type of guy who also knows this stuff, he's reducing his potential viewship even further. There's no point in doing something like this.

If he wanted to make the average consumer stop shopping there, the one who still goes to GS all the time and gives Southjag his paycheque, he'd have to make his message a little more digestable by that demographic, no?

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Originally Posted by Pew pew pew

the one who still goes to GS all the time and gives Southjag his paycheque

Post of the Year.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

For some reason part 1 has been removed for ToS violations, yet all the other parts are still up. Oh Youtube~

I watched the whole thing last night, mostly to avoid studying for a quiz I had today. The guy's voice is kind of painful to listen to with the exception of one part where he speeds it up. Most of what he says is common knowledge to us, and he even admits as much, which is strange since the audience he says he's trying to inform are the people who would never sit through a 90 minute Youtube video (soccer moms, little kids, etc.). He basically just wants people to help out the uninformed masses with this information, which I've done on occassion if I see a customer who seems nice being directly lied to.

Edit: Yeah, basically what Skills said. As for the being paid on a debit card thing, I wonder just how many places do that now. He was being an idiot about how it's used too. Movie Gallery tries to pay all of its employees through a Comdata MegaPay card too (same company he mentioned), and it's true that you get charged fees whenever you use it except at a very short list of places. I had to go through a considerable amount of hassle to get direct deposit to my checking account set up too, because it means work for the manager, but he kept talking about using it to buy games anyway just to clean off what was left on the card. That's not actually necessary. To keep it legal, the company has to provide you with these enormous checks that you fill out yourself and call the Comdata 1-800 number to register, and you lose no money to fees that way. Of course, your bank will hate you because they're a royal pain in the ass to deposit and they have to call that 1-800 number too. You just have to keep asking for checks/bugging your manager to take care of the direct deposit setup, and the company relies on people being too lazy and not reading the pamphlet for loopholes/fees.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Well, just remember. You guys may have known about shitty working conditions and all that, but I personally didn't know anything besides getting ripped on trade-ins, and even then it hadn't crossed my mind as so bad a thing, so very little of it was redundant to me...

It's just not obvious because the area in which I live would deem most of the things he talked about inconceivable. It was pretty interesting to watch, in my opinion, and I didn't know half the stuff in the series. I don't particularly see anything wrong with that, either.

I was speaking idiomatically.

That's just it. It's a horrible company, and more power to the guy for trying to blow the whistle, but this is not the way to go about educating the average poor shmuck.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

He sounds just as boring as this guy.

So I actually watched that whole thing last night (because there was really no point in watching Prison Break), and yeah, there's nothing really new there to people already in the know. Add that to the fact that I think Zero Punctuation is fucking retarded, and you have the biggest waste of 90 minutes I can recall in recent memory.

And honestly, I actually got kinda pissed at the part where he mentioned his store was actually good. I've been to many a Gamestops in my day, and I've yet to see one that actually qualifies as good, so I find it funny that the one he just so happened to work at was good.

FELIPE NO

I have to say that the GameStops around my area are nice, polite, and generally knowledgable. I haven't been heckled too much about bullshit, either.

The trade-ins are still dumb, though...

So, Rock. Come on to West Virginia and see our wonderful stores OMG!

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

There's a lot of criteria for a store to qualify as good, though. The employees are one thing, but what about the store itself? I can't recall ever going into a store that had a combination of good employees, organized shelves and bins (I know the employees aren't completely to blame for this, but they could still try harder), working kiosks, and most importantly, good quality games (this is pretty much impossible until GS changes their policy on gutting games and what they accept as trade-ins).

I honestly don't think these standards are too high. And I know other stores don't adhere to most of these either, but at least they have incentives such as sales that make wading through their shitty stores worth it (I just bought 4 brand new games at Circuit City yesterday for about $70 that would have cost me over $125 used at GS). I have nothing personal against GS, but they suck (all of them).

So I guess it just depends on your own standards as to whether a store is good or not, and by my own it's pretty much impossible for any GS to be good until they make some fundamental changes. So sorry, I have no plans to make any trips to West Virginia.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

As a former employee, I have to say, GameStop was a piece of shit place to work. Our district manager, for one, was a sexist and a condesending asshole. I mean, it's a fun job to have since you're around something you enjoy and know, but the way you're treated completely destorys it. If I want a game, I will go there for the time being, as some people there will give me the employee discount still, but once that ends, fuck that place. In the ass. With something sharp.

I can recall a story back when EB Games and GS merged where all/most of the Store Managers at EB Games were 'let go' (in one certain state, I can't remember off-hand) as their salary was comparable to the salaries of the District Managers of GS. The place is total clown shoes. The fact remains, the message won't hit into the uneducated demographic as stated above. People will go there because, hey, GAME IS IN THE COMPANY NAME SO IT MUST BE GOOD.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

The great thing about having a crappy job working in a store is that if you don't like your working conditions there's nothing to stop you leaving and getting another crappy job in a different store. Working in a shop is not skilled labour, it's an entierly homogenous job so there are no barriers to you leaving and working somewhere else. "Whistleblowing" on poor working conditions isn't exposing the store as bastards, it's exposing the employees as retards, willing to put up with crap conditions.

Also, saying that "Hardcore" gamers know that trade-ins are a rip off but soccer mums wouldn't is even more idiotic. Who goes shopping in general more often? Game nerds or soccer mums? In my experience it's the geeks who know the least about shopping and value for money as they do very little of it whereas a mum who does the weekly food shopping for her family knows rather a lot about maximising value, including knowing that selling things on eBay makes you more money than trading them in at a shop.

Anyone who places any value on this video be it entertainment or informative is pretty much a tool in my opinin and beyond naive. This kind of shit makes Michael Moore look objective and informative and that in itself is quite a feat.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Shin

Also, saying that "Hardcore" gamers know that trade-ins are a rip off but soccer mums wouldn't is even more idiotic. Who goes shopping in general more often? Game nerds or soccer mums?

This.

I'd add to that this: at what point did someone determine that you need to be a game geek to understand that by trading in a game for £5 and seeing it sold for £15, you probably aren't getting the best deal. If you can't work that one out for yourself you're an idiot, regardless of whether you play games, are a geek or a 'soccer' mum.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?