Retail Mud...

[blakjedi]

Just came back from a Gamestop with a pretty interesting interaction...

Store clerk with about 4 or 5 other patrons... Im third online.

When I get up to the counter, I ask him about the date for new shipments of PS3's and then whether their store will participate in the Gears of War playtest event thingamajiggy (which is supposedly tonight). He's like blah blah he doesn't know, blah blah, he heard teh game is good, blah blah he's not getting his PS3 until March anyway...

I nod in acceptance of his story and say,

"well that just means that i will keep working my x360 out until March..."

He looks at me like this and says
"ahhh.... I hate the X360... there is nothing good to play on it."

Then looks at me. And me in total that a store clerk would say that so vehemently and out loud in a store full of customers say

Me: "hunh? Theres plenty to play on it.... GR:AW..." He looks at me like "what?"

Clerk: "GR:AW is ok... it doesnt look like much... "

Me: "did you play it?"

Clerk (looking away): "yeah... it was only ok"

Me (not really believing him) : "Kameo?"

Clerk: "only ok"

Me:"Oblivion?"

Clerk: "Oblivion will look better on PS3"

Me: "Are you sure bout that? Thats not what the developers said..."

Clerk: "They only said that because the PS3 isnt out yet..."

Me: "..."

Clerk: "plus Bluray looks better than HD-DVD"

Me: "uhhhh have you actually seen Blu-ray versus HD-DVD with your own eyes?"

Clerk: "Yeah.... and its better!"

Me: "What title did you watch?"

Clerk: "...."

Me: "Dont remember?"

Clerk: "I just remember that it was better."

Me: "You are one of the few people in the world at this point in time who believes that you know. Read up on avsforum for more"

Clerk: "Well...I'm just s Sony person." *shrug* then the phone rings and he gets "busy" all of sudden....

The people online behind me were like "damn you got him to call himself out... I'm a playstation person too but I wouldn't expect the clerk to be so biased..."

I just shook my head and walked out.

If this is what X360 is up against worldwide there is no way regardless of the software that ms releases, that Sony could ever "lose" if there is such a thing in meaningful sense.

*sigh*

 

[Hardknock]

It's the same thing with any market leader really. Same thing wth Apple fans, people will defend them to the death even if there's a far superior product on the market. Sad really.

 

[Deepak]

It's the same thing with any market leader really. Same thing wth Apple fans, people will defend them to the death even if there's a far superior product on the market. Sad really.

Who do you think is Apple in this case?

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Pity the manager wasn't there to have a chat with. I'm sure he'd be real happy that one of his staff was telling people not to buy the console/games they have in stock to sell, and instead wait to buy the console/games they don't have to sell.

Let's face it though, if you're working behind the counter in a games store, you're probably not the person to be taking a lead from. Fact is, as a customer you probably know a lot more about these subjects because you're interested in them and have read up on them. For most people in stores, it's just a job and they have no interest in what they sell.

 

[Titanio]

The clerks in my local stores have zero qualms about voicing their opinions, so it's not really that surprising. Although I know some stores TELL their employees to actually adopt a bias in favour of one system or another depending on the strategic interests of that stores (depending on what other surrounding stores are 'strong' on etc.). Though even that being the case, I know most just ignore those instructions and go with their own thoughts..(at least that was the case when I was in that position some time ago).

 

[NavNucST3]

hmm

It's the same thing with any market leader really. Same thing wth Apple fans, people will defend them to the death even if there's a far superior product on the market. Sad really.

FWIW, there are a lot of things that drive me crazy about Apple as a company and some of their products...as I stare at my ipod which has been bitten by the "restart bug". When I come to their defense I'm also pretty quick to point out their shortcomings...as I recall just two days ago desperately trying to bring our Xserve RAID back to the land of the living...1.4TB...gone...(thank you to the electricians who while working in one room decide to pull power in adjacent rooms as well)...not to mention MSFTs vastly superior Media Center when compared to Front Row.


As far as retail employees, I don't think when I worked retail if we are ever given directives to keep our personal opinions to ourselves. I have gone on rants in PMs about what I think about people who say, "...besides there are no good games on [insert competing product]" I will not expound on that here though.

 

[Inane_Dork]

Video game retail stores employ the morass of console ******s who can't get a job elsewhere. It's sad, repulsive and rather smelly if you get a particularly pathetic employee. They know enough to be dangerous but nowhere near enough to be helpful. So, basically, it's the same situation as Circuit City, Best Buy, Good Guys, etc. only in a different market.

I once heard an EB employee rave about GTA: San Andreas to a mother of a 14 year old boy. He said how the game was an incredible driving game, incredible shooter and incredible flying game, so she was really buying three incredible games for the price of one. Also, he informed the mother that Rockstar was so technically talented that they figured out how to program the DVD drive to read another layer from the DVD which allows the game to be twice as big as it normally would have been. He never mentioned any content the mother might have found objectionable. If I wasn't so ticked at the guy for misleading the mother so terribly, I would have laughed at him.

 

[nintenho]

He never mentioned any content the mother might have found objectionable. If I wasn't so ticked at the guy for misleading the mother so terribly, I would have laughed at him.

Well he was avoiding talking about that so that he could sell the game to the mother, there's no way you could know those things about the game and not know it's mature content (rated M!).

In my experience, videogame store employees always base their opinions on videos they saw online. Some expect the customer to come into the store knowing what they want and they won't bother pestering you because they don't get commision (I think), but some others are idiots that want you to go home with fifty games.

 

[Nesh]

There are also many occasions when the opposite happens. But the console that gets the most underestimation is usually Nintendo's.