When I was in College I got a job working at Gamestop. The hours were flexible and usually when you are a Game Advisor you didn't work a full 8 hours a day, you would usually work 4–6 hours a day unless the new Call Of Duty game came out that month. Then you were screwed being at work for the next 72 hours helping people in line stretching a mile long. It was a good job to have while I was in college, virtually no stress. My job was to know about video games, play them, and talk to customers about them. Now here’s the thing, all of a sudden the Gamestop stock has been rising from a measly $20 a stock last month to now a whopping $347 dollars.
I am not a financial advisor but I don’t think it will last long. There is no time frame on the stock but it might drop in a few days or a few weeks, who knows, but because I worked for this company for 4 years I know they are not worth the amount that its currently trading at, $347. Just like any other retail space they are loosing the war to online shopping and online stores. Not only can you download your brand new games from the Playstation Network, but you don't even have to leave your couch and you end up with the exact same game. You can also buy the systems from Target, Best Buy, or Amazon. All of these stores that have so much more to offer.
When I think about Gamestop I see like a pawn shop exclusively for video games. When you buy a brand new game for $60 in a few weeks you beat the game and instead of having it sit on your shelf for the rest of its life you decide you want to sell it. The first place you think of is Gamestop, you walk in and greet the Game Advisor (me) and say you want to sell the game. I would’ve told you “fantastic lets see what I can get you today”. With a couple clicks later on the computer, I would offer you maybe $29 for your brand new game that you just bought a few weeks ago. Most people would accept the offer and go and buy another $60 dollar. While I take the game from you and turn around and put a $49.99 price tag and put it back on the shelf in the pre-owned section.
If this does not remind you of a pawn shop then I don’t know what will. Now the brand new games that Gamestop sells make almost no money. Gamestop would much rather sell you the used version because they make more. For example, let's just say Gamestop makes $5 per brand new game that they sell but used games will be making them $20. Gamestop does everything they can to try and get you to buy the used one. If you buy the used one you have 1 week to try the game to see if you like it. If I were you, I would use that 1 week to finish the game and return it for my full refund. If you had the Gamestop membership you then can get an extra $10 off the used game instead of the new game, you will get more points if you purchase used, etc. you get the point.
The more people buy games online the less opportunity Gamestop gets. When you hit download on the Playstation Network store, it goes to one account and one account only. Which means no $20 for Gamestop. The exact same thing happens with Consoles, used makes more money and they have the exact same buy back program. Now that’s just one important factor that I wanted to put out there because not a lot of people know where Gamestop even makes their money. A couple of other things to point out is that during my time at Gamestop, which was in 2017, they were loosing money. Badly. There were stores closing down, we were pressured to push sales, make sure people leave the store with two games instead of one.
I had a great manager, he worked for the company for about 15 years and had no plans of leaving. During my last year of working there the district managers fired him because they could no longer afford him. They fired my manager with no notice and a day later we had a new person being paid almost half of what my previous manager was getting paid. My old manager had worked there for so long and the longer you worked there the more pay increases you would get. After 15 years it tends to add up to a pretty chunk. Every year you would get either 10 cents or 15 cents for the amount of years you spent with the company and managers got more raises. My manager reaching his max payout is what got him fired, we tried to stand up to our district manager and we tried to increase our sales to maybe way out the costs but the decision was already made. Obviously none of us liked the new manager and I think after a month I decided to quit. It was not the same working there without him and I was finishing up college anyways so I just decided to leave.
Towards the end of my stay, we were forced to cram things down people’s neck and almost lie to them. Keep in mind I'm saying almost, let's stick to stretching the truth. We had a quota to meet every week. As an employee you had to have 5 game reservations, 3 membership sign ups and $2,000 worth of items sold under your time log. A reservation is a customer putting down a minimum of $5 in order to guaratee them the game when it came out, it did not matter if there was a line out the door or it was sold out everywhere, we would save the game in a drawer aside for you. Even if a person offered to buy so much product from us we would hold it just for you because you put down a $5 resevation. Now in order to get this reservation we would throw anything we could at you, “you want that poster on the wall? It’s your’s if you put down a reservation”. Ow not good enough? “okay okay no worries, how about you get the poster and a key chain? I am only offering this to you no one else”. Most of the time I’d get a reservation and I’d be able to keep my job because I met the quota for the week.
Memberships were a little harder to get but because you are reading this article I will tell you the trick. The yearly membership is being a “power up member” It will cost you $15 for 1 year and it gets you 10% off any used games. Now if you shop at Gamestop every week/month then yes its a good purchase for you to make but in all honesty but if you are like most people, it may just end up costing you money. Most of the time10% off meant 1–4 dollars off max! The newer games would almost be an extra $4 off so here is the trick… It takes some money up front but you can get it all back as long as you do this within 7 days. So here we go, when you walk in buy 4 USED games, the ones that just came out the latest NBA or Call Of Duty who knows, it has to be used and it has to be one of the more expensive games. Remember the more expensive ones are $4 off because of the 10% rule. You take your 4 games to the register and say you want to sign up for the rewards card which is $15 dollars and you will get a instant savings of 4x4=$16 knocked off the price you hand over about $200 dollars for your 4 used games the next day you go back and return the games. You get back your initial $200 and now you have the $15 reward membership for free. If anyone asks you didn't hear this trick from me.
Of course when we were trying to sell the rewards card, we don’t tell you this. We tell you, “wow if you get one more game you could get an entire’s year of rewards for free or hey if you spend a couple more dollars you can get two free games and and 50% off coupon”. It was all in the wording. After working for Gamestop I always had the feeling that it was going in the same direction as Blockbuster or Radioshack, the times are moving and Gamestop is too focused on treating its customers as small piggy banks instead of trying to become virtual or offering new items. Gamestop is only a third party, they are not creating games or coming up with the new console ideas or even doing any graphics for the developers. They are simply the third party to help the bigger companies move product, and sometimes the middle man gets pushed out of the way.
With a company that treats it’s customers as a pawn shop, and loosing locations, firing good people to pay others less while nothing changing… the company will only loose money when there is no new business plan, just the same old Gamestop. These are the reasons I will not be investing into Gamestop’s stock, you can do what you want to do but I figured it would be fun for you to get an inside perspective of an employee. I want to clearly say that the people that I worked with are amazing. Not only will they always be an important chapter in my life but they were smart, funny, and we stuck by each other try to make each others life's easier. The majority of us were college students and I will always have a great level of respect for my old coworkers. As I am writing this article, I can say that I miss them. I miss the simpler times and I miss being with them. The company as an investment, in my opinion, is a bad idea. However, the store I had the pleasure of working had these great people and I would do it all over again without hesitation. I still go in every few months to pick up a new game and somehow till this day every time I get to the register I still get chills when they ask “ do you want to become a member?”
