Fear GameStop: How to sell a pre-order

(tags purchase, U.S., game)

Game stores in the States seemed to have resolved into "GameStop". Well, that is my limited sampling.

The GameStop people are the friendly, push-more-sales-but-not-in-your-face lot. I bought the Robotech: Battlecry without label or manual and the counter guy said, "It's a good game." I should have asked him what was good about it, but I was in a typical Japanese "shut-up-and-ring-me-up" mode. I went to another GameStop and the guy greeted me courteously on the way out. Whoa. Then again he said, "Thanks for coming, sir." Ugh, I am a sir.

I was at another GameStop and I was overhearing a conversation between GameStop Counter-Guy (GSCG) and a loving mom of an Xbox 360 man-child (said child was not present). The woman was first asking about getting a game, then mentioned her son's games.

GSCG: He's got Gears of War? There's no other better game out there right now. Does he like realistic shooting games? How about Call of Duty?

Through the conversation, GSCG proceeded to thumbs-down the Sonic the Hedgehog Xbox iteration and recommend other games. I think they were talking for around ten minutes, while I was trying to find something interesting to buy. At the end GSCG moved the conversation to Halo 3. First I think the woman said, "I won't forget to pre-order." meaning she wasn't planning on pre-ordering. Then more buttering from GSCG. Then I heard the woman say, "What's Legendary?" and though the details were lost on me, she finally said, "Go ahead and put Legendary on pre-order." This was on top of the purchases she was planning on getting! In short, GSCG added the $20 pre-order for this plus $100 game with the omake helmet! 10 minutes of shmoozing will get you another sale?

This GSCG has technique to be feared. Do not send your moms to GameStop. On second thought, if you like games, go ahead.

Stuff your suitcase with video game spoils

(tags game, travel, U.S., anime, purchase)

When I visited the States for a week, the only game related things on my mind were to give a Nintendo DS to my sister and find a StarCraft game. I succeeded in both, but there were bonus missions:

I bought the StarCraft for regular price at a military base store. It was the regular (wide) box "Battle Chest" set. It turns out there was another type of box set that I confirmed at Walmart, with the same contents I think but its not big enough to hold the fold out "tech-progress" poster. Then I managed to go to a rarely travelled GameStop and I found the blowout sale an #insertcredit member told me about: SC: BC for $9.99. I bought another copy. So I have two legit CD-keys now. I can play guilt free.

There's a US/Canada region PlayStation 2 in the picture, right? I wasn't planning on getting a PS2 but I couldn't stop the madness. My sister uttered the fatal words: "You don't pay sales tax at the base." $129.00 without CA San Diego tax rate 7.75%? Uh, its not heavy so let's do it. Along side that I saw Jak X: Combat Racing for only $20.00 so... Right beside it was the Xbox version of Unreal Championship 2: Liandri Conflict for only $20.00 so... And I went to the GameStops (3 or 4 different ones, multiple times), and found some cheap US/C region only games like Robotech, so...

(Did you know airline check-in baggage limits are falling from 70 lbs to 50 lbs (22kgs)? If you buy games mostly and not books, you should be in no danger, right?)

edit: moved the "How to sell a pre-order" part to a seperate post