What should be in a video game store?

Exactly, rather than focusing on a companies own profit they should focus on selling a wider selection and suggesting a wider selection of tiles to people, not just those 20 games which is the major flaw, the major issue that I have against retailers and clerks united. If I were to release a game, that means it would be destined for failure as the stores would do little in the way of trying to sell it.
 
Starrynite said:
Exactly, rather than focusing on a companies own profit they should focus on selling a wider selection and suggesting a wider selection of tiles to people, not just those 20 games which is the major flaw, the major issue that I have against retailers and clerks united. If I were to release a game, that means it would be destined for failure as the stores would do little in the way of trying to sell it.
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Hold up, you want more variety? In other words, you want to confuse the consumer with too many choices. If so, you're going to loose them. You want to get their attention asap, show them what is NOW.

Trust me on this one, Customers WANT the lastest and newest and Recent games title out there.

It won't be destined for failure, because it is your responsiblity to fund the marketing for your title btw.
 
If consumers can barely handle deciding between three simple sizes for their food at Wendys then I doubt even the most strictest choice and selection of videos games will enable them to express less confusion. So variety would be needed to offer more. If we just wanted the same 20 games then we would simply just ignore all the games that many people have favorites of and only focus on games of the years and such. Variety is needed as are the uninformed sales associates, they go hand in. Informed sales associates are just not needed and beneficial, unless of course you care more for profit rather than customer satisfaction.
 
Hold up, you just compared 3 choices to 20 choices.

"The same 20 games" doesn't even last. It changes every single 2 weeks, how often do you shop at these retail places??

Top 20 is like music, people's taste in music is just like games, it will change.

Seriously, what are you doing to the employees to make them seem to you, uninformed? Quit harassing them!

Informed is not needed? You got to be kidding. If I came to you asking for car insurance for example and you didn't know jack squat. Would you think I want to deal with you? NO.

Now you're trying to change the subject by focusing on profit and customer satisfaction. Which is another topic all together. You stick with the profit topic or I'm warning you.
 
I was just only saying that people working for these companies are clearly of the profit oriented mindset. If they are told by the higher ups to only suggest these 20 or so titles that change every two weeks, then there are tons more games in the store that apparently are being ignored. I think this clearly indicates why certain games do better than others and why some games that were expected to do well flop. Perhaps they werent focused on at all and other titles on this top 20 list were, thus they were ignored. It seems sad to have to have these informed clerks blatantly ignoring everything in the store and only getting us to buy said product. No wonder it is great joy to buy games from a store that doesnt focus on selling video games, it feels much less tense buying something for the sheer joy of buying it and hoping to enjoy it rather then being forcibly urged to get one of the 20 to just help boost the companies already high sales.
 
Did I forget to mention, it also depends on the season? Each quarter of the year varies. So profits do rise and fall. We all know each holiday is the biggest time to release a horde of games.

Anyways, I LOVE the sheer joy of helping people and being friends with people who work in Wal-Mart and GameStop. Because we are not that different at all. They all have the same ground rules. Except what I describe, is the life of a gamestop employee...as for me..I'm in a retail business that's much more different than a normal video game store.

Oh well, Starrynite, when you get a chance to see what it's like to be in my shoes for as long as I have, you'll understand. Yet I believe you need to fully understand what it's like.
 
Clearly, they are of the profit-oriented mindset because their primary purpose is profit. But this notion that companies spread the word to every single sales clerk that knows about gaming, and only them, telling them to try to sell 20 games in particular for a two week span is baseless and absolutely ridiculous. It is rare for twenty halfway decent games to come out in a two week span, unless we're in the holiday season, though so even if this conspiracy theory were in some strange world true, not that many good games are being missed out on.

But the point is, it isn't true. Upper management isn't whispering over the shoulder of every employee who is a gamer, and only them, telling them to try to sell specific games. They want sales, period. they don't care which games are sold. They just want money. The games a clerk recommends are based on his own experiences, not some list of twenty games that the boss is telling them to try to sell. This means that a great deal of games will be recommended, provided the clerk is a big gamer.

Also, again, if your theory is true, why are employees that don't know about gaming not told to sell those twenty games? The entire thing just doesn't make any sense from a business perspective.
 
Your logic is flawed.

I worked for GameStop for several years. And I worked at about six locations of that company. I was also an assistant store manager for most of the time. And I can tell you, without a doubt, that uninformed clerks did not result in better sales than the informed clerks.

Informed salespeople know about every game, not just the top 20, which you are so stuck on. It's only the uninformed non-gaming salespeople that stick with those top 20, because they are not informed enough to know that there are alternatives to those top 20 games. A non-gaming clerk is going to sell GTA4 to people and that's it; while an informed, gaming clerk might also recommend Crackdown or Saints Row for people who like that kind of game. So in my example, the informed salesperson just sold three games, while the uninformed one only sold one game.

The uninformed non-gaming salesperson is not going to have as many answers for someone looking for a game, period. They just don't have the knowledge or experience.

If a customer comes in and wants a good rpg, the uninformed salesperson is going to say Final Fantasy because that's the most popular, regardless of whether they've even played it or not. That uninformed salesperson might not even know any other rpg franchises. But the informed gamer salesperson, who actually plays games, might have five or six games to recommend, and they will probably also tell you why they liked the game or why they didn't, so that you have a better idea of whether you yourself will enjoy it.

I really just can't find any way to agree with your argument.
 
I'm with ... pretty much everyone but Starrynite here. Dude, as a gamer, you're going to want to buy from another gamer. If you aren't a gamer, you are sure as the sky is blue going to want to talk to someone who knows thier shit when you go in there.

Your "point" that informed staff won't sell licensed or crappy games to a customer is also completely ridiculous. Sure, I'd rather send the kid home with Cooking Mama or Nintendogs than Enchanted or Imagine Babyz, but when it comes down to it if the customer comes in knowing what they want already, you SELL THEM THE GAME. If they have no idea, you might want to put those other games out there so they have options. Non-gamers gravitate to names they are familiar with. Once I had a girl buy Sonic when I suggested Patapon, because she only knew Sonic and didn't want to try something different. If no one tried anything different we would still be in the stone age.

I once sold to an older guy a PSP, and then a few minutes later he wanted a game similar to Nintendogs to play on it. He "knew what he wanted" when he came in, but the games he wanted to play weren't PSP games. He only knew what he saw on tv, didn't want to talk about games, just give him a PSP, and so I did. Then he won't have anything to play on it that he likes, but he was so informed when he came in..... </sarcasm>
 
The main goal was that the uninformed staff would sell a larger variety of games then an informed staff. After thinking it over, I must say that there is one problem with this and that is that perhaps the uninformed staff would only be able to turn to those few popular well known titles, such as Sonic, Crash, or Spyro. Which is a major benefit to these series, but still not beneficial to a world of variety of creativity.

I would prefer if there were no staff at all, a completely self automated service in which people jus have have to read the games description, see the boxart and read player reviews. Staff are bad and neither benefit the goal of helping people get great games, all they care about is profit. Woe be unto them for their profit driven motives and biased opinions.
 
Starrynite said:
Staff are bad and neither benefit the goal of helping people get great games, all they care about is profit. Woe be unto them for their profit driven motives and biased opinions.
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Exactly how isn't a clerk who recommends a game he saw as great not trying to help someone get great games? You get the same profit out of selling a great game and a crappy game, so exactly why wouldn't a clerk try to recommend a great game? It defies logic.
 
ZOMG it isnt that illogical of an idea. The clerk only recommends GREAT games and not GOOD nor, ABOVE AVERAGE, nor AVERAGE, nor BELOW AVERAGE, nor even BAD games, however only GREAT games. There are so many games that go unrecognized cause these clerks only focus on the same few GREAT games. There are so many other games out that they they are ignoring. Profit wise its all that same but that was never the focus of the beginning. In fact, the most negative result created is that the store shelves will be full of these nonGREAT games and all the GREAT games will be sold. People have to realize that there are not only GREAT games that demand being played but all games.
 
A game store needs:

-Informed staff
-Rare gems (the owners may have to pay more for it than the buys will, but the buyrs will sure love you more for it)
-A staff that cares more for customer satisfaction than making money (Never going to happen, but it would be cool)
-Try-before-you-buy
-Lots of special deals and offers that give the store a soul
-When big titles are announced, they should throw parties the day before it comes out (Like a halo 2 party before Halo 3 comes out, for example)
-Not just games- Soundtracks, art books, and strategy guides are needed.

Thats all I got. The gamecrazy I used to go to in Washington had nearly all these =[
 
I do like the idea of the "staff that cares more for customer satisfaction than making money." I go to a store to shop for an experience, however I have had to resort to going to Amazon for most purchases since I have had quite a few bad ones. I actually only buy all my games from one gamestop cause I love all the workers and they always seem to at least suggest the games that I like based on my past purchases. Plus they have the coolest names "Chris of Death!!!" lol.
 
Sweet. Awesome staff are hard to find. I remember the gamecrazy I went to one time, and the informed clerk told me NOT to sell RE4 for the ps2 version, but for the wii version. I took up on his advice, and have been happy since.
 
If I opened a game store this is what I'd include:

- Staff comprised of a varied amount of gamers. I'd have a few different people versed in different expertise since I could staff it with people I know already. I'd have a few players who excel at FPS, some with MMOs, some in RPGs, sports, and so on. Then there would be a few like myself who play everything as a sort of all-purpose associate to help with general questions. Anyone and everyone would be welcome to apply if they were of age, but would have to prove that they know what they are talking about before being given a position that would put them in situations where said knowledge is required.

- A diverse selection of games including the latest titles that are surefire sellers, as well as a wall of rarer games that some customers (I would be one XD) could gravitate to knowing that if we didn't carry a specific game such as Ikaruga, Gitaroo Man or something like that, we could very easily order it for them and have it ready in a few weeks for a special fee.

- The option to play a used game before you buy it. Not just for one system, but for every system. This would require us to get a couple TVs (not too expensive) and hook the systems up as needed for people to see what they're buying. I think this is fair, as some people are hard to convince that their choice is not worth buying or sometimes they just don't know what they want. Customers have the right to be informed, you know? I always appreciated this at Game Factor here in Louisville.

- FAIR trade-in values. With the right amount of customers, giving the people a fair trade-in value would be fine as long as we kept a steady stream of people coming in. When more customers found out that we weren't ripping them off of what they paid for that brand new game (benefit of the doubt), we would get more guests because we're not cheating them. It's a practice they can feel good about rather than feeling like they should have eBayed it or had a yard sale to get a fair amount of money back.

- A clean atmosphere where you feel invited and welcome to come shoot the breeze about games, browse, purchase, and meet fellow gamers.

- Weekly gaming tournaments featuring varied titles for every kind of player, even children.

- Gaming merchandise so you don't always have to hit the internet looking for what you want.

- A suggestion service so we can adjust accordingly to what customers are asking for, rather than what WE want.

Now that...

If I had my way, I'd make that happen. :D
 
I love the idea about the clean atmostphrese, so many times I have gone into stores and they were in a hot mess with games stacked on the floor, out of order, or just completely out of sight. One more benefit to online shopping, there is never no clutter.
 
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