Gamestop

Staff member Jeremy was brutally unhelpful. No sense of customer service, no interest in finding the answer to any of the questions I had, short answers that consisted of «no» and «I don’t know». Very frustrating. Will not go back.

I tend to pre order pretty much everything I buy. The staff at this location remind when there are games they think I’d like. I’m sick with a kidney problem and can’t always come to pick them up right away. They are very accommodating and caring about my situation. All the employees I have met are also gamers so they are aware of what’s going to be good or what was great that I don’t have. I have bought a few cool games just off the suggestions of the staff that I would not have thought to buy or known about. I never trade games or sell games and the staff is cool about this and does not try to bother me about trade ups every time I’m in. This store might have the same amount of games as most of the others but you can’t find service like this at any of the others.

To start out, I do consider myself a gamer, but I’m FAR from the biggest, most obsessive or even a very serious one. In a world where some people’s XBox live gamerscores have actually broken a million (they do exist), it took me two months of doing little to nothing else, outside of work, to even make mine crack the 30k mark… so I am by no means the authority on all things controlled by a handheld joystick. I do, however, game enough (and have lived in enough areas of the city) that the Gamestop chain is familiar territory to me, and one of the «must check» stops any time I find myself in a mall.
In fact, at last check, I have been to all but 2 of the Calgary locations listed on the website (of a possible 8), and this is by far my favorite.
First of all I should note that if you’re the kind of casual gamer who only rarely steps out to pluck a game off the shelves, put down your money and walk out, then you probably won’t be discerning enough to particularly care about all the little details that make this store so superior to it’s sister locations. This kind of person could pretty much stroll into any given store and find what they need at the standard price with acceptable service and walk out with a very run of the mill retail experience.
However, if you’ve ever been looking for a hard to find game made 5 years ago that nobody seems to carry anymore, or if you have a bunch of questions about a new system, feature, or function, or if you’re crazy enough about a certain franchise to sluggishly drag your weary body through a mall at midnight just to get it a few hours before everybody else, then this is the location you want.
A good example of this store’s tendency to go above and beyond was a lovely young lady I had a transaction with several months ago. I hadn’t been keeping up with the information regarding the release of the Nintendo 3DS because I had (and still have) no intention of buying one. However, when my traditional DS broke I decided to go pick up a cheap refurbished one to replace it. I came into the store and she tipped me off that if I came back in two days, the price was set to go down to prepare for the launch of the new 3D version. Normally I’d expect a store to be HAPPY about the chance to milk a couple more sales out at the higher price before the drop, but customer service seemed to come first.
On top of this experience I have never had an issue finding a game at this location — no matter how far out of date (within the current generation of systems, that is) or rare it might be. Not only did they always seem to have it in stock, but the friendly and courteous staff have always seemed to know EXACTLY where to find it (even in large, jam-​packed discount bins).
The icing on the cake was last night’s midnight launch of Batman: Arkham City. Before they opened to sell the game the staff put on a competition for free game-​related giveaways including shirts, posters, soundtracks and the like… which of course they could have done via some cliché draw, or a first come first serve process — but instead they borrowed a page from Batman villain Two-​Face, and had you call a coin flip before being sent into the store. You win, you pick your prize. You lose, you get something from a seemingly bottomless drawer of out-​dated, unclaimed swag they were looking to get rid of, as selected by a staff member dressed as The Riddler. Pretty damn cool, if you ask me.
Add all this to the benefits of dealing with Gamestop in general, including cheap pre-​played games, leading edge pre-​order incentive packages and the most knowledgable staff base in gaming, and this is my first stop for all my gaming needs.