This weekend I was driving through the East Bay, when I noticed a Gamestop store nearby. Normally, I would have kept driving, but I wasn’t in a hurry and having canceled my Gamefly membership, it’s been a while since I’ve checked out any new games, so I decided to stop in and see what they had.
I usually buy my video games from whatever store is closest to me, but Gamespot is one of those rare stores, where I actually enjoy shopping. Normally, when I go shopping, I just want the employees to leave me alone and let me get in and out with the product I’m interested in, but at Gamespot, the employees are the best part of the store. I don’t go there to buy things, I go there to graze. Unlike the employees at Best Buy or CompUSA, Gamespot employees are usually working there because they love video games.
I’m not sure if they get free rentals or discounts or if it’s just that Gamespot attracts employees who like playing every game that comes out, but every time I go in their store, the employees give me customized game reviews on any title that I’m interested in.
Because these employees tend to be hardcore gamers, I have to be careful to not always pick the games that they are fanatical about, but I still listen to what they have to say and more than once, they’ve saved me from buying a bad game.
When I dropped into Gamespot this weekend, I wasn’t planning on buying anything. I just wanted to know if there were any new games coming out. Once I started to talk with the clerks though, one of them pulled me off to one side and in hushed tones, told me that they had one more Wii tucked away in the back of the store.
