Suspicion Confirmed! What This GameStop Employee Just Revealed

e [Music] okay oh [Music] okay Mike che1 1212 it's the Y 2K collector and we have to we must we cannot proceed without discussing GameStop and I know you're tired of it I know you're probably tired of all of the GameStop videos the videos talking about how GameStops attempt at creating retro stores has been an utter failure thus far but I think there's something a little bit more nefarious at play and I've actually been mentioning this in some of my old older videos those of you who have watched them in the past and I think this topic definitely warrants some discussion also I'm going to be sharing just a little bit of what you can expect to see during the last quarter of 2024 because Summer's over folks uh it's pumpkin spice and everything nice as you already know the fall is here and so with without wasting any more time I want to talk about something that has always been a concern of mine when it comes to GameStop but it was actually confirmed to me over this past week now before we dive into that uh just to let you all know we are two weeks away from Pro week um which means that GameStop is going to be launching some of their better deals um uh usually you're going to be able to get a little bit more when you trade in your video games also when it comes to pre-owned games there should be uh some type of deal going on either a four under 10 for 20 a four under 20 for 40 or some type of buy to get one now during one of the last buy two get ones I believe all PlayStation games were excluded so that's a bit of a bummer and hopefully they don't put any types of weird stipulations on the promotions that they have during Pro week coming up but again Pro week is on its way so be prepared for all of the deals and steals that you may be able to take advantage of but now on to something that was confirmed uh for me while I was at a GameStop discussing the upcoming uh Pro week and one of the things that I mentioned when I was in the store was the changing in pricing price the pricing of certain games and one of the employees actually confirmed to me so every time you walk into a GameStop you may or may not have noticed that the person behind the register may have had like what looks like a strip of uh price price stickers right um and sometimes every once in a while you'll see the employees they'll be working on the computer and then uh a strip of pricing stickers will print out from the computer and while yes a lot of times um those stickers will be to label the new games that are coming into the store a lot of times what those stickers are are for in fact price changes that can occur at any point during the day that is right so at any point during any day if GameStop decides that they want to change the price of a game all they do is I guess they send out a notification throughout their system it sends an alert to the folks that are in the store and then the employees at the store store are supposed to print out all of the prices ing update stickers and then Place those over the old older pricing stickers for some of their pre-owned games and my mind was blown um at the fact that GameStop is actually changing prices in real time now I don't know what they're using to determine the prices for the games that they're updating and changing in real time but I have seen where um I'll go into a GameStop and I'll use a game for instance near um I recently picked up a copy of near on the PlayStation 3 when Gamestop had its 4 under 2440 and at the time near was going for $19 now that same day I went to another GameStop and another store had near for $24.99 so I was really confused I was like why is why is it $24.99 at this store but $1 19.99 at another store and what I'm starting to realize is that because GameStop is changing the prices um of their games in real time um it's really dependent upon how on it the employees at the stores are so some employees they may not be on top of their job and they may they just may not be you know updating the pricing on their games which is why you may go to one store and you might see a game for $10 and you go to another store and that same game is for $15 it could be that the game is actually $15 it's just that the first store didn't actually reprint the updated price pricing stickers to relabel the game and I asked the employee I said I don't understand that like why do they do that and they were like well you know they typically tend to do um those midday changes right around the time when they're doing a promotion so if you've ever wondered why a game that's normally I don't know $9.99 is all of a sudden $12.99 when Gamestop is doing their 4 under 10 for 20 it's because GameStop is purposely increasing the prices at games for During certain times to avoid allowing customers to be able to maximize and fully maximize on the promotions that they have and what that tells me is that GameStop isn't really trying to just offer a general promotion so that Gamers can take advantage and and just you know buy the games that they want to play no GameStop is creating promotions that allow them to move inventory out that would not sell otherwise and forgive me I my neighbor's dog will not shut the hell up so I apologize but yeah so GameStop is um you know that's what they're doing and when the employees at the store actually confirmed that to me it was a little bit disheartening because that just kind of tells me that GameStop is doing pretty much what some mom and pop shops do they're just doing it in a much more sneaky and albeit in a much more efficient way and what do I mean so if you've ever gone to a if you're a retro collector or if you buy retro games um you've probably gone into a mom and pop shop where the games were not labeled at all or maybe you've gone into a thrift store maybe you've gone to a flea market and you've gone to a place where the video games are not priced and um when you find games that you actually want and you bring them to whoever's selling the games they'll say you know you'll might ask them okay well uh what's the cost of the game and um you you know they'll pull out their phone and then they'll start researching the price of the game and any collector any person who goes out and buys retro games will tell you that that is probably the most annoying experience you can have when shopping for retro games because you want to go into a store and you you know if you go into a store and you have a budget you want to be able to pick out the games that you want to buy based on your budget there's nothing more frustrating than picking up maybe a handful of games only to find out that you can only afford two of them based on the budget that you had preset because the owner of the store or whoever is selling the game is going on the most recent sold data sometimes they're not even using price charting sometimes they're just looking at they're just going on eBay they're finding the most expensive listing and then basing it off of that when that's not reality so I think it's a little bit um sad that GameStop is actually you know applying this approach as they enter into the Retro seen because it just it already puts a a damper on an already weak roll out of this whole retro program in my opinion I think they need to just forget this whole retro stores thing I think it's a complete and absolute waste of time I think GameStop is better off allowing each store to have their own retro section that just makes more sense why because most stores already carry what GameStops GameStop considers retro to begin with um and we all know that GameStop considers Xbox 360 PlayStation 3 Wii and Wii U games as retro and if you go into most GameStops that's what you're going to see you're going to see PlayStation 3 Xbox 360 Wii and Wii U games you hardly ever see any cartridge based games unless you're you know unless they just took a trade in or you actually happen to go to a store where the surrounding stores are mailing all of their retro items to that specific store so I mean you know they're better off just allowing each store to manage their own retro inventory they need to get rid of this whole shipping of games to different stores thing because it just it clogs up the process and honestly you're just making it more I think it makes it more difficult for people in general to just purchase retro games um yeah and so when you add on to the fact that one the the roll out has been week two their retro inventory seems extremely limited um and then three their their price matching and not in a good way they're they're increasing prices on the Fly based on whatever the you know going rate is it just it's starting to remove you know any AD you know any advantage that you would get from buying games at GameStop and I think honestly their pricing is all over the place I recently watched a video from Jacob R Who reviewed his visit to um a GameStop and you know pretty much both of the games that he purchased were above market value um granted he did get a copy of Legend of Dron um complete in box in what looked like pretty decent condition but it was still overpriced um because I think he got the greatest hits version so you know all it's telling the folks that are actually looking for this stuff is that they're better off shopping on eBay now and I want to say probably up until maybe this past the past two weeks I felt like I was striking gold at GameStop I you know this past summer I cleaned up I mean spring until this summer like I want to say even before then I would say last year and definitely the first half of this year I was killing the Retro scene when it came to GameStop before they made it like quote unquote official and had this whole official retro program there were plenty of retro games that you were able to find at GameStop and you were able to get some really great deals because they weren't hyper hyper focused on these types of games and because they're now hyperfocused on selling these games and you know building this inventory they're also hyperfocused on the price of these games and so they're you know they're trying to price match to I guess you know maximize sales or maximize revenue and I'm not knocking them for that at all but I think they were doing fine with the way they had it before just carry the games and if you have them you have them if you don't you don't but there's nothing more deflating than going to a store expecting them to have retro and you walk in there and you see four PS3 games a handful of Xbox 360 games and two Wii U games that's going to frustrate you because you know especially if you live in a town where GameStop is your only option for Retro Gaming there are no like Mom and Pop retro game stores you know you're putting your faith that GameStop is actually going to have this inventory that they're claiming to have and so when you find out that at any point in the day they can increase the price on you that's just that's lame that's just a complete bummer so um I don't know if this is something that they're going to continue to do I don't know if they're also going to apply this method to their new games as well but um I appreciate the employees that actually confirmed for me that this is something that they're actually doing um and yeah that really honestly makes them know better than the folks at the flea market the folks at the yard sales who just go about pricing their stuff based on the last sold item or the highest listing that they are found uh that they found on eBay so let me know what you think about that because that is not fun at all but in another news um a few other things that I want to talk about so um you know going towards the end of this year again selling is the name of the game for me so I am going to be selling so I'm excited for pro week not so much for what I'm going to be able to buy more so than you know more than what I'm going to be able to sell I have a few consoles that I plan on getting rid of during Pro week I have a bunch of games that I plan on getting rid of during Pro week and I may either just cash out or use that to pick up some other items that I may just flip um I may like you know take advantage of the tradein credit um promotion while simultaneously taking advantage of any buy two get ones things of that nature um and I really want to start kind of focusing on like genuine collector pieces um and going for some more of the rare stuff I'm also uh going to see if I can complete some of my more rare games like I have a cop copy of Metal Warriors um I have some like rare Super Nintendo games some really rare Sega Genesis games I want to see if I can complete those um and I may even try to look for some sealed stuff um I may look into getting some things graded um I've been watching a lot of um king of Collectibles if you haven't checked that show out on Netflix check it out it's a pretty cool show um they you know they talk about collectible items and it's just amazing how many people are actually into Collectibles and collecting so that's right up my alley because I you know I am a collector I'm the Y2K collector so that works out well for me but I'm definitely going to be kind of Shifting my focus um consolidating The Collection a little bit um and kind of you know adding more higher-end collector pieces um by selling some some more of the lower end stuff so let me know what you think about this whole change in GameStop also let me know what your collecting goals are for the fourth quarter um and what you think about just this this whole approach that GameStop is taking to their pricing I'm interested to know what you think the Y 2K collector hopefully you had a great Saturday and I'll catch you in the next video take it easy oh [Music] a [Music] [Applause]