First off, thanks to all of you who left comments on my original post about my recent GameStop experience. It really fosters a sense of community here and it is good to read positive GameStop experiences. I know that these experiences exist and mine is an uncommon situation, but it's also a shock as someone who used to work for the company back in Arizona in 2010 and 2011. I know what the ideal experience is supposed to be like, and it's unfortunate that this one was so negative that I had to share it.

It's true that not all stores are like this. Stores are as good as their employees are, from the store manager on down to the newest Game Advisor. Sure, there are challenges created by some corporate decisions (like the removal of cases and manuals from PS2 games for sale or the "gutting" issue with opening new games for display), but much of how a store operates and is perceived by its customers is determined by its staff. This store, sadly, does not represent the company well and only serves to exacerbate what's already a negative image that the company has to deal with.

Taking some advice from comments both here and on Twitter, I logged a complaint about the experience via the Customer Feedback option on GameStop's website this evening. I'm hoping that a district or regional manager gets it so that they can take a look at the store and improve it. If I received a letter like that, there's no question that the store manager would receive disciplinary action and that the store's employees would be put on notice that the store is going to be more closely scrutinized. Having once inherited a store manager role for a FuncoLand that had been a "trouble store", it needs to be determined if the staff really wants to work hard or not. Nobody wants to be out of a job in such trying times, but if you're not willing to do the work and provide the experience that the company expects, there are others who can probably do the job. I'm hoping that it's a wake-up call.

The cherry on top of this disappointment sundae is that two of the games didn't work. I'm now faced with returning these games (to a different store, for sure) and having to use the store credit on something else. Since I used store credit to pay for the games, there will be no cash back. I probably won't be getting another Buy 2, Get 2 Free opportunity, so I'm going to lose out. This is an unavoidable peril in video game collecting when it comes to disc-based games, but it stings a bit more since my experience in getting these games was so negative to begin with.

We'll see if anything comes of my report. In the meantime, it's worth noting that NPD sales data for December is due this week. I'll be focusing some writing on that here in the short term as we put a cap on 2011 and see how successful the year was.