GameStop, get your act together.
Why is it that nearly every time I pre-order a title from you, somehow the whole process gets botched and I end up having to cancel because I can walk into another store to pick up the game?
What’s my latest issue? Well, it seems that my Gears of War pre-order, along 35% of the other pre-orders for this game (per my GameStop salesperson) are stuck in Memphis, TN. Though no one is sure exactly why this is, the best estimate that my GameStop could give me was that I might be able to get it on Friday. Searching around on the net to confirm the rep’s story, I found various reports of some managers even driving to the particular distribution center to pick up their allocated shipments to get them into gamers’ hands this evening.
The unfortunate thing is that much of my pre-order is already paid in trade-in credit from a few other games. Perhaps I’ll move them over to Twilight Princess or Red Steel and drive over to Best Buy and pick up Gears since they have it in ample supply.
UPDATE: So I went over to Target after work and purchased one of their twenty copies. I then went over to the GameStop where I had Gears of War reserved and they gave me 100% of my money back in cash. First impressions coming soon.
Having over 25 years of gaming experience, Zach knows a thing or two when it comes to one of his favorite entertainment activities. Additionally, he has also written many articles previewing and reviewing titles which can be found in various places around the net, including VGBlogger.com. 
hmmm. seems like either a truck shipping or weather-related flight issue, based on my time spent working in an indie game shop. those were the only reasons we ever had stuff delayed. still, that’s no reason they couldn’t have called you up and said ‘um, we don’t quite have your game yet’
i used to have to go up to the distributor near my house to pick up games and then hop on the subway to shuttle them down to the store. imagine taking 96 (or more) copies of a just-released game plus a bunch of peripherals on the subway in huge bags for an hour ride because the truck wouldn’t arrive until later that afternoon or the next day… too bad gamestop isn’t that good about this sort of thing…
I’m never reserving a game from there ever again. I could have walked into Target yesterday in the morning and already had it. Me sad.
I put a pre-order down on Gears of War a few months back at EB, but only because it got me 10% extra credit on a trade-in I was doing with some deal they were running at the time, so I got the $5 deposit on the game plus a few extra bucks in credit all for free. I got a call last night that my copy would be in tonight, but haven’t heard or called to see if there are any delays on it here (as I have a copy already coming from elsewhere, so I don’t have to worry about it).
I’ve never really seen the point in pre-ordering games myself- games rarely ever sell out. I’ve never walked into an EB or Gamestop and seen them with no copies available. I guess if you’ve got store credit it’s easy to simply go ahead and pay for a game in advance, but I always like to keep options open.
heh, the last time i was at gamestop, a clerk asked some guy if he wanted to pre-order GOW and the customer said “what’s the point? you gonna run out on the first day? i don’t think so…” which is generally true for a major release like this. if it were an unhyped title that i wanted and didn’t want to drag myself to ten stores to find because only two or three per store get ordered, i’d pre-order.
speaking of GOW, my idjit friend dropped by with it (he took the day off work for the game!) and is playing it now as i type and look over my shoulder. it’s definitely pretty spectacular stuff. i think i want to marry epic games, but that’s another story…
Sorry guys, I got mine today!