GameStop Digitals

[Steelmaker]

Originally Posted by Zivouhr

Thanks for those extra details on opened games. I see your point of view and can understand it. That's pretty good they had that 10 day return policy on new games. That's true, almost nobody allows that these days for a full refund. That would be like playing a game, completing it and then getting your money back if you said you didn't like the game. That was probably smart they stopped doing that.

When they were offering me the display case with lots of fingerprints all over it, I asked for a discount for an opened game case but they said it's a new game. I said it's going to be a gift, and had to walk next door to the other game store to buy it brand new and sealed. The guy didn't offer to shrink wrap it even. That could've made the difference, yes.

Sounds like your store definitely had better customer service than the Gamestop stores I visited.

But yeah, Electroniques Boutique I remember seeing for the first time in the mall way back in the 1980s as a tiny kid. Back then, it was just a walk up counter, with no interior to walk into the store. It was so unusual but kind of cool. You'd ask to see a game and they'd have to keep a careful eye on people so they didn't walk off I can imagine when it got busier. All the games were stacked on the shelves behind them, but stacked like book ends so you couldn't see the cover art. That's how many games they had so you sort of had to ask "What game is that? Can I see that one?"

I bought BC's Quest for Tires for the Colecovision. That was the only store that ever had that game and it was great. That was the first game I ever bought at an EB store, of many more games bought there after that.

Soon they became an interior, full games store which was better since you could go in and look at the games sealed in the boxes back then. Eventually they started the display copies and I remember thinking "That's weird, but I guess people were stealing them so that makes sense".

Oh that absolutely went on! We had customers that abused the policy for sure. But EB's philosophy at the time was the vast majority of customers were actually honest and respected the policy and didn't abuse it. It was more important to keep them happy and just tolerate the knuckleheads that wanted to treat us like a free rental store. It was looked at as a necessary "loss leader" to continue to gain more loyal repeat customers who DIDN'T abuse the policy. I happened to agree with that philosophy and honestly, it was way less stressful as you didn't have to deal with nearly as many tense situations where you had to tell a customer no. Once the company went public and new upper management took over, all that changed!

Wow that's really cool that you got to see EB at that early stage. I always knew they started out with kiosks in the middle of the mall but we didn't have EB at our mall until they had already converted to a full fledged walk in store. I started working part time for them in the early 90's when I was in college at the peak of the 16 bit, Genesis/SNES era. In the 80's during the Atari/Coleco/Commodore 64 era I usually had to get my games at places like Sears, K-Mart, or Hills Department Store. Man, that was a long time ago! LOL!

[Zivouhr]

Originally Posted by Steelmaker

Oh that absolutely went on! We had customers that abused the policy for sure. But EB's philosophy at the time was the vast majority of customers were actually honest and respected the policy and didn't abuse it. It was more important to keep them happy and just tolerate the knuckleheads that wanted to treat us like a free rental store. It was looked at as a necessary "loss leader" to continue to gain more loyal repeat customers who DIDN'T abuse the policy. I happened to agree with that philosophy and honestly, it was way less stressful as you didn't have to deal with nearly as many tense situations where you had to tell a customer no. Once the company went public and new upper management took over, all that changed!

Wow that's really cool that you got to see EB at that early stage. I always knew they started out with kiosks in the middle of the mall but we didn't have EB at our mall until they had already converted to a full fledged walk in store. I started working part time for them in the early 90's when I was in college at the peak of the 16 bit, Genesis/SNES era. In the 80's during the Atari/Coleco/Commodore 64 era I usually had to get my games at places like Sears, K-Mart, or Hills Department Store. Man, that was a long time ago! LOL!

Thanks.

Sorry to hear there were a number of customers who would abuse that generous policy to return games for a full refund in 10 days. With the eventual option to resell games, that at least helped out with things down the road. Customer confrontations are not fun to deal with, so that's cool for awhile there EB didn't have an issue with it.

I can imagine the repeaters walking back in with the next game and saying something like, "Yeah, this one I didn't like either, but I'd like to try that new game and test that one out too."

Every now and then I'll buy a game that seems promising, but might not be what I was hoping for, yet keep it anyway, knowing the trade in value isn't worth selling it for.

I can still visualize that first Electronics Boutique. It was on the first floor of the mall on the right side when I first saw it.

I pieced together a quick Photoshop image of how I remember it back in the early 80s as a small kid, that image imprinted into my memory all these years. This is close to what it looked like with some exceptions like the games especially being 80s games instead of modern games. But PC games yes, Atari, Colecovision, Intellivision, etc. Mostly PC games though back then. But that would be built inside the wall of the mall, so you'd just walk up to the counter and that was it. No interior or anything.

ElectronicsBoutique1980sMall.jpg

[Steelmaker]

Originally Posted by Zivouhr

Thanks.

Sorry to hear there were a number of customers who would abuse that generous policy to return games for a full refund in 10 days. With the eventual option to resell games, that at least helped out with things down the road. Customer confrontations are not fun to deal with, so that's cool for awhile there EB didn't have an issue with it.

I can imagine the repeaters walking back in with the next game and saying something like, "Yeah, this one I didn't like either, but I'd like to try that new game and test that one out too."

Every now and then I'll buy a game that seems promising, but might not be what I was hoping for, yet keep it anyway, knowing the trade in value isn't worth selling it for.

I can still visualize that first Electronics Boutique. It was on the first floor of the mall on the right side when I first saw it.

I pieced together a quick Photoshop image of how I remember it back in the early 80s as a small kid, that image imprinted into my memory all these years. This is close to what it looked like with some exceptions like the games especially being 80s games instead of modern games. But PC games yes, Atari, Colecovision, Intellivision, etc. Mostly PC games though back then. But that would be built inside the wall of the mall, so you'd just walk up to the counter and that was it. No interior or anything.

Attachment 262764

Ha! Yeah when I first started with them, that was what our sign looked like in front of the store. It had that drab, blue and grey color scheme and our store was dark and not very well lit. A few years later they adopted more of a red, white, and black color scheme with the giant "EB" in front of the store. That was much better. The store was much brighter and better lit.

[Zivouhr]

Agreed that the new logo was definitely more eye-catching for video games, rather than more like a computer store logo back in the 80s. Thanks.

Back before internet, EB was great because they had access to games I'd never see in big retail stores. Bought a lot of more rare games thanks to EB. Eventually other stores like Best Buy had access to some of the more rare games, and then once Amazon and Gamestop online offered more game choices than their stores, that resulted in needing to rely on the stores less that didn't always have the game in stock.

At one point, I could just walk into EB Games on release day of a new game like R.A.D. (on PS2) and they'd be like, yeah, we have that one in stock. I didn't even pre-order it, as I knew they specialized in rare games which was awesome. They only got a few in but I was lucky enough to be there for that rare game. That's where I bought all my games for most of the 80s, 90s through 2010. After that, I might pre-order a big game like GTA there, but visited it much less since.

At one point, they had a display case with consoles that were allowing free gameplay of the demos on display, which I thought was an awesome idea. I guess they stopped because the controllers were always getting busted by rough players.