“Is there anything you’d like to reserve?” Almost no one entering and exiting GameStop without hearing those words. Employees were measured based on how many pre-orders they were able to hit while GameStop cashed in in the months before the game was physically released. But recently, this strategy has been undermined by a system overhaul, with copies arriving late or not at all, and some employees worried they’ll be the ones paying the price.
Over the past few days, the GameStop subreddit has been inundated Current employee Complaining about computer problems, from Borked inventory search for pre-order history has been completely cleared before the store received their shipment. “How do I push an order before we can’t receive it?” read a unit. “Customers are understandably upset and our regulators are even just taking orders offline right now because we can’t accommodate the appropriate items…”
Three GameStop employees Kotaku tell the same problem again and again. They trace the issue back a SAP software migration begins in the summer. It appears that it is supposed to consolidate multiple databases, including sales, customer service, logistics, etc. GameStop did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“The inventory in our system is currently unreliable,” one employee wrote in an email. “We were receiving shipments from the warehouse that didn’t even appear on our receiving list, so they asked us to open the box, record the inventory, and email them back to control. inventory. Today, I took the better part of today to handle just four boxes this way. “
Which games have casualties in this current pre-order crisis? NBA 2K23one of the biggest sports games of the year, is one. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle CHEAP is another one. But some of the hardest games to succeed are niche titles like Made in Abyss: Binary Star Falling Into darkness, and The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero. They have a small but passionate fan base, and stores usually only get a few copies for dedicated players who pre-order.
Another employee at another store said: “Recent pre-orders are bad. “We were missing many copies of NBA 2K, and pre-orders for the collectible never arrived on time. We can only refund pre-order cancellations as store credit if it’s also been more than a month, it doesn’t matter if you pay in cash or not. “
While staff struggled to explain to frustrated customers why a copy of a game they had paid for never showed up, back-end problems also seemed to be lurking. the way the store records. main sales goal employees are measured against. “Unfortunately, pre-orders also become [a] the main index stores are being classified and when you cancel your pre-order it really puts the stores in negative [count],” said one employee. Theirs is negative 22. “People are really getting into trouble because of this.”
“I had 6 customers cancel their pre-orders because they didn’t receive theirs,” said one posted on the subreddit yesterday. “Boss [is] catch me about taking pre-orders but I can’t help [if] People are starting to lose faith in us. What’s the point of pre-ordering a game if you can’t get it. Some stores have been instructed to deal with the cancellations by offering to re-order the game and ship it directly to customers’ homes, an employee said. But they haven’t heard of any permanent fix beyond that.
The failure of the pre-order couldn’t have come at a worse time, either. September is the beginning of Busy holiday game release scheduleand while 2022 is more sparse than previous years, GameStop needs all the help it can get. Warehouse meme went on a brutal roller coaster ride since the split in Julyand it’s not clear how many swing to NFT and crypto will actually benefit the company.
More importantly, it is another burden due to Burn out all staff who are working more with less. Recently announced GameStop full stock bonus for store managers who don’t start assigning jobs until next year and significant increase amount of $0.50 for others. At the same time, however, the company is tightening the screws, forcing managers to cover multiple stores, while others do the job of an assistant store manager without paying extra.
“I actually told my manager the day before that I was going to quit my job right before he opened the second store, because without our assistant manager I would have to work. as an assistant manager without pay and stress. ,” said a current employee. “I don’t even have a new job yet, I just don’t want to deal with it.”
