Why Best Buy is the best game retailer

So I'm sure many of you have heard of @gamer magazine aka Best Buy's answer to Game Informer. Well it is no only and answer, but a flat out stomp. Content-wise Game Informer has the edge, but @gamer magazine is a magazine for gamers, written by gamers. It reads like a mix between gaming website and your techy / gamer friend. But that's not why it's better.

Once upon a time Game Informer included coupons and discounts for Gamestop such as Buy 2 Get 1 free, extra 50% trade-in, or 30% off any game (limit 3) in addition to your standard 10% off. Those were the good old days, and those deals are long gone, and only issued when Gamestop feels the need. However, each issue of @gamer magazine offers $135 in savings on various gaming products, and today was the first time I realized just how useful this magazine is.

I walked into Best Buy with a plan. Buy Batman AC, Rage, Bulletstorm, and Mass Effect 2. Had I bought them all day 1 it would have been $240 out of my pocket. But heading in today I was looking at a more reasonable $90 (Batman $60 marked down to $30, and the others $20) All brand new. In comparison Gamestop would have cost $120 for all 4 games new, and even at a used price they're $106 or $95.60 with 10% off. WTF Gamestop. But thanks to @gamer magazine and their awesome coupons I save $20 on Batman, and $15 on the others, bringing the total price down to $27.92. Can you say amazing deal.

I also got a $10 off coupon in store, and used my $10 off any pre-played game and got Left 4 Dead 2 (another copy) for free.

5 games for $27.92. I'm done with Gamestop.

[megaworm25]

I wish we had a best buy here is australia :(

[ABizzel1]

I'm so sorry for you. What's even better is that you're buying new and that profit goes to the developer. The only thing Gamestop has over Best Buy is used game selection.

In-store Best Buy Used games are so sketchy you'll be hard pressed to find anything brand new or over a year old in your city, especially if they have Buy 2 Get 1 or Buy 2 get 2 free. They need to get their used games collection up in-stores.

But @gamer magazine is wonderful.

[KozmoOchez]

Yeah dood gaming in Best Buy is dope. I work at BBY, and I just signed up for their gamer club unlocked so I can get the free magazine every month. BBY has only had a game department(we sold games but it has never been its own department) for less than a year, but they are doing well and I feel like often times it has much better deals than Gamestop and the employees are much better than Gamestop(and I've worked at gamestop before).

The used game selection is going to be like that for a while since we just started doing it and we don't just take our trade ins and put them on the wall like Gamestop does, they get sent out for verification and such.

Also, I'm happy that you may have stumbled upon a "good" Best Buy because there are some terrible ones - but more power to you and I'll relay the good word to my friends that work there when I go in tomorrow to work/pick up ME3.

[FrankDrebin]

Amazon is the best. Get over it!

[YamiHoshi]

In my country, there are game shops, but most of them are either only online, or in just 1-4 cities.
Something like Best Buy, GameStop, etc., which operates anywhere, would be nice.
Oh well, we have a Free Record Shop, which is still not exclusive to games.
Or ePlaza, which is no dedicated games store (just a part of some toys shop).

[aDDicteD]

i always buy my games at best buy because of the great deals

[Fairchild Channel F]

I used to buy my games at Best Buy pretty much exclusively but I have to say lately I've been using Amazon. There has been so many $20 dollar gift card deals that I just roll into the next game that I haven't paid more than $40 bucks for a day one release since November. There is no tax and they ship for free if you pre-order. And you get the game the day it comes out. With gas being so high it's nice not to drive to the store and just have it delivered.

Plus, sometimes they screw up and send you two gift card codes. This has happened to me (luckily) three times and seems to occur when there is a pre-order DLC code being sent to you. I'll get an email launch day with the DLC code and the gift card code and a day later I'll get another email with just the gift card code (different code number). I pre-ordered Racoon City for $20.98 lol. For that cheap I'll risk it sucking.

[akiraburn]

I wish I had your positive customer experiences there ABizzle, because honestly I've lost most of my interest in shopping at Best Buy due to their atrocious customer service both in-store and online/over-the-phone. During the general "holiday season" I had placed an order online which they actually changed several parts of it after I had placed it, including one item that they marked down as having been "returned" by myself, and then added the same item over again onto my purchase when the sales were over and it was at triple the price.

Their customer service for this issue was a total mess as well. No one seemed to have any idea what had happened at all. They "fixed the errors" (which actually still left me without two of the items I ordered), and I was told several times that someone would be contacting me to compensate these issues, only no one ever called. After several weeks of this I ended up seeing that they finally refunded the monetary portion, but still no one had called or emailed me about what happened. Even later I got a generic customer-service email offering me an $8 gift card, for a different issue then the main problem on that order, and which was laughable for the amount of problems this all caused, but I figured I'd brush it off.

Having resolved the problems (at least sort-of) through their over-the-phone customer service, I just assumed that it could've been just a small error on their system's end and later I tried ordering several other items online, and then had a couple experiences in-store with them. All of these experiences were on-par with the others, including one point where I brought in a deal to my local store that I printed from their website for a game that was on sale but was marked down as in-store only, and two women at the customer service desk proceeded with throwing me indirect insults, including calling me a liar and insisting that the sale was preposterous and was blatantly not real (basically calling me a liar). Then when I proved them wrong, they didn't apologize, they still wouldn't honor the deal, and I left pretty pissed off.

So now I almost exclusively use Amazon and Gamefly for all my purchases. Gamefly almost consistently has the cheapest used game prices, and they ensure that you will be getting the original box, sleeves, and manual when you buy the game, which usually also means that any "new-game" DLC or online passes actually come with the game (I don't know if they remove it for certain games but I know any that I've ordered had it inside the game, and if it wasn't there, their customer service helped me get a new code and/or offered me a free month of service due to the problem). And Amazon tends to have the best pre-order deals for new games and many great sales for other recent titles. And the best part of these two services is that their customer service support is hands-down some of the best that I've ever used. Anyway, that's my thoughts on the topic.

[ABizzel1]

I'm sorry to here that. Their over the phone service sucks.

But other than that I've had no problems with Best Buy.

[akiraburn]

Thanks for the response Bizzel. Like I said, it is a shame that it turned out that way, but you live and learn. I've lived in four different states over the past seven years and I can't really say I've had a very positive Best Buy experience at any point, and so this was essentially the breaking point for me. Consistently the employees have been unhelpful, didn't know anything about the products I was looking for/interested in (including if they even had them in-stock sometimes), or they were otherwise just unhappy to be there.

But everyone has different experiences, and I'm sure there's some good Best Buys with wonderful employees out there, including your local one from the sound of it. But for me I'll probably not be shopping there unless I see a very impressive deal that I feel confident I won't have any hassles getting it. As I mentioned, my personal best experiences have been with Amazon and Gamefly. If you haven't checked out Gamefly's used games on their site, I highly recommend taking a look, especially during sales.

[SKUD]

Gamefly. There is no other as far as buying console games on the super cheap.

[gamerz]

Thanks.. I'll look out for @Gamer magazine. One thing is for sure, Best Buy kicked all sorts of butt last Christmas. I made at least one trip per week the entire month of December due to all their sweet deals. A couple of times they couldn't fulfill an order and they gave store credit and a refund for the stuff they never shipped - which is awesome. Unfortunately, they didn't really keep up the savings after Christmas, but I'll have to check out that magazine since it sounds like that's where all the good deals are.

[Columbo]

How is the experience of using @Gamer coupons for games that are already on sale? Rage is on sale this week, and has an @Gamer coupon (you can get the total game for $5). Do they stack? Last November, the Ico/SotC collection was on sale and had an @Gamer coupon, and Best Buy's forums were on fire with customers angry that none of the discounts stacked and the customer service never helped. This makes me want to steer clear of these types of offers. Have those issues been fixed?

[ABizzel1]

When I did it they let me use all 5 coupons at the same time including the sale prices.

Batman was $60 down to $30 sale price, and they let me use a $20 coupon bringing it down to $10.

Speak with a manager about it.

[MrBeatdown]

Over on CheapAssGamer, I see it mentioned frequently that the coupons stack with sale prices.

[MrBeatdown]

I don't have a Best Buy nearby, so coupons wouldn't do me much good. But BB is definitely the best.

Last year, for buying five games from a list of new releases, you got $100 in Reward Zone credit back after buying the final game.

So I got Rage, Skyrim, Modern Warfare 3, Battlefield 3, and Uncharted 3. I got $100 in RZ credit, and I was able to get about $35 back from price matching on top of that. Plus I got my normal Reward Zone bonuses, so it was about $160 for five new release games.

[ExCest]

I agree. Best Buy has many a deal that cater to almost everyone (including myself). Their deals are great and their prices are reasonable. But despite that, I still prefer to use Amazon just because tax is not involved, I don't have to leave my man-cave because it has free shipping, and sometimes the deals are even better than Best Buy. But to each, their own and Best Buy and Amazon would be the choices for each.

[El_Colombiano]

I did this same exact thing yesterday. I bought Batman, Rage, Bulletstorm and Mass Effect 2 (all of which were brand new sealed in the shrink wrap) for $24.99. Nowhere, and I mean not a single other place on the planet internet or not will give me that. I used to buy at Amazon for their $20 off on games, but forget it. $6.24 a game at Best Buy? That is the best store ever. I love and will forever love Best Buy. Best offers on everything!

[ABizzel1]

Congrats to you my friend hope you enjoy them.

[metsgaming]

Im going to let my gamestop sub expire. With the ps vita coming out i dont want any game with their stickers plus i can get it cheaper most of the time else were. I plan to buy online alot but retail i think best buy will be my main go to place. I like getting the gameinformer so their magazine replaces that with those coupons and probably a better read anyway. Only think is their customer service like others have pointed out but games i rarely have to return anyway and gamestop have their own service probems. When i preordered uc3 they had it locked away and gs gives it away alot.

[ABizzel1]

Shopping at gamestop ended for me earlier last year. I saved my points until I I could get the $25 or $50 off (I think it was $25 not sure). Bought my item in September, didn't go back until December for Buy 3 get 1 free, and won't be back (until buy 2 get 1) or buy the Game Informer / Rewards card anymore.

It's a shame because Gamestop use to be my favorite place to shop, but now it's awful. They hire people who have no clue what's going on in the store, what's coming out, and have no love for games. When I go into a specialized store I expect the people that work there to been knowledgeable about the items and have some excitement about their job.

There is only one Gamestop I will continue to shop at and that's only when I'm in California. The Gamestop in Belmont, CA is the best Gamestop out there. The employees are friendly, they hold conversations with you about games, and they offer recommendations for you based off your gaming preference, because they're true gamers. I love this gamestop. If you find another like this one post it, because the others can all close down.

[theeg]

"Why Best Buy is the best game retailer"

because they aren't!

that title goes to steam...100%, hands down by so far it makes each and every other game retailor look like criminals and con artists.

[Aclay]

I haven't purchased from Gamestop in years. I usually purchase most of my games from Amazon, but Best Buy had a REALLY great Black Friday lineup for video games last November (arguably the best Black Friday line-up for video games last year IMO) and picked up a few games from Best Buy then.

I haven't heard of the @gamer thing though, I'll have to look into that. The only downside for me regarding Best Buy is that the nearest Best Buy from where I live is about a 35-40 minute drive, and I only go out to the bigger cities with a Best Buy store during the weekends-- so usually it's more convenient for me to buy the game whenever I want online with Free 2-Day Shipping (Amazon Prime Member), No Sales Tax, and the occasional Pre-Order Credits for select games -- plus, Amazon tends to have game prices similar to those of Best Buy whenever Best Buy has sales.

With all that said though, I do agree that Best Buy is one of the best brick-and-mortar retailers to buy games, as they tend to have more sales than most other places, especially GameStop.