Hard to Buy Games at Target

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VideoGameCritic
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Hard to Buy Games at Target

Postby VideoGameCritic » November 4th, 2018, 9:40 am

Had a funny experience at Target recently I'm sure a bunch of you can relate to. I wanted to buy a video game (Red Dead Redemption II) so I go to the desk where the people handle the electronics. Of course no one there. So I take a look around the area, and whenever I catch a glimpse of someone with a red smock, it's like they are hurrying to get away from me.

Finally some guy who doesn't even look like he works there asks if he can help, and I tell me I want this game. So he pulls out his walkie talkie thing and asks if anybody has the electronic key. So he tells me somebody will be over to help me.

After a minute or two a guy arrives to save the day. I took advantage of the opportunity to get the new Mario Party as well. So he tells me he'll hold these games for me at the counter. The thing is, I felt like I should pay for them now, because if I came back later there would probably be a line of people. So I went ahead and paid even though I really wanted to look around the section more. He said I could have paid for the games up front, but he would have had to "walk them up there with me".

I guess it's just to curb theft, but they really do make it hard to buy games at Target!

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scotland
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Re: Hard to Buy Games at Target

Postby scotland » November 4th, 2018, 10:37 am

Thats a horrible customer experience. With the downfall of Sears, brick and mortar need to find a better way to keep people from defaulting to online shopping

Herschie
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Re: Hard to Buy Games at Target

Postby Herschie » November 5th, 2018, 1:54 pm

Ever try buying razors from Walgreens?

BanjoPickles
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Re: Hard to Buy Games at Target

Postby BanjoPickles » November 6th, 2018, 12:22 am

I had my own headache buying games at Target, just recently:

So, I typically wait until they run their annual Buy Two Get One Free sale to take the plunge into my Fall purchases. Their sale didn’t disappoint....except for one glaring omission. Why on earth does almost every Xbox/PS4 game qualify, but most Switch games don’t? I was hoping to use it as my excuse to pick up Octopath Traveller, Wolfenstein II, and Bayonetta 1+2, but none of those games were included! The only game that I couldn’t get on PS4/Xbox was Red Dead II (for obvious reasons). I don’t understand why Nintendo is treated so differently!

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pacman000
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Re: Hard to Buy Games at Target

Postby pacman000 » November 6th, 2018, 8:36 am

As I understand it Nintendo has a fairly strict pricing policy, which helps independent dealers/smaller distributors stay competitive.

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C64_Critic
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Re: Hard to Buy Games at Target

Postby C64_Critic » November 6th, 2018, 9:59 pm

This reminds me of a few Christmas' ago when I attempted to quickly stop in at our local Best Buy to purchase a recently released Xbox One game for one of my kids. I either memorialized it here in one of the forums, or just sent an email directly to the Critic but it convinced me to NEVER try to purchase another video game in a Best Buy store again. And I don't think I have, actually.

The quick version of the event was that I went all the way to the back of the store where the Xbox games were, but had to take a 'ticket' to purchase the game (couldn't just grab one there). Then had to wait in a long line at the register (of course!) before I could give my ticket to someone to retrieve the game from a locked cage. They, of course, did not have the key and had to call someone over to unlock the cage. Naturally we had to wait on THAT person before they finally emerged and let her into the cage to get the game. Despite having the card with the name and picture of the game on it, when she got back to the register she had the WRONG GAME! Now she had to call the "key-master" back, again, wait, again, for them to unlock the cage, again, and this time I made sure to follow her over and ensure she had gotten the correct game. Finally back at the register, correct game in hand, card out and ready to pay, she started to play the twenty questions game with me... "Are you a member of our rewards club? Are you sure you wouldn't like to join? Are you aware of all the great benefits that come with it? Will you be paying with a Best Buy credit card? No? Would you like to apply for one? You can have 5% off this purchase right now! Are you sure? Would you like to purchase an extended warranty for this item!?"


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VideoGameCritic
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Re: Hard to Buy Games at Target

Postby VideoGameCritic » November 6th, 2018, 10:12 pm

It just occurred to me they could make a video game adventure about buying a video game!
And the game you finally buy turns out to be the one you're playing! Trippy!

djc
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Re: Hard to Buy Games at Target

Postby djc » November 7th, 2018, 12:23 am

VideoGameCritic wrote:It just occurred to me they could make a video game adventure about buying a video game!
And the game you finally buy turns out to be the one you're playing! Trippy!


Videogame-ception

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pacman000
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Re: Hard to Buy Games at Target

Postby pacman000 » November 7th, 2018, 8:45 am

C64_Critic wrote:This reminds me of a few Christmas' ago when I attempted to quickly stop in at our local Best Buy to purchase a recently released Xbox One game for one of my kids. I either memorialized it here in one of the forums, or just sent an email directly to the Critic but it convinced me to NEVER try to purchase another video game in a Best Buy store again. And I don't think I have, actually.

The quick version of the event was that I went all the way to the back of the store where the Xbox games were, but had to take a 'ticket' to purchase the game (couldn't just grab one there). Then had to wait in a long line at the register (of course!) before I could give my ticket to someone to retrieve the game from a locked cage. They, of course, did not have the key and had to call someone over to unlock the cage. Naturally we had to wait on THAT person before they finally emerged and let her into the cage to get the game. Despite having the card with the name and picture of the game on it, when she got back to the register she had the WRONG GAME! Now she had to call the "key-master" back, again, wait, again, for them to unlock the cage, again, and this time I made sure to follow her over and ensure she had gotten the correct game. Finally back at the register, correct game in hand, card out and ready to pay, she started to play the twenty questions game with me... "Are you a member of our rewards club? Are you sure you wouldn't like to join? Are you aware of all the great benefits that come with it? Will you be paying with a Best Buy credit card? No? Would you like to apply for one? You can have 5% off this purchase right now! Are you sure? Would you like to purchase an extended warranty for this item!?"

And yet folks get nostalgic for Toys 'R Us' ticket/cage system.


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