Shady GameStop Program All About The Quotas
Have you been to a GameStop store over the past few months and asked to buy a new game? Did the store clerk tell you that it’s not in stock? If that is the case, they may be lying to you. It is all part of a new program that discourages GameStop staffers from selling unopened copies of video games. Seems messed up, right?
The program is called “Circle of Life”. Sounds light, fluffy and fun but it’s all about the bottom line. This program gives each GameStop store different percentage quotas for pre-orders; reward card subscriptions; used game sales; and game trade-ins. Each of these quotas is based on the store’s total transactions. Pre-orders and reward cards subscriptions are based on the number of transactions, while used game sales and trade-ins are based on the total dollar value of transactions. If a store’s quota for used game sales is 30%, and the store sells $1,000 worth of merchandise, GameStop expects at least $300 of that merchandise to be pre-owned.
So if someone walks into GameStop and picks up, say, a brand new copy of Resident Evil 7 without pre-ordering another game, subscribing for a new rewards card, buying a used game, or trading in some games to help pay for it, then the transaction will knock down all four percentages.
The more new games an employee sells, the more used games they’ll have to sell to make up for it. In other words, GameStop is incentivizing employees to stop people from buying new games and hardware.
According to Kotaku, GameStop staff say the company has threatened to fire people who don’t hit these quotas, which is leading to all sorts of shady tactics.
The Circle of Life program, began late last year but ramped up in early 2017 attaches a specific “COL” score to each employee and each store. Each of the four categories represents 25% of that total COL score. So if a store hits their quotas for pre-orders and rewards cards, but not for trade-ins and used games, their COL will be 50%. If an employee hits all four of his quotas, he’ll get a COL of 100%.
GameStop corporate office has issued the following statement:
“All of GameStop’s internal programs are designed to provide our customers the best value in all their video game purchases, including new and pre-owned merchandise. With any program, opportunities arise for improvement and we will continue to refine it to equip our knowledgeable store associates to provide a great store experience.”
Customers have long complained about GameStop’s tendency to push pre-owned games and pre-orders. This new Circle of Life program is simply more evidence of this.