A copy of “Digital Devil Saga 2″ will cost you $19.99 at EB games. Or maybe it will cost you $29.99. Who knows! Depends on which one you’re lucky enough to grab off the wall. Price mistakes like this happen all the time and there’s not enough Weights and Measures people to catch them all. Maybe we can turns all these various price errors into a hit new gameshow. We’ll call it, “The Price Is Wrong,” and Kevin James, from “The King of Queens,” following the same career path as Drew Carey, can host.
(Photo: lo.fiboy)
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On further thought – I’m kind of upset about this being reported as it is. This isn’t cable news with the “OMG those bastards rip you off all the time come watch us to find out how!”
There is no scheme here – the SKU’s are the same regardless of the price listed on the actual sticker.
The proper thing to do would to edit the article.
I got a almost brandspanking new dual shock ps2 controler this way for like $3 I hope gamestop & EB keeps lota these tards around.
@BURNINGRANGER01
You got the controller for 3 dollars because some idiot put the wrong product sticker on it altogether – if it had the proper SKU for the controller it would of rang up the normal price despite the displayed sticker price.
I don’t understand what people are missing here – the SKU describes what the item is to the computer and THE COMPUTER DICTATES THE CURRENT PRICE (which is a frequently updated list maintained by the corporate offices) – the actual readable price on the package is just there for the consumers are serves no other purpose.
It’s hard to see the numbers on the bar code but they look the same. You should have had the clerk scan both of them to see if there was a price difference.
Not really an error but I laughed at the Target the other day that had the “limited editon” Tony Hawk proving ground for the 360 on an end cap with a $25 price while the regular one was still in the case for $59. Too bad Tony Hawk games will never be fun for me after Skate.
@KidU:
Except that they haven’t done this since the class-action suit that covered Gamestop.
Okay, before I moved on to bigger, better places, this is how Game Crazy did things, because seeing this sounds awfully familiar.
When those pesky little price change sheets would come in, they would get trashed. When a person grabbed a game, say GTA Vice City, which was still marked at say 29.99, but our price in the computer rang to say 7.99, we would tell them “If you get our membership today, you’ll actually save some money today, blah blah blah”. Or if it was about a 5 dollar difference, maybe just a bit more, tell them they qualify for a “free preorder”, which was absolute BS. If they said know, ring it up anyway and give them a hand-written receipt. “Oh, our printer is down”. And just basically manually price everything up in the computer if we needed to even things out. Just about every game crazy does it, and so do most game stops around here. I never could stoop to that level, which is why I never made it in the company. But what do you expect when you hire people at 7 dollars an hour, promise them commission if they make some sales, and tell them they’re canned if they dont.
Oh, and yes, if you find two copies, they’ll say the lowest price is the right one. But if you dont, well…
I used to work at GameStop and this is probably the stupidest post I’ve ever seen. Thousands of games get priced, and you nit-pick over one mess up.
Use you’re time a little more productively eh? If you’d look closely, the sku’s are the exact same, so they’d ring up the same, be it $19.99 or $29.99. If a $10 difference is that big a deal, maybe you shouldn’t be buying games in the first place.
GOD I hate bitchy customers that bring this shit up.
I’ve seen a used GBA game priced higher than a new one before; I figured it was because the game was so shitty that people would want to pay more for one with some of the game already completed.
Well, had this happen to me just a few days ago in the local EB. Only slightly diffrent.
Picked up a copy of Odimon off the shelf, tag said 10$. Bought a used copy 2 days earlier for 15, came WITHOUT the mike needed to play it.
Suspected it was a pricing error, but went to get it anyways.
It ran up at 59.99. NOT the 9.99 of the copy. (Both BTW were used.) Pointed it out, they gave it to me for 10.
Frankly consider something like that more newsworthy they a missed tag. Hell, they may have 10 display boxes out. And price changes come in huge batches. You REALLY think that the employees have time to change each and EVERY sticker, especially if they get busy?
Um, the price just dropped on that game, one has the new sticker, one doesn’t. You can’t already see there are, like, 8 price stickers under the top one already? Wow, what a discovery.
The one messed up part about Gamestop is how they sell “The Legend of Zelda Collector’s Edition” For Gamecube. On the case it clearly says “Not for Resale” But they sell it anyways. How can you set a price on an item which never had a MSRP at any time?
This happened to me yesterday. It was at gamestop(which owns EB so same deal) and it was BFME 2 for the 360. One used copy was $28 and one was $25. I picked up the box with the $25 pricetag looking to save a few bucks and to my surprise it ended up being cheaper than expected. It rang up $20. I think they just forget to change some of the price tags after the prices change.
@ShadowFalls: Supply and demand. Hence a used game going for more than it ever cost new (another game in this series, Nocturne, does. Hell, they sell a PS1 game for over 60 too).
I’m surprised this game isn’t as rare as DDS1, which you’re lucky to see go for 40 used on ebay right now.
Not only is this a lame article, but that guy looks like a serial rapist. He probably thought he was so cool too. “Wooo look at me with these two different priced games! Quick, take a picture. Someone call my mom! I’m about to take down GameStop!”
What is with all these useless “Simple Mistake” stories on Consumerist lately? It’s just a mistagged item, nothing more. Now, if the Represenative present told the customer that he would have to charge the prices as marked, that’s a different story… but this? This is useless info. It happens every day, every store, everywhere, regardless of what company who who works there… it’s just a Simple Mistake.
Yea, the sku number looks the same. This happens a lot when a price drop occurs and they don’t catch every copy out on the shelves. I should know as I used to work at a Software Etc. back in the day and sometimes you can’t locate the case to put a new sticker on it.
This is stupid. It will ring up for the correct price, or if the price was raised we’ll price correct if the sticker you brought up said lower.
They will give you the correct price, most likely the lowest one.
My favorite part, they wont ever hesitate to give you the right price even if it is less. But the second a price is a DOLLAR too high, most customers throw a bitch-fit. They could just as easily discount it to the price displayed, mind you they dont have to do that because its not false advertising, since it is in-store. But they will do it if you ask nicely.
oh yeah, smash brothers melee is 34.99 used, while the normal price is 29.99
@epionx111: Up AGAIN? Jeez, that game keeps rising in price despite a new one being out in about a month.
When I see two like that, I bring both to the counter and only buy one.
I pay for the lower price, but take the item with the higher price tag so the lower priced item is left in the store. Unless the store swap tags, that leaves the lower priced item for the next customer.
Another cutting edge article from Consumerist. I don’t know what I would do without you guys…
When I’m in EB and spot one of these errors I try and point it out so some parent (like myself) doesn’t get burned paying to much… that being said I recently pointed out a pricing error on a PSP game (2 copies of MoH: Heroes, one had the SKU for MoH: Heroes-19.99 and one with the SKU for MoH: Heroes 2-39.99) at my local EB… when I went back I was happy to see that both copies were mislabeled and mispriced… yay EB!
This happens all the time in a shop I go to in Norway. When I was going to buy Half-Life 2 Episode 1, there where three different prices; 599NOK, 299NOK and 99NOK. All three had the same content. Guess which one I picked.
What a terrible story. OMG!!! A price tag didnt get updated!!! BOYCOTT EB!!!! Don’t be rediculous, this doesn’t even count as a story. Plus, that dudes freaking me out.
this is a really, really lame story. i cant believe that its not obvious why this happened.
Yeah any self respecting EB/Game Stop would give you the cheeper price any way. Why is this even wasting space on the section of the world wide web?
I see this all the time at EB, among both new and used games. The really irritating thing about EB is the price of their used games. For more recent releases, I can almost always find a brand new copy at another retailer cheaper than a used copy at EB.
Plus, the EB by house marked their Wii Zappers up to $29.99 just before Christmas. Two weeks earlier they were $19.99 there.
@Consumerist and Evilonion: First of all, that is a Gamestop. EB Games no longer exists as Gamestop consumed them. Second, I work at a Gamestop. Also, the zapper was on sale for a week for $19.99. As for the games at the top, the prices change all the time but Gamestop has nothing to do with it. We are told by the distributor what to price the new games. Gamestop Corporate only decides what to price the used games.
Just for future reference, I don’t completely agree with all of Gamestop’s business practices but I completely admire them as an employer. It’s a wonderful job to have and after all that hullabaloo about the Game Informer subscriptions and the pre-orders they got rid of those employee requirements, which is nice.
Either way, probably what happened with those two games is that one was probably older and priced differently at the time the newer one came in. It will still ring up the same when scanned.
@Leminnes: Actually no, EB Games STILL DOSE EXSIST!
Just that they are owned by the same upper level company.
Just like Best buy and Future shop.
Maybe they aim to replace em all to Gamestop by they are far away from that point.
@Firstborn: They exist in sparsity. Either way, Gamestop and EB Games completely merged and announced that all EB Games were going to be renamed Gamestop (which is a better name anyway.)
“Upon its closing, the agreement will see the two companies merge operations under the GameStop banner, which will then fly over 3,200 stores in the US and 600 others in Europe and Australasia. However, to not disrupt plans for the 2005 holiday season, no changes will be made in either company’s organization until 2006. Then, in mall locations where there is duplication in retail outlets, store closings will follow “when appropriate,” according to a GameStop official.” – [www.gamespot.com]
This happens at Gamestop and Gamecrazy both. I was just in Gamestop today and saw Ghost Recon for $15 and $20, and GR2 for $20, $25, and $35. The accessory I bought for my DS (an extra battery) was sticker priced at $7.99 and shelf-priced at $4.99. I got the $4.99 price when I showed it to them, but still. At Gamecrazy I saw a few EA sports titles (i forget which ones) running from $10 to $40 for the same game, including case and instruction book, and all used. One game alone had FOUR different prices. Do these companies not have inventory management that tells them when they have the same item priced multiple times, or what? Moral: when buying a used game check for multiple copies. You may not be getting the lowest.
this is all good and stuff,price mistakes,etc,etc..
except here in Montreal,just had a buddy of mine try and buy a LOTR games we saw last week for 9.99.
This week we go to the store,all the copies are now 24.99 except the one at the very top of the racks.
We were thinking how that special edition LOTR game was an awesome deal complete with the making-of and the game soundtrack for nine ninety FREAKIN nine.
The manager,who is for sure the Oscar winner for most sulky faced being in Montreal and surely the inspiration for Thurl Ravenscroft’s song “Youre a mean one,Mr.Grinch”
says he doesnt know of any law that recognises the mistake made by a store when the price tag is wrong.
(A law CONFIRMED by the two other stores here in Mtl.)
And adding insult to injury,he says he’s NEVER seen that in his store ..are you ready?..AS HE’S SCRATCHING THE 9.99 TAG RIGHT IN FRONT OF US
(Good GAWD man,have you no shame)
We got hold of the district manager who we give multiple props to for getting back to us only 2 days after the incident AND on a Sunday night.BRAVO!!
He apologized profusely,say we could get the game tomorrow for 9.99 and said he’d have a talk this week with Mr.Sulkypants.
Talk about righting a wrong!!
My buddy and i are SSOOOOOOOO impressed.
Well,this is all good and stuff,price mistakes,the store admitting the mistake and selling you the low-priced one…except when it DOESNT happen.
This week ,my buddy and i show up at a store here in Montreal(we still have at 3 EB games stores) looking for a 9.99 LOTR game complete with making-of and game soundtrack we saw last week.
This week all the copies are changed to 24.99,BUT they forgot a copy way at the top of the racks(still 9.99)
The manager who is the Oscar winner for sulkiest face every year and probably the inspiration for Thurl Ravenscroft’s song “Youre a mean one,Mr.Grinch”
says he doesnt know any such policy.One CONFIRMED by the 2 other stores.
Adding insult to injury,he says hes never seen it in his store…are you ready ?….AS HE’S SCRATCHING THE 9.99 TAG on the box we gave him.
We contacted the district manager who got back to us only 2 days after the incident AND on a Sunday night.
1.He apologized profusely.
2.He said we could pick the game for 9.99 tomorrow
3.He mentioned he was going to have a meeting with Mr.Sulkypants this week (oh! to be a fly on the wall)
Full props to EB games for righting a wrong!!!
Very impressed.Very.
I find the headline to this at least misleading and possibly a lie. Was this guy actually charged two different prices or were there just two different price stickers he found. I’m certain it’s the latter. It’s fear mongering like this that could possibly ruin the credibility of a normally solid website. If this small error is blown that out of proportion I wonder how many of your other stories are.
This is just a simple case of the employees forgetting to re-price the older sticker. I’ve worked at GameStop for several months now and I see cases of this all the time. If you take it to the counter, you’ll see that the computer rings it up for the most recent price because it’s categorized by SKU, not price. If it turns out that the lower price was indeed the older one, you’ll get to pay the cheaper price.
@montrealfilmguy: I fail to see how the second iteration of the post improves on the first.
@JomeyQ:
It’s a story because ALL CORPS are BAD GUYS and this blog must post post post EVERYTHING that everyone else does wrong.
*sarcasm*
Apparently companies can’t make mistakes.
it was my first post.
when i clicked submit it would just dissapear,so i did it again,hence 2 posts of the same thing.
guess it was a consumerist hiccup.
@ShadowFalls: Pick a number and start adding zeroes?
@coren:
ahh, but you are missing the point, this game was never sold separately, therefore it could never be sold for more than it was new as it never even had an original price tag.
That game in particular came with a Gamecube console and should have been sold as such. I wouldn’t be surprised if they give you next to nothing to turn around and sell it for over $40.
@Leminnes:
Actually, in Canada it’s still EB.