I can't believe this is an actual post. Best Buy just re-uses those shells for many things, such as PC software.

Amazing! Will they bring snacks?

Now there is a service I'd buy!!! I always forget to let go of the damn disc when I put it in. I sure could use the professionals at Best Buy to show me proper "releasing of disc" techniques.

I work at Circuit City and even WE wouldn't be so dumb as to do that...though maybe we're missing out on a huge potential market...hmmmmm...I better go tell my managers!

if the local best buy has the service here i am so going to do it just prove my laziness even more to my friends as to how they shit when i bought a harmony 1000

I'd love to see someone actually take them up on that offer, just to be an ass. LOL.

Damn, i wish i had this when i had my ps1 and NES, who knows, maybe i wouldnt have had to blow so many cartridges or turn the ps over so many time when I could have had a professional install the games

the 360 uses a tray, now the ps3 and wii have a slotload

i dont know what tops my hate for best buy....besides best buy itself. Geek squad are a bunch of idiots, the employee's usually dont know a lick of anything that has to do with computers. Plus the fact that they try to sell their warranties up the ass. The fact i have to say NO more then 3 times is unexceptable. Let us install all the updates on your pc for 40 bucks, yea...ok...you wanna spoon feed me my lunch too? how much are you charging to do that? because god knows i cant do it myself.

I agree with scottyboy218. Anyone could have put these on anything and claimed they offer this service. If this were say, April 1st posting this as news would be funny. But if Kotaku is a venue for people to read "real" gaming news then maybe you need some journalists who will check sources.

So did anyone actually ask for this service to see how much it costs??

Best Buy staff probably do this as a joke.

@Obsolete Model: What "sources" need checked? It's a picture and the post is meant to be funny. Lighten up, it's Sunday.

@Obsolete Model: First off, this is not Kotaku, this is Consumerist. Secondly, this post isn't trying to emulate Woodward and Bernstein, it is a funny piece and something that definitely falls under the wide umbrella of Consumerist and Kotaku. Relax.

Best Buy staff probably do this as a joke just to see if anyone would be willing to ask for this service.

Well this packaging would make sense on PS3 games sadly. Just looks like a company reusing PC software packaging on their games - fascinating stuff.

I do actually tend to try to put the dics in my Wii wrong side "up", since the slot in vertical instead of horizontal.

I dunno, this might lead to future topics, like "Best Buy Tech Gets Big Greasy Fingerprint On Your Game Disc During 'Professional Install', Scratches It During Cleaning, Refuses To Replace It."

Silly Best buy...

@Nate00:

Plus the fact that they try to sell their warranties up the ass.

I look at it this way (and I'm not defending Best Buy or others for selling them): Those warranties are almost pure profit for those guys. They're optional, and if selling those warranties to a few clueless people means that the rest of the products can be sold for just a little bit less money to the rest of us who don't buy them, then what's the big deal unless you're the sucker who fell for it.

Call me when BestBuy starts placing "Let Us Open It" stickers on products sold in blister packs.

I'm embarrassed (almost) to say that I can't stop laughing about this.

I laughed at Grandma when she came into the living room with her shiny new Orange Box box and the blue-shirted guy put the controller in her arthritic hands to show how to select a low-ping server.
Now I cry bitter tears of shame as her Pyro burns my Spy to a smoking husk. Every. Damned. TIME!!

Cool. I wonder if I can get them to install other things, like toothpaste, toilet paper, or condoms.

@ scottyboy and the flaming carrot: I guess it's fie on you

@Rachacha: That's funny! I should Photoshop some stickers like that and head to my local BB.

I wouldn't laugh too hard if I were you. I manage a Game Crazy store and a couple weeks ago I had a customer who was a disabled vet living alone who, while he could play games fine, couldn't physically set up the deck.

Of course I set it up for him for free because we just like our customers, but there probably is some small demand for such a service and since they have the mobile geek squad "service" infrastructure in place its not a bad idea.

And after they "install" my game, they can hold my drink, give me game hints, and handle the bedpan so I don't have to pause the game.

Think South Park WOW episode. :P

To grimparrot:

I'm not going to laugh when it's someone who really needs such a service, but when a company has become so laughable not only at their so-obvious lack of attention but their even worse reputation for abusing what should have been a true feature for their business, you really have to wonder what the company management has to think about their employees.

I really can't believe that it is company policy to put game disks in sleeves designed for PC software; even if the jewel cases are the same size. This reeks of lazy, lackadaisical work by the employees and even worse management. It has turned a company that was once lauded for its electronic knowledge into one people tend to ignore unless they can't find what they want anywhere else.

@WhiteRabbit: I want to see someone take them up on their offer and then complain that the "installation" wasn't done correctly. Could you imagine? Lol.

These cases are also used for PC/laptop ram.
No story.

@BlueModred: And "let us install it" has been offered for various software by various big box stores for years. What's new here?

A few years ago I purchased an external hard drive from Best Buy that had one of these stickers on the box. I was slightly amused because there was a plug and play label on the box too.

@scottyboy218: It's a Sunday (i.e., slow news day). Heh.

@BlueModred: I was just about to say that. I'm a line-level Best Buy employee (and college student) and it's a complete waste of my time to scrape stickers off of cases when we have to use them for a different product, particularly since everyone complains about the service at Best Buy anyway. Although some days I'd much rather be sitting in the warehouse with some Goo Gone and a razor blade scraping stickers than talking to some of our mouth-breathing customers...

On behalf of those of us whose arms are painted on, I applaud The Consumerist for bringing this essential service to our attention.

Sorry guys, gonna be a party pooper here, the title doesn't quite match the contents of the post itself. Xbox and Xbox 360 are quite different products which have been marketed and advertised at different times and under different conditions. When referring to simply "Xbox" you're referring to a family of products instead of just one line, i.e "Xbox". The article's body only refers to Xbox 360 which is a product line, not a product family as is depicted in the title.

Haha, I sent in basically this story a month or two ago, with The Darkness. PC games/Operating Systems wouldn't fit in those cases, so it's just games that go in them. Geek Squad is just populated by very stupid people.

Hilarious.

I could have sworn I've already seen a post like this months ago with comments explaining that these cases are reused for all kinds of products, including ones that require "real" installation.. Maybe it was on Digg or Reddit..

I'm getting pretty sick of people saying "Geek Squad is full of stupid people". I very recently left Geek Squad for a higher paying IT Manager position with a large company. While I was at Geek Squad I received multiple professional certifications, repaired THOUSANDS of computers with only a handful of complaints (mostly the customer's fault), and I received priceless experience that I pull from every day to save my current employer tons of money and lost productivity. The co-workers I left behind were young college students just trying to make ends meet doing something they love and they are damn good at what they do. I owe Geek Squad a lot considering the amount of crap I put up with from STUPID customers and their kiddie-porn infested PC's with LimeWire and 8 IE toolbars wondering why they have viruses and spyware. Um... could it be that you always hit "Yes" to every ActiveX control you see?

Please refrain from making blanket statements about a service just because SOME people in the service probably shouldn't be there. I guarantee every office has some idiot or two that should not be there... but wouldn't you be offended if someone called your entire company "a bunch of stupid people"? But how is that the fault of the talented agents? Do they deserve to be called "stupid" too?

Also, I'm getting pretty sick of these posts berating a store for a labelling mistake. This site used to have lots of great posts that solved problems for legitimate wrong-doing... but lately it has just been sensationalist story one after the other.

OMG THEY LABELED THIS WRONG LOL!!! WHAT A BUNCH OF MORONS!! EVERYONE WHO WORKS THERE IS A MENTALLY RETARDED PERSON!!!

@phanstar70: No, of course not. Circuit City is above that kind of crap.

[www.joystiq.com]

=P

@mobbo: I actually appreciate this. As someone who provided tech solutions in a former job, and with a girlfriend who works the Genius Bar at an Apple Store, I salute you.

OMG! BEST BUY! *runs and gets torch* It's a good ol' fashion Best Buy Bashing Fest! Boy did Christmas come early.

Seriously, for the people who are actually taking this seriously, lighten up. If this adds to your "hate" of Best Buy then I seriously feel sorry for you. Not to mention that I feel sorry for you that you have enough free time and energy in your life to "hate" a corporation with such passion.

Guess someone solved world hunger while I slept last night, huh?

@Nate00: what's *unacceptable* is you calling people who can spell unacceptable idiots. Look in the mirror lately? These shells are reused for many different things. These probably had RAM in them at some point. What an incredibly well-researched story. Way to keep us consumers safe!

@taken: I doubt geekitude of your level will be surpassed on these forums for all of 2008. Might want to reconsider your approach if you want a prayer of getting "lucky".
(And no, I'm not talking about luck in your WoW respawning point)

@ComradePhate: They also fit computer memory, which, last I checked, is not a game.

And also, assuming that everyone that works at Best Buy is stupid because you've had a bad experience is like implying that every commenter here is a moron because every now and then, you run across one that's absolutely retarded.

Not that I'm intimating anything.

In Best Buy's defense, I think they just stuck those stickers on every security case. 'Cos PC software is coming in those thin dvd boxes.

Or, Best Buy really is that dumb.

Yeah but do they do back/neck rubs when your body gets all knotted up from inactivity? Mmmm yeah that might almost make it worth it lol.

Oh and yeah its Sunday, lighten up folks geez.

I understand why that happens - those plastic shells are used for different types of product. From a consumer standpoint, other than a chance to have a cheap laugh, it's not a big deal.

But from an aesthetic, and more crucially, branding point of view, they're horrible. Video game companies spend a not-insignificant amount of resources to create the package design because, for the same reason that Apple forgoes money from Intel by not participating in the "Intel Inside" sticker program, they clearly see value in how their product is presented in the store. So they should be mildly pissed that a retailer is obscuring the packaging with store branding, branding that's completely unrelated to the product at that.

So it's not so much about Best Buy being stupid, but more about Best Buy not caring about its suppliers.

@mobbo: As a general rule, Geek Squad is horribly ineffective, rather corrupt, and quite over-priced. (It isn't even necessarily the fault of the Geeks in question, but bad management.) I don't think anyone intends to say every single employee fits that criteria, and thusly you shouldn't take it as an insult to yourself or your coworkers.

I was once a Sprint CSR, and I think we all know how much THOSE are hated. I know I wasn't a horrible person that caused troubles for my customers, but that doesn't negate the fact that many of my coworkers fit the stereotype.

Just remember they aren't talking about you. And congrats on the new job. <3