I have to root for Monster Cables. Their entire business is based on lies about the superiority of their product and is then sold at very high prices to cement the illusion of higher quality.

This is actually a pretty good matchup. Going to be interesting to see how this one plays out.

I want to vote for both!
but went with Monster Cable, can't top trying to compare your component cables to diamond jewelry

Have to go with GameStop on this since at least with Monster Cables there are good, cheaper alternatives. With GameStop, there's not much choice.

This was a close one, but I ended up going with GameStop. My reasoning is, Monster Cable is very easy to avoid (monoprice) and I won't need to get cables very often.

GameStop, on the other hand...

I've visited a Gamestop once, while visiting an out-of-state friend. They sold me an opened game as new, which I didn't realize at the time.

I spent five minutes arguing with the guy who was ringing me up because no, I didn't want their free little punch card thing or whatever it was. He would not let it drop after I said no. It was free! I didn't want more cards in my wallet, no thank you. But it's free and you can save, blah blah! There aren't any gamestops in my hometown, I would never use it again, no!

That seriously went on for five minutes. Maybe I should have just taken the stupid card to shut him up, but I didn't appreciate the harrassment. Looking back, I wish I'd thrown the game at him, walked out, and purchased it from another retailer.

This one is a tough one, I hate both companies and will avoid them at all costs. I would have to say Monster Cables though. Their markup is insane, and their cables aren't anything special above what you can get for a 1/3 of the price.

GameStop does, however, blow hard.

Meh, once digital content delivery becomes commonplace, GameStop’s business model will generate smaller and smaller profits. It’s difficult to (legally) cut the publisher out of the sales loop without a physical product.

There are so many cheap alternatives to Monster that they shouldn't be doing as well as the polls currently show. I guess being sue-happy is making the difference.

I still voted for Gamestop.

Gamestop for sure. Used to work there and if you think it's bad to be a customer there.... The employees are treated even worse.

Never been in a GameStop. I usually only buy games I'd want to actually, you know, own. I hate litigious companies however, so Monster gets my vote.

i dont like how gamestop sells "used" games for so much, but i do like picking up older, rare games (those hard to find rpgs) they have for cheap there. and theres always alternatives for gamestop, you can buy video games everywhere.

i have to go with monster cables, because they pretend to be better than everyone. gamestop sells videogames comparable to other retailers, while monster cables are marked up like crazy.

I have a confession.

My father bought a $200 Monster Cable brand power strip at Magnolia Hi-Fi a few years back. I tried to convince him why it was a bad idea, but the salesman hooked it up to some kind of meter to show the "noise" in the power between a standard power strip and the Monster one, and he was persuaded after being told that standard power would result in a worse picture.

Monster cable was designed for graft. Monster is my vote by far.

I used to work for EB Games, and they are owned by Gamestop.

If you look at their price tags on them, its really easy to tell if it is used or not. If the tag is white, then it is new, if the tag is yellow, then it is a used game. There is no way for someone to put in a used game as new because it will show up in the logs that they got more than the normal number of shipments a day, normaly one.

If you ask kindly, the employe will normaly let you look at the back of the disk before they sell it, and if you see a scratch on a new game, they will pull another.

I'm curious about something, for all of the people who voted for GameStop, by the way.

If you want to pick up a new game without using the internet, where do you typically go? At least in my area, the only options for purchasing new games are GameStop, Best Buy, Target, and Wal-Mart. Target has a very small and unreliable selection, Wal-Mart is similar and is Wal-Mart to boot, and Best Buy usually has an OK selection but it's Best Buy. It seems from my point of view that GameStop is the only option unless I want to buy online and either wait a week or get reamed on shipping prices.

@BoC: Good call. Plus, I'll buy more games in a year than cables.

As much as I would have loved to vote for Monster Cable, I couldn't bring myself to do it after the treatment I got when trying to buy MGS3 from Gamestop. The clerk refused to sell it to me because it was a PS2 game and that "Only gays play the PS2, get an Xbox and wait for the game to get ported".

How Monster overcharges for their product is criminal, but Gamestop pissed me off. So they get my vote.

@rmz: I too have a confession. I use to work for Circuit City and would sell these overpriced crap cables to people. The worst was their premium line of RCA cables. Nothing scream rip off more then $120 RCA cables. Lord forgive me for my sins!!!!!

I voted for Monster. Overpriced cables and their willingness to sue did it for me. As far as Gamestop: There are a LOT of places to buy games new and used. Target has the same selection, so does Amazon, eBay, and a bunch of other stores.

As a former Gamestop employee, I had to go with them. The constant pushing of reservations and GI subscriptions just kills me. There are two in my town, and when I need to, I can at least rely on one because the guys there are pretty decent, and don't pester the hell out of you. The other one, however...ugh...I had to stand in line behind a guy who was being asked if he wanted to reserve every freakin' 360 game under the sun coming up in the next few months! "Halo 3? Gonna be hard to get...new Madden? You know it always gets crazy for Madden...GTA? Everyone's gonna be out of that..." Couple that in with the fact that they had two registers and only used the one even with a line ("That one is for trade-ins...") and I left very pissed.

If Gamestop would stop pressuring their employees to live and die by reserves, I guarantee customer service would improve.

And don't get me started on the "opened new games" bit. I still have a "new" Zak & Wiki that for some reason has an ID sticker UNDER the plastic ON the insert art! That is never coming off without a tear!

This was a very tough matchup. Went with Monster, but had the wind shifted at the right moment, I could have easily gone with GS.

@Part-Time-Viking:i'm sorry but that is hilarious!

The employee's at my local gamestop have always been great, and they have a very good return policy on their used games.

I don't care that buying used only saves me 20%, I buy used so I can take the lame game back if it sucks. If I am looking for a bargin I will go to eBay.

Monster conspires with every electronics retailer to rip off unsuspecting customers. We can avoid Monster, but that doesn't make what they do to everyone else right.

@rmz: It's funny, I voted for GameStop for similar reasons as you. Are people essentially paying a Stupidity Tax when they buy their monstrously (heh) overpriced wares? Sure. I say, Let The Free Market Reign. Buyers that don't research before buying deserve what they get.
GameStop, on the other hand, seems to have a business model based on reselling opened packages as new, which is skeevy. Plus the over-promising/under-delivering when it comes to unreleased titles/systems. Plus staffing that makes comic shops seem the epitome of customer service, hygiene and class. Comic book shops!
But I can see the other guys' arguments on this one. Surprised that Monster is winning, and by so much, though.

I voted Gamestop only because I've been screwed by them before with the old "It's a used game" and when you go to return it "It's a new game dude, you can't get a full refund on it" bullshit.

Personally I've been too smart to blow 30$ on some MC iPod cables when eBay sells some just as good for 5$

Nothing but good experiences with my local (east Mesa, AZ, at Signal Butte) Gamestop, especially Chuck, who is a riot.

This is the part of the discussion where somebody makes the obligatory comment about how awesome Monoprice is for cables. I've got an order from them being delivered sometime this afternoon. Check them out at [monoprice.com.]

I buy all my monster cables at gamestop and I have never had a problem with either of them, so I am really getting a kick...

Just kidding.

I voted Monster. They're as bad as the audiophiles for spreading nonsense and hokum about electronics.

This one was a toss up - since both can easily be avoided if you don't like them.

If you don't like Gamestop, then avoid them - go get the game at Wal-Mart.

If you don't like Monster Cables, then buy something else.

Here's the deal- there are no victims in either case. People do it to themselves.

Nobody makes a person buy Monster Cables, nor does anybody hold people at gunpoint, forcing them to shop at Gamestop.

I hate Gamestop because used games don't support the studios and a they don't seem to have a very good system in place to make sure their store-level management aren't complete scumbags.

However, Gamestop doesn't file frivolous lawsuits and allegedly have a tax shelter in the bahamas. Vote Monster!

This is a certainly a matchup between midgets.

@rmz: for me, gamestop is rarely an option.

1) i don't know if the practice of "understocking" games is company-wide, but in my area, if you don't pre-order, you don't get a copy on release day. also, no 1600 ms pt cards in stock, only the $50 (4000 pt?) cards. & when they get a large stock of used games, no more new copies.

2) i refuse to pay full price for an opened game. for me, tearing the plastic off is part of the fun. not to mention i know a few gamestop employees that take "new games" home to play (w/o paying for them) & return them to the store to sell as new. again, probably not a company-wide policy, but it happens.

3) gamestop NEVER has a sale. i bought COD4, bioshock, assassin's creed, & the new burnout all on sale at various retailers (target & kmart are usually the best for game sales) for $40/ea.

4) i'm tired of the attitude many of the workers have. listen, you little shit, i don't care if you like vegas or not. i don't care if you think halo is the best game ever. i don't care if you think the xbox is shit & the ps3 will one day rule the world. just ring up my freaking game. & quit pretending you're doing me a favor by ringing me up.

5) no i don't want a subscription to your crap-ass game magazine that rates everything a 7 - even if it induces death by bordeom. no, you can't have my phone number. no, i don't want to buy a strategy guide.

@mac-phisto: #2 is completely true. My buddy is a manager at a Gamestop and he brings over games he "rents" (legit from company viewpoint) from the store all the time.

Damn, it's almost hard to be upset with Monster Cable if they can actually get people to believe their nonsense. Anyhow, I voted for them because I didn't get the idea to sell UltraSuperPremium Gold-tipped cables first.

Monster Cable. Never been in a Gamestop, so I can't really bash them except on the word of others.

All I need to hate Monster Cable (although all the rest helps) is what I discovered when building a Monster Cable Demo Station when I worked for CC. The station had two speakers hooked up side by side and then to a DVD surround sound system with a switch to choose between the two and demo what the station called "Monster XRS Speaker Wire" or something against "Offbrand speaker wire."

Sure, the Monster sounded better... until you cracked open the back and found that there was about a 1 foot length of the Monster Cable wire running to one speaker and about 100 feet of the thread-thinnest, poorest-quality wire I have ever seen ziptied and sitting in a coil.

I'm not surprised at the misleading way Monster promotes their product because every company does the same thing, but it still amply bolsters what we all already know about this company.

No contest! Monster cable!
We need more monoprice.com links!

Monster cables...at like 1/10 the cost.
Your one stop shop for cables and cable accessories
Seriously, you should go there right now.

I actually worked at Gamestop for a small time a few years ago, and although I didn't leave on the best of terms, I can say that from my experience, at least half of the intro paragraph is just plain false.

If the guy is doing his job, he SHOULD be checking for disk quality. We rejected horrible disks frequently, and if it was scuffed up significantly, we'd charge a small refurbishing fee and send them out to be repaired.

How does one check if a game was pirated? They already disallow selling used PC games for that very reason, but there is no way for someone to just look at a disk and tell if it was a copy, or if this guy takes crappy care of his games.

I've never seen the store mark up from MSRP, but if they do, explain to me why they can't? The 'S' stands for SUGGESTED. It is by no mean's a mandate. Nothing's stopping you from walking over to Best Buy.

That being said, they do sell their display copy as new, with the logic that the game still wasn't used, and in fact got tucked away safely until the last copy is to be sold. And the poor people behind the counter can live or die on their subscription sales, which they don't mention when you're hired.

Monster Cable's entire business revolves around a lie. That's pretty high on the evil scale, isn't it?

@BoC: Yeah, but you have to know about the tactics of Monster and be able to fend off the pressure that sales droids at the big box stores use. I'm sure plenty of people fall for the whole "Monster Cables are worth the extra cost" BS based on the rigged displays and fast talking of those sales droids. I'd be willing to bet that far more people throw their hard earned money away on Monster cables thanks to those rigged store displays and bogus recommendations from the store employees than they do at Gamestop over their shady practices.

@AceKicker: Well damn; you beat me to it. Including the working for a gamestop. All depends on the management of the store.

This matchup images is fabulous though.

I absolutely cannot stand how Gamestop sells unsealed games as new. Not only is it technically not "new" and probably has been "rented" out by an employee already, but they put about 15 "NEW RELEASE" stickers all over the case. Then it gets picked up and dropped by hundreds of people until the plastic is so cloudy you can barely read the title. Then you get to be the lucky sap to take it home.

And they gut (their term) SO many copies of each new release, that if you don't buy one of the first, like, ten or so, you get an unsealed game.

Granted, I am admittedly super-anal (probably pathologically) about the condition of my things.

@Gaambit: I used to work for Gamestop as well quite a few years ago and at first it was fun, but then corporate stepped in and made it go wayyy downhill. I hated having to sell Subscriptions and get a certain number of reserves (which was impossible given the fact that most of our customer's only bought little or nothing at a time). I still shop their although it's frequently now but the one's I've dealt with now are a lot better than what it used to be in the past.

Although I almost voted for Gamestop, I instead went to Monster Cable. I bought one of their "wireless" transmitters for my iPod so I can use it in my car, after 3 months the thing just fell apart. Talk about your shoddy merchandise. I will never buy a Monster Cable again.

Only suckers use Gamestop and Monster Cable

tough choice, gamestop is bad but has a few good qualities. monster cable has no good qualities so it wins this round... though i still want gamestop in the running, would have been better to put it against toysrus or something to keep it in for another round

@melking1972:

This is precisely the reason why I picked Gamestop. You don't really have to buy Monster- there are tons of easy alternatives sitting right next to them on shelves. There aren't too many stores dedicated to selling games.

after monsters epic legal owning yesterday they got my vote.

guess what? cost no object, everyone on this board would be buying monster cables. just picture it, imagine you just struck oil in your backyard and went out and got a top of the line home theater system, don't tell me that you'd get the bargain bin cables.

any quantitative difference between high quality cables and low quality cables might be very slim to none, but let me tell you from personal experience that monster cables are in fact far better than any other cables you could get. period. simple as that.

i use monster cables on my home HiFi. would i hear any difference in sound quality? most probably not. but guess what? the insulation is easier to strip, the cables within the insulation don't fray like cheap cables would, and it all comes down to getting a better connection between your amplifier and speakers, and that's what matters most.

so going back to sound quality, i'm gonna take back what i said. i very likely would be able to hear a sustantial difference, and it's because of how much more cleanly monster cables can be connected to speaker terminals than any other cable. nothing's worse than watching a screw-in terminal shred apart and fray individual strands of your cables, and that just doesn't happen with monster cables. monster cables are better.

Man, are you kidding? Sure monster is overpriced, but gamestop is killing the gaming industry.