GAME Blows

GAME blows. I went shopping today for some of my PS3 games and visited the GAME outlet on Fitzroy Street. There, I saw Burnout Paradise Ultimate on offer at £9.99 with any other purchase in store. So, I bought another game along with this one. I handed my order over to a lady at the counter, let’s call her C. She had to go to the back to get my other game so she handed the other game to a colleague, let’s call him B.

B proceeded to retrieve the Burnout Paradise Ultimate from their drawer and placed it on their shelve. After a while, C returned with my other game and proceeded to ring the cashier. Then, another guy, let’s call him A, came out and told me that they no longer have Burnout Paradise Ultimate. I asked him about the game that B had already taken out of the drawer and he told me that it was another one. Seeing that there is another Burnout Paradise (non-ultimate) I left it at that and left the store.

A few minutes later, I decided to go find out the price of the non-ultimate version and so went back into the store. I approached C and asked her which one did they have in the drawer. She looked in and produced Burnout Paradise Ultimate! They lied to me! So, I asked her to ring it up for me at £9.99 with another purchase but she was unable to as the system would not take it. So, she had to call out her manager.

The manager told me that the offer had expired yesterday and that they were supposed to remove the offer from the shelve this morning. I pointed out that he had to honour the price on the shelf but he said that legally speaking, he does not need to sell me anything as long as money has not changed hands. So, he was legally right to refuse to sell me the game at £9.99.

Then, there is the issue of his staff lying to me. I proceeded to explain the situation to the manager since he was not present at the time. As for the staff, they ended up covering for each other. C claimed that she was at the back looking for my other game and so, was not privy to the whole affair, which was fair enough. B claimed that he took out the game but had some problem with it and asked A for help. A claimed that he did not see the game that B took out and assumed that it was the other version.

The manager put it down to a communications problem. Everyone is right, nobody is at fault and the customer gets screwed. Needless to say, I returned one of the other games that I got from them and took my money elsewhere. I had only picked up that game because I felt that £9.99 was cheap for Ultimate. So, I bought another £9.99 game in return. But I’m so never going back to GAME.

PS: I ended up getting the non-ultimate Ultimate one from Argos instead for £12.50. At least, they honour the prices in their catalogue!