GameStop — Local services in Athens

I've always enjoyed this location and its employees. They are a knowledgeable group of folks who show enthusiasm for the current and upcoming product.

In response to the other reviews:

Wait times? Sure. It is the only "real" game store in an almost 30 mile radius and they stay steadily busy. This is probably why the phone wasn't picked up. In my opinion, the customers that are actually in the store are more important than someone calling. Also, there's usually only one employee working the entire store. That one person can't cater to everyone.

As for trades? Sure. Your game decreases in value. But just because it's a newer game doesn't mean that the company hasn't received other copies of that pre-owned game. Supply and demand.

Trade values being higher at another location? That's an ridiculous lie. They are corporately owned and two stores in the same district are not going to have different trade values.

Also, keep your games in good condition or no fees will be applied. A refurb fee, yes. But no fictitious "stocking fee."

Visit another location if you want. Saving money by using fuel is probably a good idea for someone who doesn't understand math. Go ahead. Drive to Maryville. Because that's a smart thing to do.

The staff has always been nice to me. Maybe it's just the personality of the customer that is causing a bad shopping experience. I would expect to have a bad experience too if I made outrageous claims.

Anyway, if you want a FRIENDLY staff, visit the Athens, TN Gamestop. It's a good store for those who don't whine or lie.

Also, the food...

I drove 40 miles to this location because years past experiences there were great. Unfortunately, this is no longer the case. The store itself needed tidying up badly. I arrived at noon on a Wednesday so the store shouldn't have looked like this. One worker, a lady, was behind the counter and didn't ask if we needed a thing or any other acknowledgement. However, she gushed compliments and helpfulness to the one other person in the store, a guy. I picked out my new controller and wanted to buy a couple of specific shirts, but couldn't find them due to the absolute mess the shirts were in. RiP my hopes for a Tokyo Ghoul and AOT shirt. The novelties were in same shape.

When I finally was able to check out after waiting for the flirtfest to end (he bought nothing by the way), the lady was overly uninterested in my purchase. I asked some questions about a new PS5, she was rude, patronizing and the furtherest thing from helpful. She quite obviously didn't care to sell an item that costs upwards of $600+ that day!! As little traffic as that store gets, they should be jumping at the chance to sell a high ticket item. But no. She was also unknowledgable about some newer games. A far cry from the staff that used to be here!

Needless to say, I drove 50+ miles the next day to buy my new console at an entirely...

During their "cash for games" promotion. I took a small stack of games to trade in and noticed as they were scanning them a "refurbishment fee" was showing up. When I asked about it they told me that some of the discs had to be resurfaced, and that came out of the trade-in value. When I asked why the price was different for every game, I was told that was just how they do it.

If it costs $0.12 for one disc to be resurfaced and $3.83 for another disc on the same system, in the same condition, then something's not right. Both games had the original cases and manuals in good condition, and both played just fine on my system. The difference was the resale value of the games. It takes only a short amount of time to put a game disc into a resurfacing machine, and dosn't cost anything beyond the initial purchase of the device.

I took my games back and put them up on Facebook Marketplace. Sold them all for between $2 and $10 each. Ended up earning $38 for the same games GameStop wanted to give me $6.35 for.

Besides their deceitful practices, the single employee I dealt with was friendly.

The prices are outrageous for some games, and they seem to have more pop-culture merchandise than actual video...