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And to be completely fair there are jobs with weird hours that can allow someone to work full-time and still have the middle of the day free. I work 40 full hours a week, but in several shifts that last all night. I'm off right now through next Wednesday so it's totally possible for me to go to a game store at 2 pm tomorrow and still say I'm an adult pulling my weight in society because I am. Now most game store nerds don't have that arrangement obviously, but my point is more that work schedules aren't universal. Don't be too hasty to condemn.
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Jul 19, 2017 20:38
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I don't comprehend how you could afford hobbies like MtG or Warhammer without a full-time job.
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Jul 19, 2017 20:50
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Deified Data posted:I don't comprehend how you could afford hobbies like MtG or Warhammer without a full-time job. Living rent-free with parents while having a part-time job. Don't ask me how I know this.
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Jul 19, 2017 20:51
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Basebf555 posted:I was responding to the guy who said he has to constantly protect his kids from older people who are trying to rip them off when playing(of all things)Pokémon. The reason they take the game so seriously is because if they don't, that means they're spending all day every day playing a game for children, which is something they don't want to accept. You're working on the assumptions that 1) the events happened in the middle of the week and not on the weekend. Since school age children are attending and not, ya know, in school, the weekend seems more likely. 2) 9-5 jobs are the only types of respectable jobs for an adult to have. 3) the assholes in question were in fact, unemployed. Because of that your rant about unemployed gonards came out of nowhere and caught some people off guard. I'm not debating the unemployment rate of social rejects, only stating that you made a bunch of assumptions that not everyone else made rendering your vitriol surprising. Also you don't need to censor the word gently caress. edit- beaten like an 14 yo at a pokemon tournament. TheSmilingJackal has a new favorite as of 21:01 on Jul 19, 2017 |
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Jul 19, 2017 20:58
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mind the walrus posted:Now most game store nerds don't have that arrangement obviously, but my point is more that work schedules aren't universal. Don't be too hasty to condemn. I thought this was the thread where I'm allowed to hastily condemn? Anyway, having a job is just the first thing I thought of that adults should probably prioritize over gaming. Sure, maybe that immature rear end in a top hat 25 year old with BO who's at the Pokémon tourney actually has his overall priorities in order but the odds aren't good. Edit: I do realize now that if a father is taking his kid to a tournament, it's probably on a weekend. Definitely didn't think that one through, sorry to all the employed Pokémon players who are reading this right now. Basebf555 has a new favorite as of 21:07 on Jul 19, 2017 |
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Jul 19, 2017 21:02
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It's more the assumptions that come from ripping off kids instead of thinking "I'll not be a terrible person and just buy this card online for like 5$ when I order Grubhub later" that leads people to think they don't have money/a job.
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Jul 19, 2017 21:08
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Grem posted:So, I may have mentioned this before, but I take my kids to a Pokemon League thing at my local nerd store. It's certainly not my scene, and I am appalled at the poo poo that my kids have to put up with and situations I'm constantly pulling them out of. The adults there playing try to get my kids to put up pretty expensive cards as prizes for games. Playing with different rules than the ones they know. Telling my son he can't help my daughter (who isn't old enough to read well enough to fully understand what's going on). Holy poo poo man, this is a kid's game with little cartoon creatures. Chill the gently caress out. More than once I've had to interrupt some greasy dude's attempt to scam my kid out of a card that was put up as a prize for a game that was played with rules that my son has never played with before. I've had to take my son's cards out of dudes hands. I gotta find a new place to take them. Serious talk - does the store owner know about this / have you tried bringing it up with him? If he knows people are trying to shark your kids out of cards and is doing nothing about it, you should look for different stores in the area because that behavior is unacceptable. I can't claim my LGS is free of shady bullshit but I cannot imagine anyone trying to con literal children of out Pokemon cards and being tolerated.
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Jul 19, 2017 21:42
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Aesop Poprock posted:One of the malls near me has two gamestops for some reason on different floors but I went there like a year back to get my cousin a game for Christmas and there was a really attractive girl working there who was super into games and engaging and was talking to me about what I like to play etc. I'm gay but even with that I was trying to seem as not creepy as possible because I can only imagine the amounts of poo poo she probably has to deal with dude like, you can just talk to people without being terrified about being a creep all the time it's what non-creeps do every single day
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Jul 19, 2017 22:05
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Voyager I posted:Serious talk - does the store owner know about this / have you tried bringing it up with him? If he knows people are trying to shark your kids out of cards and is doing nothing about it, you should look for different stores in the area because that behavior is unacceptable. Reminds me of when I temporarily swapped my Pokemon Blue cartridge with someone at school for a Pokemon Red one, forgotten why, I think it had an endgame save or something, but then when I went to swap back the next day the fucker had sold the cartridge that I'd lent him. I have better friends now.
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Jul 19, 2017 22:19
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Aesop Poprock posted:One of the malls near me has two gamestops for some reason on different floors but I went there like a year back to get my cousin a game for Christmas and there was a really attractive girl working there who was super into games and engaging and was talking to me about what I like to play etc. I'm gay but even with that I was trying to seem as not creepy as possible because I can only imagine the amounts of poo poo she probably has to deal with Clearly the answer was to then play up the gay as much as possible; limp wrists, effeminate lisp, start ogling the make game characters openly, etc. It would have been the only sure way you had to be safe, obv.
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Jul 19, 2017 22:55
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Most of my nerd store experiences have been fine; I seem to give off a real leave-me-alone-don't-even-look-at-me vibe everywhere I go. But several years ago (I was a baby-faced 18) I did go to a GameStop or somewhere similar and picked up a couple of Soul Reaver action figures because I was seriously in love with that game at the time. And at the register, the nerd cashier picked them up gingerly, gave me a suspicious look and said, "Uhhhhh, you're not going to actually play with these, are you?" To this day I'm still baffled. Like, okay, what if I was a 7-year-old who wanted to play with the toys I'd just bought? So the gently caress what? I told him, "Yeah, Kain and Barbie are going on a hot date," and I never got the drat magazine subscription I signed up for.
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Jul 19, 2017 23:17
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The Malibu Reaver.
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Jul 19, 2017 23:26
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gently caress, like yeah I'm obviously going to play with them. Why else do you buy a toy?
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Jul 19, 2017 23:26
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Basebf555 posted:Anyway, having a job is just the first thing I thought of that adults should probably prioritize over gaming. 
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Jul 20, 2017 05:02
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I remember some discussion concluding that a lot of nerd stores assume they need to hire someone with nerdy interests first, when you're really better off hiring someone who can do the selling part of the job and can be taught what a Nintendo is. As for the unemployment thing, remember that in much of the world it's getting increasingly difficult for young people to get a job at all, especially if you don't know the right people. Playing children's card games is at least something to do with your time.
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Jul 20, 2017 05:52
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Voyager I posted:Serious talk - does the store owner know about this / have you tried bringing it up with him? If he knows people are trying to shark your kids out of cards and is doing nothing about it, you should look for different stores in the area because that behavior is unacceptable. He's too busy running a loving D&D game, like literally GM'ing while the Pokemon people are there. After this last weekend I'm done with the place. If I do go back it will probably end with a physical altercation and hopefully I can get some hands on whoever it is before he pulls out his hanzo steel. And yea, it's on Sundays guys, sorry for all of that! I'm sure they have minimum wage jobs somewhere because I can't see many of these people doing well in society. Richard Bong posted:It's more the assumptions that come from ripping off kids instead of thinking "I'll not be a terrible person and just buy this card online for like 5$ when I order Grubhub later" that leads people to think they don't have money/a job. Seriously, my kid has some decent cards but they're all from his allowance and I think the most expensive one is like, $15? Three week's worth of chores, less if he does some extra. Why not just hit the ATM before coming to the store and buy something? Grem has a new favorite as of 09:14 on Jul 20, 2017 |
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Jul 20, 2017 09:09
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Grem posted:Why not just hit the ATM before coming to the store and buy something? Because if I scam the cards off of a child, I have those cards AND I can spend my cash on more cards! AND I will have gotten one over on someone today, which may be the only time this month I get to feel superior to anyone in any way!
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Jul 20, 2017 15:10
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Inescapable Duck posted:I remember some discussion concluding that a lot of nerd stores assume they need to hire someone with nerdy interests first, when you're really better off hiring someone who can do the selling part of the job and can be taught what a Nintendo is. Most comic/game stores need at least one person who really knows a specific thing and then a couple part timers who are just aware of those things.
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Jul 20, 2017 15:32
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Tiggum posted:How do you know they don't? It's entirely possible to have a full-time job and also be a game-obsessed weirdo who tries to scam children. I just wasn't paying close enough attention to the specific story the guy was telling, but in general the discussion here involved those guys who just seem to always be hanging out at the game store for multiple hours a day every single day or multiple times a week. It seems like every lovely game store has a crop of these people.
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Jul 20, 2017 15:41
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So I work some of the slower shifts at the local barcade, and while I'm happy to report that the customer base is generally more hygienic and less creepy than I expected, I have had a few moments. Every bartender has to watch some first dates go poorly, but the ones I witness always seem especially sad. I've spent many afternoons keeping someone company while their date loudly "schools" 10-year-olds at Mario Kart, to the point that they're not even distinct in my memory anymore. What's even sadder is when the offender inevitably notices their date talking to me, and starts glaring without even putting down their controller. As soon as the race ends, though, they jump right into the conspicuous PDA without fail. As for gross, there's the requisite vomiting that comes with any establishment that serves beer. I generally avoid that, as I rarely work past 9 PM. What I don't avoid are the special events, which are always an interesting experience. Twice during my shift we've held a Super Smash Brothers 64 tournament. The first time we held it I was certain we'd be overrun with basement goblins but the crowd was full of stereotypical bros. I didn't mind at all because even though they were obnoxious they kept the energy up, bought a ton of beer, and didn't smell like poo poo. Unfortunately, this really only set me up for disappointment. The second time. A menagerie of body odor. A thousand memes, loudly sung. Countless beady eyes cast in unbroken stares at my coworker's chest. A perceived slight escalating to physical altercation; two latex gloves filled with a bathtub's worth of cottage cheese, rolling and slapping on the floor. Horrors. Horrors. Riatsala has a new favorite as of 17:55 on Jul 20, 2017 |
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Jul 20, 2017 16:50
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When I was like 13 I was playing soul calibur at an arcade while my cousin was watching me and some neckbeard with a ponytail challenged me to a fight. In the game I mean he wasn't actually trying to fight a 13 year old. Anyway I kicked his rear end with Kilik like badly and this grown man threw a napoleon dynamite esque hissy fit and stormed away and my cousin thought I was the coolest person on earth for a day. That and beating the arcade x-men game with some random kid when I was around 7 are probably my favorite arcade memories
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Jul 20, 2017 16:58
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Riatsala posted:So I work some of the slower shifts at the local barcade, and while I'm happy to report that the customer base is generally more hygienic and less creepy than I expected, I have had a few moments. Poetry
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Jul 20, 2017 17:04
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Every kid who grew up in that era has a fond memory of the first time they got through an entire beat-em-up in an arcade and if they don't they really loving should. Mine was The Simpsons followed closely after by Turtles In Time. Never did beat X-men. It wasn't just the game difficulty. It was finding a cabinet that worked, on a day you had enough quarters, and while your parents were chill enough to let you hang out at a cabinet for long enough to win, and if you were lucky some stranger you synced with. Ah nostalgia.
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Jul 20, 2017 17:05
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mind the walrus posted:Every kid who grew up in that era has a fond memory of the first time they got through an entire beat-em-up in an arcade and if they don't they really loving should. Mine was The Simpsons followed closely after by Turtles In Time. Never did beat X-men. The kid was probably right around my age and I was helping him out with quarters near the end. When we beat magneto we literally screamed "YES!" And did a white kid jumping high five it was the most 90s thing possible and I was buzzed by it for days
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Jul 20, 2017 17:11
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mind the walrus posted:Every kid who grew up in that era has a fond memory of the first time they got through an entire beat-em-up in an arcade and if they don't they really loving should. Mine was The Simpsons followed closely after by Turtles In Time. Never did beat X-men. Xmen is bullshit because you had a super power that drained your health and caused you to die so you'd feed more quarters into the machine
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Jul 20, 2017 17:19
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Fried Watermelon posted:Xmen is bullshit because you had a super power that drained your health and caused you to die so you'd feed more quarters into the machine Didn't turtles in time and simpsons have that same thing? But yeah I remember i had like $5 in quarters and it took most of that to make it through the game considering I was giving some to the other kid. My mom worked at GAP and we didn't have a babysitter so she'd usually just give me money and I'd wander around the mall for hours til she was done
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Jul 20, 2017 17:23
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X-men also had really crap physics. People just liked it because the graphics were really good and the 6 player cabinet was  as all living gently caress. It also used a style immediately before the Jim Lee era so it stood out even more. Turtles in Time and The Simpsons didn't do the power drain thing iirc. Turtles had really infrequent spin move pickups, but was mostly about throws and melee range. The Simpsons had these 2 player combos you could do where the two of your characters would pair up and run train on the screen, but I never figured out how to do them.
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Jul 20, 2017 17:28
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that reminds me, LAN centres used to be a thing in the early 2000s when some people still might've had dial-up or a home computer that couldn't run CS/WCIII/whatever, these were some pretty loving nerdy places most of the time since you were essentially paying 3 dollars to play games on a desktop computer for an hour but these places could also get pretty sketchy in the sense that grown-rear end men would come in and mingle physically with teens and pre-teens with very little oversight or structure unlike at a card tournament or whatever, in general there tended to be at least a few skeevy older dudes trying to swindle (or worse) dumb teenagers at peak hours, like i watched a 30+ year old man come up and tell my 14 year old friend how sexy he thought girls who play games were and maybe they could meet elsewhere?  i know of another incident where an older man was busted for selling drugs at another nearby LAN centre at around this time i inherited a really nice antique watch from my grandpa, i was pretty young at the time but i was also pretty diligent about taking good care of it so i'd earned the right to wear it casually instead of just for formal events, i left it with the clerk at the front because i normally take it off when i'm at a keyboard and i was too paranoid to just jam it in my pocket, i asked for it back a couple hours later and the clerk actually had the wherewithal to say i never gave him anything - i bought in my dad to hash things out and the clerk just repeated himself, saying i never gave him anything and that i was probably lying and lost it some other dumb way
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Jul 20, 2017 17:57
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Aesop Poprock posted:My mom worked at GAP and we didn't have a babysitter so she'd usually just give me money and I'd wander around the mall for hours til she was done I wish I'd had a situation like that at some point, but my arcade time always seemed to be on a clock or a strict limit on how many quarters I was allowed to spend. There was never an arcade within walking distance of my house where I could just go there and hang out for hours and hours, it was always like "sure you can run into that arcade and play a few games but then we're walking down to Boardwalk fries so here's 8 quarters." Sadly I never was able to complete X-men or The Simpsons for that reason. I don't think I had what it took to beat X-Men anyway, that game always kicked my rear end pretty quickly.
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Jul 20, 2017 18:03
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mind the walrus posted:Turtles in Time and The Simpsons didn't do the power drain thing iirc. Turtles had really infrequent spin move pickups, but was mostly about throws and melee range. The Simpsons had these 2 player combos you could do where the two of your characters would pair up and run train on the screen, but I never figured out how to do them. It may have been dependent on which dip switches the arcade owner decided to flip. I think I've played TMNT or Simpsons with power drain, but I'm not sure. Definitely played some cabinets where you only get like 2 lives per coin though. And shortly stopped playing. Konami definitely perfected their formula with those 3 games though. As long as the arcade owner didn't activate those BS settings, they were just difficult enough to keep you inserting coins without being discouraging ripoffs.
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Jul 20, 2017 19:18
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Yeah i played those games way too much too. The one time i beat x-men was extra rad because I jumped in on a game where the other 5 slots were already in play. We drew a crowd. Felt like King poo poo for the day.
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Jul 20, 2017 19:46
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mind the walrus posted:on a day you had enough quarters, If you're not beating it on one credit, you're just playing it until you win, scrub.  When I was 16 I went to a comic book store to buy Jhonen Vasquez (Invader Zim) comics, this was before Hot Topic had gone pure grimdark. The guy behind the counter was playing some CCG with his friends and when I asked for help and told him what I was looking for, his response was "That sounds pretty loving stupid." and went back to his game.  To be fair,  they were pretty loving stupid... but dude, you don't own that shop, it's a franchise, sell your products.
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Jul 20, 2017 19:51
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Quad posted:they were pretty loving stupid... but dude, you don't own that shop, it's a franchise, sell your products. I hate this poo poo. Whether you own the shop or not, in most circumstances telling a patron what they're looking for is stupid or not worth reading is going to dissuade them from trying anything at all (and not spend a cent in your store)! ESPECIALLY if it's a kid/teen. My old manager friend definitely had his biases and preferences but would ask people "what do you currently read/watch/play/etc" and try and recommend something in that vein, even if he personally thought it was trash. Not just for sales, but because once that relationship was built over time he could recommend better quality stuff the reader would still enjoy, sometimes leading them to becoming more open to different genres, writers, artists, and so on. The only time he tried to put his foot down were the rare creeps who wanted super-explicit porn/hentai crap; the scummy owner who usually couldn't be arsed to do any work would demand it be ordered anyway and discretely sold out of sight of any kids/families (the place had a strong rep as a "family" store, owner knew he couldn't openly cross a line or he'd lose business). Tangentially related, but I'm reminded of how the owner would order whatever looked like it could sell but the manager and his coworker buddy would be drat sure anything skeevy or gross was displayed on higher shelves/pegs, effectively keeping it out of line of sight of little kids. Anyone remember the McFarlane Toys series based on Clive Barker content? Or the potentially worse Circus line? All six feet from the floor, ick!
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Jul 20, 2017 20:41
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I haven't read JtHM in years but I'll always remember it fondly. It's pretty fun when you're 15.
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Jul 20, 2017 20:44
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Quad posted:If you're not beating it on one credit, you're just playing it until you win, scrub. I had the opposite experience with this, actually. A friend had shown me some pages of JTHM, so I went to the mall comic/game store and, the guy actually told me that it was a decent comic, and recommended me some similar stuff. And this was a guy who owned the store, not some franchise manager. There was actually a store more local than that one to me, but the guy who owned and operated that one was the type who would taunt you if you weren't knowledgeable about the history of whatever comic you were buying, or if you were getting, god forbid, manga. He also took time to tell his customer how cool he was for yelling at teen at conventions, and about the time he totally slammed a guy into the side of his building when he tried to steal from his store, and all that type of fun stuff. There was a woman who worked there back when I was a kid, and she was probably the nicest person I've dealt with in a comic shop, and once she left, I stopped going just so I wouldn't have to deal with the shithead owner.
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Jul 20, 2017 20:53
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Grem posted:He's too busy running a loving D&D game, like literally GM'ing while the Pokemon people are there. After this last weekend I'm done with the place. If I do go back it will probably end with a physical altercation and hopefully I can get some hands on whoever it is before he pulls out his hanzo steel. If you're already set on not going back, laying out some shitsack who steals cards from children seems like a decent way to make your exit.
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Jul 20, 2017 21:47
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Oh, we're talking about a-hole owners now? This kinda fits into the topic, but my local college town used to have an absolutely rad video rental place, totally full of all the weird, rare, and gonzo type stuff that you'd never find at Blockbuster. That's what they specialized in in fact. I really miss the place, but they totally weren't able to survive the death of VHS. Anyways, the staff was mostly all cool folks, but the owner himself was the biggest pompous rear end. This puny guy that looked about 14 but was probably in his mid 40s at least, that would take any possible chance to talk down to you if he thought he knew something you didn't, even when he was wrong. Like, he did it in a tone where it was clear he hated his customers. One time they were playing a remix of a song I recognized by Pet Shop Boys in the store and as I was a fan, I asked the clerk if it was the new remix album that had come out, by the album's name. The owner had to shout across the store in the snottiest tone that no, it was the Pet Shop Boys. The clerk then, embarrassed told me that it was from a bonus disc from a recent reissue instead, as it was his album and he was enough of a fan to know I obviously knew the artist. But the dude would do that for every. little. thing. he heard and made people feel so unwelcome there.
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Jul 21, 2017 03:13
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SUPERMAN'S GAL PAL posted:I hate this poo poo. Whether you own the shop or not, in most circumstances telling a patron what they're looking for is stupid or not worth reading is going to dissuade them from trying anything at all (and not spend a cent in your store)! ESPECIALLY if it's a kid/teen. My old manager friend definitely had his biases and preferences but would ask people "what do you currently read/watch/play/etc" and try and recommend something in that vein, even if he personally thought it was trash. Not just for sales, but because once that relationship was built over time he could recommend better quality stuff the reader would still enjoy, sometimes leading them to becoming more open to different genres, writers, artists, and so on. The only time he tried to put his foot down were the rare creeps who wanted super-explicit porn/hentai crap; the scummy owner who usually couldn't be arsed to do any work would demand it be ordered anyway and discretely sold out of sight of any kids/families (the place had a strong rep as a "family" store, owner knew he couldn't openly cross a line or he'd lose business). Secret Empire has made me into the biggest liar. People ask me daily if it's good and I tell every single one of them YES IT'S AMAZING.
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Jul 21, 2017 03:26
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Jordan7hm posted:The motherf*ckers don't even work. That's why they're out at the f*ckin' game. They oughta go out and get a f*ckin' job and find out what it's like to go out and earn a f*ckin' living. Eighty-five percent of the f*ckin' world is working. The other fifteen percent come out here. A f*ckin' playground for the cocks*ckers. If I loan you $250, will you go out to the nearest game store and buy a U?
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Jul 21, 2017 04:22
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Riatsala posted:
This whole post was amazing, and I'd like more, but especially I want to hear a detailed blow by blow of the whole story of this.
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Jul 21, 2017 04:30
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