Video: game consoles stored in Gamestop bathroom
By Darren Murph 
posted Sep 28th 2008 11:28AM
posted Sep 28th 2008 11:28AM
[Thanks, gamestopped]
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That's just nasty.
*ATTENTION* All GameStop employees are required to wash their consoles before returning to work.
If those were WII's no one would be complaining.
Other places do it too, trust me.
What happens to the consoles on the bottom when the toilet over floods from an "oversized load"?
Always wondered how GameStop is able to stock so many consoles in those puny little stores. Guess we finally know where now.
Damn. Now I'll have to stop giving my consoles to kids for use as a teething toy.
Hey waiter, that sign in the bathroom about washing your hands, that's for the staff only, right?
they pulled the video, i don't blame them. can't just flush all your problems away gamestop!
Pennsylvania Gamestops are like this, next time I buy a game, I'll take a pic or vid of the bathroom! They are stacked like firewood in there!
If I worked at Gamestop and had to take an epic dump I would grab a console box for some bathroom reading. I'm sure someone has done so already.
This isn't uncommon at all, lots of Game & Gamestop type stores are being forced into using any space available as storage due to mainly the Wii and its bazillion add-ons, Rock band and up-coming GH:WT - my mates work has had to close its retro area down to make more storage space.
Oh yeah - for those that think this is just an American problem, I'm from England, Birmingham to be more precise, and most of my mates work in game based stores (Game, Gamestop, CEX and Gamestation). All of them have at some point stored games or consoles in the toilets.
Thats not ONLY in the US!!!!
In Gamestop germany are the same conditions
at least at the Xmas sesason
I wonder if they have cameras in the bathrooms to protect those. o.O
@Blackstar
Especially Carl...
A suppose a person could smuggle one out of the store in such a way that only a full body cavity search would yield results.
I used to manage a gamestop in south carolina and we did this all the time; however I installed shelving to keep the systems from squishing the boxes. this was done as "added security" as the bathroom door could be locked, then if someone broke in to steal the systems they would think the store was out of the really expensive ones.
oh, and yes there was a camera pointed at the bathroom, and no the tapes were never changed, and the system was not ever on the entire time I worked there. only the DM had the key, but you could open the recording system's case with a screw driver)
Eh. I worked for the company when It was funcoland, and then as gamestop. We stored almost everything in the bathroom, and barely used the bathroom as a bathroom. Small stock room. Whatcha gonna do.
The EB Games I worked at did the same thing. Nasty is right.
I was a Assistant Manager for GameStop, and this is not an uncommon practice. i worked in several stores and the back storage rooms are never very big. All kinds of things are stored in the employee bathroom
lol... all kinds of things...
Well this is great news, I wont buy my next game system at gamestop :P hehe Since i'm a germ freak :P
Don't buy batteries from Radio Shack, we used to keep em in the bathroom too...
Boxes for the display phones too, right? ;)
This is suprisingly common in small shops. Whether its a video game shop, or bike shop, or paintball shop. The paintball shop i used to hang out at had merchandise in the bathroom, there just isnt space anywhere else. Oh, and the sink was broken from too much weight and abuse on it...if you know what i mean.
Ppft thats nothing, we use the cystern to store games
A certain Lenscrafters I used to work for stored all kinds of things in the bathroom. Eyeglass cases, safety frame side shields, promotional material, and worst of all, contact lens cases. Yup, all that stuff near your eyes? Totally within a few feet of multiple pounds of poop.
This is true, i used to work at multiple gamestops, and they never built enough storage space, so the bathrooms always turned into the storage rooms. We never used the bathrooms though since they were full of crap.
lol nice pun.
Yup, I worked in an EB Games and that's exactly how it was. The back stores in some EB's are very small, especially those in malls. So in the end, we'd have no choice but to put some stock in the washroom.
Yup, same here. When I was in high school working at EB Games in NJ, they stored a whole bunch of merchandise, including consoles, in the employee bathroom.
Its not just the Xboxs with Red Rings of Death in that bathroom...
You sir just made my day xD
could someone throw in a stack of hdtvs as well, i'm gonna be awhile...
one more... maybe they should rename the store Pitstop.
EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nice to know people take their camera to the bathroom.
Judging by most of the people I've seen hanging out in Gamestop playing those demo consoles I'd have to say that while yes, their hands were in that general area, they were not in fact going to the bathroom.
that's kinda nasty man.
SOFA
What stops somebody from going in there and walking out with one? I can see somebody walking in there with a backpack and leaving an empty box.
im pretty sure its the employee bathroom, in the back of the store. but you have a good point.
Just say you're the plumber, they'll never see it coming
Nope.
1. Employee-only bathroom.
2. Cameras outside the bathroom, both in the back room where the bathroom is and in the main store.
3. You can't leave through the back room, and even if you could...
4. Before leaving the store (for any reason), Gamestop employees have to turn out all their pockets, lift up their pant legs, pull back their shirt sleeves, and empty their backpacks in front of another employee and in view of a camera.
If you think you can get a system out of that store unnoticed, you're crazy.
it reminds me of that seinfeld episode where George takes the book in the bathroom ..............anyone else remember that one?
The consoles have been flagged!
Neebs scores extra points for the obscure Seinfeld reference!
YES
Wouldn't having the Wiis there been more appropriate?
no, I think storing the x-boxes there is quite appropriate
Only if the bathroom is actually called the "Playstation."
He He, Well I own a Wii. I was just meaning by the name "wii" not because it is an inferior product. ;-)
Can't store a Wii there cuz they are simply always sold out =).
Yet another reason to never buy anything from Gamestrep. Err... Stop.
My local Gamestop doesn't price match. That's long been a deal breaker for me.
Suddenly, many teen's asses appear much larger as they exit the bathroom. And somewhat blocky.
newbie
Yep, I to was an Assitant Manager at your local friendly neighborhood GameStop. And, yes, like everyone else has stated, it is a practice found in almost every store. Unfortunately....
I used to work at Gamestop and it's actually company policy to store as much stock as possible in the bathroom - even if there's room available elsewhere in the store. Top management are even considering moving cash-registers into bathrooms to make it easier for customers to choose and pay for their consoles.
I bet someone is going to ask to use the bathroom (a customer) and say that if they don't go now, then there baby is going to shit on the floor because it's still being potty trained. Then they will go in and steal a bunch of PSP's and DS's (PS3 and 360 = too big to steal). Then it will be on the news.
I'm sure they use the employee's bathroom to store things. Not the customers bathroom.
actually, your right...but the only way that will happen is if store staff is stupider than the thieves steeling the merchandise in the first place, totally plausible though..shoplifting has many ways of execution..and that may very much be one of them
Slow news day?
No, just engadget.
Uh... yeah. Midday on a Sunday in the US? Not a whole lot of tech news going on.
Yeah this totally happens. However, depending on the local regulations, most store have two bathrooms. At the stores I have worked one is turned into storage and the other is used normally. Also, in general customers can't get in the store. In a related note, a different chain I worked for had the toilets back up on the day of the Xbox 1 release. The console boxes were in a larger box, which got wet, and we had to carefully dry the console boxes off before we opened. Oops! never lick your console boxes. EVER!
1. Ask to use the bathroom
2. Steal console
3. ????? in the bathroom
4. Sell it back for profit!
1. Cut a hole in the box...
well the boxes will have germs, not the consoles themselves. unless they use the manuals to wipe ...... eghhhh
i can confirm that my gamestop did this.......
Agreed with everyone else that has worked at Gamestop. The backrooms are so small, and we stored all sorts of stuff in the bathrooms, above the bathrooms, in the crawlspaces, under desks, behind doors, on the safe, etc etc etc. It was a small ass store.
Nice thing about it being cluttered, lots of things "went missing"
I raped that store of all it was worth. And I was a Manager, Ahahahahaha.
1. Be a Manager
2. Hire People You Know
3. ????
4. PROFIT!
Boardroom at GameStop HQ:
"Shall we give the employees a raise?"
"No sir, we can't. We just can't afford it. With theft eating into our profit margins, there just isn't the money."
And this is why Jerk, that you will work for minimum wage the rest of your life.
hahahaha lol
Considering that GameStop has been posting record income for the past year or so, I think that a bit of theft isn't holding them back from giving raises to the lower-level employees...
lol yea and if ur caught u get a felony awosme to have on your record and btw even if you leave and they find out afterwards they can still come after you!
Haha, you're serious, right? Have you been inside some of the smaller, mall-based EB/GameStops? The size of their back room is smaller than your bathroom at home, and the only choice they have is to store their stuff in their bathroom. I was in management at an EB (before GameStop took us over) for a year, and being a store in a mall, we ALWAYS stored stuff in the bathroom, whether it be marketing, games, accessories or consoles themselves. This doesn't at all suprise me, but what does suprise me is that somebody hadn't broken the "news" on this years ago...
You know the most ironic thing? Looking back at it, I don't know why we couldn't have at least put something on the floor beneath the systems (or games, or accessories). Hell, our store, if you ever BOUGHT anything from us, the receipt paper that your receipt was printed on was ALWAYS stored in the bathroom.
Just letting you know that your hands probably have more germs than a bathroom.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
So thats what that is...:(
Microsoft Customer Service:
"Sir, once again, we do not ship shit-infested 360's for laughs. Check if your hardware's up to date."
mine told me to update the firmware
"Besides, what d'ya think you have an immune system for? It's for killing germs! But it needs practice, it needs germs to practice on. So if you kill all the germs around you, and live a completely sterile life, then when germs do come along, you're not gonna be prepared. And never mind ordinary germs, what are you gonna do when some super virus comes along that turns your vital organs into liquid sh*t?! I'll tell you what your gonna do ... you're gonna get sick. You're gonna die and your gonna deserve it because you're f**king weak and you got a f**kin' weak immune system!"
-- George Carlin
The blatant grammatical errors (your/you're) are not mine. I should have known better than to just copy/paste off of someone else's site. :/
I'm a fan of this mentality, but the store now has massive pubilcity problem. Retailers should not be stocking next to the toilet! If it were a walled-off area that allowed the cleaning of the toilet without wetting consoles, I'm for it.
Radioshack kept a lot of holiday merchandise in the bathroom due to small backrooms. The more you know.
Yes, This is true. I used to work at eb games/gamestop and i can tell you i've taken many a dump next to your ps2/xbox/gamecube....
Time to sanitize thy consoles and controllers...
File under: Who cares?
Engadget is full of girly man :\
I worked for gamestop.....and yes, we did this as well.
I actually don't care that much...
I mean... what is the big difference between walking out of the bathroom and picking up a console stacked right next to the door or something? What really matters is whether people wash their hands or not...
People get freaked out about this stuff but never think about how many hands all this stuff has gone through just to get to the store in the first place. If you're really worried just throw away the box when you get home.
I'm no clean freak, but a bathroom is no place to put items for sale. They are supposed to be able to go in there once a week and bleach the whole room down.
Would you like eating at a restaurant where they kept the lettuce in boxes on the bathroom floor? "It gets washed before it's served!"
I don't eat/lick/ingest my console...
But even then... who picked it? Who wrapped it? Who shuffled them about?
And how do you know they weren't scratching their butt crack when they're doing it? So yes the most important thing is that it gets washed...
It's not the consoles, it's the boxes.
That get germs on them I mean.
I used to work at RadioShack when I was younger, and in one of our stores we had a lot of merchandise in the bathroom. We even had a peg wall so we could hang hooks on it and hang back-stock (like what you see on the sales floor).
Is it me or do a lot off people work/worked for gamestop on this site?
I'd say a disproportionate amount, if you were comparing it to a non-technology related website.
1) A LOT of people read Engadget
2) A lot of people have worked for GameStop at some point
The intersection of those two groups is probably a sizable number. I'm not surprised.