Brandon McInnis, who voices the male protagonist Alear in Fire Emblem Engage, couldn’t get the game’s deluxe edition after GameStop failed to honor pre-orders. McInnis posted about his frustrations on Twitter, where he said the problem stemmed from the company selling too many pre-orders, despite knowing they wouldn’t have the stock to fill each one.
McInnis said GameStop originally delayed the order and then called to say they simply wouldn’t be filling it. He managed to get a Divine Edition from a reseller on eBay, though.
“It irks me that people gave money to GameStop believing they’d get a copy of something special to them and were duped,” McInnis said on Twitter. “Just wanna let y’all know to save y’all some grief when a game that’s really important to you drops in the future!”
Lol @GameStop just called to let me know that my preorder of the Divine Edition of Fire Emblem Engage sadly won’t be fulfilled because corporate had them selling preorders without guaranteed stock. I voice the lead in the game.
— Brandon McInnis (@BranMci) January 26, 2023
The pre-order situation is something other GameStop shoppers and even employees said they sympathized with all too easily. One commenter said she used to work at the store and was surprised that, 10 years later, they were still required to sell pre-orders when they knew they wouldn’t be able to fill them.
Woooow. Also I definitely remember this happening with other games back when I worked there and being so glad to have a manager that was like “we’re not doing that.”
I haven’t worked there since 2012 I can’t believe they still do this 🙃🙃🙃
— 💖 Magically Bri 💖 (@BrichibiTweets) January 27, 2023
Another said that when they worked at the retail chain in 2006, it was a constant struggle to convince management that reserved copies should actually stay reserved and not sold to whoever walked in the door.
In June 2022, an entire staff roster at a store in Lincoln, Nebraska, quit and posted a notice on the store door encouraging people to shop elsewhere. The former employees cited unreasonable sales quotas – including pre-orders – as one of the main reasons.
Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF
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