Does GameStop close early due to midnight releases?

[Digital Phoenix]

I forgot to return Heavy Rain in time at GameStop... You know how you can return it within a week if you "don't like" a game and get a full refund if the game is already used? Yeah, well, I thought I rented it out last Tuesday, but I must have slipped my mind. I asked my father if he would return it in the morning, and he'll try.

My excuse is that GameStop closed early because of the midnight release of God of War III. Very convenient that the game is releasing today... However, I'm not sure how this is going to go over. One time when I was returning Killzone 2, it actually was closed early due to the Mass Effect 2 midnight release. I'm sure God of War III is big enough, but I want to confirm so my father doesn't look stupid when he walks in and straight-up lies to them.

Well, Heavy Rain is a fantastic game, and I'm sure having it in my collection would be nice... I don't know if I would ever play it again, though. I loved the game an awful lot, but not enough to warrant another playthrough.

So does anyone know?

[Blackmage]

It depends on the store and what preparations they haveta make for the launch. Out of the 40+ stores in the 50 mile radius of me, I know none of them ever close early for anything. Most cases, if they do have an event to prepare for, the worst they'll do is close at their normal closing time (9pm) and re-open at 10pm; all of us just stay open all the way through, as far as I know.

Depending on the manager, if you got it used and try to bring it back a day outside the return policy, you should at least be able to exchange it for something else with little to no problem. At least that's how I operate and have my people deal.

It's not like you're trying to bring back a new accessory after using it for a month and a half for a full refund... (Yes, that did happen, and I wanted to laugh in the guy's face.)

[Rye]

When I worked at Gamestop, they stayed open all the way through, if I recall correctly.

[bipper]

Depends on the store. Some will close early.

The real answer is, it depends on the person on duty. If they are a lazy piece of [gamer], they may close early just to get home.

[Jings]

I worked at a game store in the UK and we always closed at the normal time (around 17:30pm) before a midnight opening. Apparently Gamestop has more midnight releases than we do though, I'd have loved to have worked at a Mass Effect 2 one. I think I'm the only one that actually enjoyed going into work at midnight.

[Iceglow]

I work for HMV in the uk and we never close early for games released on midnight launches, in face we never closed early when the WoW Wrath of the lich king pack got launched, something what meant the store was basically Blizzard's bitch for the night seriously, staff members working were taking orders and forced to wear blizzard agreed clothing and doing things blizzard style. I know, I was one of them, though it still took 2 of the very pretty models in the store for the launch to persuade me to crush my spikes to wear the baseball cap with the "?" logo common to NPC's in the game environment. We closed at 21:00 and everything got set up in the remaining 2 hours to 11 then the customers were comming in. It was chaotic but we're flagship it's not the first and not the last time we've had big events we coped.

A day won't generally make a difference to most people the best thing to do is to appeal to their better nature remember these people are simply people and are not always assholes be nice and polite about it and they will be lenient with you they generally have the discetionary powers to do this.

In my opinion be honest and appeal to their nature if you lie to the assistant about their own store's actions, most likely worked they're going to not do you any favours. I certainly am an asshole to those who lie to me in the store.

Blackmage, I've had similar stuff in my place happen. I will simply say I didn't just want to laugh in the guys face, I did laugh in his face and then said "no" seriously I was just like "hahaha...no!" My boss was right next to me and just laughed at it he thought it was hillarious way to deal with the guy and so I got away with it totally scott-free.