Busting Out the GameStop Voice

Words have power, which is true whether you’re a wizard or just a register jockey at GameStop.

We’ve all heard the “Dad Voice,” a stern and authoritative tone that lets you know you’re in trouble just by the way your Dad says your name. As chronicled by Scott Jones in Issue 276 of The Escapist, former videogame retail minion Ben reveals that there’s also a “GameStop Voice” – authorative, but polite, so not to set off the crazy people.

One truly valuable skill I gained during my stint behind the counter was that I learned how to talk to strangers in a way that made them actually listen to me. I learned how to say “No” without seeming rude, learned how to get a crowd of people to line up in an orderly fashion during the holiday season; even learned how to effectively ask sugared-up children to stop running and screaming around the store.

Decades from now, I’ll gather my kids or maybe my grandkids around – kids no older than the scamps who stole the Hey You, Pikachu! headset-cartridge combo that day – and tell them stories about my time behind the counter. And they’ll listen, of course, because what I will tell them will be interesting and strange and dramatic, and because I’ll be telling them using my GameStop voice.

You can read more about the GameStop voice, and about a young criminal’s fleeting dalliance with Pokemon-based larceny, in the final part of “Confessions of a GameStop Employee.”