The Oakland EB is a video game store. It sells video games. It's conveniently located across the street from The Upstage (that's the 3600 block of Forbes Avenue, kids).

• It sells video games. If you want to buy current video games, this is good.
• It sells used DVDs for some reason. Since the Oakland Dave's is out of business, I suppose it picks up the slack.
• "Instant" gratification. See cons for the reason behind the quotes.
• Convenient location. It's a quick walk from the museum, and a quicker walk from any Oakland- or Downtown-bound bus. It's a hell of a lot easier to get to than Target.
• It's not The Record Exchange, so there's no suspicious eyefucking or record store snobbery.

• "Instant" gratification means sales tax. You'll get that anywhere.
• Since they're a small shop, and nowhere nearly as cool as the old locally owned and operated video game store that used to be behind the Oakland Beehive, they only carry the current and reasonably current stuff.
• The service SUCKS.
  • TWENTY MINUTE WAIT IN LINE. Mostly because the previous exchanges all went like variants of mine:
  • (beginning of POS) "Do you have a discount card?" "No." "Do you know about them?" "Yes.*" "Do you want a discount card?" "No." "Are you SURE?" "YES."
  • (games) "We have this used. Do you want it used?" "No." "Are you sure?" "Yes." (blank stare from clerk, glare from me)
  • (systems) "You want a used one?" "No." "You want the mini-DS?" "No." "It's the same price!" "NO." "Are you sure?" "YES."
  • (end of POS) "Do you want to reserve any games?" "No." "Do you want to be informed of any upcoming releases?" "No." "Are you sure?" "YES."**
• There are two POS kiosks and what I can only assume are two employees. In reality, the staff consists of one lard-encased shampling heap moving in slow motion, slightly outside of our timestream. His "job skills" consist of ramming through the training script that has been branded into his skull by some EB training thing. He probably has lidlock scars under his eyeballs. The other "employee" is an incredibly lifelike mannequin. It may have blinked once in the entire time I was in the store. Eight people in line, each suffering five minutes or longer as the shambling heap labors through its script, and this mannequin sat there and did exactly nothing. I'm embellishing this point only slightly - at one point, he got up (much to the surprise of everyone else in the store, shambling heap included), wandered off, came back with a pricing gun or packaging tape gun (I didn't care enough to discern), and returned to his seat. He stayed put until I left the store.
• The store layout is hostile to the shitty service described above- there's no way to get to the goods without nudging through the line, and the line queues up between a rack of Z-grade DVDs nobody would look at twice, and a rack of PS2 games that may one day enter service as paperweights. The space between the racks is barely wide enough for your average gamer-type: I may be getting squishy in my old age, but my complexion is decent and I'm positively svelte compared to these people.
• Did I mention that the service SUCKS?!

It's conveniently located. Prices (everything is cheaper on Amazon) and "service" (hah!) more than make up for it. I'm shopping on Amazon and at Target from now on.

Under other circumstances, I'd be quite a bit less harsh on the employees. But man. Holy CRAP. I've never had service this sluggish and halfassed - and that includes the asshole at the Crossroads who was just standing around behind the counter doing nothing. When berated by one of his coworkers ("Hey, we've got customers!") the asshole's reply was "So? They'll wait. :P." The jackass wasn't there long, but these EB drones feel like lifers. If I'm going to pay for attitude, I'll take the tongue-in-cheek snarikness of the crew at The Apple Store in Shadyside. They're prompt, courteous, and all that other good stuff. These EB guys got none of that. You want to sit on your ass while your coworker fields eight customers over the course of twenty-five minutes? Fuck you.

Harsh? Definitely. But I don't plan on going back, so I don't feel a need to pull my punches.

* Every store has these damned things now. If I actually took every card shoved in my face I wouldn't have any room in my wallet for my ID, Debit, or health insurance cards. Amazon is less hassle.

** Remember when you could walk into a store, pick out what you want, take it to the counter, pay for it, and leave? So do I. I seriously fucking miss that shit. I like to get-and-go- I'm seriously not into this debriefing/interrogation shit every place that isn't the 7-11 does these days.