With the popularity of message boards and blogs, people have found new ways to bitch about pretty much everything... but gaming retail seems to be at the epicenter of the whining.

Yes, we all know that GameStop has some less-than-ethical business practices. We get it. You should make threads like these into drinking games; every time you read a "GameStop sold me a used game as new" complaint, have a drink. You'll be an alcoholic in no time. What's even better is when people list solutions that seem plausible until you figure in the fact that implementing these solutions might, you know, cost money.

For example: Yeah, let's buy an assload of clamshells. Then, after that initial charge for some 5,000 stores, we'll pay staff to put the games in those things. We'll slow down point-of-sale transactions by fighting with the damned things to open them. That's a stellar idea for the busy season... who doesn't love waiting in line for even more time because the damned clamshell key won't work right?

What gamers fail to remember is that they are the cause of many of these problems to begin with. After all, during the NES era, you could return games to retailers, opened or not. Of course, it was expected that gamers were only going to return defective items... but then gamers became skilled and started blowing through games in less than a week... so they kept returning them and getting other games without having to pay anything extra. Retailers became ignorant rental locations.

Retailers smartened up. Policies were changed. Gamers lost a cheap loophole, and justifiably so.

Let's also not forget that the game gamers who bitch and complain about GameStop still shop there. Sure, you hear, "I'm not buying another new game from there. I hate their policies. They're rip-off artists." That attitude lasts until a new release doesn't show up on time at a big-box store and they really, really want to play it. Way to go with that 7-day boycott. That'll show 'em.

Here's another thing. Stop whining about poor trade-in values. Please. "Waaah... those bastards only gave me $8 for Katamari Damacy and they're selling it for $30! Screw them!" Here's a thought: Just say "no" to trades, if the values are too low. After all, why bother taking into account that selling new games only nets next to nothing in terms of profit. GameStop is a business, and they exist to make money. I'm sure that many of you want to open a video game store of your very own, but unless you want to go out of business within the first three months, you're going to find that marking up used games considerably over what you pay for them is a necessary practice, unless you want to charge $70 for your new games instead of $60.

Listen... I'll agree that GameStop isn't perfect. FuncoLand was far superior in terms of relating to gamers... they actually let you try games before buying and they sold display copies for a 10% discount at times, for example. Game Crazy tried to emulate that model, but has so far fallen well short with chronically late arrivals for new releases, which makes them less attractive for core gamers.

But, you know something? Griping on a message board only goes so far. Actions speak louder than words.