Best Buy

Tales From Behind The Counter – A Time of Loathing

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When working in retail there is one time of year you dread above all others: the holidays. It means angry customers with no time and no money, pissed off that they have to brave ice covered roads and bumper car parking lots instead of being gleeful and warm in the comfort of their own homes. In video game retail land, there is one other time that I have come to regard in the same way I would a diagnosis of colon cancer: EA Sports Game Release season. Also called, the Unholidays, with a long e sound on that i.

During this time, Electronic Arts decides to rain shit from the sky in the form of a new NCAA everything, new Madden, new baseball whatever, and [shudder] Nascar 09. I would rather play most of these sports over having to deal with the people who come in to buy these games and that, my friends, should tell you something. The day my chubby ass wills itself to throw a football or (God forbid) run bases over doing something video game related is tantamount to Jesus Christ donning a pair of rabbit ears and chilling in Hugh Heffner’s vagina-shaped hot tub for an evening. →  Read Band 2

Where Gamers go? No…

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There’s this great little electronics shop near me. I used to loathe them, and I still do for some things, but lately they’ve been picking up the pace in the games department. In the stores near my home and my job, I have found fresh copies of No More Heroes and Zak and Wiki. Back in the summer there were multiple copies of Persona 3 (despite its obscurity and its odd box shape). I have seen Every Extend Extra and King of Fighters XI in $10 bargain bins, and if you really want to get crazy, I can grab you a copy of Metropolismania 2. Today I picked up a copy of Patapon on its release date, though if I ordered it online I could have had free shipping (after watching a lovely trailer on their store website).

The source of this gaming joy is perhaps second only to Walmart in its unlikeliness. It’s Best Buy. I’m not sure who decided it would be a good idea to start stocking games of all shapes and sizes (and spreading the word about them too), but Best Buy has slowly turned from the place where the only guarantee is that there will be a flood of PS2 Greatest Hits to my number one stop for launch day releases. →  In the beginning games created the heavens and the earth.

Are you ready to rock? … well you can’t.

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Way to go EA / MTV. Way to f up the launch of what should have been your biggest title this Christmas season. Rock Band launched today, or so gamers were told. In reality it seems like there were only a handful of units shipped to retailers with little or no warning about the shortage. The only press release I’ve seen even hinting at production shortages was unearthed yesterday, in which the EA spokesman said that there might be a little supply crunch … until MARCH OF 2008!

Best Buy held midnight launch parties at about two dozen locations across the US and reports are coming in that a large majority of those stores got shipped a paltry number (one store in Kentucky received two PS3 bundles, and that’s it) or no games at all. That means people waited all night to get a rain check for a game with no future restock date. Websites for retailers GameStop, Circuit City, Best Buy, Target and Walmart have removed the bundle package listing completely. →  Read awhile, and listen.

Best Buy Hero

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After recovering from a brutal hangover Sunday morning, I set out with my roommate obtain Guitar Hero 3. Now, due to past horrific experienced with Best Buy, I had first sought to order it from Amazon.com, but was told I would not receive said game until mid November. This was deemed unacceptable. So we headed to Best Buy.

Upon arriving, we found, to our glee, a fully stocked display of Guitar Hero 3 games. I quickly grabbed two copies for the Xbox 360 (one for me, one as a gift for a friend), and my roommate grabbed an extra guitar. As I walked away from the display, I was accosted by a Best Buy employee, who, seeing two of us, informed me that there was a one-per-customer limit. I handed my extra copy to my roommate and the employee was sated.

We headed to the checkout, and I tried to pay for both copies of the game, explaining to the cashier that there were two of us, so no Best Buy laws were being broken, and that if my roommate paid for the other copy, it’d then inconvenience me cause I’d have to give him $100 in cash. →  Devil Summoner: Readou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Article

Best Buy needs a better selection

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Tonight I scoured the earth for a copy of Etrian Odyssey. A painfully difficult game with music by Yuzo Koshiro sounds like heaven to me. Apparently, Best Buy thinks it sounds like a nerdy Japanese RPG doomed to rot on the shelves. I was hurt that the store didn’t carry the game, but what they do carry is infinitely more infuriating.

Cars…OK, maybe the movie was cute.

Cake mania…I guess it’s some flash game, whatever.

Bratz: Diamondz…No, there is never a reason to stock this game. If you buy your children Bratz merchandise do the world a favor and smother them while they sleep.

Dogz…Nintendogs ripoff meant to take advantage of stupid children and ignorant parents, fine.

Horsez…Nintendogs ripoff meant to take advantage of stupid children and ignorant parents who cannot tell the difference between a dog and a horse, fine.

Hamsterz…what the fuck? We bitter gamers spend so much effort hating EA we didn’t even notice that Ubisoft is now almost as shameless and devoid of creativity. →  Read it your way.

News I Care About: Beta

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Don’t worry folks, this is not a replacement of the actual VL weekly news. Its just a blog entry with a clever twist. There have been a few stories I’ve been meaning to discuss, without actually discussing them. So why not just lump them together into one MEGATON (copyright IGN) batch?

– Tekken 6 has finally been announced with some actual screenshots and videos of the game in action. Not long ago I wrote an article about the Tekken series and my attempt to come to grips with it. Part of that article involved reconciling the fact that Namco can’t seem to make an original character design, not with so many other franchises to steal from. I thought I had made my peace, but Namco couldn’t leave well enough alone, and now I’m having my doubts after seeing new character Leo in action. C’mon guys, its one thing to use a generic character archetype, but this is getting pathetic.

– The beginning of this week saw a huge clearence sale at Best Buy, with some Gamecube games going for as low as two dollars. →  Katamari Damaread

Amazing adventures at Best Buy

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Last night I went to Best Buy with the intention of buying a portable RPG for my upcoming plane ride to England. I chose that particular store because it is close to home and closes late, not because it doesn’t suck. Looking for Contact for the DS, I had a myriad of experiences that I’d like to now share with you.

– The PS3 demo kiosk is not working. Some racing game is stuck at the course selection screen and there is a short loop of bad heavy rock music playing. This same game crashed at the same spot at the same Best Buy a few weeks ago. I’m not sure if that store got a bad kiosk or if all the kiosks are that awesome. I do know I’m not closer to spending a months rent on PS3, though.

– I watched someone play the new Sonic game on the 360. He repeatedly fell to his death. Sonic runs very fast but the levels have a lot of dead ends and nooks to get stuck in, not to mention endless endless pits. →  Readius III and IV

How to write a Holiday Shopping Guide

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If you are running any sort of successful games website, you should already have your Holiday Shopping Guide up and collecting income. These guides are essential for grabbing a nice chunk of holiday web traffic and advertising money from online retailers. If by some chance you still haven’t made yours, videolamer is here to help with this easy to follow step by step guide.

1) Start Early:
In the last decade, we marketing folk succeeded in eliminating Thanksgiving from the collective minds of everyone but grocery stores and the NFL. And, if our research is correct, people are glad that the stress and frustration of holiday shopping can now go on for an even longer stretch of time. This means that you can publish your guide at any point in November. Don’t worry about it being too close to Halloween; we’re working on getting rid of that one too. Also, don’t be afraid if half of the big end of year releases haven’t even hit shelves by the time you publish. →  Four out of five dentists recommend reading more.

Like, totally super cool shopping recommendations

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It’s becoming somewhat of a rarity to find a video game store that actually knows what they’re doing. Most of the time, you go into a store and get hounded to death by a caveman who just got hired off the streets. And no, they’re not even the cool Geico cavemen, either. Other times, a store has a complete lack of selection, believing Madden is the only game ever made, and proudly advertising their ignorance.

With two new consoles being released this year, videolamer is here to survey the battle field by detailing many stores that sell video games. We’ll break them up into categories of stores, and work from there.

Specialty Retailers
These are your EB Games, GameStop’s, GameCrazy’s, and what have you. These stores are the absolute best for selection. They always have what’s new, be it obscure RPG’s or the latest GTA-spinoff. They also have a wide selection of used games, nearly tripling the amount of games for the consumer. →  Do the math.

Biggest losers in the world wait for the PS3

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According to Games Are Fun, a line for the PS3 has already formed in front of a Best Buy in Burbank, California. People have been waiting since at least Wednesday for a console that launches next Friday. If these people can afford to miss over a week of work for a PS3, can’t they just get one on eBay for $2000?

As someone who may end up waiting in a line for a Wii despite having no intentions of purchasing one, I may not have much right to insult these stupid people. If it makes a difference, I will be waiting for three hours against my will (stupid friends) and not for 216 hours.