retail

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. →  Beyond Read & Evil

NPD Schadenfreude

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I’m a small, petty man, but maybe you are small and petty, too. If so, you may enjoy these comedic comments from a popular PS3 forum. The context is the following – Halo 3 sold 3.3 million copies in less than two weeks, MS sold 527k 360s, Nintendo 501k Wiis, and Sony 117k PS3s.

“this is just an example of what the media can do to a console. ps3 was just released in the wrong world.”

“And why would any one expect Heavenly Sword to see better then it did it has no advertisement at all and there are only 6 million ps3s out as of now so if you compare that to halo selling 3.3 million of 360 with 10 million units old then its allot closer then it looks.”

“PS3 isn’t going anywhere cause Sony will support it forever.”

“Stayed above 120k during “Halo season”? Where exactly is the doom and gloom coming from?”

“‘it sold 10,000 less in this five week month than in the previous four week month.’ →  Oops, I did it again.

Retail Woes

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In this post, I must air some grievances I have with certain retail companies. Someone call me a waaaaambulance, because I might need it.

– Why does Blockbuster suck so much when it comes to game rentals? Every store I’ve encountered always seems to be cleaned out of its new, and even 2-3 month old releases. It took me a good month or more to find God of War 2, and at a trip to my brother’s home, we couldn’t find any Wii games aside from the absolute dregs of the licensed pit. We couldn’t even try Chicken Little out if we wanted to.

The reason I find their game shortages so odd is that I can always find the same games without trouble at Hollywood Video, and for a few dollars cheaper on the rental. Why one store has such issues when another doesn’t just baffles me (unless Blockbuster has real strong customer loyalty). Normally this means I frequent Hollywood whenever I can, but I still often check at Blockbuster for one important trade off. →  Article Hominid

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. →  Onimusha 2: Samuread’s Destiny

A rant about rampant stupidity on the internets

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Uh oh. By the looks of the cover this magazine is going to have a lot of words in it.

By now I hope you are in some way familiar with Penny Arcade’s Internet Fuckwad Theory. Time and again it has proven to be accurate, but I can’t for the life of me understand why. What exactly is it about anonymity – or near anonymity at the very least – that causes people to behave in illogical, rude, and just plain baffling ways? There are times when the gaming community amazes me with how well spoken or well organized it can be. Mostly however, it just causes me to pound my head in frustration. Everyone wants to know why gaming isn’t being taken as seriously as it could be. I’m beginning to wonder if this is such a mystery after all.

Now we’ve all complained in one form or another about ridiculous gamers, but regardless I’d first like to share some of my favorite anecdotes. →  Gotta get down on Friday.

Review – Half-Life 2: Episode One

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Right now in the world of console gaming, everyone’s favorite buzz term is “HD era”. In PC gaming, it’s all about “episodic content.” Everyone is talking about the concept of delivering smaller chunks of gaming more quickly and possibly with customized content based on user reactions. Unfortunately, the talk is mostly hot air. For one, very few developers have released anything episodic for us to judge, and those that are out there are either a little too indy (Bone) or not quite up to snuff (Sin). Fortunately, the biggest supporters of the idea, Valve Software, have finally given us Half Life 2: Episode 1, the first of many sequel stories to their smash hit. Maybe now we can finally see what this episodic content stuff is all about.

I can think of at least one issue with episodic content; even when we have something to review, how do we review it? The answer might not be so obvious. Look around the ‘net, and you’ll find that most discussion on episodic gaming has nothing to do with quality. →  Silent Post 2