Your Hot Cup of Rant

How about instead of giving me a 40 paragraph strategy guide so I can shop in your pawn shop without getting screwed you just sell me a game when I ask for it. - Gabe, from Penny Arcade, on Gamestop policies.

He’s pissing and moaning about this, for general refference.

Hey, mind if I make a suggestion?

How about, instead of pissing and moaning about how you hate Gamestop so much, you STOP FUCKING SHOPPING THERE?

…

Oh, right. That’s crazy talk. YOU CAN’T.

Look, I hate Gamestop as much as everyone else who plays video games, but I’ve come to terms with the fact that it’s a shitty company, and if Mr. ‘Fuck the Man’ above has only had to deal with being denied a game on day of release for him to be pissed off at Babbages Inc, I can only imagine how pissed he’d be if he were me.

See, I hate Gamestop for many, MANY horrifying reasons, inclusive of but not wholly limited to

- my ex-girlfriend purchasing me Steel Battalion as a Christmas gift and being double-billed on her debit card, which is doubly problematic because

1.) Steel Battalion is not a $50 normal game; at launch the fucking thing cost TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS, which including taxes and shipping costs, is a significant chunk of change to double-bill someone, and

2.) When someone double-bills a credit card, this double-billing only hits a nebulous source of credit that one does not have to directly acknowledge until payment time comes around; hell, if one is lucky, the billing company will realize the error and kill the second billing before your next statement even comes in, thus leaving you none the wiser. Double-billing a debit card, however, is much worse, because debit cards are linked to bank accounts which contain real money that one might attempt to use for things like groceries, bills, and other things that one uses to CONTINUE LIVING.

Ergo, $250+ was fucking gone, penalty fees were assessed, and Gamestop refused to do anything to rectify the scenario short of refunding the second charge; the $25 in fees were never resolved by either side in this little war that should never have happened.

- I had to wait six months for something I ordered. Specifically, during a bout of “MUST HAVE ALL GUN GAMES” I found a used copy of Vampire Rain (not to be confused with Chocolate Rain) on Gamestop’s website, with the Guncon controller (essentially a bright orange plastic pistol) included. I purchased said bundle, which I received a week later, sans Guncon. Upon calling the customer service line, I was informed that I could send the game back, and when the Guncon came in stock, both would be sent back out; I did as instructed and figured eventually the problem would be rectified.

Six months later, I received a package containing the game, sans Guncon, again.

This time when I called customer service, I was advised I would receive a Guncon in the mail, which I did, thus begging the question “Why did I have to wait six fucking months for this to be resolved, and why couldn’t you have just done this in the first place?”

- VxD had to threaten an employee with a call to the corporate office to buy a game.

No, really.

Story goes as thus: VxD finds uncommon game in store, brings to register. Employee hems and haws about how he wanted to purchase said game but this is the only one left in stock. Conversation escalates back and forth between the two, ultimately ending some ten minutes later with VxD having to tell said employee that if he didn’t just sell him the fucking game and let him go home, VxD would be calling the corporate office and reporting said dipshit.

- Trying to trade in a Nintendo DS and being informed that because it is missing the factory stylus it can’t be traded in; thus, instead of simply having the company bill me a $10 deduction against the trade-in value of the product, a stylus had to be acquired and inserted into the unit before a trade-in would be considered viable.

- Going to a store no less than FIVE TIMES on release day for something I pre-ordered, asking about the pre-order gift, and being told by the manager, “No, we gave them away to the employees/the employees stole them all”.

Okay?

Do we understand? Are we registering the point here? Is it sinking in?

Yes, yes, I am well aware: I am a fucking moron for continuing to do business with such a shitty corporation, I understand this. But if you are one of those unlucky people who considers his or her self a “Gamer”, you are pretty much FORCED to shop at these shitholes because otherwise, your options are limited.

Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Target? Most don’t get games in on day of release, most have limited shelf stock and don’t carry niche titles (so the odds of finding something like a King of Fighters title or Fire Pro Returns are somewhat slim), and if someone has a knee-jerk reaction to stupid bullshit, you’re fucked on getting games you might want to play.

Amazon.com? Yes, because I want to pay ten dollar shipping costs to play games a week after they come out. There’s a fine line between “principals” and “stupidity”, and over-spending on things that are already insanely expensive crosses the line, burns and salts the earth upon which the line rests, and pisses on the scorched and salted remains.

Play-Asia? FUCK NO.

Local specialty retailers? In theory this isn’t a bad idea, but the problem becomes “what local specialty retailers, exactly?” Babbages owns five different “name brand” videogame retailers (Software Etc, Babbages, Funcoland, Gamestop, and EBGames) and could potentially have their hands in God knows how many more retail fronts, so you’ve no idea WHO you’re actually buying from, and in the absence of hours and hours of research, you could damn well be funding anyone from Babbages to religious fundamentalists to Stevie Richards.

No, seriously.

And that’s assuming said retailers even exist; Game Crazy, the closest thing to competition Babbages has, is a direct part of the Hollywood Video movie rental franchise… which just entered into Chapter 11 in October. Most other “competitors” are privately owned enterprises that either fare poorly, never have stock of games one would want, or are run by bigger shysters than the companies we hated in the first place.

In other words, it’s not like you have a fucking CHOICE in the matter, okay? You’re either going to shop at something Babbages owns, or you’re going to be fucked over even worse. Period.

So pretty please, with sugar on top, shut the fuck up.

You are not going to instigate change, you are not going to solve anything, and no one is going to stop shopping at these stores because YOU are not going to stop shopping at these stores. Shit-shacks like EBGames have been around for years and years and will continue to be around even longer, simply because THEY ARE MAKING MONEY and THEY ARE YOUR ONLY RECOURSE.

Digital distribution will not solve your problems; PC Games are, at this point, a fucking novelty that all but the most serious gamers regard with derision and scorn, and no one is going to want to download Halo 4 onto their 360 hard drive when they can just buy the disc and move on with their day. The shitty tactics employed by game stores will continue to be employed so long as they continue to make the company money, and when they stop working, tactics will change to meet consumer needs, no matter how much they end up screwing you over.

And you will continue to bend over and take that ass-reaming you so deserve because you can do nothing else.

Me? At least I understand my place in the grand scheme of things. YOU are the one who is delusional if you think you’re accomplishing anything.

And in conclusion, the world needs an enema.