papillon
08-29-2003, 07:01 AM
Saw a segment in today's Penny Arcade that made me sort of "Tsk!" at the world of retail:
I played it a good deal yesterday over at Gabe's while he drew the comic, and when we stopped off at the store later I had every intention of purchasing it. Software, Etc. had no intention of holding up their end of the bargain, the Selling Videogames end, as they had only received two copies of it and chastised me for not having reserved it. I tried to get Bombastic and Republic too, at the store, where one buys games, but they have apparently forgotten how our relationship functions. The reason this store did not stock these games is because they had not received enough pre-orders for them. I buy maybe six games a month, most months - shit, in the story I just related, I was about to buy three - and I almost never reserve games. That's just not I indicate my interest in a title. I pre-order a game every once in a blue moon - in cases like Final Fantasies where I fully expect to be trampled to death getting a copy. I certainly don't pre-order puzzle games where devils - no more than a half-inch tall - run around on dice, or highly involved political strategy games. And now, they don't stock them, either. Awesome system!
... This obviously sucks, but surely it's bound to backfire on the stores sooner or later... I mean, if you start getting the impression that the store won't bother HAVING any games if you haven't pre-ordered them, why not just order them off the net and skip the store entirely?
I played it a good deal yesterday over at Gabe's while he drew the comic, and when we stopped off at the store later I had every intention of purchasing it. Software, Etc. had no intention of holding up their end of the bargain, the Selling Videogames end, as they had only received two copies of it and chastised me for not having reserved it. I tried to get Bombastic and Republic too, at the store, where one buys games, but they have apparently forgotten how our relationship functions. The reason this store did not stock these games is because they had not received enough pre-orders for them. I buy maybe six games a month, most months - shit, in the story I just related, I was about to buy three - and I almost never reserve games. That's just not I indicate my interest in a title. I pre-order a game every once in a blue moon - in cases like Final Fantasies where I fully expect to be trampled to death getting a copy. I certainly don't pre-order puzzle games where devils - no more than a half-inch tall - run around on dice, or highly involved political strategy games. And now, they don't stock them, either. Awesome system!
... This obviously sucks, but surely it's bound to backfire on the stores sooner or later... I mean, if you start getting the impression that the store won't bother HAVING any games if you haven't pre-ordered them, why not just order them off the net and skip the store entirely?