Yeah Woops

I suppose I should apologize for yesterday's absence. I'd like to tell you that I was sitting inside and playing Bravely Default all day, but that didn't happen. Honestly, I just didn't find the time. Yes, I know the point of a blog a day is to make time, and I guess I could hide behind the weekend ("by blog a day, I mean blog a week day, dummy"), but that's really just a cop out. Won't happen again.

So let's actually talk about why I'm not playing Bravely Default, then, and touch upon an ill of the gaming industry that's mercifully fading away: the pre-order racket.

In the 8-, 16-, and most of the 32-bit era, the idea of pre-ordering a video game so you could be assured that your retailer of choice would have a copy for you wasn't a thing. You would save up your meager shekels and drive to whomever was willing to sell you what you wanted, and that would be that. Of course, in the early days of the home video game business, games didn't have specific release dates, and would just sort of happen upon a retailer almost as if by invoiced sorcery. As time went on, and Madden games became annualized, the record store model of pre-ordering large releases became the de facto way of doing things. Inherently, this isn't bad, really. I don't really see anything wrong with wanting a guarantee when it comes to your entertainment.

But that's not how things have turned out. Large, gaming-centric retailers like GameStop survive on two business models: selling you used video games (at higher costs than I think they're worth, but that's me), and getting you to look ahead at what's coming out so you can throw your $5 down to pre-order it. They certainly don't make as many millions selling brand new material than used, but let's hypothesize that for every 10 people that pre-order something a few months ago, one of them will either not care any more, completely forget, or have any other reason not to go pick the thing up. That's a free five clams in GameStop's pocket. Nothing really wrong with that either, really. Like I said, large record store chains were doing the same business for decades before the music industry went belly up.

The problem is that GameStops are, by and large, small, and they while it looks like it's wall-to-wall video game goodness in there, they are surprisingly under stocked. The vast majority of it is pre-owned (if the GamesStop overlords had it their way, it would all be used games because that makes them the most money), too. The industry is such that a lot of games come out during certain times of the year, but not all the time, and those store managers don't want to deal with piles of product that's not moving. This is where the pre-ordering thing really rears its ugly head. For large, AAA releases, they will always overstock the place with them because the average schmuck will probably wander in there and grab it for either themselves or as gifts for someone. But this is only AAA stuff. Again, because of the size of these places, and the fact that new stuff makes them less money, it's highly unlikely that they'll have a good supply of mid-tier or niche releases unless one of them rolls in their used, especially the brand new stuff. This stock controlling practice basically boils down to this: if you didn't per-order, say, Bravely Default, you're shit out of luck. The one or two extra copies that they ordered for display already sold that morning. Do you want us to ship it to your door for an extra fee?

I don't have to tell you how aggravating that is, and how absurd, but that's the way the large, retail games business evolved itself into living over the past ten years. Bravely Default, though, is a curious example in this scenario, though. Here's why:

I have a Wal-Mart gift card that I received for Christmas. Now, Wal-Mart being the largest retailer of just about anything, it seemed fairly reasonable that they would stock a brand new game developed by a large company (Square Enix) and published by a much larger one (Nintendo, for God's sake). Since I live in an apartment building with some shifty-eyed neighbors, I wasn't really down for having it shipped to me, so I thought I'd do the next best thing and just pick it up in-store. For some reason, WM's website didn't allow for a pre-order of any kind, now a piece integral for this whole proceeding to work, so after just waiting it out last week, I detected no change from the site, other than assuring me that I could freely buy it on Friday when it was released. Fine, then, I'll just call the store. Nope, they told me. Even though they were keenly aware that it had come out that day, they didn't have it. Strange. So yesterday, I took it upon myself to meander into a different Wal-Mart. Nope again. Gift card be damned, I head over to a GameStop on the way home. The cock-eyed look of the girl across the counter told me before she even opened her mouth what my fate would be. She even did some checking for me, the princess, and found that no other GameStop in town had it, either. Should have pre-ordered it, man!

I find it alarmingly stupid that I can visit a large retail chain and not find a brand new game distributed by Nintendo, but I can nab a copy of something like Glory of Heracles --one of their flops-- that, for whatever reason, is still easily obtainable through distribution channels (seriously, who the eff- is buying that game still?).

So I have not played Bravely Default yet, but it's ok. Even though this whole scenario had me pretty irritated yesterday, I take solace in the fact that, when it's finished downloading, I won't have to worry about this anymore.