Diary Entry #34: Retail Repulsion and Little Else

             Today, I finished up all my research for a new Hardcore Gaming 101 article. My Destiny of an Emperor article can be found here, detailing the various RPG and strategy games in the long-running Tenchi Wo Kurau series. There's also a great article about Q*Bert on the website that inspired me to purchase the game boy port, so be sure to sift through that, too.

             Today, I probably had the worst experience ever with a retail game store. I brought up nine items to be priced. This took him about six minutes, after which I told him I didn't want three of those games. After that, he started shuffling around a bunch of random stuff for about five minutes until he had all six of the games into two piles. It all probably made sense somehow, since the store offers a buy two get one free deal on all used games, but still, I've been up at the counter for over ten minutes already and the line behind is growing rather large.

             Eventually, he moves to the back of the room to find the PSP disc for one of my games. This turns into a crazy five minute fiasco, with the worker grabbing UMDs and throwing them all over the place. I finally told him I just wanted the three Game Boy games I picked out, TMNT 3: Radical Rescue, Kirby's Pinball Land, and Spy Vs. Spy.

             He gives me three final prices. First he says 33 dollars. I ask him again how much the games cost four times before he says it's 20 dollars. I remind him that there's the buy two get one free deal. He finally comes up with 14 dollars, which I say agree to and hand him my card. He goes in the back for three minutes to find a pen, brings one back for me to sign, and I run the hell out of there. This whole thing had to take over twenty minutes, and the five people behind me must have been amazed that this went on for ages.

             While researching for my article, I gave Discs of Tron a try. It's easily one of the coolest games ever. All you do is jump on giant discs while throwing smaller discs at your opponents. Minutes of excitement!

             With a recent death in my family, I haven't really been motivated to play video games as much. I think working on this next article will help me to get my mind off all the negativity and keep me focused on the things I love. I want to discuss some of my gaming experiences with the person I lost someday, but right now it's too difficult to even think about. Next time!