The Clarion Call

Let me make something perfectly clear. With a few recent exceptions, including sadly my upcoming pre-ordered purchase of Fallout New Vegas, I do not purchase games from GameStop. It just does not happen; I tended to favor Best Buy or Target until I found the joy of a more regional place called Vintage Stock. I chose not to buy from Gamestop because of a very specific incident that happened when I was trying to find a copy of Ace Combat 6.

I walked up to the counter and said “Hi, I noticed this game was not on the shelves, but it came out last week, do you have it?”

“Did you pre-order it?”

“No.”

“Well we don’t have it unless you pre-ordered it”

“Okay, I will check Target across the street.

“They don’t have it either.”

Ten minutes later I walked out of Target with my copy of Ace Combat 6 that they supposedly did not have. A year later I had a similar incident with Assassin’s Creed, in which I was told a best buy down the street did not have any copies of the game, and low and behold in the middle of an aisle was a CRATE full of Assassin’s Creed games. I still have the picture on my cell phone, and I showed it to the kid behind the counter who told me best buy did not have it.

So I made the conscious decision to get my game fix elsewhere, to exercise my power of the purse to reject GameStop business model, which fundamentally resembles a Pawn Shop more then a retailer.

This morning however I saw a video on one of my favorite gaming websites www.ScrewAttack.com my personal favorite feature there, The Game Overthinker posted a new video where he called upon gamers to do what I as a Gamer have chosen to do for years now and purchase games elsewhere. There really is no point in summing it up when I can just have you watch it here.

I want to take this call to action a step further though. I want to point out a few stories where I was suckered into a Gamestop Pre-Order that I really should not have been.

In the Case of Transformers War for Cybertron, I preordered From Gamestop, as opposed to Wal-Mart or Target for a specific Downloadable content character called Shockwave. Transformers Fans know what I speak of there. And I was happy and hunky dory, even though I felt dirty for giving GameStop money. Then what happens? DLC was made available to all that included the Shockwave character, as well as all the other Pre-Order Characters from other stores. I felt like the biggest jackass of all.
Another time I pre-ordered Halo Wars, and I got the phone call saying it was available Tuesday at midnight. I got the phone call Tuesday at 6 PM, so I thought “hmmm that was strange.” When I went to get my game I was told it would not be available for another six hours. When I brought up that was Wednesday at midnight and the message said Tuesday at midnight, all I got was “you must be the only one in the world that thinks that way.”

Obviously not, since that is how time works you jackass.

The Hardest truth of all is that I am not the only one. If I was one voice crying out into the night, that one whiney little bitch who had no real complaint, I could accept that and brood. But the internet is littered with GameStop Haters, many of them former employees. That there are so many Gamers out there that do despise this conglomerate for what it has done to gaming as a hobby speaks volumes to the company’s character.

So I answer the Game Overthinkers Clarion Call, and I ask you to as well. Take that mightiest of weapons you have, your wallet, and when it comes time to purchase a new game, go somewhere else first.