replayvideo

I am so tired of hearing how digital downloads are going to destroy every brick-and-mortar store in the world and everyone will simply download all their entertainment. There is going to be a market for both and always will be. They both have their advantages and disadvantages. When you download a game, you are only licensing it for use. You do not own it. You cannot trade it in. You cannot gift it to a friend. You're not going to find it in a clearance bin for cheap. There is something about digital downloads that is just... boring. I rarely download because I like owning things I buy. I like having a physical thing that I can do whatever I want with. I also like getting up from my computer and going out shopping. Interacting with other human beings. Looking for rare games and bargains. Once I found a Sega Saturn Panzer Dragoon 2 in mint condition at a pawn shop for $2. In the time it takes for a movie rental to download on my cable internet off i-tunes, I can get out and drive across town to the independent video store near me, rent an actual disc, come home and watch half of it-- and for older movies, at half the price. My video store does 5 movies, 5 nights for $5 on older titles. Sometimes the internet cuts off in the middle and I have to retry the download. And how many people even have high speed anyway? Not everyone lives in town. No everyone spends all their free time online. All I'm saying is: let's stop pretending everyones' lives revolve around the internet and trying to make people believe all business will soon be conducted online. The internet is basically just a big, electronic mail order catalogue. It has its functions, but it is not the end all and be all of our lives. Now go out and support your local brick-and-mortars, before we all end up out of jobs. Remember: every penny you spend at a local business improves your local economy. We'd all have jobs to spare if we stopped shopping online and got out in the community and spent our disposable income.

Hilarious. I don't know how many idiots like that come into my video game shop.

I had one customer come in with a box of trade ins, asked me how much he could get, and presented a giant snarl of controller wires, atari bits and peices and AV cables covered in feces and chicken feathers. He acted like he was pulling gold out of that box. I just stared in stunned silence.

Another pulled me aside, said he was upset his cousin got a lousy deal on a trade in and wanted me to give him more money. "I got a list of the games he traded in," he said. Concerned, I asked him, "When did you do this trade in?" He said, "Oh, around April last year." I looked at his list and it was written in crayon. "You gotta be fucking kidding me," I said. It was the only time I ever cussed a customer.


If I had a dime for every time someone asked... "Do you trade games?" and when I answered yes, went and grabbed a $59 PS3 game to trade for their 8 year old, scratched up copy of NBA 2k for Dreamcast.

If I had a dime for every time someone said... "I just played it before I brought it here!" when we hook up a system they are trying to sell us and it won't work.

People are stupid.