jiminy

Either that or he is going to try to teach us all a lesson by making it damn near impossible to keep all of your in-game promises. And then, your in-game followers will get disappointed and make jokes about you on in-game blogs.

Dear Tony Hawk,

Step 1: Adapt gaming perihperal to shoot zombies
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit

So Tony, how would you feel about...Pro Skating of the Dead?
Get back to me.

EA management has one job: drive shareholder value.
And considering the continued demand for gaming products that iterate rather than innovate (ie, Madden, Sims, etc), it seems there is a definite place in the market for... well, a rather "crass" approach to game production.

I thought they used V's so the name of the game would just look like spikes on the ceiling... or maybe I'm just taking that from the single screenshot I've seen and the relative prominence of ceiling spikes therein.

Actually, if you make a preorder with your EA debit card, it's like a double preorder. Hurray! Can't wait for someone to market a debit card that can only be used to prepay other debit cards. Then I can give my money to 3 different companies before I even get anything for it!
Because consumers want nothing more than to hand out interest-free loans to EA, Gamestop, etc. in exchange for menial rewards. (Y'know, I meant that to be sarcastic, but it's kind of true.)

Edit: paid in full by Dec 6

Also, I just reread the layaway terms and now I really don't get it.
If you don't get the item until it is fully paid for, then what is the benefit of handing ToysRUs several payments + service charge for the item versus just saving up those payments on your own and paying in full...
I see the exception in the case of items that have are on sale for a limited time, might sell out quick, or keeping gifts a surprise. Still, I'm guessing that a hell of a lot of layaways don't fall into those categories.

This is bothering my financial brain. Am I missing some big financial benefit?

Considering that it has to be paid in full by Nov 6, saying "there is no interest" is kind of silly. The $10 service charge is going to be far more than the interest you would rack up in half of a month. Unless you are putting a thousand dollar item on layaway (what would you be buying at Toys R US for that much?) with a 24.9% interest rate... but even then, other forms of credit have a grace period so by Dec 6 you wouldn't end up paying interest anyways.
Same with using it to get in on limited sale prices - if any other form of credit is available, it's probably cheaper in the long run to avoid layaway.

Then again, if you don't have credit available or Xmas has already maxed out meager credit lines, it's not so much a great option as the only option that doesn't involve using your children as collateral in a mob loan. Well...hyperbole there, but you get the point.

I never thought about using it so as not to ruin gift surprises though.