Friday last week, I went down to my local EB Games to pick up Bioshock. I had had the collector’s edition preordered practically since the game was first shown off at E3 in 2006 - I was a big fan of System Shock so it was pretty much a no-brainer. Unfortunately, I got there and my CE preorder had mysteriously turned into a standard edition order.
Then a sudden, horrifying thought occurred to me. “Can you just check that my preorder for the Halo 3 Legendary Edition is still in place?”
I’d been in there twice before to check this and had been assured it was. It wasn’t. Apparently it never had been. It had been entered into the system incorrectly. At this point I was *very* distressed. See, while I was a reasonable fan of System Shock… when it comes to Bungie I am a huge fan. I’ve played every Bungie game with the exception of Gnop. I had a copy of Operation Desert Storm. I’ve finished most of Pathways into Darkness, and I was a massive fan of Marathon. I got my first Xbox (on launch) primarily to play Halo. So yeah, big fan.
I had moved most of my business to that EB branch primarily because a few years back I’d gone in there looking for Disgaea. Disgaea was released in ludicrously small quantities in Australia and sold out very quickly. I hadn’t known it was coming out, and so I was a bit late starting the hunt. I’d gone in one lunchtime and talked to the lone salesperson manning the fort, who happened to be the store’s manager. He’d sold his single copy of the game the previous day. However, right then and there he picked up the phone and proceeded to call four different branches. Upon finding one that had a copy, he told them to put it aside, took down my details, and told me to stop by tomorrow and pick it up - he’d grab it and bring it over himself the following morning. EB are usually derided for their poor customer service, and this was a massive surprise. Since then I moved pretty much all my business there. At least, until I got my PS2 modded and started importing games instead (cheaper and more selection, sadly).
That branch has since changed hands. However this story has a good ending. Halo 3 Legendary has been sold out pretty much everywhere already. However, I just got off the phone with the new manager of that EB branch. He’d called me to let me know that after some considerable hunting around they had managed to find me a copy. I’d resigned myself to the standard edition, so this is great news. I’ll definitely be continuing to order games through them.
Side note: Incidentally I was able to get Bioshock online, and it’s been languishing at the post office since Tuesday - Express Post is really useless when they always try to deliver at 2pm and then when they come to the shocking conclusion that no one is home, card it and take it to the hardest post office this side of the city to get to.
Ahhh yes, the brick and mortar money traps. Retail game outlets are sooooo 90’s.
I just buy everything off Steam or some other digital distribution channel these days.
None of the local retailers have had Bioshock in stock, except for pre-orders, since launch. Doesn’t to matter to me, though, I was downloading it the minute it hit the release time. =D
Steam is great, but I like having physical copies of stuff. After all, Steam probably won’t be around in a decade, but my CDs and DVDs will.
But yeah, most of the time I’m importing games from the US. Much cheaper. For genuinely limited editions though, the only choice is to preorder. Plus as far as Halo 3 goes Australia’s midnight launch gives us about 12-15 hours head start over the US. I intend to pick it up at midnight and have a launch party at my place with some friends.
I’ve moved most of my games purchases online for this very reason. Often I will order a game, not just through EB games, but Harvey Norman and JB Hifi and it’s been touch and go at best. Last time I dealt with EB games, I preordered Supreme Commander, and they were supposed to give me a call when it came in. They didn’t, and I forgot I had ordered it for a few weeks. When I did remember I went down and they’d sold it because they thought I wasn’t going to show.
It’s funny you should mention buying your Xbox just to play Halo, because I bought my 360 the other day just to play Bioshock.