News Roundup: 27 November 2011

Kind of a slow week, mostly due to Turkey Ingestion overdoses and nothing new coming out.  As is every year, now we enter the "long, dark tea-time of the soul," or the doldrums until mid-January when news is more about new games coming out than shopping deals.  Hopefully everyone had a great week, now on to some news items!

Parents of the Year: Redux

Better Than Real Life...Wait

As reported by CNN, a South Korean couple let their real-life daughter starve to death while they played a MMO and raised a virtual child instead. There is something seriously wrong with that picture. As a parent, I cannot fathom the how/why/WTF of this. It's senseless and disgraceful.

EB Games in Canada Removes New/Used Distinction

Home of the Great New/Used Debate

EB Games, owned by Game Stop, has reportedly moved to make buying games a different experience. The Canadian retailer has done away with yellow price stickers on Used products (something the US brand did a couple of years ago) and has now moved to put New and Used together. According to Kotaku, EB employees have leaked a memo that sets up the new look for stores. New games will be placed underneath Used ones, and games will be divided by genre.

I can see the logic of this in some ways. The genre division means that gamers who are fans of FPSes or Racing have a section to shop instead of hunting about for a title. It seems silly, but really, that would make a lot of folks happier and their visits shorter. Burying the New under Used is a bit trickier. According to an anonymous source, this practice could really propel sales of Used products. The source told me that if shoppers see more Used, they will start to change their opinion of it. Currently, getting folks to buy a Used copy is a bit a battle, but if New isn't readily displayed, then Used becomes the “go to” version. If Game Stop can sell Online Passes at the register, then folks may not even bother looking for New. It would change the demographic of Game Stop shoppers: they would be going there for Used products over New.

Personally, I think it's a bit shady, but I see why Game Stop would do it. I know it's all about the bottom line, but that just seems to fly in the face of Game Stops commitment to the customer (which was hammered home throughout my time with the company). It is saving the customer money (not a bad thing), but it feels disingenuous. Maybe I'm wrong and the knee-jerk “OMG Game Stop is doing something different! Rawrrrr!” is wrong. I'll take a wait-and-see approach to this, but my gut reaction is not pleasant.

It Wouldn't Be Black Friday Without Violence

Crowds of Shoppers Got a Bit Unruly (image source)

Ah, the worst shopping day of the year. Black Friday is always a scene of chaos as folks vie for the best deals. Of course, Americans being Americans, things get out of hand with “aggressive” shoppers. So, from an article in the LA Times comes a story about pepper spray, electronics shoppers and the violence that comes from consumerism gone awry. (via Destructiod)