A GameStop Tragedy - The Uprise

I recently made a post about my tragic past shopping experiences at GameStop. For those who are unaware, one could say I have been on the unfortunate end of the spectrum to say the least (combination of questionable customer service in conjunction with some bad luck).

Since growing out of out my adolescence, and taking several different part-time jobs during my time at university, I have developed a habit for buying a lot of video games. It has probably gotten to the point of hoarding I suppose. No longer do I have to depend on menial allowances from my parents or make wish lists for potential birthday and Christmas gifts. Well, I still have my own personal wishlist; it's exists merely as a tangible list of what I need to buy for myself (there are too many games I'd like to buy for myself and I may forget if I don't jot it down).

I strive to be a strong independent person who prides himself on being a smart and efficient consumer. I would like to always make smart decisions when buying anything: video games, food, video games, toiletries, etc. Prior to making any purchase, I try to do a little bit of comparison shopping/unit pricing to make sure I'm getting the best deal for my money. I tend to stray away and not buy from companies which I don't support (morally or practically). For example, corporate-penny-pinching-labor-exploiting Wal-Mart. There's simply no reason to buy from Wal-Mart unless it has become the complete last resort or in some American cities, the only resort when buying goods. I also don't support AT&T simply because I've had the worst customer service with them since their merger with Cingular.

More bars in more places? Sorry, these palm trees just won't do (metaphorically or physically). It may be only me but on occasion I will get zero bars/abrupt missed calls while standing still outside.

Call me a pretentious/elitist consumer, but it's fairly important to be conscious of where/who you're buying from and the potential repercussions of that purchase. It would be safe to assume that it is okay to not buy from places that have you given you trouble in the past. Taking into account the hundreds of millions of purchases over the internet today, a vital component in the form of seller ratings/customer reviews have been established to protect consumers from getting shafted. Ebay, Amazon, Buy.com, and other various websites feature these ratings to help us from buying from some scammer or some jackass who won't ship our item on time.

It's perfectly okay to buy from that no name seller in Hong Kong, but you better watch out! (DealExtreme has been okay for me...so far)

Seller ratings and customer reviews are utilized quite a lot now, but one should notice that it only applies to purchases made over the internet. This won't work if you're going to a retail store. Go to a Macy's, a Best Buy, a Barnes & Noble, a Whole Foods; you won't have that luxury to see whether this bunch of Dole bananas is better this bunch of Chiquita bananas.

(Finally getting to the point)

If you go to a GameStop, you're experience there will be heavily dependent on the respective employees working there. If you have read about my tragedies, one may say I have not been a smart consumer. As President Obama would say, Time for Change (yeah, it's not that great yet, sigh).

For those who are unfamiliar with GameStop's business practices, a simple google search for "criticism + gamestop" will often churn up some results. I learned about most of GameStop's ludicrous and sometimes shocking practices through WhistlerBlowerZero's Zero Originality series rant about GameStop and his time there as an employee. Although I do not have any first hand experience working at GameStop, there are some very valid points that he makes throughout the series. Below is the first video through blip.tv:

Side Note: Yes he is blatantly copying off of Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw's Zero Punctuation series, but in a later video he addresses it. It's definitely not an original medium to get his points across, but he calls his series Zero Originality after all. I can respect some of that humility.

If you're lazy and won't bother to watch the video, here's a short list of some of the points he makes from this first video:

F.Y.I: You can check the rest of the videos from him here.

• Buying used games from GameStop won't necessarily save you more money than buying from a reputable seller online (e.g. eBay, craigslist). BROWSE!


• Selling back your games by means of trade-ins will get you seriously ripped off since GameStop will buy it back for a significantly lower price than what you originally paid for it. Selling back systems is the same case.


• Flat pricing on SKUs (You'll pay/receive the same value for a used game regardless of whether it has the original game case and/or booklet)


• 'New' games are always gutted and most times will never be in sealed/mint condition unless asked for through a reserve


• The quality of used items can be atrocious at times, with people returning back with defective items numerous times only to get more defective items to sift through

As someone who is informed about GameStop's malicious business practices', and somewhat have experienced them first-hand; why do I keep going going there? In retrospect:

1. I have encountered on several occasions very bad customer service. Why should I keep getting (metaphorically) raped by their employees?


2. I personally don't like getting games used or 'new'. I need to take pride when I buy nicely shrink-wrapped games since I will inevitably be supporting the rightful companies/publishers.


3. Considering people's gripes about GameStop including WhistlerBlowerZero, you cannot ignore their anger at the company. If GameStop was a morally sound company with sound business practices, no one would be complaining; there's a damned good reason why so many people are angry--it's warranted.

Taking into account the above reasons, I really lack will power so to speak. The prices are just pretty damn competitive if you compare them to Best Buy, Target, or some other retailer. It's probably the sole reason why most people will go to Wal-Mart. Overall, it's a pathetic excuse and I'm fairly aware of it. I just have to break the habit eventually; call it a rehab session...

I hope this has changed some people's views about GameStop and hope we can be a little bit more conscious about our shopping patterns. People tend to forget that the internet is an invaluable tool for consumers. Do some comparison shopping, look for deals through CheapAssGamer, look through local postings on craigslist, or perhaps do a mutual game trade between friends.

Before I get too liberal and become some angry activist, at least take away this:

Look at your options. There is absolutely no excuse to buy and sell games at GameStop.

Considering people's financial situations today, people need to be quite wise with their money management--there's no room for frivolous expenses. There's not one good reason one needs to go buy some name brand-name clothes, an 32" LCD HDTV, or anything organic. People that may have gone out to eat several times in a week may need to reconsider their food expenses.

My mother is someone who has never been a victim of frivolous spending. Through my years witnessing her shopping patterns, she absolutely does not spend a penny on anything for herself: makeup, clothes, other stuff women buy, etc. However, on occasion...err...well, a lot of the time she will completely own the house when she goes food shopping.

It's important for people today to save as much money as possible when going grocery shopping (e.g using coupons, buying items only on SALE, comparison shopping, eating all the free samples, etc.) My mom often takes a good hour or so out of her busy schedule to skim the local grocery sale ads for the week to find the best bargain she can...and then find a supplemental coupon from her coupon folder (yes, coupon folder) to make that bargain a steal.

What has been the result of all this bargain food shopping from my mom you say? Well, if anyone still remembers the Y2K scares from ten years ago, people were scared shitless waiting for the apocalypse; they were stocking up on essentials (non-perishable food, water, clothes, so on and so forth..) My house still has a truckload of canned food from 1999. I know that canned food can last awhile taking into account the preservatives that are inside, but sometimes I'm afraid to open up that can of Dinty Moore beef stew from god knows how long.

I would take pictures of all the food in my house, but to be honest, it would take me hours to take enough pictures, plus I'd rather not clutter this blog with too many photos. I'd also rather not try to embarrass my mom too much since she's still my mom *awe* I'll let the one to two readers of my blog use their imagination for once. Visualize a house with three full size refrigerators as well as an economy-sized commercial chest freezer. Some small, local grocery stores can get by without having that many refrigerators/freezers.

Whenever there is something food related on sale, she'll take the Y2K approach every time--stock up on it as much as possible. For example Meijer (a local supermarket) often times has sales on 1 lb. bags tilapia fish. As far as I know there has never been a limit on these and she goes completely crazy on them; often times getting 12 or more bags of tilapia fish. I'm not too concerned about that since I like them, and one bag only has like four filets, so we go through them quite quickly anyhow. If there's an item limit on whatever she's buying, she'll buy as much as the limit permits, checkout, load up the stuff in her car, and then return back to the store to buy more--it's absolutely ridiculous.

Recently my mom found a decent deal on cereal in the Rite Aid ad several weeks ago. From what I remember it was $2.50/box on Honey Bunches of Oats with ____ or Grape Nuts. Luckily, my mom found a coupon she recently clipped for fifty cents off whatever cereal, so she immediately went to Rite Aid to take advantage of the deal. My mom's shopping patterns are quite irregular, as she simply goes when she feels like it; thus I'm always unaware when she goes and I'm unable to tell her what to buy or know what store she is at since she is too technologically inept to want to carry a cellphone on her. One could say she's a shopping ninja. She stealthily leaves the house and returns unnoticed with a minivan full of food.

One thing to keep in mind is that my mom has never eaten cereal in her entire life. She has probably tasted a few before, but she will never go out of her way and pour a bowl for herself as a meal. Her rationale for buying cereal is her false hope of the rest of the family eating it. Above I mentioned that she had a choice between Honey Bunches or Grape Nuts. My mom has bought Honey Bunches before and I have told her on several occasions that it's pretty damn good. I have never had Grape Nuts in my life and simply by looking at its box, it doesn't look very appetizing either. So which cereal would one think she'd get? Just take a guess...

Right. Six boxes of Grape Nuts (only 5 shown) Peachy. Just peachy. And I'm not talking about Honey Bunches with Peaches (which is awesome I might add). I would have made a Grape Nuts fort, but that would require more Grape Nuts boxes (I'll pass thank you very much)

So why did my mom buy Grape Nuts instead? Purely because of unit pricing. The Honey Oats box was 14oz. while the Grape Nuts box was a surprising 24oz. At a whopping 24 oz. my mom thought it was a steal.

If anyone does any regular grocery shopping, many manufacturers have progressively reduced the amount of whatever they're selling, but the prices have stayed the same. Basically, you're getting ripped off; do some unit price comparison shopping to avoid getting duped. Some obvious culprits I have noticed over time include: soft drink companies (16.9 oz. bottles? Where's my 20 oz?), laundry detergent/other various soaps (ultra concentrated? people are still unaware that you don't have to use THAT much detergent to get your clothes clean), and lastly yet related to this post--cereal.

It really upsets me to see companies undermine the general public. Although it may be an extreme idea, borrowed from the Bill of Rights, we should have a right to:

An adequate amount of cereal at a reasonable price.

Enough of the same sized cereal boxes with less cereal in them; it frustrates me to open a box of cereal and see that the bag inside only utilizes 3/4 of the box and that the cereal only utilizes 3/4 of the bag. What wasteful packaging. I remember back in the day eating cereal with boxes of at least 18oz for a normal sized box. Nowadays you're lucky if you can find any normal sized box of cereal with more than 14oz unless you're going to Costco or Sam's Club for their normal-sized box.

Now that I've gotten some background information and random digressions out of the way, I can finally discuss the entire purpose of this rant: Grape Nuts. Given that my mom had bought six boxes of it and at the time there was only expired/stale cereal left in the house, I gave it a try. Not to disappoint all of the people out there that may love their Grape Nuts cereal, I'm going to be as fair as possible with my assessment of it--it sucks, real bad.

I finally realized why I had never approached this cereal ever; it's so extremely crappy that it has been my misfortune to have ever let those brown...things...to go through my digestive system. My initial reaction when I ate it was that it tasted like really bad, uncooked oatmeal. The cereal would soak up nearly all the milk that I poured into it within 2-3 minutes and would look like mush. Eating it wasn't very fun. Realizing that there are plenty of hungry people in countries where famine is an issue, I still managed to finish it. I didn't enjoy it to say the least.

A few other problems I have with the cereal that I'd like to address involve its name and the way it has been advertised. Err, Grape-Nuts? I'm probably acting a little to pretentious about the situation, but where are the grapes and nuts? Okay, it kinda tastes like almonds, ish, but I still can't taste any grapes. I guess it's that kind of branding where the name is completely unrelated to the product; like say, Life, Total, or Special K. Those cereals need to have some deep metaphorical meaning to it; they're too high-brow for literal translation cereals like Cookie Crisp, or Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

I'm not exactly sure how Grape-Nuts was advertised back in the day, but currently Grape-Nuts boxes have this nice little spoonful of their pretty cereal with some blueberries and raspberries. Taking into account the various cereals that incorporate fruit into their mix (Honey Oats, Raisin Bran, Special K), wouldn't one assume that there would be some dried fruit with it; perhaps grapes (or I guess raisins). Not Grape-Nuts. All you're going to get are those brown clusters that resemble bits of dog food. Whenever I see boxes like these I seem to laugh at their marketing scheme:

"Hey our cereal isn't that good by itself, so we're going to add some awesome fruits in to make it somewhat remotely appetizing."

Right.

How many people actually add fresh fruit to their cereal? I add a couple slices of banana to my cereal every now and then, but when are blueberries and raspberries common enough to put in your cereal on a daily basis? Bananas are fairly common/cheap and are around all-year long. As far as I know, I don't live in a location where blueberries and raspberries are native and they certainly aren't cheap in comparison to bananas. Overall, it's simply false advertising regardless of how pretty the food art may be.

Great cereals need not extra supplementary fruit.

Alright, maybe I have been a little too harsh. Supposedly Grape Nuts are good for you because it is whole grain and will promote a good heart and blah blah blah. According to Wikipedia, it has been around since its development in 1897 and has been used as jungle rations for U.S and Allied forces prior to WWII as well as expedition groups in the 1920s and 30s. Fair enough. It has it's practical uses, but beyond that, whoever likes this cereal or has developed a liking for this cereal needs to enlighten me on this.

Perhaps I have been spoiled with my cereals. I grew up eating mostly Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Captain Crunch with crunch berries. I witnessed the plethora of cereal ads on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network brainwashing me to always stop some rabbit from eating my Trix, to always follow my nose to find a box of Froot Loops, and to catch that damned Lucky and his Lucky Charms. They were all colorful, sugar-induced cereals which probably didn't provide any nutritional benefit. It's no wonder that a cereal like Grape-Nuts didn't appeal to me in the first place: it's too health-oriented, it needs fancy fruit I can't get a hold of most of the time, and most imporantly they're not GRRRREEEAAT!!! Nowadays I've moved on from those cereals for the most part and have focused on eating healthier cereals like Special K or Wheaties. Considering the changes in my cereal choices, wouldn't Grape-Nuts be a good third option?

Survey says: Probably not. It's just not good at all. It really makes my gag reflex act up a bit. I'm surprised that this cereal has been around for so long despite it not being that good at all. Perhaps there's some secret society of Grape-Nuts fanatics ready to smite me after they read this. All I know is is that I have five more boxes of Grape-Nuts left, and I am willing to let someone else eat it.

For those who actually like Grape-Nuts and now hate me, that means more Grape-Nuts for you...Enjoy.

Finds! - Hori Real Arcade Pro 3

In this entry of Finds!, I recently bought Hori's Real Arcade Pro 3 (HRAP3) arcade stick controller. Since the recent trend of new fighting games being released (e.g. Soul Calibur IV, Street Fighter IV, Blaz Blue, King of Fighters XII, and up and coming Tekken 6) and the ongoing slaughter of American arcades, emulating the arcade 'experience' at home has never been more important for the gaming enthusiast.

As someone who doesn't have a PS3 at the moment, it feels kind of silly to buy one at the moment only for it to collect dust until I buy a PS3 of my own; but taking into account how much time I've been oogling this stick, it's money well spent.

At the time, I bought it from VPGames for $84.85 + $1.85 (mandatory insurance) for a grand total of $86.70. VPGames currently offers free shipping on orders over $75, so I was able to save a lot on shipping costs.

Considering the very niche market for arcade sticks, I could not find any prices from local retailers. However, the main online retailers (Amazon, eBay, Play-Asia, etc.) currently do not offer a deal as good as the one I got. Prices range from $99.99-$149.99 for the HRAP3, so if you're in the market for a mid-range model arcade stick, take into consideration the price I bought it at.

I did encounter some problems with VPGames as they shipped my order in a box with very shoddy packaging; which resulted in this...

And This.

Thankfully the egg cartons inside of the Hori box preserved my stick.

It's in one piece thankfully.

I emailed their customer support shortly after seeing my horribly damaged order, they responded in a timely manner and were able to remedy my problem. Hopefully for future orders, this packaging problem won't be an issue. As of now, I am on the fence of whether to recommend from buying from them (only bought from them once before aside from this order).

About the Product:

I am fairly new to playing with arcade sticks, but have read up on most of the reviews for it. Here are some of the features of the stick courtesy of SDTekken:

• Sanwa JLF-TP-8Y-SK arcade stick


• Hori snap-in buttons


• Turbo button with three settings; Slow, Normal, Fast


• Stick lever can be set as digital, left analog, or right analog


• Quick disconnects on wiring for buttons


• USB wired for PC/PS3 combatability (works on Macs as well)


• PS/Home button navigation

Overall, the stick (square gate) and buttons and feel quite good, although the buttons may slide/wiggle around during gameplay. This may be normal, but in the future I plan to swap out the Hori buttons with Sanwa or Seimitsu buttons; I've done some research and heard that the HRAP3 is an easy stick to mod (buttons, stick, gate, etc). It's a very sturdy stick with some good weight to it and I'm extremely happy with my purchase, aside from the packaging problems. I would like to give more details, but I am fairly inexperienced with arcade sticks, I'll leave the detailed reviews to the experts.

Since buying my HRAP3 from VPGames, they have recently marked up the price to $89.85, yet the free shipping still coupon still applies. If you do order from them, and if you receive a damaged box as well, please comment or PM me so I can warn others not to buy from them.

Now all I need is a PS3...