The Drying of the New

As a rule I try not to have much to do with game retailers, because I often feel that we, the gamers, are unwitting pawns in a continuing battle between them, the game retailers, and the other them, the game distributors.

That the game distributors are themselves engaged in a war with game publishers (even and especially when the distributor and the publisher are the SAME COMPANY) and said publishers are also fighting a pitched battle against game DEVELOPERS, well I just think that too much communication leaves one open to… whatever the hell it was I was driving at when I got myself into this sentence.

Point is, I avoid retailers as much as possible. In fact I find actual game stores pretty damn disappointing these days. I remember when I was 15 and broke, I would step warily into great cavernous emporia with names like SOFTWIZARD and GAMEBARN and stand in awe as seemingly endless shelves telescoped back into the darkness where strange, pale fruits clustered around Amiga 500s and Atari STs.

Nowadays it’s all bright lights and bargain bins and so much sale bunting I need to bring a machete. It’s like a jungle in there, is what I’m saying, and I have to blaze a trail to the sad little PC games rack up in the back corner.

Vic and I were in there for three days once, camping out in the lee of stacks of Guitar Hero III and eating whatever the local wildlife had let slip from its greasy paws.

“I wish they’d stop playing those infernal drums!” Vic cursed at one point, adjusting the rake of his pith helmet. It wasn’t cannibals though, it was just the rolling demo of Rock Band 2.

When we finally made it to the fabled PC games section, there was nothing on the shelves we hadn’t seen there two years ago.

“He lied!” screamed Vic, throwing aside the crude map the old prospector had drawn for us. “There’s nothing here but budget reissues! Where are the gems? Where’s the gold?”

So we went and had KFC.

What I thought was a foul-smelling beggar in the food court trying to steal chips from anyone who wasn’t watching their tray closely enough, turned out to be CEO and lead stamp-licker for game distributor Blind Drunk - William H Liability.

“You!” he said, slumping uninvited into a seat on our table. He eyed Victor’s two piece feed. “What the hell are you guys doing here? Don’t you know you have to PAY for stuff in the shops?”

“Very droll,” I said. “We were just trying to buy some new PC games. But there was nothing but budget titles.”

Liability raised his mighty eyebrow. “New games?” he spluttered. “New games? Don’t make me laugh… bitterly. Don’t you morons in your ivory slums know we’re in the middle of a sale period?”

I cocked an eye at the game emporium, which was actually casting a sort of flapping red shadow across the food court on account of how many SALE signs were hung up in there.

“I thought it was always a sale period?” I asked.

Liability stabbed an oily finger at me. “He’s got it,” he said. “It’s always a sale period. Remember how games stores used to be sort of like a library? One or two copies of every game that ever was, massive choice, etc?”

Wistfully, I did.

“Forget about it,” he said. “Nowadays stores only want to stock the Top 20 titles. And in sale periods, they just want to clear inventory. Why risk buying something awesome like Barbarian Axe Fight 3D when they know they can shift another forty units of Guitar Hero 17, or whatever it is they’re up to now?”

I shrugged. “Look Liability,” I said, “as much as I want new games, you have to admit this is pretty standard business practice. It’s a sensible sales model.”

“Is it?” cried Liability. “Is it? So the top games get reordered. But how the hell is a new game supposed to become ‘top’ in the first place? Stores can’t just keep selling Guitar Hero from now until the end of time. Those guys have to die at some point.”

“So let me get this right,” Vic said, his two piece feed reduced to a couple of stains on his Astro Boy T-shirt, “the only way you can get a game in the shops now is if it’s already a top seller in these shops that won’t even take it.”

Liability’s answer to this was to collapse face-first onto the table and begin snoring gently. Vic and I exchanged glances.

“I suppose we should do something about it,” Vic said. “Like start educating consumers and retailers, maybe set up an advisory committee, petition the unions, I dunno.”

“Or,” I said, “given that I just spent my last $8.95 on this awful Hawaiian pizza crepe, we could just slink home and check our torrents.”