EBGames Can Bite My Shiny Metal Ass

Of late I have been increasingly disgruntled with EBGames‘ policy of selling pre-ordered games. It’s been a vague dissatisfaction without any concrete evidence as to what makes it bad. The concept of pre-ordering a game to have a copy of it on release day seems reasonable until you’re faced with the alternative: not pre-ordering a game and expecting to get one on release day. EBGames is a retail store - a brick and mortar shop - that is in the business of selling games. I should be able to walk into a store and purchase it on the day it’s released. Not today, though! Civilization IV is in stores now, or it should be. If I had pre-ordered a copy from EBGames, I could have mine today. The Special Edition, available only through pre-orders is in-store now. But I didn’t pre-order one so I can’t get a copy. Even though they’re holding the non special-edition version of the game hostage in their back room until tomorrow. (Edit: I’m not 100% sure they received the non-special-edition the same day as the Special Edition. It made for a more dramatic statement though so I’ll leave it. Cuz I’m Pissed!) The sole reason for them to do this is to push their pre-order scam forcing people to give them money in advance of the actual release of the game.

Meanwhile, the Future Shops and Best Buys are awaiting delivery of their non special-edition games for me to purchase.

What makes all of this really frustrating is that there is no guarantee that you will get a copy of your game (or hardware) if you do pre-order it. You’re on a list and if they don’t get the number of items to accommodate everyone who pre-ordered, you get yours in the next shipment. Even if another EBGames store has extra copies down the road! So you’re taking a chance by giving them money up front. Some of my friends have pre-ordered Xbox 360s. I chose not to, thinking that when they’re released, I have a better chance of getting one at a Future Shop/Best Buy, a Walmart or a Toys ‘R’ Us. We’ll see if this holds true in about a month, and I will gleefully (or tearfully) post my results here.

Another annoying aspect of EBGames is their game selection. They’ve become increasingly geared towards selling console games. The last couple of times I went to their store, they had a smaller area devoted to PC games than to any of the various console systems. Maybe this is because the PC game market is dwindling, being forced out in favor of higher-selling console games that suffer less from piracy. Or maybe it’s because they’re no longer stocking PC hardware in any of the EBGames stores I’ve been in because selling it would require its staff to have actual knowledge of PC performance and that kind of expertise can get paid better elsewhere. But yeah, they’ll sell you a copy of Mario Kart.

And no, I don’t want to purchase “media protection” with my game for a dollar or two. That copy of Unreal Tournament I bought 5 years ago still works just fine because I took care of the media it came on.

The end of this frustrating story is that I’m still waiting for my copy of Civ4… I’d go to an EB and “pre-order” a copy of it but they won’t let me.

Petulantly, I remain…

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Published:
10.26.05 / 3pm
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Computing, Entertainment
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