… It is not a response to whining about my prolonged absence.

Last week, I walked from my office to the nearby mall’s food court for lunch. As I passed the Gamestop in the mall, I noticed that they now had Wii boxes on display, just like their little display boxes of Xbox 360s and other systems. Even though I suspected they’d gotten my hopes up through false advertising, I walked in and asked if the fact that they were displaying Wii (with a price, and no signs that said “Coming soon” or anything of that nature) meant that they had some for sale. The response, of course, was no.

Apparently my experience isn’t unique, as I’ve had at least one friend share a similar experience, and Penny Arcade parodied the game store experience with a recent strip. The newspost from the same day covers the topic as well:

There have been numerous instances over this densely packed holiday season where I would be rebuffed by dedicated gaming retailers for not preordering popular games, only to go across the street to Best Buy (a store I utterly detest) where a young woman simply opens a locked case, and inside this case is a stack of Dead Risings (or whatever) twenty deep. At no point was I required to thumb-wrestle a cashier, bow my head in contrition, or leave the store empty-handed.

I could never make sense of it, until my last visit. When it comes to the management of a business, as long as people are not shot, drugged, or enslaved in the course of its standard operation I understand that a certain amount of ruthlessness and treachery may enter in. I put together the idea that they pushed pre-orders to the extent that it allowed them to truly refine their margins. That may be a part of it, but I think it’s a side-effect: I think they sell just enough product to maintain their fabulously lucrative used business, and no more. No other theory resonates so completely. I love the store I go to, because the men and women who operate it are genuine enthusiasts with an encyclopedic knowledge of the medium. But the corporation’s strange aversion to new product has made them a poor choice for the true, day one devotee. They tend to buy new, they don’t need a disc cleaner, and they often eschew strategy guides – opting instead for online assistance. It’s the worst sort of customer for their model.

Try to imagine another shop working this way, and you may find your mind’s normal operation interrupted. There is, of course, one other business that operates in this fashion: a pawn shop. All they need is a couple firearms and a sketchy m***********, and the illusion will be complete.

It’s an interesting take on the concept, because I’ve noticed something similar. If all of the Gamestops in town are sold out of a game, I can usually just make a quick stop at Toys ‘R’ Us and get whatever game I was looking for. I’d attributed this to the location of our Toys ‘R’ Us, which isn’t the most convenient one, but this theory, which allows me to blame the people who buy used games (and worse, the people who commit the unthinkable sin of selling their video games) for all of my problems, is my new favored one.