Monday 26 November 2012

Game... again...

These things are becoming a rarity of late! Two main reasons, typing with a broken arm sucks and I've started reading A Song of Fire and Ice George RR Martin, and those books are... substantial. I'm 80ish% the way through Game of Thrones at the moment. It's good, long winded, but good stuff. Poor Sean Bean.

Anyway I'm not here for an update, nobody cares that much, I'm here for a good old fashioned moan! Not for the first time, Game, you're up.

Game haven't 'made the list' as they are already there, I think they l;ist was invented for Game to be honest, as companies go they've always been among the worst and almost got their just reward last year. Maybe next hey ;)

One thing I've always wanted the usually pretty poor store that is Game to do is allow you to check their trade in values online. Well stone the peasants, they've done it! Or at least they seem to have pretended they have. 

Last week I traded in Zelda for the DS without knowing this checker thing existed, found it later on and found out they only gave me 44% of the onsite value for it. I complained and have had 1 email igored and been told 'tough' by their Customer Services.

Yesterday, I checked the price of Goldeneye 007 on XBOX, I kind of enjoyed it, but I'm never going to be arsed finishing it, so when £16.50 came up I thought decent, that'll help the wife get Mario Kart 7 (why'd they number that one, they've never been numbered before. Well except 64, but that wasn't a series number...)

Product DescriptionBarcodeCash (£)Trade-in (£)
GoldenEye 007: ReloadedGoldenEye 007: Reloaded (XBOX360)7503091710508112.4016.50x
The wife goes to the store and the staff, you know the Scottish woman, that heavily balding bloke who I assume is some variation on manager. Not from Merthyr or ever go to the one remaining shop they have there? Then it doesn't matter.


This place. What's in the boxes? I can only assume the extracted morals of the staff...


Anyway they refused point blank to honour the quoted trade in price from their website, saying it wasn't definite and depended on stock levels. Offering her £3.50 less at £13ish

However the website says different, it says:

"The Price Checker will calculate the Trade-In value of the game. The Price Checker is always kept up-to-date with our latest Trade-In values, so you can be sure the price quoted is the game's current value." 


So, what is it Game? Your staff poorly trained/badly informed? Is it a deliberate ploy to shave a couple of quid off every one, before selling them on at twice the price? Either way it's shit and cost you a couple of sales off me. Not that that'd worry you as it's Christmas soon (it's not Christmas yet, it's not even December, pretending it is already is a surefire way to get you binned off Twitter/Facebook) so it's sell Call of Duty to 10 year olds via their Grandparents time, as it's "Not that violent" (actual quote from a game store employee!) or tell a parent their 4 year old can use the 3D for a bit on a 3DS, but only if they buy the bigger more expensive console, cos it's bigger and therefore easier on the eyes... (week before last in Game Cardiff).

I'm going to start recording some of the sales pitches, there's comedy gold waiting!

Anyway back on point, I've emailed the Game CS address (customerservice@game.co.uk) a couple of times no, I'll await a reply. Not holding my breath though.

Thursday 1 November 2012

Disney star wars?

My love of the Star Wars film has long since faded. Not due to the quality of the original trilogy, but more due to the constant reissue and amend, the 3 prequels that were made with the sole purpose of buying George Lucas a new gold cock ring (or something), and indeed the very poor quality of these films, there's what 30 mins watch able out of however long they are. Shit.

What do you think Paul and Storm?


So, it's vaguely good news that Disney bought LucasFilm and have taken away the direct responsibility for doing any more damage away from George himself. Now we may be spared the scene where we see Vaders sweaty cock rash.

But the problem is while before everyone was fearful Lucas would anally penetrate the series a bit further with more films now we know Disney will, and frequently. Disney like making money above all else, they're a corporation, that's as it maybe should be, so Star Wars (and maybe Indianna Jones, Lucas only shafted that with the 1 dreadful film though, less to come back from) will now be sold everywhere and on everything. But I can live with that.

The concern is the new films will be made to be marketable, sci-fi is rarely marketable. It'll be full of safe Disney stars that kids will pay money to see regardless of the quality of the film. I can easily see such people as Miley Cirus (sp?) and Zac Efron being in what is essentially a rom-com set in space.

It maybe ok, Disney owns Marvel and some of the avengers films were ok, particularly the Avengers itself. But regardless, I wont be watching episode 7, not on DVD or cinema or anything. I've still got the silver DVD boxset of eps 4-6, that's all the franchise ever needed. Now I think about it, it better not be fucking reboot...

Efron as a 'cool' Skywalker who breaks into song regularly? Cyrus as Leia who's also a cheerleader? Some fucking Jonas brother as Han? And no Leia, Luke kiss, as the family thing is why Disney declined back to the future!

I always preferred Star Trek anyway.