In the heady days of the eighties and nineties, video games may have been an incredibly fun element in people's lives but they were nothing compared to the entertainment powerhouse they are today. Just last week, Nintendo released their earnings for the last fiscal year and it turns out they earned 1.83 TRILLION YEN.
A Nintendo employee, heating his house.
Just so you know, that works out to about 25 billion Australian dollars. Making money is as natural to Nintendo as breathing oxygen and choking hookers is to us. With that in mind, games retailers have also gone from happy-fun-time locations that sell us tangible objects of joy to dark recesses of despair; their only existence maintained by the constant chewing on our bank accounts to keep them alive. Yes I am squarely looking at you, EB Games. For a few years now, your prices and the general way you conduct business has grown more and more abhorrent.
Think back, people. Do you actually remember when the price tag on your video games started showing a figure of over one hundred dollars? One hundred and twenty? I remember the first time I saw that ridiculous price was plastered on the cover of a few games in 2007. It may have been in place before then, but it is the first time I ever thought "Good Christ, is that correct?".
Their pre-owned pricing system is even worse. Games that are purchased at a price of $119.95 that people sell back to EB, are then placed back on the shelf. For five dollars less. Yes, right at this very moment on their website, it states that if you buy Streetfighter IV for $119.95 and then trade it in (usually for around $60), they will resell that dirty, used copy to the public for the crazy, low, low price of...$114.95. How many trading customers took a moment to actually stop and say "Uh, did you just rob me?".
An EB Games employee, relaxing on a weekend.
But am I wrong to lash out at them? Am I a hypocrite when I complain about their used games when I'll happily buy a pre-owned copy of Okami for $30 that very same day? I'm not sure........wait a minute. Of course I'm sure. Any shop that purposefully maintains the sale of two year old games (Call Of Duty 4) at current ridiculous prices ($109.95) deserves to burn in hell with rapists and dudes who flamboyantly play Guitar Hero: Metallica.
Back to my original point. After paying a meagre $88.00 for my copy of Streetfighter IV at Big W, I felt slightly more cheerful about the world of video games. So next time I walk past an EB sign that states ...NINTENDO DSI CONSOLE FOR ONLY $125 (when you trade DS Lite console and 8 thousand DS games, including all the awesome ones because we ain't gonna give you dollar one for those shitty Shrek kart racer turds), a spring in my step will surely be close behind.
"Oooooh EB Gaaaaames, Streetfighter is awesome, EB Gaaaaames! No thanks to you, you heartless opportunistic fucking bastards, EB Gaaaaaames!"
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