RANTING AND RAVING

As a console agnostic gamer, I like to make my decisions based on my software interests.   Opinions are debatable, personal tastes are questionable, and value is personal.

This generation has been riddled with fanboys, trolls, and viral marketers pushing for superiority.  I normally avoid forums where people bicker in broken English, denounce a platform completely, or gloat about a brand failing.  However, no matter how much I try and avoid the silliness of the console warrior, I end up being caught in the blowback.

The filth that’s spewed on the forums, in the magazines, and by the reviewers eventually gravitates to a retail level.  I like my videogames, I like my peace, and I like my opinion. For some reason, that mantra is failing me. Why is it that retail chains feel it’s their obligation to reinforce their opinions?

It’s efforts like this that make me shy away from entering a Gamestop.  The last time I visited Gamestop, it was with my cousin on her 15^th birthday.  She came into the store wanting to buy a Playstation 3.  The clerk at the register questioned us multiple times in disbelief.  He mad sure to mak as to why we would want to purchase this particular console.  He specifically mentioned Bluray was dying, the Playstation 3 had zero exclusives, and that the Xbox 360 was selling more consoles across the world.  Now, I don’t mind rude people, I am a fairly patient person, but this overly elitist scumbagHAC was testing my very last nerve.

Unlike the average village idiot HACwho doesn’t bathe, I am pretty up to date on the situation in gaming.  Just about every fact he paraded was a lie.  A bold faced, openly biased, spun – LIE. What does this say about a retail establishment when their very own employees spew this self-obsessed console worship rhetoric? Now Gamestop, Game Crazy, Game X Change, whatever your moniker maybe, why is it that your employees like to hustle potential customers?  Why is it that I can’t make a purchase without the commentary of some 20 some odd year old single, sweaty, hariy, overweight employee badgering my 15 year old cousin and I about our gaming tastes.

I mentioned to him that she really liked Uncharted. The HAClast NPD numbers I checked had the Playstation 3 outselling the Xbox 360, and that we owned a projector so we preferred uncompressed video.  Instead of leaving it at that, and letting the customer decide for his or herself, the employee than begins to debate me on Uncharted’s relevance.  I mean, honestly, how much of a dick can you seriously be?

It’s not even that Gamestops that are the problemHAC.  It’s Walmart, K-Mart, Fred Meyer- just about any store that sells videogames is for some reason manned by inexplicably ill-informed individuals that don’t realize just how inexplicably ill-informed they areHAC. Sony if you want to go on a witch hunt, make sure to visit the electronics department in Walmart in Bonney Lake, Washington.

I still cannot for the life of me understand why people feel it’s their personal responsibility to defend the actions of business conglomerates who are known for shady business practices, who have nickel and dimed their way to the top, and could care less whether you’re alive or dead.  Aren’t there more pressing issues to worry about?HAC