Kingdom Hearts people are crazy

Today, I did something I'm sure I'll regret.

Today, I put something Kingdom Hearts related on our preorder board.

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A picture of a dry-erase board with a list of games that are available for preorder. And then I drew Sora, Riku, and Kairi from Kingdom Hearts, because I love abuse from strangers.]

Square Enix is finally- finally!- doing an HD remake of Kingdom Hearts, and releasing all the bonus content in the United States. I am balls excited for it. Unfortunately, I have to keep my love of Kingdom Hearts on the down low, because people who love Kingdom Hearts are psycho.

When Kingdom Hearts 3DS was on our preorder list? At least a dozen people a day would get all excited because they thought it was Kingdom Hearts 3, and then scream when it wasn't. The other day, some dude came in and told us that right after the Kingdom Hearts 2 HD remake comes out, Square Enix is going to announce Kingdom Hearts 3. 

"Uh, really?" I said. I mean, if there was an announcement about Kingdom Hearts 3, I would have heard about it, because I am a Kingdom Hearts person, and Kingdom Hearts people are crazy.

"Yeah," he said. "They had a big press conference on April 1st."

Ah. So that's it.

"Did they now," I said. "On April 1st."

"They did!" 

"The date," I said. He thought about it for a moment, and then became totally crestfallen.

"Well, yeah," he mumbled, "but this one was real."

SPOILERS: No it wasn't.

One sentence reviews: Bioshock Infinite

So, we have this thing we do at my store. We don't have the time or inclination to each play every single new game that comes out. Customers expect our opinions of new games that come out, but they're not patient enough to read a real review on the interwebs or whatever. To fix this problem, we've developed a system.

Whoever plays the game first sends a one or two sentence opinion to the other managers.

Because I enjoy heckling my coworkers for any reason, I asked everyone to send me a one sentence review of Bioshock Infinite. "But Miss Blog Lady," you might be saying. "Doesn't that just mean you're too lazy to write your own posts?"

Yeah, well, I didn't write my own review of Bioshock Infinite because shut up.

Here follows my coworkers' one sentence reviews. I challenge you to guess which one is bossbro's.

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: The cover of Bioshock Infinite. There's a dude with a gun on the cover, obviously.]

"Killing things with powers and guns in a floating utopia. Woooo!!!"

"Bioshock Infinite is awesome, but like, in the biblical way that things are awesome."

 "Freedom mixed with ultimate power and storyline!"

"Words cannot express my feelings, but maybe this giant erection can."

"A triumphant and captivating voyage through a new Rapture."

"Uh, I bought the collector's edition the day it came out but I haven't taken it out of the bag yet."

Are you ready to guess which one was bossbro's?

...

....

.....

....

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It's the one with boners in it. Obv.

Haha, this guy bought Brink

So, there's a new meme going around about video game resale stores. The memes all focus on The Big Video Game Resale Store (a place we'll call StameGop) but the principle is universal, so I'm taking some self-indulgent blog time to respond:

Your stuff is not worth the same amount of money you paid for it.

When you buy stuff, you're not investing in some sort of magical money depository that can be converted back into money at a moment's notice. Stuff is not money. Moreover, when you buy a video game, you are paying to play the game. If you're all "Waaah, I bought this $60 game and played the whole thing and only got $30 when I resold it that's so unfair," you are an ass.

Games are not free. 

Games are not free. Unless they are, which is pretty common, so go play those instead of whining about how you have to spend money to play a game that cost $200 million to produce and distribute. (And that figure is for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which came out in 2009, which means that more recent blockbuster games have been even more costly.)

People who post crap like this have a fundamental lack of understanding about how resale stores work. They're about convenience for the consumer. If you don't like the fact that they need to mark up your game to sell at a profit, then don't go to a reseller. And I mean, really, we're lucky that resale stores exist for video games. What happens if you bought a lamp and you don't like it anymore? Do you take it down to LampStop and exchange it for credit towards the purchase of a new lamp? Please.

On a happier note, I've also noticed that retailer Facebooks are littered with disgruntled employees telling everyone to STFU, which brings a smile to my face.  

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A Facebook conversation with pictures, names, and places blocked out. The original post is a link to a meme featuring a picture of a bunch of Xbox 360 games and the text "[StameGop] be like I can give you $4.25."

DISGRUNTLED EMPLOYEE: Assuming all the games are in resellable condition, at a [StameGop] in my area, they're worth $255.60 in store credit or $204.48 in cash. With a [rewards] card, it would be $281.16 in store credit or $224.93 in cash. Most of these games are more than two years old, and most of them suck. I mean, really? Homefront? Brothers in Arms? Brink?

DOUCHE: It's a joke.

DISGRUNTLED EMPLOYEE: Nah, the joke is all the butthurt dudebros on the internet who don't understand how a store works.]

Spoken like a true 12-year-old

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A Facebook post with pictures, names, and places blocked out. "call of duty & grand theft auto 5 and angry birds are my #1 GAMES"]

Texts from bossbro

It was too long for a screenshot:

"I just dealt with the most horrible family ever. 5 children under 12 all infused with mountain dew and I would guess amphetamines. Running around the store for a whole fucking hour destroying every wall and the mom was just yelling the entire time stop don't touch that where's your sister I'll give you something to cry about. I'm not even kidding people left the store because of these kids. It was a mad house. And then as I ring them up the bitch is pregnant with a 6th hellspawn! I swear to god [Miss Blog Lady] this is going to sound awful but I wanted to offer her an abortion. I have stared into the abyss and seen the demise of the human race and it starts with that fucking family."

Just another day in retail.

An observation

I've noticed that working in a video game store has had a detrimental effect on my personal hygiene.

"Oh no! I don't have time to shower, and I haven't done laundry in two weeks! ... Eh. Still less gross than the customers."

News from the Blogger mobile app

A guy just came in with a busted old Motorola smart phone.

"Can I sell this here?" he asked. "I found it on the bus."

I must have given him my Skeptical Retail Look.

"I've had it for a couple weeks and no one's called or anything."

I'm sure that has nothing to do with the fact that the battery died a couple weeks ago, sir.

In any case, we can't take an electronic device in if we aren't able to turn it on, so I sent him on his merry way.

BAM. Bloggin' on the clock, bitches.

Yikes

Dude just walked up with a copy of Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires. I asked him if he found everything ok, and he whispered:

"Yesssssss."

Good luck with that

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A Facebook post with pictures, names, and places blocked out. "Who do i talk to about creating a game because I have a great idea for a game"]

Injustice: Gods Among Us

So, I got to try out Injustice, because it's in our demo unit and bossbro and I snuck over and played it while there weren't customers in the store. And let me tell you.

It is so good, you guys.

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: The cover art for Injustice. And I picked the Wii U version, because fuck you, that's why.]

Neither bossbro nor I are particularly adept fighting game players (I'm just gonna assume Super Smash Bros. doesn't count), nor are we particularly hardcore comic book nerds. I mean, when I went to pick my character, I was all, "Who the hell is Killer Frost?" 

The first match we played was Hawkgirl vs. Green Arrow. I chose Hawkgirl, because I have taste.

"You're Green Arrow? Way to choose the guy who's already dead on the cover of the game." No, seriously. Look at the cover of the game. Though if I ended up in between Superman and Batman while they were locked in a fight to the death, I'd probably be dead, too.

"Why can't I shoot arrows?" bossbro complained. "Isn't that literally all he does?" Eventually he figured it out, but he could only manage to do it while crouching, so all the arrows stuck in Hawkgirl's knee. We shared a hearty nerd laugh.

"I keep jumping by accident," I said.

"Stop using the joystick. Use the d-pad."

"Oh my God, Hawkgirl can fly! This is awesome!" I flew up in a corner, just to sort of hang out, like I do. Then I chucked my mace at Green Arrow's head.

I won that match.

The second match we played, I picked Superman and he picked Nightwing.

"Shouldn't Superman just win everything by default?" I asked. "Nightwing doesn't even have any powers. Hey, how do I use my eye beams?"

*zap*

"Ha!"

*zap*

"Yesss!"

*zap*

Then Nightwing pulled out some weirdo acrobat bullshit, and Superman dropped a fucking car on him.

So I won that one, too. 

All I want right now is to get super fucking drunk and watch a bunch of people who don't know what the hell they're doing try to play Injustice. I think Injustice is my new Soul Calibur, y'all. I mean, don't lie. You've all gone to a party to watch a bunch of drunk amateurs beat each other up in Soul Calibur, and it was totally hilarious. Now, image that instead of a bunch of wackos with weapons that make no sense, it's Batman grapple-gunning Aquaman in his douche face.

Amazing.

That's not to say there's nothing I don't like about it, though.

[Harley Quinn's new, uh, design. No comment.]

Racist customer fun

Today, a crotchety old guy and his son or grandson were looking at a used copy of Crysis 3. Crotchety asked how much we give for Crysis 3 in trade. It was a third of what we sell it for, which is pretty standard.

"That's ridiculous!" he said. We get that sort of thing all the time, but our prices are actually quite fair for used video games, so I don't humor these people.

"That's how a resale store works," I deadpanned.

"That's how a JEW works!" he shouted. "You guys are JEWING people!"

At that point, I walked away and helped someone else.

Crotchety Racist didn't end up buying Crysis 3.

This is what I did at work today

We had the midnight release for Injustice: Gods Among Us tonight, so I decided to draw something relevant on our dry-erase board. I asked ladyboss for requests, and she said that all she wanted was Aquaman getting punched in the face.

 

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A picture of a dry-erase board with a list of games that are available for preorder. And then I drew Wonder Woman punching Aquaman in the face, while Aquaman cries about whales. Yeah. Take that. AQUAMAN YOU SUCK]

This midnight release was actually quite pleasant. (Especially compared to the last one.) Most of the people who came to pick the game up at midnight were old school comic book geeks, which was a refreshing change of pace from the mess of Call of Duty nerdbros that we usually get. It's good to see some classic, hardcore geekery still among us.

I'm gonna have to put Link back on that board eventually, though.

[A picture of the same dry-erase board with a slightly outdated list of games that are or were available for preorder. Then I drew Wind Waker Link and Zelda and a note telling people to pre-order Wind Waker HD, since it's not in the Top 10. There's no accounting for taste, I guess.]

On why I've decided to pre-order Beyond: Two Souls

Beyond: Two Souls has been on our troll-the-public-for-pre-orders radar for about a year now. It's being developed by Quantic Dream, AKA those people in France who made Heavy Rain. I've never played Heavy Rain, because I didn't get a PS3 until last spring, and I have limited time resources. (Fuck, I didn't even play get a chance to play Journey until last month.)  

The point is, Beyond: Two Souls has gotten a ton of press because it stars Ellen Page.

You know what? I'm kind of over Ellen Page. I'm just gonna come out and say it. I haven't enjoyed an Ellen Page movie since Hard Candy. So I was kind of like, real celebrities in video games, motion capture technology, woo hoo. "Pre-order Beyond: Two Souls, starring Ellen Page!" I've been known to buy games just because they have female protagonists (Assassin's Creed Liberation), but this one didn't do much for me. Then, I was watching a preview of the game, and I found out who her co-star is.

Willem Dafoe.

Willem fucking Dafoe.

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Willem Dafoe, in Beyond: Two Souls. Can you say ladyboner?]

Why would that not be all over everything? Why would the entire world not be like, "come play this video game, starring Willem Dafoe?" Did everyone else know that Willem Dafoe is in Beyond: Two Souls and just didn't tell me, 'cause y'all are pricks?

DAFOE.

I am going to buy Beyond: Two Souls at full price when it comes out, because I want to play a video game starring Willem Dafoe. I am ok with this decision. 

Actually, I should probably go watch The Life Aquatic again, right now. Willem Dafoe and Jeff Goldblum? And silly hats? Rawr.

I love a good Facebook throwdown

This is just fantastic. People like this are always making up some way that a business "victimized" them so they can complain and try to get free shit. I think some of this woman's comments were deleted, so some of the responses don't fully make sense, but it's still an epic pile-on. 

PRO TIP: The real world is not kid-friendly, and the store isn't responsible for the fact that a lot of its customers, such as yourself, are total assholes.

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A Facebook conversation with pictures, names, and places blocked out. It's a long thread, so it's split into two images, because I ain't got no skills. 

OVERBEARING MOTHER: Today my family went into [name of store redacted] located in [name of city redacted] to purchase a screeb protector for our tablet, while my husband was taking the tablet to get the screen put on by one of the employees my 5 year old and I were looking at the other tablets. While I was looking at the ipad2 my son walked over to another one and said daddy look at this... what is it. To our horror it was PORN!!! We immediately told the manager and he merely said "oh" and started doing whatever to the tablet. He never apologized nor did he tell us that he was going to fix the problem. I asked his (while he was clicking away on the tablet) this is a family store correct? He said yes. Then I said this should never happen right? He said yeah... its not like we did it on purpose. Never once did he even look up at me. We were going to buy a protective cover for our tablet also but after this I will not be putting my money into a store of such filth and horrible customer service. I can just order from [name of store redacted] from now on.

THE STORE: [OVERBEARING MOTHER]-

I'm very sorry to hear about this, and I can definitely understand your frustration. You're right in that this is something that shoulder never happen, and I apologize that our store manager didn't show concern over the situation.

- [SOME POOR SAP WHOSE JOB IT IS TO RESPOND TO CRAZY PEOPLE ON THE CORPORATE FACEBOOK]

OVERBEARING MOTHER: Thank you but can you ensure that this will not happen to anyone elses family? I know there are programs that limit sites and if you indeed consider your store a family store then there should be something setup so no other child should have to see this kind of filth ever in your public stores.

DISGRUNTLED FORMER EMPLOYEE: Nobody can ensure that. Other customers can come in and download other content and leave it there. I don't really see any way that any retailer can prevent this unless they kept the items under constant observation or under lock and key.

Constant observation sounds like a good idea but is unworkable in real life.

Basically, yes it sucks for you that some immature pranksters put porn on a tablet and your 5 year old saw it. But the effect it has on your 5 year old is up to you. If you freak out about it, it becomes a taboo and something that human nature will prod your kids at some point to become even more curious about.

I once observed two kids in Germany in front of a magazine rack reading a comic. Right near them was a Penthouse magazine with full frontal nudity. The mother was right there also but the kids didn't pay it any notice. They don't freak out over it over there so the kids don't become so enthralled with it as American kids do when they find something that is considered taboo. 

When you freak out about it, you make it worse.

DISGRUNTLED FORMER EMPLOYEE: Their network does have filters on it, but there are ALWAYS ways around them.

DISGRUNTLED FORMER EMPLOYEE: Also, he may not have looked at you because he may have been embarrassed at this incident. 

ANOTHER DISGRUNTLED FORMER EMPLOYEE: Short of having an associate monitor the customers testing every piece of electronics in the store, there's no way to fully prevent this. Do I think he might have handled it a little differently? An apology would have been nice, but I was in a similar situation at my old store one time and I was too flabbergasted to say anything.

TROLLOLOL: I am more than sure that video games with some violence will just straighten up your kid!

REALITY CHECK: What do you expect them to do, give you a $500 gift card? Call in detectives and make them get fingerprints off the iPad to try to pinpoint who looked at porn on the device? I mean, maybe you should avoid letting your 5 year old kid mess with in store demo units? I mean it seems like you were too busy playing around yourself and wasn't paying attention to what he was getting into.

MY NEW BEST FRIEND: It doesn't hurt a business to tell them your just going to go somewhere because you didn't get something free... ]

Today I went to a bar

Before the group I went to see, there was some lone guy with a guitar doing shitty covers, because duh. He played a shitty cover of Ain't No Rest For The Wicked, by Cage the Elephant. Apparently, other people who are not me know both Cage the Elephant and that song, and not as "that song from the intro to Borderlands."

I think I need to get out more.

[VIDEO DESCRIPTION:  The intro to the first Borderlands, featuring the song Ain't No Rest For The Wicked by Cage the Elephant.]

Ow! My nostril!: A follow-up

So, the big boss never showed up. Not only did I have to take out my nose piercing, I also had to wear my nametag all day. Which means that I traumatized my nose and let a bunch of weirdos learn my name for nothing.

"But Miss Blog Lady," you may be saying. "Doesn't your name print on all the receipts anyway?" Yes it does, but no one who doesn't work retail has ever figured that one out.

I asked ladyboss why our district manager wouldn't want to show off our store to corporate. We're all competent, so it's one of the prettier ones. She said it was probably because he knows we're all also unruly malcontents.

Ow! My nostril!

The big boss is coming, so I had to take out my nose piercing.

I feel naked.

Your criminal enterprise is bad and you should feel bad

PRO TIP: No one who isn't a shoplifter ever comes into any resale store to sell six of the same thing. FYI.

Team Awesome

My boss (henceforth "ladyboss") had an unusual habit. Whenever she had to deal with someone especially irritating, she would turn to the nearest employee and say:

"They're on your team."

Eventually, we decided these willy-nilly team accusations were a little disorganized, and so we delineated the teams for easy reference. Each employee is assigned a team, and we now had an effective shorthand code for referring to our problem customers. "That guy's on bossbro's team" is much less suspicious than "I just watched that guy try to shove an entire controller in his pants."

Ok, that'll make more sense when you read a little further.

For your reading pleasure, here are our teams:

1. People who are jerks for no reason.

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A Condescending Wonka meme. "Oh, you're a customer? Please enlighten me on how to do my job correctly."]

Some people are just huge jerks. For example, we have this one regular customer I'm gonna call Michael Bolton, because he shares his name with a celebrity. He's also a huge jerk. It's kind of a chicken-and-egg situation. Was he always a huge jerk? Or did he become a huge jerk because his name is Michael Bolton? We may never know.

Common subtypes: People who demand to speak to a manager just to try to get something for free, people who shout "NOTHING IS FREE!" when offered our free rewards card.

2. People who can't function in public.

[A Basement Dweller meme. "Real life? Never heard of that server."]

These are the people who refuse to ask for help, but just wander aimlessly through the store muttering under their breath about how they can't find what they're looking for. These are the people who ask questions about "FPSes" out loud. The guy who asked his mom to go ask me if I was single? This team. The guy who came into the store in sweatpants, then revealed he wasn't wearing underwear when he bent over to pick something up, thus exposing his enormous, pasty, pock-marked ass? This team.

Lest you think only men can make it onto this illustrious team, don't worry- women are just as bad. Let's talk about the lady who told me she had explosive diarrhea, ran out of the store, then came back half an hour later to shop some more.

Common subtypes: Neckbeards, bronies, anyone who asks you to repeat yourself more than once, people who still write checks.

3. Bros and criminals.

[A photo of a print-out sign from a store. "Shoplifters: Will be thrown into the pit of Carkoon to be digested over 1000 years by the almighty Sarlacc." That's a Star Wars joke. Old school.]

This team combo is efficient, because it covers everyone who hides their weed in their game cases. Seriously, a lot of people do that. After an ordinary day of work, I smell like an ass and I probably have enough of a contact high to get arrested for driving under the influence.

(Psst! This one is bossbro's team.)

Common subtypes: Potheads, drunkards, shoplifters, people who are openly selling their games for beer and/or drug money. People on this team usually travel in packs of three or more.

4. Unattended children and deadbeat parents.

[A tin sign that says "Unattended children will be given espresso and a free kitten." Darn skippy!]

If your kids are being annoying, what better place to take them than the Free Arcade? At least once a day we have some unleash their spawn on the store for the purpose of "keeping them entertained."

"Can I leave my kid here while I shop elsewhere?"

"Well, we close in five minutes, so as soon as we lock the doors we'll have to call the police to come pick up an abandoned child."

"Can't I just leave him here?"

Common subtypes: All of Deadbeat Dadurday.

5. The Wiiple.

[Some Wiiple. From a collection of hilariously awkward Wii marketing photos posted by Game Informer.]

Now, I get it. People shopping for Wii games are often shopping for little kids, which means they're not the ones using the Wii, so it's understandable that they might be a little clueless. I can deal with the fact that when someone says, "I need to buy a Wii game," there's a 50% chance they're talking about the actual console. But there's something about being out of their element that causes the Wiiple to freak out and have no idea what's going on. It always starts out pretty normal:

"Is this game appropriate for a 6-year-old? Will my daughter be able to play with her friends? What's it called? How much does it cost? Wait, how much does it cost again? What's a Wii game? Who are you? Where am I? What year is it?"

Common subtypes: People who only want bowling games, people who ask for Mario on the Xbox 360.

6. Team High Maintenance.

[An Annoying Customer meme. "Oh, you close in 5 minutes? I'm just going to browse."]

Salespeople exist to help you make purchases.

Salespeople do not exist for you to corner them like an animal and ask a million questions that no normal person would ever memorize the answer to. If you want ridiculously detailed system specs, guess what? We have Google for that. For the love of God, we have Google for that. See, look: I can Google that for you! Otherwise, I'll just read the text on the box that you apparently can't read, and I will judge you so hard.

Salespeople are not personal shoppers. Modern stores are designed specifically for independent browsing. If you're like "Hey, I came here to buy Hyperdimension Neptunia and I can't find it," I will happily find that shit for you. If you're like "Hey, I'm interested in one of these games but I want to know which one is the best game," I will happily give you my opinion. If you're like "Hey, I really like Hyperdimension Neptunia, what other games are like that?" I will offer suggestions. If you're like "Hey, I need you to stand right next to me and give me a full synopsis of every game I touch and haphazardly guess what my 8-year-old son would like the most even though you know nothing about him because I don't know how to Google (Hyperdimension Neptunia) and I have no independent thoughts also could you carry my stuff and hold my hand and stay late," then fuck you.

Common subtypes: People who interrupt you when you're helping someone else, people who freak out when they can't use our bathroom. (We're in between three restaurants and a huge grocery store, all of which have public restrooms.)

Well, those are the teams. More to be added later? Most likely.

"But blog writer lady," you might be saying. "If people figure out they can do all of this on their own, won't you be out of a job?" To which I say:

Whatever. My job is piss. 

Today is my dad's 60th birthday

My father happens to be a ranked master in some sort of old-timey augmented reality turn-based strategy game called "chess."

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A chess set. You need a ton of accessories to get started, but they're all universal and not too expensive. Unless you get the set pictured above, which is diamond studded and costs $500,000.]

When I was little and required constant supervision, my dad would sit me in a high chair and make me watch him practice his chess moves. When I was slightly less little, I enjoyed stealing the pieces and having play-time adventures with the "horsies." When I got way older, I'd brag about my father's mad chess skills in order to pick up dudes.

Ok, that last part was made up. But I really did play a lot of chess as a kid.

[A baby playing chess. This is not a picture of me, though there are plenty of me playing chess in my baby book. This is a stock photo I linked from an article about raising baby geniuses. There are plenty of pictures of non-model kids playing chess on Google too, though, which makes me think this is a weirdly common parenting method.]

The point is, my dad gave me the gamer gene. (I just barely missed the Trekkie gene. My brother got that one.) I'm grateful to have it, because gaming is awesome, even if it's more than a little different from what it was in the 70s when my dad got started in his chess career. He stopped humoring my attempts to get him to play Nintendo with me when I was about five, and I've never really waded into the hot mess that is chess video games.

[Box art from the GBC installment of ChessMaster. My dad totally had this game on PC. He also kind of looks like The ChessMaster, or will in a few years. Incidentally, did you know that chess masters are actually wizards? Famous chess masters: Gandalf, Dumbledore, my dad]

Thanks, dad, for giving me gaming, and also for apparently turning me into a baby genius via baby chess, according to internet parenting advice.

My father has an intense aversion to all technological advancements more recent than the VCR. (No, seriously, he just got his first Facebook today.) But the internet has given the world two things that he just loves: ranty blogs, and memes. I've already got a ranty blog, but in honor of my daddy's 60th birthday, here is a chess-themed LOLcat:

[A cat hitting a chess piece with his foot. "Im on ur chess board pwning u at chess." Hahahahaha! That's so silly! Cats don't play chess! And they can't spell!]

Aw, heck, here's one more:

[A tabby kitten playing Invizible Chess. Hahahahaha! Cats don't play chess! That's what people do!]

And another:

[A cat lounging on top of a chess board, with pieces strewn everywhere. "Checkmate." Hahahahaha! Oh, cats. You are incorrigible.]

Happy Birthday, pops! Here's to another 60 years! Just kidding, that's biologically impossible. Go eat some birthday cake.

An addendum to a previous post

Today, my brother called me.

"So," he said. "I was catching up on your blog."

"Cool," I said.

"I came across a post where you wrote, and I quote: "Incidentally, when the game first came out, my big brother assumed from the ads that not only was the game titled "Scrim," but that "Scrim" was also the name of the evil dragon. LOL THE DRAGON'S NAME IS ALDUIN OMG BROTHERS ARE DUMB"."

"Yeah, I wrote that," I said.

"Do you have another brother?" he asked.

"Nope," I said.

"'Cause I'm not dumb," he said.

I'd like to come out right now and clarify that my brother is not, in fact, dumb. Unlike our sister, who refuses to play video games because she "doesn't like buttons."

Somebody give me $50

From SceeneShoes on Etsy:

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A hand-painted Super Mario Bros. bra. I want to wrap my knockers in it.]

More Facebook gamer poetry

As soon as I figure out how to tag posts, am I gonna have to make a tag for this? Apparently, posting that poem you just wrote on a corporate Facebook is a thing now.

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A Facebook post with pictures, names, and places blocked out. "So I was hanging out with two of my close friends who were playing Halo 4. While watching them play, I wrote this poem.

Deliverance

A volley of gunfire

A stream of offensive epithets

An amazed girl

And an enraged boy.

After every volley of gunfire,

There was a respawning individual.

Steam could be seen emanating from his ears

Anger radiated off of him.

The girl watched carefully

Taking note of every action.

The sounds of battle could be heard

And the boy kept getting aggressive.

Innovative and anatomically impossible suggestions were made

Names were called and yelled out

And the game continued

"I effing stuck him" was repeatedly yelled.

Finally, after a long rant,

The boy jumped with ecstasy

In the heat of the final battle, he won.

Now he wouldn't have to fling his controller

The girl applauded him, thankful for the blessed silence.

[Names of tagged friends redacted], This is for y'all. :)" ]

No, but he's a person

"Oh, my son loves his sneakers. He's got his Michael Jordans and, um, what's that other basketball player's name? "Shaq"? Is that a thing?"

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Shaq. He is not a thing.]

Danger is his middle name

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A Facebook conversation with pictures, names, and places blocked out. The author's fake middle name is Danger. "Quick question. Is it mandatory for every [name of store redacted] location to have at least one hot girl working there?"]

The brief answer to your question, good sir, is AW HELL NO. 

To give a more detailed answer: it's people like you who make my job difficult. At least once a day, some invariably male person asks me if I even play video games. (Answer: Yes.) Dudes ask me about my relationship status so often that I have an elaborate made-up boyfriend cover story in place, so I won't ever have to explain that I'm both single and totally not interested. (Someone asked me once what my boyfriend's job was. My fake boyfriend has a fake job.) Grown-ass men tell me LAFF RIOT stories about how bad their girlfriends / wives / random acquaintances who might be women / so on suck at video games, and then stand there and wait for me to laugh along with them. (Hahahaha nope.) Little boys stand right in front of me and tell their parents that they don't want to talk to me because "girls don't know anything about video games."

The implication in complaints like this is that the "hot girl" (READ: female employee) wasn't hired because of her knowledge and qualifications, but because "gamers" (READ: lowest-common-denominator douchebros who sometimes play video games) like "hot girls." Either the "hot girl" is taking the job from a "gamer," or she's there to trick "gamers" into spending more money.  

Our store management, self included, is majority women. (And our part-time chick is a lesbian, so good luck with that, bros! Ask her about her boyfriend's job.) We've all been working at the store for years, and we weren't hired on as tokens. Diversity in the staff down at the shallow end is important for any retailer, because women and other assorted non-bro types have money to spend, too. And yet, even if no women, gay men, anti-sexists, or gender rebels ever in the history of ever bought any games for themselves, if video game stores really did go ahead and hire otherwise unqualified female models to jockey their registers, it would still hurt their sales. 

Why?

A large chunk of the people shelling out all that money for those video games for the coveted men and boys age 12-to-21 set... are their moms.

WHOOPS FOR YOU!

A topical post

When you're at work at a retail store, you're kind of cut off from the world until you get home. (Unless you're one of those assholes who's constantly trolling Twitter on their phone.) So today, I was working with bossbro, and two of our repeat offenders came up to the counter.

"OMG," the one guy said. "Roger Ebert died today!" Which is terrible news, and news we had not been aware of. But then this guy said:

"PSYCH!"

Really, bro?

"Uhh, so is Roger Ebert dead or not dead?" we asked.

"Oh, no, he's definitely dead," he said. "I don't know why I said psych."

R.I.P. Roger Ebert. You deserve a better eulogy.

Real-life customer interaction, submitted without comment

"Why are you buying NBA 2K12 and 2K13?"

"YOLO."

Truth

For Lack of a Better Comic:

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A comic strip by Jacob Andrews from For Lack of a Better Comic featuring a guy working in a shop. 

REGISTER JOCKEY: Will that be all for you, sir?

CUSTOMER: Yep, that's it.

REGISTER JOCKEY: All right, have a great day!

CUSTOMER: You too.

Long pause. REGISTER JOCKEY becomes more and more depressed. Typical REGISTER JOCKEY behavior, basically.

REGISTER JOCKEY: ...Oh my God. I'm an NPC. ]

Badass story of badassitude

While my friend was reading this very blog, she killed a huge fucking cockroach with her bare hands. I'm gonna go ahead and say that gives me badass ranks by proxy.

Oh no! My gamer cred!

Gamers are jerks, and they love to spoil games for other people. The day after Bioshock Infinite came out, one of our repeat offenders pranced in and told me the ending, because he looked it up on Youtube and decided it was stupid. Back in December, someone spoiled Far Cry 3 for bossbro over the phone. Just called up the store two days after the game came out and opened with, "So, how about that ending to Far Cry 3 where blah blah blah?"

On behalf of media salespeople everywhere: THANKS, DOUCHE!

So it wasn't that unusual when today at work, a child walked up to me and told me the ending to Batman: Arkham City. I have yet to play Batman: Arkham City. In hindsight, it's kind of amazing that I didn't know the ending yet, since it came out a year and a half ago and I work in an environment where people are constantly shouting out the endings to things, with no concern for how it affects me.

"Well, thanks for that," I said to the kid. "I haven't even played that game yet."

"Umm, you work in a game store. Shouldn't you have played every single game ever made?" Also a common assumption about us lowly video game salespeople. Unfortunately, I haven't had time to play test Dora Saves The Mermaids, because I was too busy doing literally anything else. 

"I bet I know a ton of stuff about games you've never even heard of," I said. "Wanna know the ending to Dragon Warrior on the NES?" Surprisingly, he had heard of Dragon Warrior on the NES. He must have good parents.

"Oh, I played that once, it was fun. But I kept getting killed by slimes." 

"So you didn't finish it." He shook his head. "Do you want to know the ending?"

"Yeah, ok."

"You kill the Dragonlord, you get the princess, and then the game ends."

Pause.

"It was the 80s, they didn't have fancy endings." 

He didn't look very impressed. But whatever- I beat Dragon Warrior. Multiple times. I didn't get killed by no slimes. And it was fuckin' awesome.

 

[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: The starting screen for the American version of Dragon Warrior on the NES. Hurtmore! Hurtmore! Healmore! Thou art dead.]

Tellin' it like it is

When I got to work today for the closing shift, my boss had made a list in our Official Store Daily Records Book of all the stuff we had to get done today. The first one was "Alphabetize the Wii section" (impossible), followed by some inventory stuff and a list of the items we're supposed to be pushing right now. But by the time I got there, at 2 P.M., she'd only signed off on the completion of one task:

"Babysit adult loiterers."

Sounds about right.