Though hundreds of thousands of gamers swear by Amazon.com when it comes to ordering new releases or old favorites, Iâve never once ordered a video game from the popular online marketplace. Despite the allure of free launch day delivery and bonus credit, Iâve limited my game spending to local retailers. I didnât realize why until I finally caved and purchased SoulCalibur V online.
It hit me late Saturday night: SoulCalibur V was coming out in a few days and Iâd yet to preorder a copy.
Despite the fact that Iâve never really had problems getting games without specifically preordering them, years of smirking GameStop employees had done their work. I panicked, just a little bit. It was a silly thing to panic over, but I find that if I loose all my pent-up anxiety on the little things thereâs none left for when something truly horrible happens and I can keep a level head. Itâs okay to be a little unbalanced if you know how to guide the inevitable fall.
As soon as I got home I hopped onto my computer to rectify what (in my head) had grown into an error of planet-destroying magnitude. Moments earlier in the car my wife-figure had mentioned how much she loved SoulCalibur, so suddenly it wasnât just about me; my family needed the game, and a father is a fierce beast when protecting his family.
Stabbing the keyboard with fingertips like especially dull, fleshy daggers (five tiny hand penises?) I logged into the website of my usual video game retailer, which I wonât name (but rhymes particularly well with GameStop). There were no more copies of the collectorâs edition available for site to store shipping, and I had to have the collectorâs edition. I loaded a copy into my cart for normal delivery, but then I remembered that there were other places to purchase video games online. Kinder places. Gentler places. Kindler places?
Why hadnât I thought of Amazon before? Thatâs what went through my head as I dropped the all-important collectorâs edition of SoulCalibur V into my cart, entered Emilyâs credit card information, selected launch day shipping, and completed my order. It was so fast, so easy. I leaned back in my chair with a grin. âHey love, Iâve got a copy of the SoulCalibur V collectorâs edition coming on Tuesdayâ I proudly proclaimed.
âWhatâs in the collectorâs edition?â she asked.
Pause. âLet me look that up.â
And that was that. No driving to the store in the middle of the night. No standing in line with video game loving strangers, discussing World of Warcraft. No hours spent watching boys act awkwardly around the storeâs attractive young female employee. Just a couple of clicks, and I was on the express lane to SoulCalibur V land.
I was also a little sad.
Those are all the things I love about getting a brand new video game. The waiting, the anticipation, the camraderie, the awkwardness; even if Amazon made chat rooms so people waiting for their delivery could sit around chatting, dropping out one-by-one as the UPS man knocked it wouldnât be quite the same.
Now I donât blame Amazon for stealing the fun from my new video game purchase. I made a conscious choice to utilize the technology Iâve afforded myself to steal away my own fun.
So I blame myself? No, I blame the internet.
Letâs take a trip back to early 1991. Me and a couple of co-workers from Arbyâs had just closed the store off of Lower Roswell Road in Marietta, Georgia after spending several additional hours cleaning for a VIP visit the next day. It was around 3:30 in the morning, and somehow our manager had managed to schedule us all to open the store at 6AM for breakfast as well.
With nowhere to go and nothing to do in the two-and-a-half hours we had between shifts, we did something that young people did a lot back then: We sat in the parking lot and talked about completely stupid stuff. Ex-girlfriends; movie quotes; the proper use of ammonia (shooting flies out of the air in the back room); how meat-headed our manager was; we talked quite a lot, but the core of our conversation was embalming fluid.
Specifically, we couldnât figure the name of the main chemical used in embalming fluid. We tried to remember this for nearly an hour. Why were a trio of Arbyâs employees trying to remember such a thing? That doesnât matter, unless you were eating at that particular Arbyâs around that time, and Iâm pretty sure the statute of limitations has passed.
The point is we tried to come up with the answer for hours. It wasnât until we were all at work a few days later that one of us busted out with âFormaldehyde!â
You donât get conversations like that anymore. The question is asked, puzzling glances are exchanged, and smart phones are reached for. The answer is found on Wikipedia, and we move on.
Some would argue this is a better way. Hell, Iâd probably argue it was a better way too if I werenât feeling so damn melancholy about the whole thing.
There are no more âwastedâ hours spent puzzling over the unknown, bugging strangers for help and just generally fooling around. Spur-of-the-moment late-night cross-county runs to 24 retail establishments looking for obscure items have been replaced with a minute or two of internet shopping.
And now it seems like my waiting in line for hours in the middle of the night for a new game release days are at an end as well. Sure, Iâll still camp out for consoles, and now and then work will send me out into the cold to get pictures of folks standing in line. Otherwise, itâs release date delivery for me.
Iâm going to miss those things something fierce. *sniffle*
Unless my copy of SoulCalibur V doesnât make it in time, of course. Good thing Amazon never screws up game shipments.
