The Death of the Game Store

The explosion of Internet services had changed the way America shops.  Merely a decade ago, nobody had hear of Cyber Monday.  Now, the Thanksgiving holiday doesn't JUST mean awesome in-store deals on Black Friday.  It also means that there will be numerous sales online.  I'd bet dollars to donuts that you, dear reader, purchased at least one of your Christmas gifts online, and received at least one Christmas gift that was purchased online.

I can't really blame you.  After all, shopping online tends to be cheaper.  Physical, brick-and-mortar stores have to raise prices in order to accommodate their overhead costs--insurance, electricity, employee paychecks, leasing or buying property.... Depending on their size, most online stores either don't have to deal with such things, or only have to worry about them in a limited sense, such as paying for storage space or paying for server upkeep.  Because of the lower upfront cost, online stores can afford to offer discounts with which brick-and-mortar stores can rarely compete.

There's also the convenience of sitting at home watching reruns of The Office while shopping on your computer. If you're willing to wait up to four weeks to receive the product your bought, that's hard to compete with.  Brick-and-mortar stores win when it comes to speed--if you need a crescent wrench to fix that broken pipe, or an emergency birthday gift, or fresh batteries for your wireless mouse, you aren't going to wait for an online store to ship it to you.

But if you're willing to wait, online stores are hard to beat.  And that's the problem.

Game stores sell (surprise!) games.  Most people are not desperate to get the next expansion of Dominion or Munchkin the day it's released.  Gamers are willing to wait a couple weeks.  They've got plenty of other games, after all, with which to occupy themselves while they wait.  This works out well for online stores.  But brick-and-mortar game stores are really hurting.

In the recession economy, board games and card games did and continue to do surprisingly well.  Yet game stores have struggled to capitalize off this.  They struggle to get gamers into the store, spending money.  Too many gamers are like my wife and I:  We enjoy games, but don't really do the tournament thing.  If we want a good multiplayer game, we just invite some friends over.  Subsequently, we don't hang out at the local game stores.  There's a game shop within easy walking distance, Dragon's Keep.  I have been there perhaps five times over the past year.  Let me tell ya, as much as I enjoy games, I don't like going to this store.  There are too many stereotypical smelly gamers that hang out there.  It makes for an unpleasant environment for those of us who shower and eat the occasional vegetable.

Game stores can't really do much about their parasitic customers--you know, the D&D freaks and the fat Magic: The Gathering players who lack the ability to interact with females.  If you have games and a few tables, such players will be in your establishment.  It just comes with the territory.

Here are some suggestions that game stores can use to make visits by less-frequent customers more frequent:

1.  Be personable.  When new faces walk into your store, smile and make pleasantries.  I loved going to a small game shop not far from my hometown in Illinois called Just for Fun.  The owner was in the store all the time, and he clearly loved his job.  He always greeted customers, asked to help them out, and was quick with suggestions and advice.  He was just a pleasant person to be around, which made shopping in his store a treat.

2.  Know your products.  When I go into a game shop, I am either browsing and looking for a new game, in which case I will find games on the shelf about which I will ask generic questions; or, I have done research and want to know more about a specific game.  In each case, I expect the employee with whom I am speaking to be able to answer my questions.

3.  Take lessons from chain retailers.  Barnes and Noble gets customers into the store (or onto their website) by tempting them with coupons and discounts.  "Sign up for a membership!" they say.  "You'll get ten percent off of everything you purchase!  It's just twenty-five dollars a year."  As a consumer, I think, "Heck, I only need to spend $250 to get that money back.  I spend at least that much on books and DVDs in a year."  Which is true, but I wouldn't necessarily spend that money at Barnes and Noble if they hadn't offered some incentive to do so.  In addition to the member's discount, they also offer coupons.  "Fifteen percent off your next in-store purchase."  It's brilliant.  It gets customers into the store.  And as every store knows, if you can get customers into the store, they will spend money.

I would recommend that game stores attempt the same thing.  Obviously, you can't be as ambitious as a huge chain like Barnes and Noble, but you could still attempt some sort of interesting membership.  "Become a member for fifteen dollars!  For every one-hundred dollars you spend at the store, you will receive a coupon for ten dollars off your next purchase."  The consumer thinks, "Heck, I only need to spend two-hundred dollars to get the membership fee back.  I spend way more than that on games in a year."  Which is true, but now this consumer has a reason to spend that money at your store.

In this hyper-connected world, brick-and-mortar stores no longer just have to compete with other brick-and-mortar stores, but with online stores, which steepens the competition significantly.  Presenting a pleasant atmosphere, being knowledgeable about the games, and creating customer loyalty would help generate revenue for stores that really ought to be doing better than they are.

Also, I wouldn't mind a better snack selection.  Having spent eight hours in a game store for weekend tournaments before, it would be nice to have something better than chips, chocolate bars and soda.  Just a thought.

Silly FPS, that's not how you hold a gun!

I don't tend to enjoy first-person shooters very often.  This is partially because killing lots of people/zombies/aliens/robots/whatever is not inherently enjoyable to me, and partially because FPS games tend to be unintentionally ridiculous.

Now, in many ways it's not their fault.  There is an inherent problem with FPS games:  user interface.  The player's field of view is limited to a flat computer screen, sound is not necessarily correlated with location (unless you get to play with surround sound speaker, you lucky bastard), there is no sense of touch or smell, and the players feet are not actually touching the ground.  These are all sources of information we use to orient ourselves.  Without them, first-person shooters can be a little ridiculous.

Let me give you an example.  I am playing through Deus Ex right now.  Hopefully this time I will be able to finish it, unlike when I played it in high school nearly a decade ago.  The story line and themes of the game intrigue me, and I appreciate the fact that I can play through the game pacifisticly--I rarely have to actually kill anyone, if I am patient, sneak around a lot, and use non-lethal weapons.  In one area, terrorists had seized a subway station and were holding several hostages.  I found a convenient ventilation duct (why do architects make the ducts so large?) and was able to sneak down to the station undetected.  Unfortunately, the ductwork was unlit. (Duh.  Why would anyone put lights in a ventilation duct?)  I lacked night-vision, and would occasionally find myself surrounded by darkness.  I could not orient myself by feeling the sides of the duct and crawling forward, like I would be able to in real life.  Instead, I had to pop a flare every so often to see where I was going, which lead to the occasional confrontation with a gun-wielding badguy, who otherwise would not have known I was there.  I can't fault the game for being this way, but I still find the situation a bit ridiculous.

Aiming is also an issue with FPS games.  For some reason, you always have to be able to see your target in order to shoot at it.  This does not mimic battlefield conditions, where shooting around corners or over a trench without actually peeking are commonplace.  Sometimes you just need to lay down unaimed suppressing fire to make the enemy combatants keep their heads down.  First-person shooters, however, are not designed to allow--or even really capable of allowing--you to move your hands independent of your head.  You can't run for cover while shooting sideways at the enemy, like every action movie hero does.  Your face, torso, and legs must always point the same direction in these games, and your gun must always be oriented to coincide with what your face is doing.  Who actually does that?

Here is an image from a standard first-person shooter.  Now, say you just saw a combatant enter the building and want to keep your gun trained on that entrance in case violence ensues.  Makes sense.  However, you also want to check to your sides and behind you to make sure you're not getting flanked.  Can you do both?  Nope.  You either keep your gun forward, or you look around for enemies to the sides and rear.  If you do the latter, then you have to look with your gun, not just your eyes.

Here is an image from another popular FPS.  The player is in combat, and thus has his or her battlerifle at the ready.  The stock is pressed firmly into the shoulder to deaden the recoil and allow for accurate firing.  That is a very good way to hold a gun when firing.

But just taking a stroll?

This is another shot wherein the rifle is being held in the exact same fashion.  My question is:  why?  The player seems to just be having a conversation with another soldier, possibly about the giant ostrich egg the blue soldier discovered.  There is no reason to hold the gun at-the-ready.  But it is.  All the time.  No matter what game, no matter what gun, it is always held ready-to-fire.  If I went around like that all the time, my arms, back, and neck would ache after just a few minutes.  Yet these super-soldier characters we play as seem to be able to do it for days.

Now, I can't blame video game companies for this.  There are flaws within the FPS interface that are not their fault.  However, these minor inconsistencies with reality make it difficult for me to completely suspend my disbelief.  It makes the game slightly more difficult to get into.  That is not an issue when the game has a plot, character, or setting that intrigues me.  But I can only shake my head at all the various iterations of Tom Clancy's Medal of Battlefield Warfare II:  Call of Recon Duty.  They all just seem the same to me.

(Seriously, can you tell which World War II shooter this is from?)

WOW: WTF?

I played Warcraft II. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I played Warcraft III. It was... okay. I played World of Warcraft. I didn't get it.

Why do people play that game?!

Okay, okay, I can understand the psychology behind the addiction. The game is designed to lure players in and keep them there for as long as possible. The longer they keep playing, the more money Blizzard makes off them, thanks to subscription fees. Players are sent off on hundreds of little quests, collecting items and performing various menial tasks in the hope of gaining experience/items/notoriety. It's like those lab rats who learn that pushing the red lever will dispense food. Except in WoW, the red lever only SOMETIMES dispenses food. Sometimes, it does nothing. So the rats frantically push the lever, day after day, and every so often they get a randomized reward that makes their little hearts go pitter-pat.

I understand how the design of the game works to keep players coming back. What I don't understand is how anyone finds the game amusing at all. Where's the appeal?

I played the game for a while, years ago. I achieved level 12 before giving up. Understand, it takes a while to reach level twelve. We're talking maybe fifteen or twenty game hours. After all that time, I realized something. I had not yet had enjoyed myself while playing.

Now, it's possible that the game becomes more interesting at higher levels. But I doubt it. From what I've seen and heard, it continues to be formulaic and uninteresting. You talk with someone with a question mark, roam around killing stuff and collecting stuff, talk with the person again, get something from the little adventure. Wash, rinse, repeat. And people will do this FOR MONTHS. Some people have been doing it for years!

I don't get it. When does the game get fun? Someone has to explain this one to me.

Here is one of several problems I have with the game: It doesn't end! Granted, it's a game whose primary goal is to keep players paying the monthly subscription fee, so it's in the companies best interest to keep the storyline, such as it is, going for a long time. This is a great money-making scheme that has worked for television shows, comic books, and horror movie franchises for decades. But it rarely makes for good story-telling.

One of the reasons I prefer Japanese manga to American comic books is because manga writers are much more willing to finish the story. Trigun has a beginning, middle, and end. Once the story finishes, that's it. There is no more. Hope you enjoyed the ride, because that's all you get out of these characters and this universe. But my GOD, it's a fun ride. Batman, on the other hand, has been going for decades, with the occasional gritty reboot. Don't get me wrong; I love Batman. But I could never read the comics. I like my stories to eventually get wrapped up nicely.

World of Warcraft ostensibly is telling a story about a young adventurer who rises to power/fame/glory/whatever. This adventurer apparently makes his or her rise by collecting wolf pelts and fishing at every opportunity, including while raiding enemy cities. This adventurer's story never ends, though. He or she just keeps getting wealthier and more powerful, and probably has to wander around as a ghost every once in a while, looking for his or her body.

I play video games because I am interested in the story. The Zelda games, despite being quite formulaic, tell a fun and engaging story, as well as provide interesting and enjoyable gameplay. Dante's Inferno, a video game released last year, had many flaws, including shoddy cinematography which made combat and platforming unnecessarily difficult, some truly obnoxious puzzles, and an incoherent combat system that was fine when battling bosses and mini-bosses, but made fighting hoards of minions ridiculously easy, albeit somewhat time-consuming and repetitive. Despite all that, I enjoyed the game, because I was engrossed in the storyline.

Deus Ex? Cool storyline.

God of War? Cool storyline.

Dead Space? Very cool storyline.

Resident Evil 5? Terrible storyline, which is partially why it sucked so bad. (Although the fact that you were never alone--you always had a partner with you--made it difficult to feel fear and get a nice adrenaline rush during the supposedly scary situations. Solitude is what makes survival horror games frightening. Take away solitude, and your survival horror game isn't going to work. End of rant.)

World of Warcraft? Storyline is... just a disguise. A mask, to help players forget that they are just performing the same task over and over again. So all you WoW fans, you keep pushing that red lever. I hope you find the reward your looking for. As for me, I'm going to read a book.