Tag Archives: Amazon

This one’s going to be a short one, but it’s about an odyssey through the dark recesses of gaming hell.  You may want to sit down while reading this one, ‘cause there are going to be some shocks and surprises and I don’t want you to fall over and hurt yourself.  This is about a hunt for a particular game, and the lengths I have gone to for it.

It all started way back in 2007 with the release of Mass Effect.  A great game that I knew nothing about.  Some people mentioned it was good, so I tried it at a friend’s house.  That’s all it took.  I was hooked.  In the interim before the inevitable sequel, I picked up the novels just to stay in the loop. They weren’t great but they were all I had.

The Mass Effect 2 came out and I knew that the collector’s edition of the game was the one for me. It came with some extra content and some fancy packaging, but I wanted to make sure I had the best of the best.  It was great and built off of choices you made in the first game.  That, to me at least, was pretty revolutionary.  In fact, I’m playing it a second time to try and make sure I’ve got the best ending to my standards for the next game.

And that leads us to Mass Effect 3.  It was released today, and once again I wanted the collector’s edition.  Now, I’m used to EB Games being the place where you can pre-order a game the day before it comes out and you’ll be fine.  So, when I went to the store with 2 weeks to spare I figured I’d be okay.  I was not. They had stopped doing pre-orders on the collector’s edition weeks before that!  Disappointed, I went up the street to my local Future Shop.

They said that they didn’t show any of the collector’s edition coming to their store, but that they probably would. He couldn’t pre-order it, so the clerk suggested that I set up this layaway scheme. He said, “If they see someone’s already put money down they’ll be more likely to ship it to us. Call a few days before though, just to make sure.”

So, feeling fairly assured that my quest was at an end, I went home and had a celebratory Fun Dip. This past Saturday, I gave the Future Shop a call as instructed. “No,” I was told, “we are not getting any in.” Crest fallen, I tried to figure out an alternative. I contacted Best Buy, The Source, Toys-R-Us, and a bunch of indie gaming stores. No one had any they could put aside for me. The few that were getting any at all said it would be first come, first serve on Tuesday.

Unable/unwilling to take the day off work, my situation was starting to look pretty bleak.  But, like a ray of light, the Best Buy website updated. This morning, it listed which of its stores had copies of the game. It also said that you could pay for it online and pick it up there later.  A chorus of angels appeared around me and began singing “Hallelujah!”

I placed my order at 9 in the morning knowing that since the stores don’t open until 10, I was assured a copy. At 10:20, I received an e-mail saying that the order could not be filled.  Like a heroin junkie who just discovered his last hit didn’t take, I tried again with a different location that still said it had copies. Denied again.  The Best Buy website was lying to me!  Toying with my emotions like some sort of Siren!  Finally, my options exhausted, I resigned myself to defeat.

It breaks my heart to type this, but I’ll probably have to settle for the regular edition.  I’m going to hold off for a few days though, just in case.  Amazon could get more in stock in the next couple of days, right?  Best Buy probably has a direct pipeline.  I still have the rest of my second play through of Mass Effect 2 to finish, anyway.  And, you know, I don’t have a lot of time to play games right now.  So, yeah, it’s all good.  My whole desperate search was mostly an act.  You know that, right?  Right!?

Graham Becksted will cry himself to sleep tonight.  He is the author of Graham’s Grumbles the second blog by that name that is listed in Google results when you search for Graham’s Grumbles.  If you would like to be his 58^th follower (thank you, bots), he can be followed on Twitter @GrahamBecksted.