The last time you purchased a game at a Gamestop location you were undoubtedly asked to preorder an upcoming title, most likely months away from release date. This always seem like a scam to me, but the truth is much more urgent. The natural materials needed to create DVD media is unreplenishable, and it is about to reach the tipping point.
Back in April of this year I was buying a birthday gift for my cousin at Gamestop. The sales associate asked me if I wanted to put five dollars down on Madden 08. I told him that I did not want to put money down on Madden 08 because I would be six months before Madden came out. He explained to me that this years Madden would be extremely hard to get, and that it would most likely sell out within an hour. I disregarded his warning because I believe this was just another Gamestop scam to make sure that I shop there. I assumed they were trying to scare me into giving them five bucks by telling me that somehow there could be a major shortage of the #1 selling sports game in history.
I was actually a bit angry over this claim. Okay, I could ALMOST understand preordering a game like Overlord for Xbox 360. Overlord is published by little know publisher, Codemasters. It would be feasible that Overlord would be ordered is small quantities and sell out at Gamestop. I even thought about the possibility that Overlord could sell out at Gamestop, Wal-Mart, Kmart, Target, Sears, Sams Club, Best Buy, and every other game retailer around, forcing me to wait two days for the next shipment. But Madden? What legitimate corporation would order too few copies of Madden 08? Especially a corporation that specializes in video games!
I remembered last year when Gamestop ordered just enough copies of the regular edition of Madden 07 to cover the preorders. But they weren't actually sold out of Madden 07. Very luckily, they had ordered about 200 extra copies of the Hall of Fame edition, which was ten dollars more. This was obviously planned by Gamestop because the profit margin is higher on collector's edition games.
It also entered my mind that if someone worked at Gamestop they could access the preorder file, and look at every preorder for the year. They could see all of the money sitting in the system from people that never picked up their video game. Could that be because they tricked mom into putting five bucks on Madden 07 by telling her that it would be extremely rare, and then mom forgot about her five dollars? If someone knew Gamestop policy they would know that after a year, Gamestop doesn't call to remind people that they can come pick up their money, or their video games. Instead, the names are wiped from the database, and the money is claimed by Gamestop. An insider could also tell you that it is very easy for an employee to go into the system, and do a refund on your money, and then pocket it for himself.
The thought crossed my mind to call Gamestop's consumer number to complain about the constant harassment to preorder games, and buy discount cards, and trade in my old games. Then I came across something truly disastrous.
The discs used to stamp games and movies onto are made of ingredients called Polycarbonates. Polycarbonates are a group of thermoplastic polymers. Polycarbonates have to be extracted from the lower mantle of the Earth, very close to the core. Only certain geographic locations on our planet are Polycarbonate rich. The Middle East and certain areas of Canada are the most abundant sources of polycarbonates that we can access. Another area well known for housing Polycarbonates lies beneath the ocean floor off the coast of Florida. However current legislation prohibits DVD manufacturers from drilling these areas for polycarbonates.
According to many experts, polycarbonates are an unreplenishable natural resource. This means that once all of planet Earth's polycarbonate supplies are gone, the end of DVD media will reach us as well. To make matters worse, these experts are certain that the "tipping point" is about to be reached. Over half of our polycarbonate supplies are almost gone, while DVD consumption among consumers is growing exponentially. China has in recent years increased their DVD consumption by almost ten times their consumption in the late 1980's. Due to major shortages, polycarbonate exporters have increased the price of raw polycarbonates, raising the prices of new video games from fifty dollars to sixty dollars. Even used games have seen a dramatic price spike due to the scarcity of this natural resource. Do you see a problem here? I certainly do.
All of our favorite video game systems run on DVD formats. Certainly we can change our tastes back to cartridge based video game systems, but the cartridges are usually more expensive, and have much less impressive graphics and sound.
To make matters worse, scholars at a major European university have found that when DVDs are discarded, and are eventually transported to landfills, the DVDs eventually break down, and the polycarbonates escape into the atmosphere. When the polycarbonates reach the upper atmosphere they expand and burn apart the ozone layer in a process that is commonly called "ozone burning". As we all know the ozone layer protects us from harmful ultra violet rays.
In retrospect, Gamestop is the only company concerned with the future of the video game industry, and the future of our planet. While companies like Wal-Mart and Best buy are oh-so-eager to order massive quantities of new video game titles, Gamestop only orders enough copies to fill their preorders. This cuts down on the necessity for polycarbonates, and helps to postpone the deterioration of our greatest protector, the ozone layer. Thank you, Gamestop.
Posted from www.planetvideogame.com
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