Where Old Games Go When They Die

Today I'm going to take a break from politics to gripe about something far more important: the availability of computer games.

I've been keeping an eye out for two games recently: Star Wars Knights Of The Old Republic, and Price of Persia: The Sands of Time. Both have garnered good reviews and indeed the former is currently at number 19 in Amazon.com's bestselling computer games. But can I find either of them in Bermuda? Can I hell.

It wouldn't be as bad were these games the exception rather than the rule. But they're not. I've yet to see Call of Duty, one of the best games of recent months, on sale here. The PC versions of Halo and Deus Ex: Invisible War came and went at the end of last year and I've not seen another copy of either since.

Perhaps I've just not found the best place to shop for games yet. Leisure Time has the most space given over to them: three full shelves, more than PC games get in many UK games stores. But the quality of their stock is terrible. I walked in there this lunchtime to see a copy of Quake III: Team Arena occupying pride of place. That game is now three years old - so old, in fact, that you can't even buy it new on Amazon.com any more, although you can pick up a second-hand copy for $6.95. Leisure Time are still selling it for $50 - presumably due to its rarity. What next? Copies of old BBC Micro or ZX Spectrum games perhaps?

How Leisure Time can afford to have so much of their shelf space taken up with crappy old games is a mystery to me. I know no-one's buying them because I see the same tired titles every time I go in. So here's some free advice for their manager: sell off every game over a year old for $20 and fill your shelves with the new stuff. Call Of Duty, Halo, Deus Ex: Invisible War, Star Wars KOTOR, Prince of Persia and Unreal Tournament 2004 would be a good start. When Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 come out later this year, make sure you have copies in stock on the day they're released. Bermuda's gamers will be much happier and you'll make a pile more money.

In the meantime, I'm off to place an order on Amazon.

Comments

[BlackSeal on 15.03.04 at 21:08]

Heh...All Im going to say to this one is, "Welcome to Bermuda....". :)
Seeing as you're still fairly new Ill give you a couple tips. ;) First tip, when you see something you've been wanting here there is no such thing as "Great, its in. Ill pick it up next time Im here...". The next time you return, it wont be there, and most the time won't be there ever again. Second Tip, your observations are correct. The selection isn't what Id call "world class" and complaining will never do anything about it, nor change it, ever. What I do is I bide my time until there are several things Ive been wanting for a while in the way of books, DVDs, games, etc. Then I either pick them up while away or if I really cant wait until next time Im off Ill place an order at Amazon. (This has the added benefit of ordering a few things at one time to save a bit on shipping costs).
Ive been on the island 8 years, and Im sure you wont accuse me of exaggerating too much when I tell you most the games on that shelf have probably been there just as long... :)

[Somers on 16.03.04 at 08:34]

Leisure Time is good for one thing, and one thing only - renting movies. Wait a minute, did I say good? I correct myself, their not even good at that... If I could rent from Blockbuster, I would.

[Ace on 16.03.04 at 08:50]

Suggestion:

If you like WW2 flight simulations you can download a free version of Aces High at www.hitechcreations.com. If you like it you can sign up (for $14.99 a month unlimited connection).

It would be nice to have some fellow Bermuda residents flying the unfriendly skies.

On any given night you can fly this fairly realistic simulation of WW2 Air Combat against 400-500 other online players.

There is a steep learning curve though. New guys tend to be shot down fairly regularly, but if you are interested in learning the nuances of this game just post here. I'd be happy to help you.

At least you don't have to wait months for the game to arrive at Leisure Time.

[Tiger Bay on 16.03.04 at 09:17]

Leisuretime: the world's largest collection of dubious B movies!

[Eric on 16.03.04 at 09:40]

If you think there is demand for it, you could always solve the problem yourself.
You are married to a Bermudian, so you could setup a company in her name that brings in the newest games and then resells them to the local gaming community here.
As an advertising and revenue generation idea, you could setup a once a month LAN party and encourage local youths to get in on it - which has the ancillary benefit of encouraging kids to learn about computers, which then sets off a chain reaction of possible career bettering skills that they may grow interested in.
Do it all via on island mail or even personal delivery and a web page. Fill out the form and the thing is delivered. You could either accept payments online via a CC processing system through someone like FAC (although I'm not sure they provide local services - although what is "local" on the web), or you could do Easylink transfer type things (or whatever the equivalent is for Bank of Butterfield).

On your website, do reviews of the games and allow people to post up comments - a game review blog that is Bermuda-centric.

You could calculate the number of people on the island interested in such a thing, with a little bit of space for growth and then calculate what it would take to bring in the games and what you would need to charge.

If there is a problem and you have the resources to correct it, then compete :)

[John on 16.03.04 at 10:57]

On a seperate but similar issue, according to my 16 yr old son who knows all about these things(!) Leisure Time often violates the relase date of certain TV series DVD's by releasing them for sale earlier than allowed by the distributors! Go figure.

[Jonathan on 16.03.04 at 11:01]

I'll send you whatever games you want for $100 each ;-)

That's what friends are for.

Oh yes, and while you're at it, set up WellsAir - your own airline company to offer cheap flights to the UK; open PhilNet - your new ISP to offer cheap broadband; start ROLO - a new political party to replace the crappy racist one's you currently have; build Wells Island - a new small island off the coast of St George's for affordable housing; and, finally, open Phil's Place - a restuarant that only serves steak and kidney pies.

Sorted.

[The Limey on 16.03.04 at 13:16]

John - Music World also have DVDs for sale before their official release date - recently the first season of Star Trek: Voyager was on sale at least a day before it should have been. I think it's just a reflection of Bermuda's laid-back attitude to these things. Not that I'm complaining.

Eric and Jon - All great ideas. But first I'd need to set up Limey Scientific to invent a machine to make every day 48 hours long.

[Eric on 16.03.04 at 14:58]

I'm surprised Leisure Time carries the games at all since they obviously aren't exactly selling well.

I think part of the issue which amplifies the problem here is that the software stores that have items in stock aren't necessarily sitting down and saying "okay, product XYZ exists, should I carry that? and if so, where should I get it?"

Instead, they order from distributors (unfortunately for all parties involved on the Bermuda side, these distributors are several links along in the supply chain, which adds even more cost) that offer them package deals on software. I know this is the case for at least 3 companies in town.
Usually it is a package deal for a reason - the distributor is trying to get rid of the stuff, so they sell it all together to whoever will take it.

So it is feasible that Leisure Time had an opportunity to buy a bunch of games cheap and jumped on it.

Oh well, if you can't BuyBDA even when you try, then the next best thing is to buy Amazon and have it shipped to a ZipX type addresses and pay the duty on it.
The redistribution of wealth isn't as great as if you had also paid the markup on any given game in the store, but Bermuda still benefits.

[Bryant Trew on 16.03.04 at 20:56]

The ordering could be better, but I think the problems are mostly a function of Bermuda's small population. It simply isn't wise to stock up on anything. It's much smarter to take preorder lists to closer match inventory to demand.

[Bryant Trew on 16.03.04 at 20:59]

PS - Ninja Gaiden on XBOX is absolute heaven, especially on a 16:9 television. Ooh, it makes me feel warm all over...

[Chris Morris on 18.03.04 at 11:29]

I don't know Bryant...unless I am playing against another human I get bored quickly with X-Box type games.

I've been playing a bit of Battlefield 1942 online which also can get a bit stale but nothing beats "capping" some guy with a sniper rifle from 300 meters that you know is an actual person from somewhere in the world.

:)

THAT makes me feel warm all over.

[Bryant Trew on 19.03.04 at 07:25]

When I first tried online PC gaming, Bermuda did not have DSL - can you imagine trying to play Quake 3 over 128k? Not fun at all, but DSL does make the world go round, especially with Unreal Tournament.

For those into FPS, you absolutely must get your hands on Call to Duty. It's much better than Medal of Honour, believe it or not.

[Go fo the headshot]

Geeks are we :-)

[Master Chief on 09.11.04 at 11:09]

For anyone who cares, Halo2 is in Bermuda right now! Leisure Time somehow got them in today, and I have mine in hand - woohoo!

[Mr. Oxford on 09.11.04 at 12:01]

I'm impressed!

[Mayhem on 09.11.04 at 12:14]

BTW, for those of you who are anxiously awaiting the release of Half Life 2, but don't want to pay the $150 price tag that I'm sure Complete Office will put on it, go here:
http://www.steampowered.com/index.php?area=getsteamnow
download the steam client, pay your $49 to Valve online. Tadaaa, Half Life 2 will be downloaded to your machine over the next few days, and when its released on November 16th, it will be unlocked and instantly ready to play. You will want a broadband connection to do this (I think the download is about 2GB).

[The Limey on 09.11.04 at 13:05]

I second that endorsement of Steam. While you're waiting for Half-Life you can play CounterStrike: Source too. :-)

I'm curious to know how many of you play online PC games. If there's enough of us maybe we could run up a Bermuda CounterStrike server from time to time (or Battlefield 1942, or...)?

Something like Xfire might make the logistics of this easier to arrange, although I've not tried it myself.

Any takers?

[loki on 09.11.04 at 13:10]

Good idea, BF1942, Star Wars Battlegrounds, etc.......

[ace on 09.11.04 at 13:39]

BF1942 or BFVietnam server and I'm "there".

Will Mr. Oxford be there, or possibly Fornicator?

Can I play on the "other" team from them. :)

Just kidding guys...actually I think I'd want them ON my team given their incredible "sniping" ability.

Also..belive it or not you need to go to Complete Office for the latest games. Leisure Time is out of that type of business, but there was a good selection of new games at Complete Office.

The owners must know their market...office bound geeks.

:)

[Fornicator on 09.11.04 at 14:14]

We haves Halo 2. We haves it My Preciouoooos. It is mine, and no ones can takes it from meeeeeeee.

I'd be up for UT2004 some time in the future. I prefer the more sadistic weaponry compared to CS.

[loki on 09.11.04 at 14:18]

Don't bother with The Complete Office ($125 for Doom3!!!). Redlaser Ltd., which lies off Serpentine Road has a very good selection of new titles (Madden 2005, Star Wars Battlefront, Far Cry, etc) at reasonable prices $60-$80. Their selection of hardware is very, very good, indeed, as well.

[hurricane alex on 09.11.04 at 15:39]

In gaming there is unity.

[ace on 09.11.04 at 16:39]

Thanks for the heads up loki.

Do they carry joysticks down there...good ones?

[loki on 09.11.04 at 17:37]

"Do they carry joysticks down there...good ones?"

The last time I was there, they had them in stock. Hardware wise, it is by far the best store on the island - all the latest video and soundcards, CPUs (including the 64bit Athlons), really good-looking cases, etc. Check it out. Oh, and they have an online store at www.redlaser.bm.

[ace on 09.11.04 at 19:18]

In gaming there is unity.

ROFLMAO!!!!!!

It's so true.

loki...they only have Logitech sticks on that site...wouldn't touch them witha ten foot pole.

We need a Saitek retail carrier...I want the new X52. That will be my preccciiiousssssss.

I use an X45 now and it has lasted for 2 years with no real issues, but one view hat is now starting to wear out.

If I need hardware though I will go check them out. Thanks again.

[loki on 09.11.04 at 19:56]

Hmm, never had a problem with logictech controllers, myself, and logitech's dual action gamepad is an absolute must if you're playing madden 2005. The Saitech stuff I've had has been very good, though.

[Mr. Oxford on 10.11.04 at 14:07]

I don't have a peecee - just teasing :-)

If anyone is interested in online Halo 2, we should start a Bermuda clan.

[TechSmash on 26.02.05 at 10:33]

Yeah I agree, Bermuda isn't exaclty a gamer's paradise. Our game prices are double the US's an a fast internet connection isn't exaclty affordable to some. (Plus they only offer 512k >.<) Building a new computer and shippping is here is costing me a arm, leg and a heart. Arggg! Im rambling. In summary I agree 100%.

PS. If any good SSBM players on this rock?

[ace on 26.02.05 at 10:44]

SSBM?

[TechSmash on 28.02.05 at 16:15]

Super Smash Bros. Melee. Only one of the best games ever. IMHO.

[ace on 28.02.05 at 16:17]

Ugh...my kids play that on Gamecube.

Silly nonesense if you ask me. ;)

[TechSmash on 01.03.05 at 20:44]

I've played that game almost everyday for 3 years. I have a problem.

Regarding Redlaser, I went to their website and I wasn't too pleased with their selection. The best AMD processors they had were socket 754 3200's. As I expected the prices made my head hurt. I wonder how much it costs to have them ship items through their vendors?