There have been many articles written recently on blogs and in magazines decrying the buying of used games. They don’t make any money for the game’s creator or publisher. It just makes money for GameStop or the pawn shop. You’ll usually only save $5 or so on new games… isn’t helping the game industry continue producing terrific games worth $5? I think it is.

But what about older games that are still new? When I bought No More Heroes for $20 at Wal-Mart, the receipt said “Wii Software,” not “No More Heroes.” Does Ubisoft still get some money for this? Does Suda51? Does it even count? I refused to pay $18 for NMH used at GameStop because I knew that nobody would get credit for me trying something new on Wii. Did my plans fail anyway? Maybe… I don’t steal music off the Internet anymore either. I can’t expect credit for my work if I refuse to give it to others.

Remember shareware? I think iD started it with Doom (at least, that’s the earliest high profile game I can recall). You play the entire first episode for free, then you make copies for your friends. If you like it, you could buy the other two episodes. This was a potential marketing disaster, but it created so much buzz for the most violent game of its time that it went on to become a controversial legend.

Today, we get demos for free. We can play the first ten levels of N+, or the first mission of The Force Unleashed, or a few tracks on Guitar Hero. We can’t play the first third of a whole, complete game. There are, of course, exceptions… and I think they can be an answer.

Yaris is free. Doritos: Dash of Destruction is free. Complete games. Downloadable, yes, but complete and free. See any similarities between the two games? Yeah, advertising. Many games already have piles of advertising packed into them. Madden’s stadium walls are covered with ads. SSX is loaded with billboards. These ads really add nothing to the experience (except maybe some realism to liken the game world to our already ad-laden reality). The ads make more money for the developers. Why can’t these savings be passed onto the gamers? Instead of charging $60 for the new iteration of Madden every year, why not charge $30 for an ad-supported version? Or $20? Or free? EA can make its money on downloadable content.

Even more, the ads can be dynamic, changing daily or weekly as long as you’re connected to the internet. Maybe even a banner on the top of the screen that can annoy you continuously, reminding you constantly that you were too cheap to pay for the entire $60 ad-free version.

All right. This idea is lame. Sorry, games are expensive. And there’s going to be ads in games no matter what. Why can’t we get something out of it?

Michael Jackson is selling his collection of arcade machines and pop culture paraphernalia. They all look like they’re in beautiful condition, and I would be attracted to him if this was the kind of stuff he kept in his basement…

Yeah, I missed two days. I was on vacation for the first time since Christmas. I’m back.

Games are expensive. Sometimes, good games are even more expensive. Also, certain genres have a tendency to maintain their value better. Sports games halve in price after a few months. After a few years, Madden is $3 and WWF Smackdown Vs. Raw is $5. Conversely, Pokemon is worth as much today used as it was when first released brand new. Many RPG’s are super rare and valuable to people with lots of expendable income… Any Final Fantasy, Shining Force, or Panzer Dragoon game is worth way more today than it probably should be, although many of these games are timeless. The only way a serious game collector will accrue all of his most wanted games is with a lot of money, or a lot of luck. Pawn shops are great places for finding deals, because many of them will have a rack of games with a sign like “SNES games $3.” All SNES games are not worth $3. But I sure wish I could get by paying just $3 for every one of ‘em…

I thought it would be fun to compile a list of the best deals I’ve found on games in my years of garage saling and pawn shopping:

Shining Force for Genesis – $2 (This morning! Awesome!)
Final Fantasy II for SNES – $4 at a comic shop, $15 at a garage sale
Super Mario RPG for SNES – $15 at the same garage sale
Illusion of Gaia on SNES – $3 at a used CD store
Final Fantasy 3 for SNES – $40 with SimCity and a Super Nintendo
Final Fantasy Tactics – $15 at a garage sale (original not greatest hits)
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night – $15 brand new at Blockbuster! Too bad I opened it to, you know, play and enjoy it. I could have retired if I sold that when I hit 60.
Dragon Quest VIII on PS2 – $20 new at Best Buy. Best bang for your buck of any new game ever in the history of the world. If only I could find Dragon Warrior 2, 3, or 4 on NES for less than $50…

Video game news is still just news. If you don’t care about video games, you won’t care about video game news. The same can be said for topics such as the Iraq war and the peanut butter scare. If you ignore them and don’t watch the five o’clock news, it’ll just go away right? No no no… video games probably won’t affect our safety as Americans, or our health as sandwich eaters. But it is the best selling form of entertainment in the country, and it’s nice to have the freedom and the expendable income to spend on being entertained instead of having to worry if you can eat today. If you are a starving African child, you won’t care if Left 4 Dead is 50% on Steam, or if Microsoft is readying a red 360, or if Earthbound isn’t actually going to be released on the Wii Virtual Console. But we (people who read video game blogs) do care. Video games aren’t just games to us. Gamers are a community of like-minded people who won’t call us nerds for playing Pokemon when we were younger (or, still today). They won’t question when you request a particular night off of work because your guild is having a big quest. And they’ll link up with you halfway across the world to be digital rock stars on fake plastic instruments. We have the luxury of being able to have messed up priorities like this. Isn’t America great?

Target sells video games. No way! That’s where I used to buy my games before I found out that Wal-Mart is open 24 hours. Now, I buy my games at Best Buy because I get Reward Zone points, but that’s not my point. Target is no longer a viable avenue for purchasing games! And that’s sad, because we need all the options we can get (like 7-Eleven). Target’s always out of stock of the good games, and there are 3 times as many Wii games as there are anything and everything else. Not good Wii games. Target is triple-stocked on Wii Music and the latest Animal Crossing remake, and the “$20 Wii Crap” section is bigger than the entire PSP area. I don’t think this is because there’s more Wii Crap than PSP games (even though there is). I think this is because people are dumb and will buy anything on Wii that has a colorful box, and Target’s top men know this. “$20 for a next-gen game? No way! I’ll take three!” PSP is a good system, but it’s its own system, and it’s not being utilized to its potential. Wii is also a good system, and its gimmicky potential is being fully realized. As a gimmick. There are interesting ways to utilize the Wii controls, or don’t! Make a good game that just happens to be on the Wii, even if it doesn’t fully utilize the motion controls (Geometry Wars: Galaxies, Guitar Hero/Rock Band). The best DS game of last year, Chrono Trigger, barely used the touch screen, but it’s a classic. A pure pedigree shows even if the controls are “traditional.” Traditional means functional. And what are the first three letters of functional?

You know when you go to a Street Fighter tournament, and there’s one guy there that’s obviously way too hardcore into the game because he dresses up as Ryu? When it’s time to pair off the contestants, guess which one you get? Yep. That guy. The guy off to the side that bounces in place in a very convincing Ryu battle stance while the tournament rules are being read. The guy that, if he doesn’t win, has wasted countless hours of his life that he will never get back on a game that he’s only second best at. I lost to that guy in the first round. Then I cheered for him, because when you lose to the eventual winner, you don’t feel so bad. Well, Ryu-guy lost later… oh well. I’m not good at Street Fighter. Still, I want to be. I might actually buy a strategy guide for SF4. Weird! Why buy something for $20 that you can get a GameFAQs.com for free? First, because the art is b-e-a-utiful. Second, because then I can read it in the bathroom. Nothing beats improving yourself while you poo. Still, I don’t have 10-12 hours a day that I can devote to one game to be the best in the world. Sure, it’s a lot cheaper than buying a new game every couple of weeks, but just the sheer time investment is almost unfathomable. Professional gamers have dedication to something that, in all reality, is nothing. Being good at a game doesn’t mean you have real, marketable skills. Having 16 level 60 WoW characters doesn’t mean you can get a six-digit job being a WoWzer. Being able to 100% Through the Fire and Flames will get you a mention in Guinness but it won’t get you much free money. You can’t just rest on your laurels like you can if you won the Super Bowl or the Tour de France. You can retire and not have to work for the rest of your life; you’re set. Gamer culture is fast-moving, fickle, and ever-more-demanding. There’s always someone to challenge you. Can you stay on top?

Yesterday: car broke.
Today: fixed.
Tonight: late for work.
Tomorrow morning: more work. Late again.
Afternoon: Street Fighter.
Night: rest.

Whew.

When will backwards compatibility go out of style? Four different next-gen systems have it, at least to some degree. The only one lacking is the PSP, because the format is just too weird. By including all the games from a previous system, game makers can say, “Hey look! We already have 500 games you can play on your PS3! Now you don’t have to buy Resistance, the only good launch game.” It keeps game makers from really trying somthing different. The controllers have to remain roughly the same, the circuit boards can’t be radically different, and the customers have to feel that their brand new system is still a good investment even when the first generation of new games is… lacking. The argument can be made that the controllers, after year’s of research, are approaching perfection in the user-interface department; that’s why the PS3 and 360 controllers are almost exactly the same. (Nintendo, it seems, is just being difficult.) Or, people are used to controlling games in a certain way, and change is hard and scary. Unfortunately, it looks like we’re gonna be stuck with DualShock 3’s, 4’s, and 5’s for the rest of video games conceivable future. Oh well. At least it’s an improvement on the Jaguar controllers…

This Saturday, there is a Street Fighter IV tournament at your local GameStop. Practice quick, the game just came out today! Luckily for SF aficionados, most of the moves are the same. I haven’t played SF since the SNES days… but I have Saturday off, so why not try it out? If I lose, I’ll have wasted an hour of my life mingling with other nerdy otaku types. But the winners go to regionals, and then nationals! That might be fun… or it might be AWESOME.