Preorder Tug-O-War

Most avid gamers have pre ordered a game or system at least once in their lives. Some of us have even gone to the extreme of camping out overnight to get first shot at a new release. I personally have done this many times and most of the time everything works out and my time is not spent in vain. However, there have been a few instances where I was pushed to the end of the pre order line or unfairly denied access to the pre order list altogether because overzealous employees at the game store had filled up the entire pre order list with their own names and the names of their close friends before it was made available to the public. Some might say tough luck, but is it really fair for the people that work at the game store to take away pre order spots from customers?

Apparently, the companies that own the gaming stores don’t really have a concrete policy in place that defines the rights of consumers and employees in terms of pre order availability. In a perfect world this issue would resolve itself through civilized and fair discourse between the employees and customers. Unfortunately, in the real world it rarely works out that way. Since game store employees don’t earn six figure incomes, some employees are even willing to risk getting fired to get an unfair advantage when it comes to being on the pre order list for a gadget they covet. This is not a topic that I have seen a lot of community discussion on. Hopefully, this issue will be brought into the open and we can resolve it in a manner that makes sense and is fair to everyone involved.

Most avid gamers have pre ordered a game or system at least once in their lives. Some of us have even gone to the extreme of camping out overnight to get first shot at a new release. I personally have done this many times and most of the time everything works out and my time is not spent in vain. However, there have been a few instances where I was pushed to the end of the pre order line or unfairly denied access to the pre order list altogether because overzealous employees at the game store had filled up the entire pre order list with their own names and the names of their close friends before it was made available to the public. Some might say tough luck, but is it really fair for the people that work at the game store to take away pre order spots from customers?

Apparently, the companies that own the gaming stores don’t really have a concrete policy in place that defines the rights of consumers and employees in terms of pre order availability. In a perfect world this issue would resolve itself through civilized and fair discourse between the employees and customers. Unfortunately, in the real world it rarely works out that way. Since game store employees don’t earn six figure incomes, some employees are even willing to risk getting fired to get an unfair advantage when it comes to being on the pre order list for a gadget they covet. This is not a topic that I have seen a lot of community discussion on. Hopefully, this issue will be brought into the open and we can resolve it in a manner that makes sense and is fair to everyone involved.