Thursday 17 April 2008

Farenheit 451: Dark Days At Gamestation...






(I've already posted this over at the Dreamcast Junkyard, but as the two sites have a slightly different readership (and the post is relevent to both sites) I thought I'd reproduce it here...)

Ah! Gamestation. Once a hallowed Mecca for three of the five members of the Dreamcast Junkyard team. For myself, Tomleecee and the Gagaman(n), Gamestation represented a high street store that until as recently as eight months ago, you could walk into and gaze upon a neat display of Dreamcast or Saturn games or secure yourself a classic Sega console and assorted peripherals . A high street store which seemed to recognise the value of Retro gaming and applaud those who still celebrated the might of systems past. It's where I purchased the vast majority of my Saturn and Dreamcast collections. Standout moments would be the purchase of Shenmue 2 for £25 when I knew nothing about it... All of the other games were £2.50... It's high price alone hinted that it might be something special. I was entranced by it for months after. It's where I also bought my rare copy of House Of The Dead for the Saturn, again for the high price of £25. Yet it proved to be an essential purchase...

Then came the takeover by the giant corporation that is 'Game' and all of a sudden, the Saturn and Dreamcast (plus all the other Retro consoles) games were swept aside. Cast randomly into bargain bins, the once proud products of times past now looked like a load of charity shop (thrift store) crap. Covers gone, cases cracked, discs and cartridges without their boxes, the whole thing was a sorry mess. But as Games TM magazine reports, the company has now gone a step further. I'll repeat the article for you, copied out and hand typed and see what you make of it...

(From Games TM magazine) "Gamestation Burns Retro Stock"

"Internet rumours this month suggest a shocking trend within the UK's second biggest retail chain. reports from consumers claimthat the over 200 strong chain has pulled most of it's retro games from the shelves and has destroyed all but a few select desirable titles.
Gamestation itself has not released an official statement at the time of writing, but an anonymous source within the company has confirmed the rumour to Games TM.


Several retro cartridges and CDs have apparently been removed from sale and destroyed. The bulk of these games are highly unlikely to sell - such as very old sports games- but there are also many under-the -radar classics that have been inadvertently been destroyed.


Our source tells isthat an official list exists that outlines exactly which games to preserve. These are mostly from recognisable franchises like Sonic The Hedgehog and Final Fantasy and will continue to be sold in Gamestation stores. There are, however, a number of less obvious, but nevertheless desirable games that are not accountable on the list. We've personally heard of two highly collectable Saturn games that are not intended such preservation, which would boil the blood of any retro enthusiastif they knew exactly which games they were.

The notion that a high street retailer as well respected as Gamestation might even think about destroying potentially games, especially those that have not been re-released or emulated, is as bad as burning books in our view. The company's supposed preservation list is a good idea, but it really needs to be as thorough as possible to avoid mistakenly eliminating lesser known titles from history. And we'd also like to know if the destroyed cartridges are being recycled or simply thrown away. Gamestation will hopefully make an official comment in the future and shed more light on these distressing allegations."

So there you have it. I think its a fucking outrage... Could Burning Rangers, now with a degree of bitter irony, be literally burning? There are some classic "older football" titles that I still play to this day. Why not give them to charity, or offer them as freebies to their loyal customers? The cunts...

What do you think?

7 comments:

elend said...

Wow?

How did they manage to come up with such an Idea? Why not ebay it in one single big auction? Why not giving it to kids around the world for free? Why not just throwing it on the streets, so that the people will come and grab them? Everything would have been better, but burning them reminds me a lot about the third reich.

What a bunch of fags?!

ArugulaZ said...

I don't like it, but at the same time, I can understand why this happens. Sports games have literally become disposable, with each successive release obsoleting the last. There's no reason for resellers to hold onto them, which is why destroying them makes more sense than wasting shelf space on them.

Ideally, resellers would take the excess stock, give them to a charitable organization like Goodwill (or its closest UK equivalent), and use the donation as a tax write-off. However, business is business, and stores like GameStop will do whatever is most beneficial to their bottom lines.

fatherkrishna said...

"Sports games have literally become disposable, with each successive release obsoleting the last. There's no reason for resellers to hold onto them, which is why destroying them makes more sense than wasting shelf space on them."

Hello dear Arugulaz! I understand where you're coming from, but our very connection comes from your original video which applauded the merit of Winter Heat, which thanks to you, I sought out from eBay...

That falls within the definition of "older sports games"

It breaks my heart to think that some executive from Gamestation could discard this classic as not worthy of saving and literally chuck it on a game bonfire because superior winter sports games on new consoles eclipse it in some way...

I guess the emotive point in this post is the word "burn"...

The fact that a major retailer could literally "burn" classics rather than "give away" or "recycle/redistribute" seems pointless, whatever your views are on the corporate plan.

I personally love the franchise that is both Sega Soccer World Wide 97/98 for Saturn and SWWS 2000 (Euro Edition) for the Dreamcast.

They are the two best soccer games on any consoles ever.

I can see why Fifa and PES annual editions would make those titles obsolete for the mainstream gamer.

But to burn them? Well I don't know...

And 'sports titles' might include Sega Rally, Daytona USA and even 'Virtua Fighter'...

I stick by my outrage at the thought that burning anything is a very poor option...

ArugulaZ said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ArugulaZ said...

I'm just offering an example. I certainly mean no disrespect to Sega Rally Championship or Winter Heat, as they are both solid games. I'm just explaining the rationale for the resellers' decision to destroy older video games. Do I agree with it? No. Do I support it? No. But I DO understand it.

We've had to deal with this in the United States for years. Thrift shops would take older games and throw them in the trash, which is an outrage to a collector like myself. However, those games would be spared that fate if there were a perceived market for them. Collectors need to make it clear that they actually want this stuff if they don't want them thrown into the same furnace as Citizen Kane's childhood sled.

elend said...

You know, at work we sometimes just have things, we don't need anymore. We then think of what to do with them.

a) Giving it away to someone who might need it for free.
b) Sell it on ebay for as little profit as 1 EUR.
c) Throw it away.

We never ever had to burn something. That's just... completely crazy. Burning leaves a bad taste in my mouth because when I am burning something, then I hate it. When I finished my scholarship I actually wanted to burn my books from school.

BUT, who knows if this whole story is true. Maybe they just threw it away and it got burned in the dumpsite then, which would be quite a different case.

NebachadnezzaR said...

I guess this is one of those cases where we'll never know exactly what happened, but if it's indeed true, it's just a fucking outrage.