CAGcast #86: Phoning It In

CheapyD provides an update on Circuit City's pending legal action and Wombat gloats over our Gaming Podcast Award victory. We also discuss PR in the gaming industry, answer your CAGbag questions, discuss the latest gaming and shopping news, and so much more!

Note: The Circuit City discussion starts at 14:08 mark.
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Show Linkage/Notes (click the button below to expand):

Zomg First! Congratulations on winning, and Lawl, it's exactly 100 minutes long.

I just got a "Happy Birthday from Cheap Ass Gamer" forum email bounced back to me...one of those "Out of Office AutoReply" things.

It was intended for Circuit City's lawyer, who is apparently on vacation until August 19th.

[quote name='CheapyD']I just got a "Happy Birthday from Cheap Ass Gamer" forum email bounced back to me...one of those "Out of Office AutoReply" things.

It was intended for Circuit City's lawyer, who is apparently on vacation until August 19th.[/QUOTE]

He may be in Thailand looking for some younger male companionship.

Congratulations guys! You really deserve it.

Good luck with the People's Choice award.

[quote name='CheapyD']
It was intended for Circuit City's lawyer, who is apparently on vacation until August 19th.[/QUOTE]

Do they only have one attorney? While trying to get my 'guaranteed at 2PM giftcard', I was told by the store manager, that although the ad states, "until the end of the business day", "is wasn't in fact guaranteed until the end of the business day". (WTF?)

He was supposed to get in touch with this jet-setting lawyer.

hooray a cagcast to listen to on my birthday =D

WHAT!? YOU'VE NEVER PLAYED SUPER METROID!? What kind of gamer do you call yourself Cheapy if you haven't played that game?

Congratulations on the award. Why the hell can't Wombat hold a job. It seems like evry few months he is out of work. I am starting to think he is never satisfied with anything.

[quote name='H.Cornerstone']Zomg First! Congratulations on winning, and Lawl, it's exactly 100 minutes long.[/quote]

Note: The Circuit City discussion starts at 14:08 mark.

Click to expand...

Crazy numbers on this one! 1408 is that spooky hotel movie that came out a little while ago. Okay... Maybe not that crazy.

Marked for later comment.

Thanks for getting this up here. I'm leaving for a weekend beach trip with the Mrs. Gonna listen to it on the flight.

Later Comment

Wombat made a good point regarding physical media and its importance. I think gamers in general are ignorant of the fact that much of the world still doesn't have access to a decent internet connection and therefore cannot easily access digitally available content. My situation is a PERFECT example. Online gaming from Indonesia via XBL is almost impossible. Downloading game demos is equally difficult unless the games are small in file size. (I have yet to successfully download any of the large game demos). I guess what I am saying is this, if you are fortunate enough to have access to digital distribution keep in mind that YOU are in the minority. Game CDs are currently my only way of keeping up with the latest and greatest the industry has to offer even if shipping takes a month or so. But I digress...

Thank god I stayed up!

Awesome, downloading now.

Gratz on the well-deserved podcast award--my fave podcast of all, gaming or otherwise!

Man, Sony, CC, and other retailers getting their panties in a bunch over this whole speedy thing is lame and a waste of resources. I agree with Wombat that it's flat out stupid and I might add arrogant of all parties to make this much ado about a week's worth of hypothetical sales or no sales.

I agree w/Cheapy on the posting of price errors as "news". Then again, I take umbrage at any non-retail shopping site trying post gaming-related "deals" like they don't get them first over here. I like how other sites also seem to avoid crediting CAG for any of the deals they post, even though it's pretty clear that the posts originated here.

I want all the bands.

Wow if any of that Sony stuff is true, that is pretty screwed up. F them.

Cheapy, you are in luck!

Super Metroid is susposed to be coming to the Virtual Console next week.



Super Smash Brothers Brawl is scheduled for Dec.

Congrats guys, i'm really happy for you guys

The Arsenal (Soccer for US) Football Club is home to a unique program called S.PORT which brings PSP owners instant replays within the stadium.

Congrats on your Award! You got my vote.

As for advice for Pixar and other kid focused companies. We and children do not replay the exact movie over in the game. Use the game to explore a part of the movie that you may have cut for time or expounds on a theme that was in the movie.

The threat of online games being taken offline is the reason I am only interested in online games that allow user servers like Warhawk.

PS- Pie is better than Cake

woot love the recent cag casts

OK WOMBAT! I'm calling you out. You keep saying you respond to every email sent to you but you have yet to reply to my very brief Oblivion question from several days ago!

I asked it on August 10th by the way (in case you need to search through your piles of email to find it ).

On to other topics - listening to the part about the Pixar movie games right now. I just happen to have played both Cars and Ratatouille - the latter just last week (free rental from Hollywood). My son loved Cars which we played on the Wii. It was not glitchy at all and seemed to control fairly well, but was a rather uninspired game (IMO). I traded that in (for a decent amount using the trade 2 get 1 free EB deal) but I'm planning to get the 360 version when it is cheap enough (less than $20 via some deal) since he liked it so much and also likes achievements.

Now, Ratatouille (which we played on the 360), while not a bad game at all, does have it's share of glitches. However, they aren't too bad until the end. Let me explain this a bit. Each level is a fairly entertaining platforming romp (which are sorely lacking on the 360 by the way which is why I gave it a spin after my son completed it). These levels are not too glitchy though sometimes your character (Remy the rat) will get hung up on objects - but never so bad that you have to reset. In between these levels there are chase scenes where you need to run from various people trying to stomp on you, throw things at you, etc. These are somewhat challenging for young kids as they often require precisely timed jumps to make it through.

And here's where the worst glitch happens. In the very last chase scene that leads to the end of the game, after making it through a few tough sections, Remy kept running UNDER the carpet texture and disappearing into the ground. It happened 8-10 times while trying to get through the level. When this happens you have to quit, reload, and restart the chase, being sent back to the beginning (losing your checkpoints). It was VERY frustrating and goes right to what Wombat said about control and gameplay for kids needing to be VERY tight - especially if there is some challenge involved. The game also has some extremely difficult minigames, but those are optional (and only required if you want all the achievements). These aren't glitchy but can be very frustrating due to loose control and bad camera angles.

My son also was the victim of another glitch where he couldn't finish a mission. He'd do 2/3 of it and then the last marker for where he needed to go wouldn't show up. When I played through I did not have the same problem, but a quick search on the web revealed this is a common issue (on this one specific mission). He retried it several times and it never worked. He was able to complete the game, but this cost him a couple of the achievements.

Most people are probably extremely bored by my thoughts on this, but it was pretty odd that you specifically mentioned this rather under-the-radar game after I just played through the whole thing in the last week (only took about 5-7 hours to finish completely - occasionally it is nice to beat a game thoroughly in that little time as I'm used to playing 50+ hour RPGs :lol.

By the way, the plot of the game, the length, and what you do during the game are perfectly acceptable. It is not a direct replay of the movie - they changed things up as appropriate to make a decent game out of it. Had it been glitch-free I would have liked it much more though. I'd be interested to know specifically what the Pixar guy thought was wrong with it (other than the glitches of course). Basically it is a decent game with some good gameplay ideas but clearly rushed to market without enough quality control. Note that it seems the 360 version is significantly different from the PS2/Wii-port versions and it seems most reviews marked it as better. It looks great on the 360 - as close to playing a Pixar movie as I've ever experienced. The graphics and framerate are MUCH better than the other kids game I just rented, Shrek The Third. That game has some horrible framerate/jerky animation issues and bad control problems, as well as a few glitches of it's own. Pixar fared much better than Dreamworks on their summer movie tie-in game (as well as on the movie itself) .

[quote name='djpookie2000']Congratulations on the award. Why the hell can't Wombat hold a job. It seems like evry few months he is out of work. I am starting to think he is never satisfied with anything.[/QUOTE]


Im not out of work, In fact I am very much in work I am am just not happy and feel I could be doing better. It has nothing to do with me losing a job.

cheapy u grew up in bay shore? i live in patchogue wich is like 10 minutes away from bay shore and how do i enetr that bracelet contest?

[quote name='Wombat']Im not out of work, In fact I am very much in work I am am just not happy and feel I could be doing better. It has nothing to do with me losing a job.[/quote]
Lay off Wombat. I too have seen many different jobs in the past few years, and it's not about not being satisfied, it's about always looking for greener pastures. They're just stepping stones to a brighter future.

I haven't listened to this yet, but i'm really really hoping you guys give your Bioshock impressions.

Reserved for Later Comment.

Yay they used my question!

First on the XBLA thing, I think they need to fix that. There needs to be a better solution for when you console dies. I did buy the live arcade disk for $20 at K-mart(including a free month of live). So I'll always have Geometry Wars. I got it before my system, so I didn't buy anything twice. The downside is that the disk spins up every time I play and makes more noise than if I was playing off the HD.

With Steam there is an option to play offline. And you can backup the games to disk if you're worried about HD crashes.

Obviously if you live somewhere with bad or no internet downloading isn't a good option. My guess it that's the exception not the rule. I think it' safe to say a majority of CAG's and gamers in general have high speed internet.

Wombat, I've lost all respect for you when you admited to liking HSM and that you had the CD. My kid sister constantly watches that movie and singing those damn songs. They aren't catchy, they're annoying.

listening to Stern show on Sirius, i will be anxiously waiting for it to end before i listen to your show

[quote name='Wombat']Im not out of work, In fact I am very much in work I am am just not happy and feel I could be doing better. It has nothing to do with me losing a job.[/quote]

Why don't you try to get one of those "community development" jobs that game companies have? Seems like your internet celebrity status might help open some doors here. I mean, come on, you are half of an Award Winning ® podcast!

Great show Again CheapyD & Wombat! I can not believe in Japan all they give you is 3 months for Maternity leave. In Canada here Women get 13 months of PAID Mat leave. I am not even going to ask what they get in the USA. That sucks. Maybe you guys should move to Canada lol.

[quote name='daphatty']Wombat made a good point regarding physical media and its importance. I think gamers in general are ignorant of the fact that much of the world still doesn't have access to a decent internet connection and therefore cannot easily access digitally available content. [/QUOTE]

Without sounded too much like one of those vinyl collectors, I'd like to add somethings to daphattys comments:

- Digital distributed games, can't be sold back, and probably won't be playable on future systems. Say goodbye to buying used, and say hello to a more stable market, where 'deals' are much mess likely to be found. Sony is the only company (I believe to lower the cost of one's it's downloads)

- there's something about buying a game, and having the physical box, disk, and instruction manual missing in front of you. Some of us old timers will miss that.

I haven't listened to the show yet, so these items may have been discussed.

Cheapy, love the commentary about the CC matter. Curious to see how CC says they're damaged by the price drop info going out early, since it would've been in their PM period, in any case. Plus, I think it may have driven more sales to CC in the long run, plus to the other vendors dropping the price.

I think this is Sony using their 800 lb. gorilla status to bully CC into looking for a scapegoat, like you had said, using ad money and the like as a barganing chip.

And if the other vendors start complaining and tossing stones our direction, I think it'll hurt them long-term. You can blame the industry for games being $60 at retail and people not wanting to buy them at that price. Any of the full-priced games I buy are pre-orders, and there better be some pre-order bonus for me to think hard about spending full retail or full retail+ on a title.

nice show and thanks for responding to my CAGbag question

Just a bit of speculation as to how Circuit City came up with their loss of $15000 from.
While it is true that people could price match the next week, it cost Circuit City the interest that the money would have built over the span of a week had it been in their accounts.

If you look online there is a story about a guy who paid his real estate taxes in change, $5 and $1 bills. The time it took to count caused the treasurer not to make the nightly deposit which the county estimated cost them over $1000 in interest they would have earned that night.

That relates because these companies have bank accounts that generate interest at a high rate and they can sit on the money for a week before they have to give some back. Also some people never get around to going in and getting their price match. I know it is $100 and most of us would be there when the store opened to get $100 back but I know people who didn't send in to get $150 rebates on laptops they bought. Idiotic I know but they count on some people not cashing in on price matching. The same way companies offer rebates. They can sit on the money for weeks, they count on some people losing receipts and they count on some people forgetting and never getting around to it.

I don't know why CC is pursuing this, perhaps they were forced, because to me the PR hit surely isn't worth $15000 they are claiming in damages. I and many other CAGs have sworn never to go to circuit city again as well as people from other sites that are involved or that have mentioned this story.

All that said, I don't agree with the lawsuit and plan to boycott CC and anyone else who joins in, but I just wanted to say where they may be getting at their figure for monetary damages.

Oh and in America women get 6 weeks paid maternity as long as they have short term disability insurance. If they don't have short term disability they can take 6 weeks unpaid without risk of losing their job.

I find it amusing that throughout the CC/Sony vs Speedy situation, I still see CC banner ads on CAG.

I look forward to the free green CAG wristband thing, then people I've never met will know that I'm cheap

how do i find out when u guys have a live show so that i can join in on the fun

I think it's important to note that some of us require podcasts to be our listening material at work, and having heard you guys for the first time, if i wasn't going to download previous ones, i would probably listen to it again.

Great work guys. I think Wombat better get on the downloadable content bandwagon because rather than an effort to incorporate physical media, I bet just fixing the mentioned issues will be a the direction gaming will go in general.

My prayers go out to Speedy and the CAG widower.

Very entertaining, keep it up.

Kinda freaky to be mentioned on that complaint document, but interesting.

Thanks for the cast guys. Keep it up. However the less finger + butt talk we have, probably the better.

3 months leave is actually a good amount. My wife only received 4 weeks paid and 2 weeks half pay.

Of course after going back she put in her 2 weeks notice and retired to be a stay at home mom...

[quote name='kjauburn']3 months leave is actually a good amount. My wife only received 4 weeks paid and 2 weeks half pay.

Of course after going back she put in her 2 weeks notice and retired to be a stay at home mom...[/QUOTE]

Yeah, no kidding - I said this before as well but that is very generous maternity leave. Cheapy has lost touch with hos US corporations operate .

My wife did the same (except she quit 2 months before the baby was due and never went back). It just wasn't going to be worth it to her to go back to the job she had after spending what would have been a very short time at home with our daughter.

Although I know you won't/can't do it I think it would be a good show of moral support and character[FONT=&quot][/FONT] if there was someway to no longer have Circuit city ads on the site.(I know that would mean loss of money pissing off CC and that currently you don't really have control over what ads are shown.)

Also is communication really that important when playing an online game like SSBB? Its seems like one of those games that would be all trash talk.

First time on the CAG forums, but I've listened to the show for quite a while.

You were talking about the interesting world of PR vs journalists in this episode. If you want to see the "other side of the fence" you should listen to player-one podcast (http://playerone.libsyn.com/) as they have discussed this recently. (FYI, the people there have been working as journalists before, and one is even called out in the PR article.)

The point they make is that they get the other end of it. Basically when they slam a game the PR people call them up and ask them why (or borderline harass them). Apparently this is often worse when they give a game a lower score than other sites or magazines. And since not all places use the same scale (some have average of 5, others 7-8) this makes even less sense. (As an aside I remember hearing in a podcast long ago, probably on GDC Radio, that most visitors to the review aggregators like gamerankings is actually PR people. And this was from some of the admins at one such site.) They also talk about how some companies liked to threaten (and sometime go through with) withdrawing ads for magazines.

One thing I think is incorrect in your podcast is that you claim PR doesn't matter. I believe that PR doesn't matter for review scores, but OTOH review scores doesn't matter for sales. Lorne Lanning (Oddworld creator) comments on this in an interview (again, in last EGM Live*) where he mentions that the reason Strangers Wrath did poorly is because it wasn't marketed heavily. In order to make a game sell today you must market it like there's no tomorrow. Having a good game helps of course, but I'm sure we all know that it's not enough. And a bad movie tie in game is pretty much guaranteed to completely dwarf a better, but less marketed game, in sales.

It seems to me like the obvious "solution" would be to tie the PR peoples bonus to sales instead of review scores. Sales they have at least a little chance to influence.


On the issue of digital downloads I think the only factor you need to consider is Google Video. What happens when the company behind the service goes belly-up or just cancels the service? Then you just have a bunch of encrypted data with no hope of ever playing it again. With old DOS games you at least have a chance of getting them working.

I would consider digital games if they are considerably cheaper than physical media (at least half price), but we all know that's not going to happen. Even if retailers didn't "force" them to keep high prices you still move into effectively a monopoly of distribution. And you can bet that we (the customers) will suffer for that in the end. The other option for me is something like the Sam & Max episodes. I payed and could download them. Once the season is out I can get the disc for only the cost of postage. That's service!

Thanks for the show and keep up the good work!

PS. You should move to us in Sweden before you have a child. Over one year parent leave, and it's encouraged that the man takes time off as well. (Several of my colleges have had a 6 month period off.) It's not all at full pay (it's 80% or something) but several companies do have more than that.

First time on the CAG forums, but I've listened to the show for quite a while.

You were talking about the interesting world of PR vs journalists in this episode. If you want to see the "other side of the fence" you should listen to player-one podcast (http://playerone.libsyn.com/) as they have discussed this recently. (FYI, the people there have been working as journalists before, and one is even called out in the PR article.)

The point they make is that they get the other end of it. Basically when they slam a game the PR people call them up and ask them why (or borderline harass them). Apparently this is often worse when they give a game a lower score than other sites or magazines. And since not all places use the same scale (some have average of 5, others 7-8) this makes even less sense. (As an aside I remember hearing in a podcast long ago, probably on GDC Radio, that most visitors to the review aggregators like gamerankings is actually PR people. And this was from some of the admins at one such site.) They also talk about how some companies liked to threaten (and sometime go through with) withdrawing ads for magazines.

One thing I think is incorrect in your podcast is that you claim PR doesn't matter. I believe that PR doesn't matter for review scores, but OTOH review scores doesn't matter for sales. Lorne Lanning (Oddworld creator) comments on this in an interview (again, in last EGM Live*) where he mentions that the reason Strangers Wrath did poorly is because it wasn't marketed heavily. In order to make a game sell today you must market it like there's no tomorrow. Having a good game helps of course, but I'm sure we all know that it's not enough. And a bad movie tie in game is pretty much guaranteed to completely dwarf a better, but less marketed game, in sales.

It seems to me like the obvious "solution" would be to tie the PR peoples bonus to sales instead of review scores. Sales they have at least a little chance to influence. But I assume the reason for the current system is to pay them as little as possible.

On the issue of digital downloads I think the only factor you need to consider is Google Video. What happens when the company behind the service goes belly-up or just cancels the service? Then you just have a bunch of encrypted data with no hope of ever playing it again. With old DOS games you at least have a chance of getting them working.

I would consider digital games if they are considerably cheaper than physical media (at least half price), but we all know that's not going to happen. Even if retailers didn't "force" them to keep high prices you still move into effectively a monopoly of distribution. And you can bet that we (the customers) will suffer for that in the end. The other option for me is something like the Sam & Max episodes. I payed and could download them. Once the season is out I can get the disc for only the cost of postage. That's service!

Thanks for the show and keep up the good work!

PS. You should move to us in Sweden before you have a child. Over one year parent leave, and it's encouraged that the man takes time off as well. (Several of my colleges have had a 6 month period off.) It's not all at full pay (it's 80% or something) but several companies do have more than that.

freaky i might be neighboring wambat if he moves to massapequa lol. Okay maybe im still a town over and our rival high school was massapequa. So really we'd be bitter rivals.

Hey i didnt know cheapy d was from long island, where from bro??

Good podcast ;P

Here is my take on listening about why websites post obvious price mistakes:

Gamers always feel they deserve something more. They always feel that there should be an extra feature that wasn't on the disc and should have been. They always feel the game should be $40 instead of $50 or $50 instead of $60.

In my opinion, it's because of lot of gamers are just underaged and a little bit bratty. Why do I generalize like this? Because even if the gamer is 30+ or whatnot, they are still reverting to a kidlike state to game. No problems there, I enjoy it too just as much as the next guy/girl.

But gamers in general seem to feel like they should be able to get what they want no matter the impossibilities: physical ones, I.E. Impossible to fit that much gameplay onto the system's disc. Pricing ones: Sell games for $3. Things like that.

So the people who revel in their professional lives being able to post about the fun things they love, video games, they always maintain this mentality. So. Best Buy prices an obvious mistake at about $140 less per unit than Amazon on the Rock Band bundle. Like Cheapy says, obviously, no way will this get honored.

Most people who game for one reason or another feel they have the smarts and know that there is some 'law' that they 'have to honor' this price because it was on their monitor at one point in time and therefore are deserving of $140 deal that Best Buy will have to eat. And then, the potential buyer posts to all his friends "Go buy it quick, Best Buy is a huge corporation, what will they notice a few people buying a game at a huge price drop?"

Well, no, life dosen't work like that.

But the reason the people who work these websites post these deals is because at some level they are immature enough to feel that they deserve to get any deal that they feel they can get / skimp / demand / fight for because they are the consumer. The consumer 'always wins'. The gamer especially 'deserves his Rock Band' at a ludicris price.

Thats my $.02.

Don't get me wrong, immaturity is not the worst thing a person can be. What fun is life if we all act mature and not game? Everyone on this site wants to have fun.

Well, Wombat, to put your theory to bed, I'm one of the female listeners, and I do not have a PhD or a professional degree (I only have a master's). So some of those boy listeners must be edumecated. I'd be intrigued to know how many of the female listeners are single. I mean, I know I am, but I'm guessing I'm in the minority of that, too...8 females, hmm..well, I'm not studying you guys, I just enjoy listening to you. And trust me, I won't be upset if there are no ads here for Summer's Eve...

The CC thing said "at least $15,000 lost revenue." Revenue implies money before profits. If they're saying that they lost $15,000, at $50 per unit, that's a difference of 300 units. Even for CC, that seems absurd. And for Sony, that's just ridiculous. And, as Wombat pointed out, they price-match, so it would've come out in the wash anyway.

I never knew that Nintendo owned the Mariners. I don't know, I'd probably try it out once if it were ever an option at the baseball games I go to. It's a bit expensive, but kinda nifty.

Cheapy I think you said about 3 or 4 times that there wasn't much news this week. So tell me, was there much news this week? We haven't had a YMIJ lately, maybe when it's slow you could do 1 or 2 of those...


As always, thanks for doing the show, guys! Gives me something to listen to while I'm cooking dinner or driving around.

/tk

I noticed that both CheapyD and Wombat quoted the movie Swingers in this podcast and, very slyly, did not let the listeners know.

-T