NERD RAGE!

Remember when customer service was good?

Me neither. I didn't live in the golden era of gas station attendants. All my life, a bunch of people just in it for a paycheck frequently ignored the needs and desires of customers. And for what? I don't even know.

I'm ranting about this because I pre-ordered Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine off THQ's website. The game came out Tuesday. It still isn't here today, and to top it off, the product tracker is no longer working. I checked it yesterday, and it shipped from a warehouse in Indiana ON Tuesday. You would think it'd be here by now.

I hate how the video game industry has universally adapted a "Buy it before it's out!" model. I blame GameStop for this, mostly. Back when that type of service was introduced, it actually mattered. Gaming wasn't as big as it is now so reserving yourself a copy of a huge title to avoid gigantic lines was pretty awesome. However, with as large as the video game industry in, guaranteeing yourself a copy on the first day of release is no longer necessary. In fact, the only times it's worth it is if you're trying to get your hands on some indie game title, something with a limited release as it's not expected to do all that well.

Because it's just expected people are going to pre-order the game they want, it no longer carries with it any sort of responsibility on the part of the store. Think about it. I dropped nearly $100 bucks on a game three weeks ago, and it's not in my hands despite it going out to the general public on Tuesday. Total nonsense. You think they'd be able to ship my copy of the game along with the hundreds of other copies which arrived at Best Buy, Wal-Mart, GameStop and any other brick-and-mortar store which sells electronics.

I want to be REWARDED as a customer for being loyal and excited about that company's products. It only makes sense. The people you want to keep happy are the ones who will willingly come back for more. Bioware has done an excellent job of that over the years. THQ? Not so much.

So my plans for this weekend are a tad on the ruined side. I was going to sit in my room and fight off the enemies of humanity as an 8 foot tall super-human. Looks like it's back to Rock Band.