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GameStop Has a Plan for the Future of Preorders, and it Sounds Awful
I love this industry. Video games are a uniquely exciting medium that’s fueled by talented developers, passionate fans, and the desire to push the envelope, both creatively and in the technology that lets us interact with and experience these virtual worlds in ways that no other medium can ever hope to match.
It’s an awesome industry to write about every day, but it’s still young, and it’s far from perfect.
There’s something that’s always bothered me about video games, and that’s the idea of preordering games for retailer-exclusive content. Forcing consumers to decide between buying a game at a specific retailer for special content they’d otherwise miss out on if they purchased it elsewhere only benefits the retailer and the publisher.
It’s horribly, blatantly anti-consumer, yet for some reason — despite our power to combat crap like this by simply refusing to waste our hard-earned money on the retailers that practice them — people continue preordering games. Much like DLC, which started out as free post-release content that developers used to keep their communities alive and interested months or even years after a game’s release (Burnout Paradise and Killing Floor are both excellent examples of developers that did DLC right) has gradually shifted in an alarming direction.
Publishers began strapping price tags to their DLC, and when we happily spent our cash on it they started charging more and more until we’re now paying $20 for map packs or $30-40+ for season passes that included most or all of the DLC that hadn’t even been released. I’m sure anyone who dropped $30 for the Dead Rising 3 season pass didn’t leave happy.
Stuff like this has a snowball effect, and if this report from GamesBeat proves true, it’s about to get substantially worse.
Apparently, GameStop recently met with investment company R.W. Baird to chat about a few things, including the future of their lucrative preordering business. In a note sent to the company’s investors, Baird analyst Colin Sebastian detailed the retailer’s plans for what preorders may soon become.
“[GamesStop] indicated that software publishers are more enthusiastic about partnering with it,” Sebastian wrote. “For example, by offering exclusive content on each major game release, and longer term, future models may include GameStop offering exclusive gameplay.”
As for what that means, exactly, Sebastian explained to GamesBeat that the company is interested in “getting involved at the time of game development where there could be some content exclusive to [the retailer] included in the game.”
This goes a step above unlocking retailer-exclusive maps, weapons or character skins. In the very near future, GameStop may have a hand in the actual development of a game, so they can use their influence (and money) to get developers to waste precious time and resources on exclusive content — potentially entire sections of a game — that will only be available to those who preorder it at their store.
The implications this has down the road are nothing short of disastrous, but that’s just my opinion — what do you think of all this?
If you’re not a fan of this, the best way to fight it is by no longer giving GameStop, or any other retailer who implements these harmful strategies, your money. I haven’t spent a dime at GameStop in years because of stuff like this, as well as the ridiculously pushy clerks who hound you to preorder a game in the hopes that you’ll eventually break down and give them more money.
Only one episode remains in Season 3 of “Chucky,” and what a bloody road it’s been so far, especially for actor Devon Sawa. The actor has now officially died twice on screen this season, pulling double duty as President James Collins and body double Randall Jenkins.
If you thought Chucky’s ruthless eye-gouging of the President was bloody, this week’s Episode 7 traps Randall Jenkins in an elevator that feels straight out of an iconic horror classic.
Bloody Disgusting spoke with series creator Don Mancini and actor Devon Sawa about that ultra-bloody death sequence and how the actor inspires Mancini’s writing on the series.
Mancini explains, “Devon’s a bit of a muse. Idle Hands and Final Destination is where my Devon Sawa fandom started, like a lot of people; although yours may have started with Casper. I was a bit too old for that. But it’s really just about how I love writing for actors that I respect and then know. So, it’s like having worked with Devon for three years now, I’m just always thinking, ‘Oh, what would be a fun thing to throw his way that would be unexpected and different that he hasn’t done?’ That’s really what motivates me.”
For Sawa, “Chucky“ is an actor’s dream in that the series gives him not one but multiple roles to sink his teeth into, often within the same season. But the actor is also a huge horror fan, and Season 3: Part 2 gives him the opportunity to pay homage to a classic: Kubrick’s The Shining.
CHUCKY — “There Will Be Blood” Episode 307 — Pictured in this screengrab: (l-r) Devon Sawa as President James Collins, K.C. Collins as Coop — (Photo by: SYFY)
“Collectively, it’s just amazing to put on the different outfits, to do the hair differently, to get different types of dialogue,“ Sawa says of working on the series. “The elevator scene, it’s like being a kid again. I was up to my eyeballs in blood, and it felt very Kubrick. Everybody there was having such a good time, and we were all doing this cool horror stuff, and it felt amazing. It really was a good day.”
Sawa elaborates on being submerged in so much blood, “It was uncomfortable, cold, and sticky, and it got in my ears and my nose. But it was well worth it. I didn’t complain once. I was like, ‘This is why I do what I do, to do scenes like this,‘ the scenes that I grew up watching on VHS cassette, and now we’re doing it in HD, and it’s all so cool.“
It’s always the characters and the actors behind them that matter most to Mancini, even when he delights in coming up with inventive kills and incorporating horror references. And he’s killed Devon Sawa’s characters often. Could future seasons top the record of on-screen Sawa deaths?
“Well, I guess we did it twice in season one and once in season two,“ Mancini counts. “So yeah, I guess I would have to up the ante next season. I’ll really be juggling a lot of falls. But I think it’s hopefully as much about quality as quantity. I want to give him a good role that he’s going to enjoy sinking his teeth into as an actor. It’s not just about the deaths.”
Sawa adds, “Don’s never really talked about how many times could we kill you. He’s always talking about, ‘How can I make this death better,’ and that’s what I think excites him is how he can top each death. The electricity, to me blowing up to, obviously in this season, the eyes and with the elevator, which was my favorite one to shoot. So if it goes on, we’ll see if he could top the deaths.”
CHUCKY — “Death Becomes Her” Episode 305 — Pictured in this screengrab: Devon Sawa as James Collins — (Photo by: SYFY)
The actor has played a handful of distinctly different characters since the series launch, each one meeting a grisly end thanks to Chucky. And Season 3 gave Sawa his favorite characters yet.
“I would say the second one was a lot of fun to shoot,“ the actor says of Randall Jenkins. “The President was great. I liked playing the President. He was the most grounded, I hope, of all the characters. I did like playing him a lot.” Mancini adds, “He’s grounded, but he’s also really traumatized, and I thought you did that really well, too.”
The series creator also reveals a surprise correlation between President James Collins’ character arc and a ’90s horror favorite.
“I saw Devon’s role as the president in Season 3; he’s very Kennedy-esque,“ Mancini explains. “But then given the supernatural plot turns that happen, to me, the analogy is Michelle Pfeiffer in What Lies Beneath, the character that is seeing these weird little things happening around the house that is starting to screw with his sanity and he starts to insist, ‘I’m seeing a ghost,‘ and his spouse thinks he’s nuts. So I always like that. That’s Michelle Pfeiffer in What Lies Beneath, which is a movie I love.”
The finale of “Chucky” Season 3: Part 2 airs Wednesday, May 1 on USA & SYFY.
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