Barty’s Weblog

Its been a crazy week at GPstore, but thankfully the release of Grand Theft Auto IV has finally been put to bed. With all the confusion over the classifications adding to our customer service workload and our warehouse team having to pull extra shifts over the long weekend… we’re really happy to get this game out the door! (And now its just up to Courier Post to do their part).

Having played the game extensively over the long weekend, I must say its one hell of a game, but it’s definitely not for the faint-hearted.

For me the most impressive thing about GTA IV are the production values. There is so much polish in this game — it’s amazing. From the mini games, to the radio stations, to the TV stations, the cut-scenes, the intro, the cars, the physics, the sound, and so-on are all wonderfully crafted. Its very very rare for products to be this great. Very very rare. This game is a work of art.

The reviewers agree too… all the early reviews are astounding. The game is currently rated a perfect 100 at Metacritic. This game just raised the bar for video games to a phenomenal new level.

I think its a shame that a lot of the focus will be on the games content rather than its quality. GTA IV is rated R18 for very good reasons (yet it still baffles me how Australia allows 15 year olds to play it). Yes it’s violent. Yes the language is coarse. Yes its gritty and dark. But…

Grand Theft Auto IV is one of the coolest video games to ever grace our planet.

This week we had the “pleasure” of deleting over $50,000 worth of customers orders at the push of a button… and yet we’re very happy with the final outcome.

After it was announced that the Australia was getting an edited version of Grand Theft Auto IV, GPstore was flooded with orders from Australians looking for the real thing. This week the bad news broke… New Zealand was also getting the edited version. Not cool.

We had two choices. Inform all our Australian customers and lose the orders. Don’t inform the customers and hope to keep some. We immediately took the high road — we emailed all the Australian orders and cancelled their orders for them as we “didn’t want to supply you with a product you weren’t going to be happy with”.

It has paid off big time. We’ve got plenty of great coverage in the forums and a flood of emails from very happy people who seem genuinely amazed with our honesty and in love with our customer service.

Here’s some of the feedback we’ve got from doing the right thing:

• NeoGAF
• AusGamers
• Kokatu

Here’s a small selection of customer comments we’ve received so far:

“Thanks a lot for your responsiveness and honesty. I certainly appreciate it and wish all the best to Gameplanet Store. That’s what customer service should always be about. ”

“I’ll be sure to shop from you in the future simply due to my respect for your service.”

“I am impressed with your customer service, and will hopefully have a chance to use you in the future. In the meantime I will be sure to recommend you to any of my friends living in NZ.”

“Oh ok, thank you very much for that, execellent customer service after getting back to me. I will use your store in getting certain items in the future as you have quality stock and I always remember good customer service. ”

“I really do appreciate you letting me know the situation and coming foreward with the facts. This is much more than I’d expect from an online retailler. Most would just take your money and hope the customer was none the wiser. This is a true testament to your great service and this reflects positively for you now being a highly recommended online store. ”

“You are exactly right. Thank you so much for letting me know! That’s fantastic customer service. ”

“It’s nice to see you have looked out for customer interests instead of merely profit. Very commendable!”

“Thank you so much for your wonderful customer service. It is amazingly refreshing in this day and age.”

“The ease of use of your site and the way you have handled this situation though have guaranteed that I will come straight to you guys if I ever need another game imported in the future.”

“Thanks for informing me this news. That is very dissapointing but cannot be helped. Thankyou very much for your kind service these past weeks and I’ll be sure to use GPStore in the future.”

“I simply wanted to write and thank you and GP Store for your efforts on my behalf and for understanding what your customers want. It’s good to see that this level of service still exists in the world. ”

“Thankyou very much indeed, thats very honest and extremely professional on your behalf.”

“Now that’s what I call customer service! GPStore is now stuck in my bookmarks for future occasions.”

“Thank you very much for your honesty !”

“Thankyou for removing my order, it is much appreciated. I’ll certainly recommend Gameplanet Store to my friends!”

“God Damn It. Thanks guys!”

“Wow thanks! Your service is awesome I’m definitely going to consider buying from you guys in the future.”

“Anyway thanks for the professionalism in canceling the order. I’ll be sure to order from you guys in the future.”

“Wow, thank you very much for the excellent customer service. I was worried that this might happen, and appreciate your attention to detail on this matter. If any future releases get an uncut release in NZ i’ll be sure to buy it through Gameplanet!”

“Thank you for this, amazing customer service!! ”

“Thank you very much – excellent customer service, much appreciated! I will use your store in future.”

“Thanks for the honesty in letting people know about this.”

“Thanks for your prompt and friendly service and hopefully I will shop with you soon sometime!”

“Just wanted to say thanks for letting us Aussies know about this, most other stores wouldn’t bother – very impressive customer service which you don’t see much of these days! Will definitely use you guys for my other imports in the future. ”

“Thank you so much. I would never expect a store to be so open, frank and honest about such a situation like this. I will definitely be shopping at gpstore again in the future. ”

“I would just like to say how impressed I am with your service as I have never used gameplanet before, but I will definitely be using you in the future. Thank you for your first class service anyway. ”

“Thank you very much – excellent customer service, much appreciated! I will use your store in future.”

“Thank you so much for being pro-active and actually being smart enough to notify people of this. I’m actually quite surprised and it’s one of the best acts of customer service I’ve ever seen. Thanks again. “

We believe that being honest with your customers will reward you in the long run. In fact, the positives from the PR and word of mouth already easily outweigh any small profits we could have made by shipping the orders to unknowing customers.

For us this decision was always a no-brainer… but we’re very happy to see that our customers appreciate our honesty!

Web traffic is difficult to get. Dylan recently posted on his blog about some of the differences between real-world foot traffic and the web traffic on the internet. And Dylan’s dead right with his comparison… web sites are very much be islands on their own and real world stores are at least on a street with some traffic!

I’ve always thought of a web site as being like a destination store. When setting up a store in the real world you can choose a busy location and feed off the foot traffic, or become a destination store and advertise more. There is a real clear choice — spend more on rent or spend more on advertising.

On the internet, there isn’t any choice. Your web site is a destination. So… the obvious thing to do for more web traffic is to spend money on advertising and get that elusive web traffic to your door.

But here’s the kicker. In the real world people have habits. They drive down streets. They drive to a mall. They walk to and from work. They walk to the dairy and so on. On the internet, people have browsing habits but they are very difficult to tap into. Spending money on advertising may get people visiting your web site once. But unless you really grab their interest, chances are they won’t be back. One visit generally doesn’t create a habit (sad news I know).

So what does this mean for web site owners? It means you have to build a web site that is good enough to change people habits. Trademe did this incredibly well through its growth stages. Todays social networking sites have been able to change people habits very quickly.

So what do you need to do? How do you change peoples habits? Well that’s the 10 million dollar question!

This earlier post is probably a good place to start.

I passed on Ferrits free breakfast recently, but yesterday I got another email invitation from them. This time they’re inviting us to a Ferrit party to celebrate their success.

You can’t fault their sense of humour though… the party invite featured a big-old elephant… and party is being held at the zoo!

Brilliant stuff really.

As reported on Gameplanet today, Rockstar Games are appealing for an R18+ rating for video games in Australia after they confirmed Grand Theft Auto IV had been edited for its release in Australia:

“Unlike the US and Europe, Australia still lacks an R18+ rating for video games and as a result many games are edited for release in Australia, including most previous Grand Theft Auto releases.

While there are some minor differences between the Australian and US/EU versions, they are not significant and we do not believe they take away from the level of scope and detail that make GTA IV such an incredible experience…

We strongly support the OLFC and will continue to work within their guidelines; however we believe the government needs to bring games in line with other media by introducing an R18+ rating, or edits to games will continue to be necessary. We encourage consumers to let their politicians know that they support an R18+ rating for games.”

Rockstar are still to confirm exactly which version of GTA IV New Zealand will be getting. But given that New Zealand has an R18+ rating system, add in the fact that every other GTA game has been the full monty, then its hard to imagine any reason as to why we wouldn’t be getting the Real McCoy once again.

We understand an announcement is pending for early next week… here’s hoping its good news!

For those that don’t know what the fuss is about… Grand Theft Auto IV is poised to be the fastest selling video game in history… it’s coming April 29th. Can’t wait.

Horror writer Stephen King has joined the debate over violent video games and criticised plans by a US state to ban some games. He was reportedly “outraged” when he heard that a bill in the state of Massachusetts could ban the sale of violent games to anyone aged under 18.

“What makes me crazy is when politicians take it upon themselves to play surrogate parents. The results of that are usually disastrous. Not to mention undemocratic…”

King said the most effective ban was parents knowing and caring about what their children were watching, reading, doing and who they were hanging out with.

“Parents need to have the guts to forbid material they find objectionable … and then explain why it’s being forbidden”

I find it very hard to disagree with his comments. He’s dead right! (Pun intended)

In New Zealand we have classification laws that should work well for video games — when enforced by watchful parents.

As a seller of classified games and DVDs, it does concern us that many parents do not know they are breaking the law when they allow their children to watch or play Restricted material in their home (the penalties are a maximum fine of $10,000 or a jail term of up to 3 months). Parents can be guilty under the Act unknowingly…

“The Act specifically says that it is no excuse that the parent, or cinema operator, or shop manager, did not know that it was a restricted publication. This makes sense because of the bright red labels affixed to publications that clearly state what the restriction is.”

One problem parents face is buying from unofficial sources. For example, Trademe is rife with “us versions” of video games that haven’t been cross-rated and even have some unrated games for sale. Parents who buy these games probably won’t realise they are Restricted as there’s unlikely to be any “bright red labels”.

Personally I’d love to see far more education of parents via the mainstream media regarding their legal responsibilities under the Classification Act.

We have a very good system in place… but how about educating the public about their responsibilities?

As reported by Gameplanet yesterday, the NZ FIFA World Cup qualifiers were held in Auckland over the weekend and the competition was eventually won by Swiss gamer Daver Brescakovic…

“Having been knocked out of the semi-final round of the Swiss FIWC event last weekend in his homeland, Daver, decided to try his luck a second time in the New Zealand qualifier event. The determination of the globe-trotting FIWC enthusiast paid off as he easily brushed aside fellow contestants.

The swift football fingers of Swiss contestant, Daver Brescakovic, proved too much for his Australian contestant, Stephen Coorey. Daver won the championship with a decisive 5-1 victory in the final match.”

There’s no doubt Daver is a very talented gamer, but to me it seems wrong that a gamer from Switzerland can lose his countries qualifier on one weekend and then fly over to New Zealand and win our qualifying event the next.

On one hand its great for the local gamers to get some international competition, but on the other hand what’s the point of holding a qualifier in New Zealand — if a New Zealand isn’t represented at the finals in Berlin?

Its common for pro-gaming leagues to allow people to compete in any country — so players can making a living. But how can a sport grow if fewer countries are represented in the finals? Wouldn’t it make more sense to allow pro-gamers to win prize money at tournaments, but only earn qualification through their home country qualifier? That seems both smarter and fairer to me.

Pro-gaming so far seems to reward so few, that its hard to imagine it growing into the mainstream in its current format. Daver’s win at the weekend won’t help pro-gaming as a sport in New Zealand and the finals won’t get any coverage in the local media come May. Is that good for the sport? I’d love to hear your thoughts…

For those who don’t know, GPstore started out as an Amiga store back in the early 90’s… until Commodore Business Machines went bust. We’ve been selling video games ever since, and if fact, we had the honour of selling the first PlayStation console in New Zealand at our official midnight launch back in 1996. Good times. Good times indeed!

Up until now, we’ve had great success selling games and DVDs (and we don’t expect that to change!). We had the good fortune to win some Netguide awards for “Best Online Store”. But, some people would suggest GPstore’s success at the Netguide awards maybe highlights the lack of quality e-commerce stores in New Zealand — and that’s quite possibly true.

Given New Zealand is so small, its not surprising that the cost to build a world class store is prohibitive for most companies in NZ. But, there does seem to be a real gap in the market for an “Amazon for New Zealand”?

After meeting with some local distributors over the last few weeks, we’re starting to ask ourselves is it perhaps time for us to diversify and get big?

While the answer may seem obvious… our success so far has been tied to us being specialists in what we do. Its great being the best game store in the country, but it’s a different game altogether to be the best in a range of categories.

Can it be done? And can it be done with the GPstore brand? Interesting times…

Last week we got an email from Ferrit inviting us to a Ferrit breakfast presentation about the eTail08 Conference held in California in February. The presentation included summaries from two e-tailers that had attended the conference along with Ferrit.

Now, GPstore has supported Ferrit from day-one, and speaking from experience (two Netguide awards for best online store etc) we’d much rather see Ferrit investing their sizable budget on fixing their web site — that advice is free, no need to send me on an all-expenses-paid overseas trip!