Barty’s Weblog

Over the years Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Games have been all about fighting evil. Its the same formula — Good vs Bad. In a new environment, with new toys.

But this year we’re seeing a new kind of evil creeping into MMORPG’s… the pre-order pack! Developers of the online RPG are putting a huge emphasis on pre-sales… so they can hit the ground running. Now that hardly seems evil? Well no, its actually probably smart…

So where’s the evil? Well, Electronic Arts are bringing the new evil to MMORPG’s… they want you to pay for your pre-order pack. Now. Stores wanting stock of the Warhammer Collectors Edition are required to pay for the pre-order packs months before the game releases. Months before the packs are of any use to anyone.

This practice raises some interesting questions. Are retailers going to be funding the development of games in the future? How ethical is it to sell packs to customers, when they are of no use for three or four months? What happens when the release date slips (as they do)? What happens if the reviews suck? What if the game is canned altogether?

I believe both the retail trade and consumers should be very concerned with publishers forcing people to buy pre-order packs. It reeks of publishers sharing the development risks with consumers.

Why stop at MMORPG games? Publishers could start charging for “bonus” items in any game — months before its released. Scarey stuff. If this practice catches on… consumers will get burnt eventually.

In my opinion pre-order incentives should always be free. Taking consumers hostage with “bonus” content is not cool…

Softprint Interactive have today confirmed that they have gone into receivership. Apparently the gaming staff were told the news on Friday afternoon and given 30 minutes to gather their things and leave. SPI were the exclusive New Zealand distributors for both Nintendo and Activision — two of the biggest game publishers on the planet.

As a Softprint customer, we were rather surprised by the speed of the demise. Normally a business in financial difficulty would clear stock, sharpen prices and do everything they could to improve their cash flow. This would buy some time for overheads to be cut and the business be turned around. We didn’t see any of those normal signs… wham.

I’ve got to add … its another sad day for Nintendo in New Zealand.

Over the last 15 years Nintendo has gone from Roadshow to Monaco to Softprint to erm… now what? Nintendo has been distrubuted by some very good local distributors… and none of them have managed to make it work here. Nintendo’s reputation in the trade just took another battering. Is it time for Nintendo to show us how is supposed to be done? I think so. Now or never.

So where’s this leave Kiwi gamers? Well that’s the messy bit. Experience suggests it will be several months before the distribution is sorted out. Will Softprint keep trading? Will new distributors be needed? Does anyone actually want to distribute Nintendo here? Will the publishers open up NZ offices? Lots of big questions.

In the meantime, GPstore will have to resort to importing to satisfy the local demand. Not cool.