I pondered writing a little piece about my time at Electronics Boutique/Waldensoftware for a while. I figured it would be an entertaining read for the aforementioned others into games of that era, those who worked video game retail, and those that went through a similar "loser phase" in their own life. It was bouncing around in my head but I never got around to actually doing it. As much fun as this would be to write, I have other projects that take a higher priority. That was the case until late 2005 when I witnessed something at a Gamestop that became the motivating factor to finally write this..
Gamestop was advertising Metroid Prime for $4.99, of course they were out by the time I arrived. I decided to browse around for a little bit since I was already there. A morbidly obese customer entered the store and headed straight for the counter:
Customer: Do you have any of those new Xbox 360s?
Employee: Sorry, we sold out the first day we had them. We didn't even fill our entire reserve list. We had to stop taking new reservations until we know when we'll get more and how many we'll get.
Customer: When are you getting more?
Employee: We haven't been told when we'll receive more.
Customer: Can I sign-up on the reserve list?
Employee: I'm sorry, we have to stop taking reservations until we know when we'll get more and how many we'll get.
Customer: Why didn't you get more of them!?
Employee: I don't know how Microsoft determined how many they shipped to each store.
Customer: Why didn't they make more of them, you know it's a very popular system!?
Employee: I don't know.
Customer: All the kids want these things, why didn't they make more!?
Employee: I don't know.
Employee: Sorry, we sold out the first day we had them. We didn't even fill our entire reserve list. We had to stop taking new reservations until we know when we'll get more and how many we'll get.
Customer: When are you getting more?
Employee: We haven't been told when we'll receive more.
Customer: Can I sign-up on the reserve list?
Employee: I'm sorry, we have to stop taking reservations until we know when we'll get more and how many we'll get.
Customer: Why didn't you get more of them!?
Employee: I don't know how Microsoft determined how many they shipped to each store.
Customer: Why didn't they make more of them, you know it's a very popular system!?
Employee: I don't know.
Customer: All the kids want these things, why didn't they make more!?
Employee: I don't know.
I considered asking the customer "do you really think the guy making $7.50 an hour at Gamestop controls the Xbox 360 supply chain?" I'm too non-confrontational and doubt he would have understood. When I got home that day I resolved to write this piece. I made a rough outline and chipped away at it for a while, little bit here and there while focusing on more important things. I stopped when I felt I covered all the major topics, there's certainly a lot more I could still add.
The whole point of this mess is to reflect back on a brief era in video game retail, mixing in my own experiences and tribulations. This is by no means intended to dig-up dirt on Electronics Boutique/Waldensoftware. First off, the company doesn't function as an independent entity anymore. It wouldn't make sense to do an "expose" on a business that exists in name only. I don't think there's anything in here that's a company secret or reflects negatively on anyone (except a few anonymous customers) anyway.
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