Halo Wars Tournament

Little known fact is that Gamestop's around the country are having little Halo Wars tournaments. Winner takes home a limited edition copy of the game. Considering I've been a fan of the RTS genre since the Warcraft II, I feel confident coming out on top. But I'd like to share a little story with you guys. Last week, Gamestop was holding a Street Fighter IV tournament. I was doing fairly decent until this beast, 4 footer claiming to be 12 years young handed my ass to me on a silver plater. He played Ken and we all know how Ken can be. As a matter of fact, I've got a handful of excuses for losing to that shrimp but I'll save them and admit it was a hilarious, yet slightly humiliating moment in my life. Oh well. Let's hope he doesn't show up today to hand me seconds.

:D

*update - I lost in the first round to some dude that's played it a few more times than me. Oh well.

Repulsive Things

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R.I.P. Liongames.com

Liongames.com was an online game retailer that specialize in selling new and used games. I bought from them once, early in their online existence, and felt completely satisfied in their level of customer service. They've recently halted their online site even though the decision was made sometime last year. Here's an email from the owner Tony in case you've never shopped with them. It's insightful and warm, surprising to come from someone having to put an end to a dream.

Hello Luis,

I wanted to inform everyone that I will be closing the website. This decision was made well over a year ago but I had too many orders on file at the time and I didn’t want people to think that I was running away with their money. GTA4 kept getting pushed forward and ended up getting released late April of 2008. I let the site limp along so people wouldn’t worry about getting their product. Every single customer that paid me for an order got filled. I refunded a few customers for orders that I received this week. Not a single person will have a financial loss due to me closing the website.

I started Liongames in December 2006. My goal was to produce a nice place for gamers to purchase games for the 360, Wii and PS3. I wanted to sell new and used games at great prices. I figured by selling new games at cost and even at $8.00 per copy loss I would attract enough people to the website to buy used games. I viewed the loss on new games as an advertising expense to get the site going. I needed to sell about 100 used games a week at a $10 profit. In turn I would reinvest at least 50% of that money back into discounts on new games. The problem was I never got remotely close to selling 100 used games a week, therefore I couldn’t continue to sell new games at a loss.
I then tried the Roaring Discount Card which would allow members to buy games at my cost for a $25.00 upfront fee. My theory there was if I could sell enough cards I would build in a $25.00 profit per year for each customer and my customers would then be able to buy all the games they wanted at my cost. Once again I was hoping to sell at least 1000 of these cards and only sold a few handfuls.

After that promotion I realized the site wouldn’t ever get to the point of making money and I needed to spend my time on different projects in my life. 2008 also turned out to be a year where family members needed some of mine and my wife’s time due to health reasons. That also meant less time to devote to the website that was not performing.

Another difficult task for me was keeping up the changes on the website. The street date for games change very often. The used game values changed daily, and this fact made it nearly impossible for me to keep up with the trade in values. I did end up overpaying for a number of used games.

Another problem I faced was the fact that I couldn’t get my games on street date. There were a few exceptions where I did get my games before street date. The gaming studios were afraid to ship retailers like myself games early because they were afraid of street date violations. Instead they ship the games early to mass merchants who regularly broke street date. That was kind of ironic to me. Basically my distributor didn’t get most of the games until street date, and I was a 2 day ship from him. At the beginning I considered never touching the product and letting my distributor just ship everything from their warehouse. The problem was that if the product wasn’t shipped UPS, which was very expensive, then it would take to long for my customers to get the games. I learned early that it was better for me to get the games two days after street date and mail them myself, then it was to drop ship everything 2 days earlier. That created a lot of extra work, but this way my customers were able to get the games pretty quickly, especially if they chose priority mail.

These were just a few of the problems that I faced trying to run a good and efficient website.

In the end, even though I lost money, and I pretty proud and happy with the way Liongames turned out. I felt I offered customers great deals as well as unmatched customer service. My used games were second to none. I was tough with trade ins, so my customers got used games in fantastic condition. The other thing I did which was no one else did was to let my customers know the exact condition of the game before they made the purchase. My customer knew if the game was scratched, or missing the directions, or box upfront. That is just one example of how strongly I felt about making Liongames the best place to buy games on the net. I felt I accomplished that hands down in 2007. My customers were able to buy Halo 3, Bioshock for $39.99 and GTA4 for only $42.99. The deals were so good I had to work hard to convince people they were real. I had a lot of fun doing this. I posted on many message boards and communicated and met a ton of nice people.

Liongames made not have made money but I really did enjoy meeting the people from all across the country. I met so many nice people who helped talk me up. I had a few very loyal customers who I hoped enjoyed working with me as much I as enjoyed working with them. I want to thank each and every one of my customers who put faith in me and my website. Your confidence and trust meant a lot to me. I can surely rest comfortably when thinking about Liongames because it was fun and successful in many ways. I was touched by many people over the course of a few years, and hopefully I was able to make a small impression on a few on you. I plan on keeping my customers email addresses in case I ever venture into another web project of any kind. The Liongames website will go off the net within a few weeks. This means I won’t have access to the email addresses either. If anyone needs to get a hold of me for any reason after a few weeks you may do so at my regular email address which is also my paypal address of mrlucky200abc@yahoo.com Please feel free to contact me.

I would also like to make clear that the current economy had nothing to do with the website closing. I would say it is just a very tough business model to make work. I have no regrets and I am happy that I gave it a shot. For that it was a positive part of my life and hopefully a positive part of my customers lives. Until our paths cross again, I would like to ask everyone one final time to pick someone in your life and do something nice for them this week. It will surely bring you Joy. Have a great day everyone!

With true appreciation,
Tony

See you Tony, good luck with future ventures.

Fond Memories

One of the first "nextgen" games I had the pleasure of playing was Street Fighter 2 on the SNES. I should add that my first nextgen experience was with the Sega Genesis, but in all honesty, I never quite enjoyed playing. The only games I can recall playing are Lion King, Sonic games, XMEN, and Cyborg Justice. So yeah... it wasn't quite the same experience I had with my SNES.

I grew up on the NES, so it's only natural that I lean more towards a Nintendo console. Anyway, I had never played a fighting game. Having an older brother, he was a major influence on the purchase. I was quite the cheap bastard with Chun Li. Only person that could really counter me was Beto, an older kid on the block. Good times.

flower: The Game

flower is the newest PSN exclusive released on the PS3. As a flower peddle flowing through the air, you grow in size and the game quickly shows its charisma. As the level progresses, the landscape comes to life. It's controls, revolving around the SIXAXIS, defy expectations with their rock-solid responsiveness and it music is a gem adding a therapeutic element to the experience: it's the most mature, most revolutionary title to land on the PS3.

thatgamecompany cusping aside, a more critical stance makes it hard to deny similarities to the classic game, Snake. You know, it's the only fun game that came with your non-qwerty phone back in the 90's. Even still, flowers elegant design, crisp visuals and solid controls make it a worthwhile experience.

Review: The Life Changing Wii Fit

I'm sure you've heard about the Wii Fit. It's still topping the charts in most country's top 10 lists. The games premise is obvious: to got you into shape. But one that I hadn't expected was corrective posture and balancing exercises.

I got the Wii fit as a Christmas present. Back when I was in high school, I'd constantly push myself everyday to get the most out of my daily exercises. I found that it gave me an edge over other students when endurance and strength exercises we're involved. It was my being, my mantra; to try my best. So, I imagined the Wii Fit putting me into some kind of schedule so that I'd pick up where I left of in high school and get my physique back into shape.

My first impressions of the Wii Fit was that this was entirely possible. The strength exercises were everything I expected. After the first 1/2 hour of my session, I really thought this would get me back into the routine of working out in the morning. But, that's also when I tried the yoga section of the first time.

You see, the Wii Fit doesn't just give you all the exercises it want. You have to earn them by trying out the other exercises and games. At first glance, I thought that this was going to be a gimmick, a way to squeeze a minute or two of playing time into your Wii Fit sessions. That might even be the case, but for me, it shed light on a whole new way of exercising: yoga.

I've never had correct posture. I don't know why. Maybe I needed to feel the edge of a rule like so many other had to go through in Catholic school, or maybe I should have been smacked a few times at the dinner table. The fact is, I'm a sloucher and when it's cold, I cuddle my shoulders in. When I walk, I'm very tense and yada yada yada. I have a lot of flaws when it comes to standing up. Using the Wii Fit, I was able to actually see my imperfections in front of me. It was the ability to correct my imbalance. My body responded accordingly. I feel lively like I did back in high school and I can stretch much further than I ever could before.

Even though I don't log that many sessions on the Wii Fit, I catch myself doing this exercises on my living room floor, at work on my lunch break, or at night for no good reason than to give my body that good feeling again. It really is an amazing machine and I look forward to using it more often.