email them or send a text message. You developers take total control of the get in touch with them. You interact transactions. with them. When I began thinking about what to - Bongo Bill write for this particular letter, I started Interaction. It is the one thing that with the issue theme, “Season’s I enjoyed your Boutique MMOGs games have above every other In response to “Club Xanadu” from Gaming”. Why is it that so many of us tie arrticle. Naturally I agree that such entertainment form out there. They do The Escapist Forum: A fascinating games into the holiday season? Sure, all smaller games represent a great interaction so well – and in fact, most article. I love how the article was titled the game companies push out massive opportunity for developers. However, I games do not work without some “Club Xanadu” in reference to “Citizen quantities of stuff – consoles, games, wish to point out that Puzzle Pirates was manner of interaction. A few years ago, Kane” which in turn was about ... ah guides, etc. to catch the holiday game makers Milton Bradley started a made for approximatey US $750k, not spending spree from parents. But so do “Family Game Night” campaign. Yes, it the ‘paltry $3M’ your article mentions in a lot of other companies. served their purpose, but really, they the same breath. If we’d had the were right. Games are a great way to foresight not to include the kitchen sink As a child, I remember, starting in early connect with family. And friends. And co- it might have been even cheaper, but November, watching my usual shows workers. then again, we might have eaten better, become more and more saturated with too. I would hate to make aspiring commercials pimping the most wonderful So, with this in mind, we bring you this ramen-eaters think that a game of PP’s and glorious toys starting in early week’s issue of The Escapist, “Season’s scope requires multiple seven figures. November. But games stand out as more Gaming”. Here, our authors share their important players during the actual own special gaming memories. We invite - Daniel James, CEO, Three Rings holidays. And I don’t mean just you to think of your own, even share videogames, but really any games; them in our forums and get in the mood In response to “ The Trivial Pursuit, Cranium and Bridge are a for some great gaming time with family Industrialization of Play” from The few of my family’s traditions. and friends in this holiday season. Happy Escapist Forum: I can understand the holidays and merry gaming to you and desire to keep your in-game economy So, why games, as opposed to movies or yours from us here at The Escapist. truly and permanently in-game, but books or other such entertainment personally the only ways I can see to devices? And then it occurred to me Cheers, prevent it from expanding outside the what the holidays are about: Being with game world are by either excluding the those close and important to you. And if economy altogether, or letting the you can’t be with them, you call them or whatever ... (and since when do game We don’t think of it now, but where and not only will they move in Japan, monsters have DNA?) would we be without the analog stick? It but they’ll also sell well in the US. seemed like a small difference at first, This whole article sounds so incredibly but it has made a huge impact in gaming - Scopique surreal, it sounds like its straight out of (imagine Halo with just two D-pads). I an old Sci-Fi channel film from the 70’s expect motion sensitivity and pointing or something, or the Twilight Zone. I control to do the same. really wonder how successful this guy will be because of this, though. I - Blaxton personally think it won’t grow much beyond where it is now, but I could be In response to “Little, Red Yen” wrong, and this could explode in a few from The Escapist Forum: It looks like years time. the 360 has a chance to get some sales this time around, with Blue Dragon. -Darkpen Although it’s just hit the streets in Japan, people are already saying that MS is still In Response to “A Better Way to underperforming in Japan. Getting huge Play” from The Escapist Forum: sales RIGHT NOW isn’t a realistic strategy Attempting to change the mainstream, or expectation, but now that MS has tasted push-button control style that has hither-to unknown success in Japan, dominated the past two decades or so is someone needs to wake up and continue kind of a big deal (to me at least). courting big-name Japanese developers to Maybe the change doesn’t seem like a take a chance on their hardware. big deal right now. The games are still first gen for the console cycle (and are Get Japanese developers to produce subject to all the problems that go along products for the Japanese market (which with that). They will get better; and, I even to me, who is not a marketing hope, they will bring gaming to a new ninja, is such a painfully obvious move), standard of control. “Where are the foot massagers?” massagers. As I finally usher Methuselah out the door and down the escalator to It’s six in the morning, the Saturday Brookstone, a half dozen bleary eyed before Christmas 2004, and my first customers, the stink of holiday panic customer of the day is Methuselah in wafting from them like skunk road kill, poorly pressed slacks and a tan have wandered in and begun to pick the windbreaker, as conspicuous in front of remaining meat off the shelves. the Grand Theft Auto 3 display as a Daughters of the American Revolution It’s my twelfth consecutive day of work. outing to the Apollo. His eyebrows are In the preceding week, I’ve personally mangled, overused scrub brushes transacted roughly $50,000 worth of superglued to his forehead, and he fixes videogames, put in 65 hours of work and me with the kind of expression a bad come to think of time in terms of the poker player wears when trying to buy piped-in music that jams holiday cheer the pot on a pair of threes. down the ear-hole of anyone within range. I know that Barbara Streisand’s “This is Electronics Boutique,” I explain, staccato Jingle Bells means it’s time to naively possessed of the illusion that this open, Garth Brooks’s God Rest Ye Merry will be information enough. An Gentlemen means it’s time to close and uncomfortable moment passes. I wait for the cacophonous electro-pop-synth him to cogitate. He waits for me to sell nonsense by Manheim Steamroller him a foot massager. Eventually I add, means it’s time to jam a DS stylus “We sell videogames.” through my eardrums. “No.” This is not a response for which I am It is eight in the morning. The store has prepared. “I bought a massager here two been open for two hours, and I’m still years ago. It broke. I need a new one.” alone. The checkout line is averaging six people deep. A desperate father, one It takes me five minutes to explain that I among many, asks if I have the brand- know my 400 square foot store’s new Nintendo DS in stock. I consider it inventory well enough to know we don’t good customer service that I don’t point sell, nor have we ever sold, foot at him and laugh. Instead, he buys a copy of Tak 2: The Staff of Dreams for and for every one person manning the It is 2:30 in the afternoon now. The day know to be obscenely small. Many the PlayStation 2, a random shot in the actual job, there must be four more in is flying by in giant moon-leap bounds. A assistant managers mitigate this dark chosen like a number on a roulette the back room smoking and looking at woman has just come in and hurriedly unfavorable sum by reducing the amount wheel. Normally, I’d help him make a pornography. Unfortunately, this isn’t true. parked her kids in front of the interactive of work they actually do to more closely better selection, but were I to show such machines with strict instructions that match their pay scale. June is unusual in time-consuming initiative, the five people I can only track the three remaining they stay here until she is done that she does all the work, complains in line behind him might rise up as one to hours until my crew comes to my aid, shopping. Historically speaking, it’s a very little and succeeds at almost any lay fiery, furious siege to my register. and people stop looking at the second reasonable estimate to say that those task I put before her. Unfortunately, the unused register with the kind of children will be in my store for at least district manager doesn’t care much for I see in their impatient expression that contempt usually reserved for death-row an hour and a half and will eventually her, and that pretty much means that they imagine we are like county workers, inmates and Green Party candidates. camp out in a corner ripping out-of-date she has reached the ceiling of her magazines from their plastic covers or upward mobility.