Also can you seriously do that? Had I called up Nintendo, could I have gotten a Diancie code directly from them? Because man, my town's super into gaming and my GameStop has never had an event ticket when I've stopped by. That'd be pretty convenient, honestly.portaxx, November 04, 2014, 08:23:24 pm
Yup. Just call 1-800-255-3700, tell them your local GS is out of codes, and you've got yourself a backup code. Enjoy! If you ever forget the 800 number, it's on the back of your 3DS. Obviously this applies to US residents only.
Anyway, since you've all been waiting so patiently, it's time for another tale. Today's is the story of the Oblivion Lady.
So I live and work in a good-sized metropolitan area, and it's unfortunately kinda known for its segregation. To the north is a large impoverished neighborhood. Low-income housing, homeless people, drug rings, gang conflict, break-ins, armed robberies, shady stores, all that fun stuff. To the east is our local university as well as a big teaching hospital that draws in a lot of foreign students and doctors. Hipsters also tend to gravitate toward that area since it's where a lot of hipster spots are. To the south is a community of mostly Mexican families and stores. Lastly, out west is where all the rich white yuppies live.
Our store is situated in the northeastern area of town, but not north enough to be in the ghetto and not east enough to be in hipsterland. We are the northernmost GS in the city, though, so a good 75% of our clientele is from the north. Perhaps predictably, this also means that we regularly cater to customers who've just come in from smoking a bowl in the parking lot, who are trying to sell us stolen product, or who were trying to panhandle outside and needed to duck away from the cops momentarily. Today's story regards the latter sort.
Over the course of my employment at the store, we've had several regular panhandlers out on the adjacent street, but one in particular, a middle-aged, very enthusiastic, very hyperactive lady, had a habit for a while of coming into our store and asking to use our phone in between heckling people for drugs or money. She would often come in and follow customers around the store and whisper to them and generally make them uncomfortable, but when she wasn't doing this, she had a habit of asking some very strange questions about "
Oblivion." It usually started with gems such as these:
"I'm looking for a certain game where you play as that magic guy, and he goes through the water."
"I want to get this Oblivion game, but I want to make sure it's the right one."
"What do I need to play Oblivion? I really want to get Oblivion."
"Do you guys have Oblivion? It's that game with that wizard and there's this part where you go through the water."
"Can I see the case for Oblivion? I really want to get it but I want to make sure it's the right one. I'll know it when I see it. It has these pictures on the back."
As you can see, there were trends to this. For one thing, she was
sure that we sold more than one game with "Oblivion" in its name; secondly, she was thoroughly convinced that we would know what she was talking about with this mage who "goes through the water" and that no other game fits those criteria; and thirdly, she had no idea what video games actually were. The latter became abundantly clear the more we talked with her to try to understand what she apparently wanted.
She didn't know about different consoles or the fact that they couldn't play discs that weren't specifically designed to be played in those consoles. She also didn't know that she needed a TV set or a controller or electricity. She asked me multiple times if she could just take the game disc and put it in her car's CD player to use it, and she also was very disappointed when I told her that yes, you do need to actually
play the game, you can't just unplug the controller and let the game play itself.
She was also apparently not aware of the fact that our prices aren't negotiable, because she tried to offer us $20 for an Xbox 360 deck, no cords or controller...which is not something that we sell anyway. The concept of "extra content" was also a mystery to her; figuring she meant either the 360 or PS3 editions, or the regular and
GOTY editions, when she said there were two Oblivions, I explained the difference to her, and she just kept asking the same questions over and over anyway, this and that about the mage who goes through the water.
Unfortunately, given the sheer number of times she came back in with the same exact questions, even months apart, I don't think she ever committed any of the stuff we ever told her to memory. I haven't seen her lately, though. I wonder if she ever got arrested.