Shopping Naked on Black Friday

Written by: Adam "ManKorn" Korenman, CC2K Video Games Editor

3) Supply Shortages Ruin Shopping Trips 

We’ve all been there. You’ve spent months researching an upcoming title. You’ve watched every possible video available and read up on every rumor. Your excitement level could not be higher, and the day is fast approaching for purchase. You make plans to head to your local gamery to buy the disk, making sure to have your will notarized and sealed with wax. Bidding your loves a fond farewell, you saddle up and head to town. 

After waiting months for the game to launch, and hours standing in a line full of psychos, you finally get to speak to a sales associate. The man is battered and broken, a shell of humanity, but he attempts a smile all the same as you approach. “Do you have Super Awesome Splosion Man VII: The Splosioning? I’d really like the special edition, if you have it left.”

You can tell by the way the associate immediately cries rivers of blood that you are not leaving this store happy. He apologizes profusely through swollen lips that they ran out around 2AM, back when he had a full set of teeth and any faith in humanity. The strength leaves your legs and you faint like a fainting-goat.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare sold a reported 3.7 million copies in the US alone. On day one! Think there were a few folks going home empty handed?

Why You Should Shop at Home

At home, on the miraculous Internet, there are no supply limits. In fact, if you pre-order a title, you can pretty much guarantee it will arrive on your doorstep the day it launches. 

And let’s say, for argument’s sake, that you are one of those people who doesn’t pre-order. I get it. Some folk like to let the market test a product before laying down their hard-earned simoleons. In that case, the Internet will allow you to guarantee a product will arrive within a few days. Amazon has two-day shipping free for PRIME members (which is totally worth it, if you buy more than three products a year). And as I said before, shipping is normally free on the holidays anyway. 

Instead of showing up in the middle of a mom-and-pop mosh pit in order to retrieve your copy of Assassin’s Creed: Why is This Franchise Not Dead Yet, you could be laid out on your couch, fishing Pringles crumbs out of your belly, while enjoying a Scrubs marathon. The game is on the way from the warehouse, where inventory never runs out.

And let’s not forget that all of this mad-dash purchasing is happening at a time when you should be fighting with relatives.