Warning: this is going to a rather incoherent rant about an import gaming-related process that all of us must undergo, and probably it will make you feel happy, but I don't know where it will end. Right now, nor I know where it'll begin.
In the first blog post I promised to post at least weekly, however something happened: I didn't had any games to speak about. Sure there was Mario Galaxy but I've already talked about it but there's a 650+ posts thread in the forum, everyone is singing praises about the game and there's nothing much I can add, so I was thinking to write about pacing in past and current games, but thanks to my postal service, my plans were screwed.
Then some sort of writer's block didn't allow me to form any decent and/or meaningful sentence on other subjects, but finally I've snapped out of it and since things here are going bad, it's ranting time.
Once upon a time, standard air mail took one or two weeks to get from Canada to Italy; then two weeks; magically, I had to wait for about a month to get any item shipped by air mail since the beginning of this year; now there's an average of one month and two weeks. Or should I say, there was an average, because starting October 2007, air mails magically disappear. I had to contact Videogamesplus and have Zelda Phantom Hourglass and Touch Detective 2 1/2 reshipped with other (new) games via DHL two months later and I'll probably have to do that again as Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn and Trauma Center New Blood haven't shown up yet, meaning that I've been waiting for more than a month.
So, the situation is bad.
First, Sidney changed all my standard shippings with DHL shippings; I have to pay more for each game, but I'm still happy with it, the Euro is strong and I'm garaunteed to get the game in perfect conditions in three working days (it should be two, but DHL always get the civic number wrong, as it's so damn hard to read a number above a door).
Second, I feel bad for Videogamesplus. Sidney has to deal with my requests (like "will you carry Kikikai World?" or "when Radirgy GC edition will be out?"[*] or "will this carry that preorder bonus?" or "could you ship these three games from these three orders together via courier?"), which is already bad, then they have to basically give away a game for free. Having been a freelancer and being the son of shopkeepers, this mean that the store is paying for the game, losing money; and when a costumer makes you lose money over something, it automatically turns into a bad costumer.
Third, shipping to Italy via air mail or EMS is already hard. Shipping from Japan or Hong Kong via EMS requires my home and mobile phone number, at least four photos of everything inside the package and four different copies of some paperwork. I'm not kidding, some eBayers even refuse shipping to Italy due to this and I can't really blame them, especially when our postal service is regarded as one of the slowest in the world and unfortunately this is true for both international and nation letters: my credit card expires the end of this month, I asked the bank about the replacement, they showed be proof that the new card has been sent at the beginning of the month but still got nothing - and it was sent from Milan, 30 kilometers from where I live!
Next time you are complaining about Royal Mail strike, remember that there's a postal service that takes more than double the time it would take your postal service to get things delivered - while on strike.
This could potentially lead to a scenario where people would simple refuse to ship things to Italy with standard mail, all thanks to our dear government, which, I'm told, increased custom tolls even on European products - something that should go against the whole EU ruling.
I'm already using courier shipping as a standard from Asian countries, for both speed and quality of service, I guess I'll have to do this even for US shippings. It's money the postal service will lose, but right now I couldn't care less, thanks to them one of the best international VG stores lost around 200 CDN and I'm not particularly happy either about my new credit card (thank the gods that it has to be activated first).
BTW, the original statement that I don't have any games to play is not entirely true; I still have to finish Wild Arms 5, I'm just a couple of hours into Person 3, Soul Nomad requires some more hours to be fully understood, Zack & Wiki still needs an end and I have some other JPN games to even begin to play, but I guess I'm keeping them for my non-existing Christmas vacations, while I already know I'll play something more casual, like Ghost Squad if costumes and extra weapons still need to be uncovered. I thought I would give Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn a deep dive, but without the disc it's kinda impossible to do, and I wouldn't attempt for any kind of shipping this near to such a critical time of the year.
I also wish I had more time to play with portables. I once went to work in Milan via train, which took an healty hour to get back and forth, so I had a lot of time during the week to play; after I quit that job I started to use my car to move from home to office and back, and playing while driving completely ruins the gaming experience. I play 15 or so minutes in the morning, after breakfast (I don't know why I don't use them for sleeping) and during the weekend, but this situation led in having Phoenix Wright 3 uncompleted, Disgaea PSP abandoned and Touch Detective 2 progressing at an incredibly slow pace (game defects notwithstanding); I want to buy Warhammer 40000 Squad Command and Jeanne D'Arc but I'm not doing this because I know I'll have very little time to play them! Not to mention to number of PC games I'd like to buy (like Galactic Civilizations II's expansion packs) or I have bought but my PC is unable to run (World in Conflict, Supreme Commander). The latter can be easily resolved when Intel will release Perhyn CPUs and the X48 chipset (and DDR3 prices drop), but I find difficult to dive into a game as I was used to and preferring games I already know or can be played in small sessions, but I think this is a feeling that many of us have, so I'll stop there.
Maybe I'll unlock a new gun in Ghost Squad. BTW, the best thing of that game is that it's made by Sega. It's B-movie feeling, the giant panda costume, the way they turned a SWAT squad into an humanitarian expedition...sooo sweet.
[*] still waiting for that one, even if it was rumored it turned into a Wii game. Preorder still open and waiting.
In the first blog post I promised to post at least weekly, however something happened: I didn't had any games to speak about. Sure there was Mario Galaxy but I've already talked about it but there's a 650+ posts thread in the forum, everyone is singing praises about the game and there's nothing much I can add, so I was thinking to write about pacing in past and current games, but thanks to my postal service, my plans were screwed.
Then some sort of writer's block didn't allow me to form any decent and/or meaningful sentence on other subjects, but finally I've snapped out of it and since things here are going bad, it's ranting time.
Once upon a time, standard air mail took one or two weeks to get from Canada to Italy; then two weeks; magically, I had to wait for about a month to get any item shipped by air mail since the beginning of this year; now there's an average of one month and two weeks. Or should I say, there was an average, because starting October 2007, air mails magically disappear. I had to contact Videogamesplus and have Zelda Phantom Hourglass and Touch Detective 2 1/2 reshipped with other (new) games via DHL two months later and I'll probably have to do that again as Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn and Trauma Center New Blood haven't shown up yet, meaning that I've been waiting for more than a month.
So, the situation is bad.
First, Sidney changed all my standard shippings with DHL shippings; I have to pay more for each game, but I'm still happy with it, the Euro is strong and I'm garaunteed to get the game in perfect conditions in three working days (it should be two, but DHL always get the civic number wrong, as it's so damn hard to read a number above a door).
Second, I feel bad for Videogamesplus. Sidney has to deal with my requests (like "will you carry Kikikai World?" or "when Radirgy GC edition will be out?"[*] or "will this carry that preorder bonus?" or "could you ship these three games from these three orders together via courier?"), which is already bad, then they have to basically give away a game for free. Having been a freelancer and being the son of shopkeepers, this mean that the store is paying for the game, losing money; and when a costumer makes you lose money over something, it automatically turns into a bad costumer.
Third, shipping to Italy via air mail or EMS is already hard. Shipping from Japan or Hong Kong via EMS requires my home and mobile phone number, at least four photos of everything inside the package and four different copies of some paperwork. I'm not kidding, some eBayers even refuse shipping to Italy due to this and I can't really blame them, especially when our postal service is regarded as one of the slowest in the world and unfortunately this is true for both international and nation letters: my credit card expires the end of this month, I asked the bank about the replacement, they showed be proof that the new card has been sent at the beginning of the month but still got nothing - and it was sent from Milan, 30 kilometers from where I live!
Next time you are complaining about Royal Mail strike, remember that there's a postal service that takes more than double the time it would take your postal service to get things delivered - while on strike.
This could potentially lead to a scenario where people would simple refuse to ship things to Italy with standard mail, all thanks to our dear government, which, I'm told, increased custom tolls even on European products - something that should go against the whole EU ruling.
I'm already using courier shipping as a standard from Asian countries, for both speed and quality of service, I guess I'll have to do this even for US shippings. It's money the postal service will lose, but right now I couldn't care less, thanks to them one of the best international VG stores lost around 200 CDN and I'm not particularly happy either about my new credit card (thank the gods that it has to be activated first).
BTW, the original statement that I don't have any games to play is not entirely true; I still have to finish Wild Arms 5, I'm just a couple of hours into Person 3, Soul Nomad requires some more hours to be fully understood, Zack & Wiki still needs an end and I have some other JPN games to even begin to play, but I guess I'm keeping them for my non-existing Christmas vacations, while I already know I'll play something more casual, like Ghost Squad if costumes and extra weapons still need to be uncovered. I thought I would give Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn a deep dive, but without the disc it's kinda impossible to do, and I wouldn't attempt for any kind of shipping this near to such a critical time of the year.
I also wish I had more time to play with portables. I once went to work in Milan via train, which took an healty hour to get back and forth, so I had a lot of time during the week to play; after I quit that job I started to use my car to move from home to office and back, and playing while driving completely ruins the gaming experience. I play 15 or so minutes in the morning, after breakfast (I don't know why I don't use them for sleeping) and during the weekend, but this situation led in having Phoenix Wright 3 uncompleted, Disgaea PSP abandoned and Touch Detective 2 progressing at an incredibly slow pace (game defects notwithstanding); I want to buy Warhammer 40000 Squad Command and Jeanne D'Arc but I'm not doing this because I know I'll have very little time to play them! Not to mention to number of PC games I'd like to buy (like Galactic Civilizations II's expansion packs) or I have bought but my PC is unable to run (World in Conflict, Supreme Commander). The latter can be easily resolved when Intel will release Perhyn CPUs and the X48 chipset (and DDR3 prices drop), but I find difficult to dive into a game as I was used to and preferring games I already know or can be played in small sessions, but I think this is a feeling that many of us have, so I'll stop there.
Maybe I'll unlock a new gun in Ghost Squad. BTW, the best thing of that game is that it's made by Sega. It's B-movie feeling, the giant panda costume, the way they turned a SWAT squad into an humanitarian expedition...sooo sweet.
[*] still waiting for that one, even if it was rumored it turned into a Wii game. Preorder still open and waiting.