Putting aside his Mum's name...no, I'm afraid I can't. I'm guessing either her parents aren't very good at spelling, or were perhaps torn between the names Tamara or Samantha. If the latter's the case then Tamatha's probably just glad her parents weren't locked at one vote apiece on Virginia and Jemima. And seriously; a late Christmas present in April? Give me a Christmas present in January and it's a late present. Give me one in April and you're just having a laugh. Seems to me there was more than one crime taking place here, but I digress.
Tamatha claimed to have found a memory card in the PSP containing hundreds of pornographic pictures. According to the article, a Wal-Mart spokesman is looking into it. Forgive me, but now I've got a picture of a Wal-Mart employee spending hours painstakingly cataloguing the offending images. "I'm pretty sure there are a hundred and thirty but I'll just do a quick run through again to make sure."
As for Tamatha, she wants a new PSP and an apology from Wal-Mart. One would have thought a new memory card would suffice or even simply reformatting the existing card might have done the trick, but I guess when that filth gets in your PSP it's really impossible to get it out.
Now there are lessons in this for everyone. Personally, I'm not quite sure how those topless swimsuit model photos got onto my PSP. I'd always sworn it had come out of the box like that. Secondly the difference between a public relations fiasco and brilliant marketing success can often be measured in seconds. Imagine if you will that a pimply fifteen year old gamer, let’s call him Connor, had been waiting in line behind Tamatha to buy a PSP. If he’d been just one place further in line at his local Manatee County Wal-Mart store last week, then Wal-Mart might have had a customer for life; a customer so satisfied, he'd be queuing up to buy Wal-Mart shares. Instead, Wal-Mart have one seriously unhappy customer - Tamatha.
Nor should we necessarily be surprised that somewhere along the distribution chain, someone got their mitts on the PSP for some 'quality assurance' time. Last week Kotaku broke some disturbing news that a third of the gaming community already knew and the rest of us already suspected. US gaming chain GameStop stands accused of providing staff with what amounts to a free rental scheme - a perk which allows staff to take games home and enjoy them, before returning them to the store where the games are then sold as 'new' to an unsuspecting public. Now don't get me wrong. From all accounts GameStop employees aren't among the USA's highest money earners, so it's great to see they are getting some benefits. Nor can it be a bad thing that they gain a little knowledge about what they are selling. Presumably, that's the only reason anyone is buying from a specialist video games retailer, either in the US or right here in Australia. You're certainly not shopping at EB or GAME for the keen pricing.
Of course, such practices aren't unheard of in other industries. In the motor trade, salesmen drive dealership cars to work and home and back. It's one of their perks. But even car salesmen, who last time I checked, ranked pretty low on the list of trustworthy professions, had the decency to come clean and sell those cars as 'demonstrators' and knock at least a few dollars off the price.
Not all sectors have the consumer's best interest at heart. I worked for a doughnut chain that let us lick the icing off the fancy doughnuts, zap them in the microwave for twenty seconds, dust them in sugar and sell them as hot doughnuts. Staff got fed, customers got hot doughnuts and everyone's happy. Then there was the mattress store that I worked for one summer that let staff take 'new' mattresses home for the weekends and afterwards sold them 'as new' to unsuspecting customers. The store even arranged delivery for staff for only $20 each way. I never made much money with that job but I must say, I slept like a baby most weekends.
While I'm in a confessing mood, despite not being dog-eared or covered in crumbs, the chances are you're not the first PALGN reader to read this column (unless I'm having a really tough week attracting an audience, in which case thanks for reading - your patronage is much appreciated), but in our defence we didn't sell you the column. In GameStop's defence, there's probably a limit to how many used games even GameStop can sell.
Across the Atlantic, in Cheltenham, England, the father of a twelve year old boy got more than he bargained for when he found four ecstasy tablets in a second hand GTA game that he purchased from his local Gamestation store. The UK’s Telegraph newspaper reported that Richard Thornhill took the drugs to a nearby police station after discovering them inside the game case. Said Mr Thornhill, "I have two children and my son plays Xbox all the time. He could easily have opened the box and found them."
The ultimate cross promotional vehicle.
Here's the thing Richard. Not wishing to downplay the serious nature of your discovery, but what's your twelve year old son doing playing GTA by himself in the first place? There's your problem right there. The article states that 'Gamestation have rigorous procedures for accepting pre-owned titles', which obviously means ensuring there is nothing in the games case other than the disc and the manual, and not that they'll only accept the finest grade drugs they can get. Back in the US, I'm guessing that you'd never find drugs in a GameStop store. Surely the employees always clear out their stash before returning their 'rental' copies.
Again, I don't wish to condone what was obviously a stupid, reckless and irresponsible act on someone's part, but there's the seed of a really great idea here; a marketing gimmick that could really move games off shelves. Randomly plant something valuable, but totally in keeping with the video game in question. Think Willy Wonka's Golden Ticket, but with a video game flavour. Something that would put the 'Limited' back into Limited Editions; the keys to a Nissan 350Z inside a Forza 2 game box, courtside seats to a Lakers game and the international flight to get you to LA inside the latest NBA Live, or how about a horse's head inside The Godfather II game? Ok, strike that last one. It's just not practical.
Not practical perhaps, but not really any crazier than Citroen and Sony’s recent efforts. Truly putting the cross in cross-promotion comes the PSP themed Citroen; the C-Crosser SUV, which comes complete with a black PSP Slim, two games, a 4GB Memory Stick PRO Duo, and a special headrest speaker mount.
It’s not that I can’t see that there’s some PSP loving Citroen buyers out there and Sony has obviously done its market research on this one, but at just ten Euro shy of €34,000, it does seem a lot of money to spend on the enjoyment and entertainment of your back seat passengers.
How about you toss the keys to the Citroen into an unmarked Gran Turismo 5 Prologue game box? Now you’re talking. Now all we’ve got to do is just come up with a plan to stop GameStop employees from opening the cases and walking away with all the promotional prizes.
Until next weekend, that’s The Wrap.
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