Free Market Economy – A Week In Review
Or something.N ow thoroughly bored with my chart feature which was going nowhere and bored me, I’ve decided to try something a bit different which will more than likely go nowhere in a similar manner and but hopefully be less boring. So in the spirit of the Ramones; hey ho let’s go.
Saturday:
Didn’t work as I was in The Game City that is Nottingham, meeting loyOLL (good grief! – everyone) fans Down Home Kitty and Kevin. I have to say, for a place claiming to be Game City, I didn’t see many game shops. Cex and Game is obviously not enough. Even went to the market there and there’s no Nottingham Free Market Economists. Peculiar. Clearly they need to be stripped of the title so that Doncaster can quite rightly lay its claim to the title. Also somehow it seems I entered my own competition from an email address I registered specially. I don’t remember doing this but derekfme at googlemail does now exist.
Monday:
It snowed. Lots. I worked and took no money. Sold no games. Went and built snowmen instead.
Tuesday and Wednesday:
Business Partner works these days. He took hardly any money, sold very few games and bought hardly any in. I moaned a lot about the snow melting away already.
Thursday
Back to work and it’s snowing again. Typical. Still after a few hours of being frozen and selling nothing I give up on the stall and decide to go out building snowmen instead.
Today:
Bought in a Wii, A white DS with a Catz and er something else I’ve forgotten, Far Cry 2, Guitar Hero 2, Left4Dead all for the 360, Saints Row 2 PS3 and a PS2 original with about 8 games including UFC Throwdown and Red Dead Revolver. I sold Medal of Honour Rising Sun, Sonic Heroes PS2, Football Manager 2007 360. I’m now sold out of Football Manager 2007 despite having loads of them a week or two ago. I could swear they’ve all been bought by the same customer but I’m sure I must be going mad. All customers look the same to me anyway. I listed Saints Row 2 online with my stock now being saturated with it by having two of them. I’ve had one for sale at £20 on the stall for about a month but no takers. It’s already sold online at £18.50 + £1.99 postage. I got a spare Wiimote and Nunchuck with the Wii and the Wiimote has sold online at about £23 + £1.99 as well. Which gets back some of the huge amount of money I spent today. I’m dumping pretty much everything online lately. It’s the only place things are selling. Helps that I sell internationally, thus hugely increasing my customer base. IT’s not always easy to buy things in from people at profitable price to sell online with all the other shops in the area having much higher retail prices and buy in prices.
You know, my takings are so low that I didn’t have enough money to pay the stall rent for the first time ever. That wouldn’t be so bad if I could have got some money out of the bank but my account was hacked this week and some lovely people tried taking out £250 to Barclaycard followed by a couple of smaller transactions to Capital One. Thankfully my bank was on the ball and stopped the transactions and blocked my account. But I’ve got to wait 7-10 days for a new card.
I hear on the news just now that Blizzard are creating havoc across the country. Must be some new PR stunt for World of Warcraft. As if that horrible brown filled time sink needs any more players.
Also if you fancy some realtime updates of what’s happening in the world of the Free Market Economist, you can follow my twittering at http://twitter.com/derekfme
Funny Money
A couple of posts down, before a bit of weather happened, I wrote to the Bank of England on behalf of everyone who’s interested in games and finance and mischief. I thought at best I’d be ignored. At worst, I expected a big telling off for wasting bank time. Is that a crime? It should be.
But no! The Bank of England, the people in charge of all the money in this little country, took time out of their day to email me about a curious videogame. And here is what they said:
Hello
Thank you for your e-mail on this matter.
With regard to the UK, you may be interested to know that the wholesale distribution & circulation of Bank of England banknotes is managed under the Note Circulation Scheme, which promotes the processing and distribution of notes by the commercial sector. More can be read about this at:
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/about/distribution_circulation.htm
In the case that you highlight, however, one is talking in hypothetical terms about a galaxy that exists only in the abstract. In such a scenario, it is therefore impossible to quantify the economic effects that might, or might not, be felt in a virtual world by taking a large quantity of ‘interstellar currency’ out of circulation.
Kind regards
Public Information and Enquiries Group
Please note that my initial email mentioned nothing about a galaxy (because I’m a bit sketchy about that bit of EVE, the bit about where it is) so someone’s either done some good Googling or I have been replied to by an EVEite! If you are a player, keep track of your interest rates – you don’t know who might be round the corner waiting to slash them.
Well done The Bank of England, you responded and it wasn’t to tell me that I am now being monitored by MI5. Still no idea about the iminent collapse of EVE’s financial community. Oh well!
We’re snow sorry
When it snows the world stops.
Or at least the tubes, trains and buses in London do. And that’s bad news for teamatonelifeleft who travel from all four (three) corners of the globe to make Europe’s only FM broadcasting videogame radio show. The snow stopped the FM broadcast, which means it stopped the internet podcast. There is only one way to sum this up.
And sorry. Really sorry. Mostly sorry because we had an amazing guest lined up for tonight.
It’s Cliff Snow-Bliszard-Zinski!
Again, sorry. But we’ll be back next week! And maybe we’ll have better snow based game related name puns. Probably not though, right?
It’s been nice snowing you!
A question of money
When you have a question about money, who do you go to?
Dear The Bank of England,
Hello. How are you?
I don’t know much about money, but I have a money question and you seem to be a good place to go to with money questions.
I heard a story the other day about a man who worked for a bank and ran off with a lot of money from the bank. This bank existed only in a virtual world called EVE (it’s a videogame or something) and the money that he stole wasn’t in pounds Stirling or dollars, it was in ISK (Inter Stella Currency – I know, I had to look it up too).
You’re probably wondering why I’m asking you about money that doesn’t actual exist, but here’s the thing – you make money, and you probably get quite annoyed when people destroy it and take it out of circulation, because that screws things up for you. That’s what this man has done! He has taken 86 billion ISK out of circulation in EVE! And he made a joke about it! And that’s a bit like what all the bankers did who made people think there was loads of money when there wasn’t, and once people realised that there was loads less money people started calling it an economic crisis.
Anyway, my question is: Do you think the potential economic crisis in EVE is going to be as disastrous as the one in the real world? Do you have any tips for the people in EVE to make sure things don’t go quite as badly as they have done here?
Thanks for your help.
Keep banking!
Ann
I’m pretty certain they don’t have much else on at the minute, so I’m expecting a speedy response.
Chart Market Economy 23rd January 2009
I know you must be thinking it’s a bit like I’m Little Boots as after only a few weeks of doing this it seems like I’m stuck on repeat (Oh ho! Cunning pop culture reference, eh?). But then isn’t that the nature of charts? What can you do other than list what has sold and waffle on about them to some extent? We all know how it works now and my comments on games vary little. Still Little Britain has been a huge success by repeating the exact same jokes every week so why shouldn’t it work for me as well?
10. Pinball Classics – PSP £4.99
Typical isn’t it? I decided this week I was absolutely sick of PSP games taking up rather a lot of space on my stall and listed pretty much all of them for sale on Amazon. It’s only then that I get people enquiring about them. They even took a UMD movie with it. Kiss of the Dragon I think it was. I hadn’t really sold any for ages until selling these. PSP is rubbish. I never use mine anymore. Though I did love the Ridge Racer games on it. Was a good emulation machine too. Is. Whatever.
09. Urbz: Sims in the City – PS2 £4.99
It’s the Sims! But in a city! With a soundtrack by The Black Eyed Peas! Now you too can emulate the life of the plebs that hang around in bus stations. Except these ones generally look more spectacular and have even less point to them.
08. Football Manager 2007 – 360 £4.99
No one bought any from me during 2008 but in 2009 two have gone in the same month. In the same week even. Why the sudden interest? I don’t care. I’m just glad to see the back of such junk.
07. Mario Kart – DS £15
I really don’t get Mario Kart. I never have. The Snes one was rubbish, the N64 one was terrible, Gamecube version shocking, arcade abysmal, Wii dull. Yet people fawn over them like they’re some kind of genius creation. I’m sure if it wasn’t for those loveable Nintendo characters, no one would ever pay them any attention. Still at least on the DS you can play link up games from one cart which is quite a nice generous feature. Maybe that accounts for why it continues to sell.
06. Guitar Hero Aerosmith – PS3 £19.99
The only Guitar Hero I haven’t played. Which is of course because I don’t like Aerosmith. Or any of the other tracks on there. And Guitar Hero 3 was (really good and a game that everyone should buy brand new with it being astonishingly good value for money. Stunning playability and expertly created note patterns make it a real joy to play by providing the perfect balance between being fun and challenging. – Simon)
05. Pokemon Emerald – Gameboy Advance £19.99
Still great sellers. This one was a little bit tatty and didn’t have instructions but having any kind of box for them is very rare. If it was better cond I’d have charged £25 for it. Possibly up to £30. This one I’d had for around two weeks on display. Which is pretty long for any GBA Pokemon. But with games being discontinued so quickly by publishers and Pokemon being such a successful series it’s little wonder the price is rising so much.
04. Nintendogs – Dalmations Version - DS £19.99
The game that shifted DSes by the truckload has gone through a bit of a dry period for a while. This one has always been the best seller of the lot. Why do people like Dalmations so much? Is it just because of the Disney film? The Daschund one is the worst seller. Even the Chihuahua one sells better despite them being the most hideous of the hideous. In terms of Nintendogs games anyway. Or Nintendodogs as most people call it. Because they are idiots. Still preferable to real dogs because it won’t smell and piddle all over the kitchen floor. Still neither will cats so that’s the problem solved. Get a cat instead.
03, Need For Speed Undercover – 360 £22
Sold to a regular Polish customer of mine who likes a good bit of bargaining. He traded in Assassin’s Creed for it. It’s always quite fun playing the haggling game with him. At the stall like. Not a game on the 360 or anything. That would be strange. As David Dickinson would undoubtedly say, it was the ‘real deal’ on the day. I actually sold a bunch of Need for Speeds on PS2 as well but I haven’t featured them in this chart because I forgot. Maybe I can change that though by them in next. Does it count if they’re all different games? I’m not sure.
02. Ace Combat 6 - 360 £23
Decided I didn’t have room for the Need For Speed games. Featuring one is pretty much too many. Anyway Ace Combat then. I had hoped to take it home and play it. I dare say the combat is a case of get missile lock on a dot, press fire. Dot vanishes. I’d had a lot of interest in it earlier in the week but no one bit at £25 which I had it at originally. Just a £2 discount and it’s sold. I played on on the PS2 once but I couldn’t figure out what the hell I was supposed to do on it. They’ve always had a pretty loyal following though these games and I have never sold one for less than £13. I remember the days when Distant Thunder was really sought after and would sell for £30. Good times those.
01. Competitions involving Dungeons and Dragons Stormreach
Due to the stunning response to the last time I had a Dungeons and Dragons Stormreach competition I’ve decided that I’ll run another one this week. However, you’ve got to work a lot harder to earn one this week! I want you to think very carefully about this question.
Q: What is your name and address?
Send your answers to derek at onelifeleft.com and 5 (I think) lucky winners will get a copy of this thoroughly exciting life changing WOW beating MMORPG!
(You only got the one entry from uglifruit didn’t you? – Everyone)
Blogging around the Christmas tree
Hello and Happy Christmas!
I hope you’re all having a wonderful day. I definitely am, but I had the strangest dream last night. I was visited by three strange apparitions during the night, each warning me to change my ways or suffer terrible consequences.
First to visit was the Ghost of Christmas Past, although he looked strangely familiar.
“Ann” he said. “A-annn.” “What?” “Hey hey! I’m here to tell you that you’ve been really ignorant of games in the past and you shouldn’t be ignorant of games anymore. Ok?” “Mmm, ok.” ” And also, Cheggers Party Quiz is still great fun for all the family!” “Good.”
And then he disappeared. Very odd, but not the first time Cheggers has visited me in the night.
THEN the Ghost of Christmas Present rocks up. Although this time I’m pretty sure it’s just Keisha from the Sugababes to tell me I’ve made it into the band.
“Ann, hi. Can’t be long. I only do this ghosting once a year and I thought I’d sort out some girlband business while I’m at it.” “Ok, are you here to tell me…” “Yeah. First up, you need to wise up about games. Does that make sense?” “Umm, yeah.” “Good, that’s all I’ve got on the ghost list to tell you and I don’t really get it. The other thing is that you’re not in the Sugababes.” “Oh, right.” “Yeah, sorry. But that guy you were with, he was great. I’m over girls. I think he’s the way to go.” “Really?” “Totally. And if you see Heidi, don’t tell her I said that. The revolving door is about to revolve on her and she doesn’t know yet.” “Ok, bye then.”
And she was gone before I had a chance to tell her I carried Ste in our audition, but I guess that’s something she’ll have to find out on her own.
Then in comes The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, mascara running down her face and looking furious (fury not pictured below).
“Are you Ann?” “I might be.” “Two things. First, you’re never going to be the new Sugababe. They’ll never replace me. D’you get that? I am the Sugababes.” “Ok. I’m not the new Sugababe. Can you stop pulling my hair now?” “So who is? I swear, I’ll kill ‘em!” “I heard something about a boy, but what do I know?” “A boy? That’s stupid. But if it is, I’ll still kill ‘em.” “…” “What else did I have to tell you? Something about games and playing games. You either should or you shouldn’t.” “What happens if I don’t?” “Ste and Simon will be really mad.” “Shit.”
And that’s how Heidi from the Sugababes killed Ste and I decided I should probably try to play games a bit.
All in all, a good night.
See you in the New Year!
Blanked by The Bike Show
At the Resonance Christmas Party. In the foreground, Scanters. She’s upset. VISIBLY upset.
Why? Because that’s Jack from The Bike Show in the background, and he has just blanked her*. This was One Life Left’s attempt at being the bigger show — in lieu of being the better one, obviously — and all we got was a cross-room scowl and a copresenter locked in the girls’ bathroom in floods of tears.
Thanks a bunch, Jack. We’ll see you on the schedules in January, no doubt for some more of your so-called critically-acclaimed widely-respected broadcasting, which we’ll combat in the only way we know how: with awkward incompetence and childish enthusiasm.
Chausseures!
*Didn’t see her wave, possibly a bit like this.
So this made me laugh
I know it probably shouldn’t have done, but I’m bordering on being actually clinically depressed at the moment, so forgive my weaknesses.
WARNING: CONTAINS SWEARS
ANOTHER WARNING: This probably won’t be funny to German viewers*.
* Because they’ll just hear the normal words, obviously. What did you think I mean, racist?
Challenge Ann #4: Getting free drinks
If this works I will be a) surprised b) delighted.
Dear People Who Work At Harmonix,
Hello! How are you?
My name is Ann and I do a radio show/podcast about videogames. Good, right? So that’s me. And then there’s you. You make Rock Band. Rock band is a game about making and sharing amazing times. I lo-ove amazing times.
So, I read in the ‘gaming news’ that you’ve all been paid quite a lot in bonuses because Rock Band’s done quite well. Well done you! Very much deserved, I’m sure.
Combining the above two points, why don’t you make and share in our amazing One Life Left Christmas party time by sponsoring the bar!
The party’s this Saturday (29th Nov) starting at 2pm going on late late. It’s at the Blue Posts on Rupert Street, London. There will be radio, industry celebrites, games and drinking.
Please feel free to drop by at any time to make your donation.
Alternatively, if you don’t want to share your millions, we are offering you an open invitation to come down to the party and arm wrestle Simon Byron (the one who does the PR for Guitar Hero, and conveniently also presents the show along with Ste Curran – he makes games) to settle the Rock Band vs Guitar Hero debate. He is deadly serious about this. I would advise you not to pussy out.
Either way, it’d be nice to see some of you there.
Hope you’re well! (of course you are, you’re rich)
Love,
Ann
Fingers crossed and wallets at the ready everyone.
Challenge Ann #2: Bringing down Gamestation
I have to congratulate Gamestation for responding to my email individually. Were I to work in the customer services department of an annoyingly marketed videogame retailer I don’t think I’d give stupid emails quite so much care or consideration.
But did I manage to bring them down? Or was all I got a fairly boring email?
Dear Ann,
Thanks for your recent enquiry. Everyone at Gamestation is working to deliver gaming for less this Christmas. The Gears of War 2 bundle that you mention is a great example – it launched at £79.99, reduced from £130 – and our customers loved it as it was a limited edition.
Fat Chris has been the Gamestation Christmas mascot for three years now and is much loved by our customers (there are several “Fat Chris” appreciation groups online). Gamestation is very proud to be an equal opportunities employer.
Yours Sincerely,
The Gamestation Team
What did we expect? That, I guess.
Thanks Gamestation! My rage comes and goes, so who knows when you’ll be back on my list, but for now, you’re in the clear.
Next stop – Operation Free Bar!
Ann
xx