And wrecking my credibility.
A couple of months back my daughter and I took all of the loose change in the house to a nearby CoinStar station with the intent of getting an Amazon.com gift certificate. CoinStar takes a percentage of your total amount if you want cash, but if you will take a gift certificate from any one of a number of retail establishments, that fee gets waved.
In pouring out our LEGO store bulk brick container full of coins, our hope was to have enough to buy Pokemon HeartGold and Soulsilver.
As it turned out, we had more than enough, coming up with a little over $109 in coinage.
When we got home, we put in our pre-order with Amazon.com. We got the package deal that included both versions of the game and the official guide book. And then we went off to other things.
Now though it is the end of the fourth day of availability for the games, and what do I have?
Well, I have the guide book. That got to us right away. We can read about the game. But when I go to Amazon.com and look up my order, all I see is:
And they have been “shipping soon” since Monday, which leads one to wonder what definition of “soon” they are using.
All of which wouldn’t be the end of the world except of course that we have the book sitting around now reminding us that we don’t have the game. And, naturally, some of my daughter’s friends who went down to GameStop on Sunday have their copies in hand and their Pokewalkers strapped to their belts. And T-shirts. They got free T-shirts and GameStop.
Come on Amazon, ship today! Please?
Quote of the evening, “We’re not ordering from Amazon again. This is taking us forever.”
Yes, the impatience of youth, but it is impinging on the reputation of gamer dad here.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
The Royal Mail in the UK is pretty unreliable and as games are only ever released on a Friday if the mail is late then I have to wait until Monday to receive my copy. I still use Amazon a fair bit but only for things I’m not desperate for. If it’s a computer game I want, I’ll just go up to the shops on the day of release and get it.
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I use Amazon on a regular basis. I can’t even remember the last time I bought a game on the high street as the likes of Amazon/Play etc are a lot cheaper.
Take GTA:SA for example. I had that on pre-order. Not only was it much cheaper than in the shops, but I got it the day before general release :)
Amazon rocks! (and so does Play!)
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Amazon is a byword for reliabilty in the U.K. Everyone I know swears by their efficiency. If you really want a long wait for a game, try pre-ordering it at a game store and then trying to pick it up on day of release. I gave that up years ago.
That CoinStar thing is plain weird. Why would anyone want to take coins to a company to have them changed at a fee? You can change them at any Post Office at full face value for nothing and I’m pretty sure that any High Street bank will do it for you too.
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When I ordered the latest EQ2 expansion, Amazon gave me a shipping option for “get it on the day of release”. Just wondering, did you pick that option?
@Bhagpuss We don’t have those options in the US. The Post Office won’t do it, and we’re a long way from High Street.
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I have a number of stories like this one, for the Sims 2, for Ultima Online, and a few others I can’t remember.
I stopped preordering games years ago. Now, I walk into Wal-Mart when they open on release day and pick one up from the stack. This hasn’t failed me yet – even for Wii Fit which was quite hard to find for weeks.
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Amazon.com is usually very good to me. I don’t do pre-orders for most things anymore, unless there is something special to be had (see STO).
But this time around there was a bit of wanting to show my daughter that these games cost money and don’t just fall out of the sky. This lead to the LEGO container of coins, a very tangible representation of $109, going to the CoinStar machine, and making the conscious decision to use nearly $80 of it on a pair of games and a book rather than, say, a new toaster over.
Anyway, I got the email today that says the games are on their way. They could conceivably be here by Saturday, which would be good enough for me.
@Bhagpuss – As Toldain said, that is not a service the post office offers here, and banks are surprisingly snippy when you ask them to do that even when you have an account with them. If you don’t have an account, well, don’t bother asking.
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Wow, the joys of plastic money, I guess?
Here in Germany I’ve got such a money machine thingy in the entrance room of my bank, just get there, pour coins in, put in my bank card and it’s getting transferred to my account.
Well, and this is only 20 EUR over a few years, because we actually use our coins daily ;)
Then again you always get weird looks if you want to pay anything below 10 EUR with your card (or below 20 in a restaurant).
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If there’s a TD bank anywhere around, they do coin-conversions for free (even without an account). And they have some game aspect to it as well, where you try to guess how much you have or something.
As for pre-orders, I went to Best Buy 2 days before EQ2:SF was due out, and they had the collector’s edition box (and the normal ones) already on the shelf. I grabbed one, took it to the smurf geek, and asked if it counted as a ‘pre-order’ or not. He checked the ad due out two days later, told me they shouldn’t have been out there yet, and took mine away.
So, I asked if he could put it on hold for me. Sure, no problem, what’s your name and phone number. Labeled the box, put it behind the counter. No problem.
Two days later, I come in, and after 45 minutes of searching, the manager that was on duty earlier in the day informs them/me that someone else ordered online, and they had to give away the one they had put on hold for me. So, no collector’s edition for me, they were all sold out.
Not going to be shopping there again any time soon.
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Did you call them? They really have good service, and try to please, so that would be my suggestion.
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Not that I own the stock or anything, but you should always do all your shopping at GameStop, its just the right thing to do.
(And as with every Pokemon-related post, when are we going to get a full Pokemon game on the Wi….)
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@Tio – America’s Most Convenient Bank turns out to be pretty inconvenient for people in Silicon Valley, seeing that they are only on the East Coast. TD Bank needs to change their slogan.
Amazon.com is good to me 99% of the time, but once in a while they have a “huh?” moment with me. I did the tracking and found that they are shipping the games from Delaware. They must be conspiring with TD Bank. I should have them in hand next week some time.
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I like the “In Stock”, but estimated shipping is 2-3 weeks.
How about Amazon just drops the “In Stock” nonsense :(
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I know this doesn’t help, but HEARTGOLD is awesome. It’s my first Pokemon. I actually have to blame your blog for my interest. I remember reading about Platinum and Diamond that I figured Heartgold would be a great place to get into the franchise. I have to say, I wasn’t disappointed.
Hope you get your copies soon.
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