blueZhift Blog

Amazon.com made some waves, or maybe ruffled some feathers, when it announced that it was going to enter the used video games business. The Video Game Trade In Store allows gamers to mail in old games for credit towards games or other products available through the web retailer. The ruffled feathers came from GameStop, which has been in the  used game business for a long time now, having literally gotten it down to a science.

GameStop’s concern is understandable given that almost 50% of their profits come from the sale of used video games, according to their recent shareholders report. But I don’t think they have that much to worry about regarding Amazon just yet.

Because credit received for used games, in the form of a gift card, can be used to buy other things at Amazon, I think they probably see it as a way to increase sales across the board with a younger demographic that tends to have more disposable income. Used games could open the door to the same people who use Netflix and GameFly without a second thought. Either more business from customers who use Amazon regularly already, or new business from those who do not. But Amazon won’t be getting the gamers who want to trade and get new games the same day. Which group is larger remains to be seen, but I know that I generally don’t like to wait.

In tough economic times, customer loyalty is absolutely essential. Gift cards and store credit deals tend to keep people coming back whether online or off. Gamers are still spending money, so gaining their interest is a good move for Amazon whether they buy more games from Amazon or not. One way or another, the gift cards will be used, undoubtedly attracting a few new dollars in the process.

A Thai fireman dressed as Spiderman successfully coaxed an autistic boy down from a ledge. This is actually a pretty cool story not only because the boy, who loved superheroes, was saved, but because an often derided hobby, cosplay, proved to be useful. I don’t know if the fireman would call himself a cosplayer, but the story goes on to say that he also has an Ultraman costume that he uses to liven up fire drills. Having both a Spiderman and Ultraman costume probably makes you a cosplayer!^^

This has happened before, it will happen again. I don’t know how many times I heard this refrain over the course of Battlestar Galactica, but this morning I feel like I’m on a repeating cycle that will never end. Experiencing the same stupid arguments over and over again is getting me down. Sometimes I really wonder if we’re doomed to make the same mistakes over and over again.

Just finished a new anime music video! This is my entry for the Anime Matsuri DJ HeavyGrinder AMV contest. I had a lot of fun making it and I learned some new techniques.

As a kid, it was my dream to live in a future of computers, spaceships, and robots. That was long ago, and the future came, and well, in some ways is even better than I might have imagined. But sometimes it gets a little lonely when your friends don’t seem  to have kept up.

I’ve always been a tech enthusiast, happy to live on the bleeding edge of technology long before it becomes safe for the masses. I’ve slowed down just a tiny bit, preferring to have others beta test before I waste my dwindling remainder of years. But I’ve been careful not to fall into the trap of becoming frozen at whatever the prevailing tech was when you reached adulthood. I push myself to learn and use the latest while my age peers have mostly become frozen in the age of telephones and simple cable television.

As a result, I rarely find my childhood friends on social networking sites like Facebook. Nor will typing their names in Google yield useful results. I can almost hear a howling wind as I stand on this barren age plane of the internet.

It’s not all bad though. I’ve made a lot of new, usually much younger, friends over the years as a result of my continuously evolving  and interests. Sometimes I feel bad having to hide my age, but sadly, it would only be a stumbling block, so I usually won’t mention it, preferring to merely be “over 30″. LOL, in real life people are usually shocked to learn how old I really am! Anyhow, I’m still having fun despite the temporal disconnect, so to speak. Still, it would be cool to have more people my age interested in the same things without it seeming creepy. I think I’m going to start actively seeking them out!

Over the last year, two of my favorite magazines have ceased publication. Newtype USA went away and then morphed into PiQ which lasted two issues before dying. And Electronic Gaming Monthly, one of the best and oldest magazines of its genre, barely made it into 2009 before going away. In each of these cases, I was a long time subscriber and did not see one thin dime of a refund for issues that never came to my doorstep!

Like Samuel T. Cogsley, the lawyer who defended Captain Kirk in the Star Trek episode, Court Martial, I love print. I love the feel of a printed book or magazine in my hands. And I love to collect them with almost fetish-like devotion. Print turns me on. But wasting money does not! So I am swearing off of subscribing to any more printed magazines. I will by the occasional issue in the bookstore (as long as we still have bookstores), but they won’t be getting any more of money upfront in the form of a subscription.

As much as I like print, I really would like to see more media in the form of ebooks I can read with somethng like Amazon’s Kindle. If the cost of the reader can get under $200 USD and the magazines and manga I love are available, I’d be all over that. To be able to take your entire reading library wherever you go must be one of those great book lover dreams.

Samuel T. Cogsley Loves Books And So Do I

Watching Star Trek growing up, I always looked forward to a global, unified humanity. That was part of the picture of hope for the future of humanity that Star Trek painted. In the Star Trek mythos, this global humanity emerged after first contact with Vulcan explorers. In the real world, it looks like a global humanity is emerging due to the internet, fansubbers, and bit torrent!

It is truly amazing to see how much people will go through in order to enjoy and share stories across cultures and languages. This is happening even in the face of prosecution and harassment from media content owners who don’t seem to realize that fansubbers are not criminals, just really avid fans. Before the internet made it possible to follow news and trends around the globe as easily as those in your own backyard, it wasn’t a big deal to get a foreign show or movie in your own language years after the original release. But clearly fans are not willing to wait that long. And while others would say, tough luck, I think it really says something about humanity that we want to share each other’s stories sooner rather than later. I mean, why should someone in one culture ever want to see a story set in a culture that may not share any of the values in yours?

Maybe the truth is that we all share enough values simply because of our shared humanity. Maybe we really are more alike than different afterall. It’s too bad that the media companies are only interested in control and profit. Wouldn’t it be cool if they gave their fans what they want, near simultaneous global releases, and we could someday look back on this sharing of culture as the unifying moment in the history of humanity?

In what is shaping up as a defining battle of new business model versus old, Hulu has decided to block its RSS feed if the reader is Boxee. I say a defining battle because Hulu, acting as a proxy for some of the giants of the old, television centered, media business model, is trying to dictate the where, what, and how of how the customer consumes their product. But clearly, the customer wants to decide for him/herself the where, when, and how of media consumption.

I don’t really blame Hulu because they’re just trying to meet the demands of their content providers (and save cable subscriptions), even though those demands are ultimately at odds with what the customer wants. The recent popularity of Boxee seems to indicate that a lot of people want to be able to easily what internet video on their TVs as well as computers. Ultimately, that’s something that the market is going to have to get used to and learn to profit from. Will the profits be as big as in the past? Who knows? It’s too early to tell, but I think that fighting the change will only alienate viewers and push them to pirated media sources. The successful business knows that the customer is always right.