Mario is not a First Person Shooter

1. We had a fantastic customer come in recently who didn't know much about video games. She told me her son really liked Halo and Call of Duty, and that she wanted something like that. I suggested the latest Call of Duty; Modern Warfare 2. She asked me if it was like Mario. I told her no. I described First Person Shooters to her and explained how it was different. She asked about ODST and I described how it was similar to Halo 3...she asked again if it was a lot like Mario, I said no and asked if she was looking for something like Mario and she said no, but that was how she knew what it would be like...she asked about Left 4 Dead 2 next...

2. We have two guys that come in occasionally to check out games and talk the industry. I don't think these guys know anything about the industry. Some of my favorite gems from their conversation: (about Uncharted) "You can see how they used the textrualization to exemplify their vision of the game. Yeah definitely. They seem to have sacrificed frame rates by cross sectionilizing their rendering though. (about Batman) Yeah, they seemed to sacrifice gameplay by stylizing the art direction. Probably using memory locks to manage their cpu seperation, pretty boring game.

3. One of our customers, Darby, likes to call and talk for hours. I mean HOURS. He doesn't have the internet and doesn't like buying strategy guides, so he resorts to calling us to walk him through his difficult game parts. Many of us are tolerant if there isn't a rush and help for a bit if we can, but some days it is impossible and frustrating. Darby seems a little...slow...especially for a late-middle-aged man who seems to live in the basement of a relative.

"Is there a glitch at this part of the game? I can't seem to do this."
--You are on the hardest difficulty? You just have to be extremely fast in the order you do the puzzle---
"No, it's definitely a glitch, can you guys refund this game?"
"I can't seem to get past the giant spider...he kills me."
--Have you used any health potions?---
"No. I should be able to kill him without them."
"Now I'm at this part, where this happens, what next?"
--I've never actually played that game...---
"Well it's like this...so what should I do now"
--...I've never played that game--

I think I heard him repeat the last one everyday for a week.

It has boiled down to the point that many of us won't admit we have played a game. Luckily he has started buying strategy guides. Also- it turns out he has internet, but doesn't want to take his xbox upstairs, or run a cable to plug it in...

4. "Nah, that Batman game completely sucked. It was almost as boring and ugly as...what do you call it...that Drake game. Hell no man, Madden 10 is game of the year! F*** GAME OF THE YEAR!" ---I really hate people like this...

5. "My game is really badly scratched and won't play, can you guys refund it since it was just purchased?" --Did you game guard it? "No, I bought it from Game Stop..."

6. "When is corporate sending you some used games?" --Our used games actually come from customers who trade stuff in here, the only time it comes from corporate is special orders, or closed stores usually... "So you guys are getting shipments from them next week?"