Penny Arcade

There is that special feeling in the air, all around us, the feeling that only comes once a year on Tycho’s Birthday Eve.  Let’s savor it together.

If you have seen today’s strip, you might also be interested to see the not one but two damning pages ferried out of Electronics Boutique under cover of night.  We’ve been to the EBX in Redmond Square when managers who believe this stuff are working there, and it is horrifying.  When we hit a game store, that shit is surgical - we’re like a Navy SEALs, coming in through the roof on nylon cords.  We’re not there to get a date.  We aren’t there to chit and chat, least of all about groundhogs.  I’m not trying to be rude, but those are the facts of the matter.  My heart goes out to the poor gamer who, in orientation, is exposed to this kind of toxic stupidity. 

From the orbital Agony Array PA-1, we here at Penny Arcade can sometimes coax physical law and get something before it hits stores.  It is not anything we do with any regularity, for a couple reasons:  One, going to the store, getting the game, going to the food court with Gabe and reading the manual over vaguely edible food is a critical ritual whose importance I can’t stress enough.  Two, when you have an ability like that, you want to save it for when you need it.  When it became clear that MoO3 wasn’t hitting stores anytime soon even though it had gone gold, I immediately began to dance on that pole and work for my supper.  I have it now, and having greedily lapped every syllable of this excellent preview I thought I was ready to manage my star empire and so forth.  I would soon find out that was a lie from the pit of hell, I was so pummeled by the raw data the game provides that by the end of Turn One I needed a hug.  I will spend the day teaching this bull to dance, matador style. 

I’ve played Unreal II about four hours total, and I wish I had something to add to the canon but I don’t.  It is a meticulous and beautifully made game whose gameplay virtually defines “average.”  Which is handy, because it can be used to calibrate the scale. 

(CW)TB out.

that song from the daredevil movie

There is a really interesting post by Haden Blackman (a.k.a. “Shug Ninx,” Lucasarts Producer on Star Wars Galaxies) about features that have been culled from the launch and reserved for future updates.  They include some fairly big-ticket omissions.

(CW)TB

I worked retail for a long time, so these pages form the EB employee hand book stir up some pretty bad memories for me. People who have worked retail for any amount of time can share stories like veterans of some foreign war. It is a shared experience that allows people who would otherwise probably never get along to laugh and joke like old college buddies.

My very first job when I was sixteen was as a ball boy at a golf course. I spent three years as a paid target and I can remember thinking that “anything would be better than this shitty job”. My first Christmas working at Toys R Us made me long for the days of taking a well struck golf ball in the middle of my back and chasing coyotes off of the course with my ball picker. People who have worked retail wear their Christmas shifts like badges of honor on their blue and red smocks. For me the worst was Christmas 96, the year Tickle Me Elmo hit stores.  It’s still hard for me to talk about even today. I watched old ladies get in fist fights over these plush red devils on a daily basis. I can still remember vividly Christmas Eve at midnight. There I was in the stuffed animal isle with a large white trash hick in a hunting vest yelling at me at the top of his lungs. I had just informed him that we were sold out of Elmo and he was not a happy wife beating drunkard. “YOU BETTER PULL ONE OUT OF YOUR FUCKING ASS YOU LITTLE SHIT!” Tiny bits of spittle hit my face as he yelled. I thought when I left Toys R Us and went to Circuit City to be a real salesman things would be different.

What I learned is that retail is retail no matter what your job title is. It doesn’t matter if they call you a Sales Associate , a Customer Service Team Member or an EB Game Pro. You are working in retail and your life is pain and sorrow. Tycho mentioned that we met a manager at our Local EB who obviously subscribed to the insane philosophy of their handbook. Tycho never worked retail so I can forgive him this tiny mistake. What we encountered at EB that day was no mere manager. No, what we saw was something far worse. Anyone in retail could have spotted her a mile away and this same person, after identifying her for what she was would no doubt run as fast as they could in the opposite direction. What we saw that day was a district manager. These accursed demons travel from their own dimension to this one once every few months to terrorize the mortals they employ. They are grown in huge vats of blood and their tiny black brains, like bits of charcoal are filled with company propaganda from the day they open their leathery wings and take their first wobbly steps towards their BMW. Having never actually worked as a sales person for even a day all of their knowledge of sales comes from the company handbook, which they believe is infallible.

Picture if you will a young Gabe, dressed in his red Circuit City shirt cleaning and organizing the computers in his department. Now picture the evil district manager, let’s call him Rich since that is his name. Picture this hell sent monster swooping down on Gabe and cornering him against a wall. “Why aren’t you helping that customer over there?” his forked tongue flicks in and out of his mouth as he speaks and his breath smells like rotting flesh. “uh… Well they…uh, said they didn’t need any help.” I am just barely able to get the words out. “FOOOL!” He cries. “All customers need help! What did you say to them?!” My eyes drop from his burning red face to the death grip he has on his Starbucks coffee cup. His sharpened black talons are threatening to crack the Styrofoam at any minute. ” I uh…asked if they needed any help and they said no.” He lets out a cry that shakes the very foundation of the store. I can hear the CD’s playing in the Audio department skip as dust and debris rain down from the rafters. His face is only inches from mine now and his words are slow and deliberate. “You never ask a customer if they need help. They will always say they are just looking. What you do is start a conversation with them.” I just pissed myself. “What should I ask them?” I stammer out. He raises up to his full height and unfolds his bat like wings. He is silhouetted against the four massive windows in front of the store. Outside it’s snowing lightly and the road is busy with cars. I imagine where those cars are going. Are those people driving to jobs that that they hate as much as I hate mine? When his voice starts again it is like thunder and I am afraid. “Tell them you have been inside all day and ask them if it is still snowing outside!” A tiny voice in my head begs me not to tell him that the entire front of the store is made of glass and that it is plainly obvious to anyone with working eyes that there is snow falling. “Thank you sir, I’ll do that.”

-Gabe out

Some quick updates about the new shirts and the comic con.

I am getting lots of mail from people who live in places that are not Seattle who want to come to the Con but can’t. My advice to these people is skip school or work or whatever, hop in a car with some other PA fans and drive here. If there happens to be an ocean between you and Seattle you may have to improvise. Honestly though we are planning on hitting a few other Cons this year so hopefully we will land somewhere near you.

I really appreciate all the mail offering to pay for a shirt or a poster via Paypal but we just are not set up to do that right now. All our energy is going to getting ready for this Con and then getting the store online. I promise that you will be able to get these new shirts via our online store soon after the Con. Just sit tight and keep an eye on this space.

For those of you who live in far of Ubagonda or wherever you are we are working on ways to get you stuff. I know it’s hard for you to buy shit from online stores because of taxes and shipping. I just wanted to let you know that we are thinking about you guys and we are trying to figure something out.

Final pricing for the Con is seventeen bucks for an autographed poster and twenty two bucks for a shirt. I think we will have some packages that include one or two of both that will save you some money. Both of those prices include tax by the way. People have asked how much we are charging to sign other stuff and it’s the same as the San Diego Comic-Con, nothing. I’m not fucking MacGyver or something.  We will sign whatever you want for free.

A few of you have asked why we are not going to be apart of any of the panels or anything. Honestly I would much rather spend the day in our own booth meeting people face to face than up on some panel engaged in a round table discussion.

-Gabe out

I’m actually glad to say that I’m not familiar with District Managers, I feel no shame in being wrong about that.

A few months into Penny Arcade we had every intention of branching out into a second strip called Retales, but when I told people about it they said that User Friendly did office humor about as good as it could be done.  I really didn’t know how to respond to that. 

We did eventually find an outlet for those stories, years later, in the pilot episode we wrote for a Penny Arcade animated series. 

(CW)TB

I wonder how many people will think you are kidding about the pilot episode we wrote.

-Gabe out

I have gotten a few mails about Haden’s SWG post. I know a lot of fans are pretty pissed but none of it really bothers me. It’s not like he said that stuff would never be in the game. It just won’t be there at launch. The player generated missions is kind of a bummer. I plan on playing a bounty hunter and I imagined people not fulfilling the delivery jobs they took from other players as being a large part of my business. You give a guy a case of guns to deliver and he just takes the guns and runs you call me and I solve your problem. Oh well, I’ll just have to wait for that part I guess.

Oh and no I am not in the Beta. I tired but I think it filled up pretty fast.

-Gabe out

This is a quote from that SWG thread:

“I lost trust in the team today. For shame.”

For shame? What a fucking cock.

-Gabe out