CAGES?! WE DON’T NEED NO STINKIN’ CAGES!!

It started like any other Wednesday. I rolled out of bed some time between 11AM and Noon, showered, dressed, and then began my weekly geek pilgrimages. First, I headed to the comics store to pick up the latest and greatest from “The Big Two”, and then I headed to my local video game retailer. I go on Wednesdays because their distributor rarely delivers the games on the day they are supposed to be released so I have to usually wait an extra day; it is the price I pay for my unquestioning loyalty.

This week I was seeking out Too Human, the newest action/adventure game for the XBOX 360. I had heard good things about the game, and being a geek culture expert, it was my duty to pick it up (expect a review in the next couple of weeks). I arrived at the store and walked to the XBOX 360 section and to my chagrin, the game was not there. I tracked down a clerk and asked if I had gotten the wrong date. He said I was correct, that the game came out this past Tuesday, but that new games were being held in a new section. He directed me to a giant, steel, padlocked cage at the front of the store.

I felt like the creepy old man from the local video store that oozes out of the “adult” section with his “film” nervously tucked under his arm. The fact that I had to hunt down a clerk (or "sales representative" for the politically correct) who then had to hunt down the right set of keys just for me to buy a video game is over the top.

And it isn’t just limited to my store. Best Buy keeps their newest games in a cage past their registers, which makes even less sense. Toys ‘R’ Us keeps all their games behind the counter on a wall so far away that you need a telescope to even see if they have games anymore. GameStop at least keeps empty shells on their shelves, but they confuse you by sprinkling in all their “Reserve Now” cases and “Coming Soon” cases with the legitimate shells to the extent that less informed customers would not know what they are looking at.

Has society really degraded to the point that the products we would like to buy need to be held in lockdown until we decide whether we want to buy them or not? Is everyone really that scared of shoplifters, what with most major stores having security guards, sensors, and eyes roaming everywhere? Is it really necessary for me to enter “Hell in a Cell” just to buy a game? How far off are we that I will have to survive an Undertaker choke slam before I can claim my prize?

And whatever happened to “just browsing”? How can we browse if we can’t see the products you are supposed to be trying to sell? I have bought more games when I have been “just browsing” than any other way. There is a special feeling of actually having the game in your hand and being able to analyze the box art, the key plot points, the screenshots. It’s the same way as when you look on the inside flap of a book to see what it is about before you buy it.

After I finally acquired my copy of Too Human and was able to read the box, I found out that it is the first in a trilogy. It says so right on the case. However, games are in such a lockdown that the G4 Network, a channel devoted to the geek stuff that I sermonize here, reported today that Silicon Knights, the developers of Too Human, have hinted at a sequel being in production. I guess they couldn’t see the boxes either.

-Ray Carsillo