W. Jayson Hill has a very posh name. He's also a freelance games journalist and a former public relations manager at Atari, who decided to spend six months working in a games store so he could get a feel for life on, as he calls it, the "frontlines".

Most is fairly predictable stuff, but one thing really hits home. For me, at least. See, back in the day I used to work retail, at an unnamed major retailer we'll just call EB Games. And one of the things that really ground my gears was, at Christmas time, seeing a kid come in, eyes ablaze, heart set on a console...only to find them sold out. It's crushing.

Having worked PR, I know that holiday gift guides can give a product a huge bounce, but when customers go to the store and can't get the item - they are pissed off. It is also likely they'll buy a substitute gift and that new console becomes a gift for a birthday that may be months away, becomes a gift for next Christmas or drops off the buying radar altogether.

Too true. I lost count of the number of GameCubes I sold to families who walked in wanting a PS2 for that very reason. Lotta kids were playing Mario Kart instead of GTA III come that Christmas day. Oh yes. Luke Plunkett

Six Months on the Frontlines [GameDaily.biz]

Send an email to the author of this post at .