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The last copy of Electroplankton in New York
At some point, Wednesday the twelfth of January, a lad (or a Chap!) who goes by the name Tim Evelyn will have not been able to get the copy of Electroplankton he thought he had set aside for him at the NYC Nintendo store.
I have that copy.
I'm pretty sure I got the last copy in the city, in fact. Well, the last North American retail released copy – I saw an imported copy in China Town later that day; that’s not really relevant here.
I had intended to go on release day; a prolonged fever and illness otherwise deterred me. So, I went yesterday. The righteous dude who was to accompany me phoned ahead, asking if they had it in stock and if they thought they thought they would sell out. They said, "yes" they had it They said, "no" they wouldn't, or at least, they thought they wouldn't, sell out.
My friend, Chris, who’s name is so boring, I’ll just refer to him as “my friend” so I can spice things up, gathered some gear, threw it in his car, and left for my house. We went into the city with our gear, one Filipino girl, and one Chinese girl. The Filipino was for me. The Chinese girl was brought such that she might order at the Chinatown restaurants and kick the rats off the NeoGeo Battle Coliseum machine at the C-town arcades. Also, to see we got the native deals.
Between port authority and Rockafeller plaza, where the Nintendo store is located, it started raining. It didn't stop raining until about five minutes after we were about to leave the store. What's up with that?
Soaked, in the store, I asked one of the nerdy nerds behind the counter if they had any copies of Electroplankton in stock. He said, "no".
"What, I even celled ahead and asked." My compatriot said.
"..." Replied the nerd.
"When do you expect more in?" I snapped with a one eye wide toward him and the other half open.
"Fluuu_ghula_gbnrr%(Ug0_3... We DoN'T eVEN NO! if We'RE GetTiNG any more in" he... said.
He tried to say.
The one eye that was wide went lazy. There was a sense of dismay about me. My friend was quick to point out there was a “sense of dismay” about me. I had, after all, been fairly excited about this game since first seeing screenshots of it. I had spent a good deal of time looking into the past of Mr. Toshio Iwai san. Contemplating how artists like him relate to fixtures in the industry like Tetsuya Mizuguchi, only without a practical understanding of how to make a video game. I was really smitten with the style and idea of the game.
The Japanese copy of Electroplankton is, by all accounts, better than the US release. It comes in an impossibly shiny blue box, matted with the little electronic plankton buggers. Outside of the game itself, it comes with headphones. Tossable headphones, no doubt; still, like friends you complain to after receiving a goddamn car trunk organizer for Christmas will tell you – it’s the thought that counts. Why I didn’t import it isn’t any of your damn business.
I was sitting next to my girlfriend, who took to the little DS table in the centre of the bottom floor as soon as we walked in, such that her white DS was displayed. The white DS being more akin to a pearl surface, observed up close.
”Why are you playing that now?”
“They have free Wi-Fi.”
“There’s free Wi-Fi at my house.”
“What’s the point of having this color if I can’t show it off?”
“…”
I went upstairs to look for my second choice: a black Hori digital GameCube pad.
They only had indigo.
My friend could only smile at my pain. My girlfriend could only ignore it.
We walked back downstairs, and I found the damn nerd who before was behind the counter now HITTING on my girlfriend. Well, visiting her in Animal Crossing. Fucking nerd Asian fetishists. Fucking nerds. (I would later learn she was using her “charms” to finagle a copy of the game for herself. Fun lot of good that did her.)
My friend followed me to the counter to look at buttons that are sometimes cool. I bought a Samus one once that fit with a bag I had perfectly - though the bag I carry now isn’t really fit for any of the buttons they now carry.
“Heh, they’re not sold out,” said my Friend.
“AH” I replied. They had a copy on the counter. One copy with a note on it.
I couldn’t read the note. My friend is 6, 6. I told him to read it to me; “FOR TIM EVELYN – HOLD UNTIL 1/12”
It was 1/11, for the record.
My first, natural thought, was regret. Regret to have not set aside a copy myself.
“Idiot.”
Well. Hmm.
I’d worked in a video game store for nearly two years. In that time, I came to understand the natural order of how a game like Electroplankton would come to be set aside: typically, a customer makes a big enough stink to an employee with not enough experience in dealing with customers who make stinks. He submits to the angry customer and is later reprimanded by his boss because bad shit happens when you put games aside, making an unfair environment for the customers. My friend worked with me – he should have known the score. I wanted this game. I wanted it something fierce. I wanted it more than Tim Evelyn. Fuck Tim Evelyn. I walked in the goddamn rain for this game. I know who Toshio Iwai is.
The nerd from before was still playing Animal Crossing somehow. Another nerd replaced him at the counter.
My friend was to my side, laughing as though high. Telling me how this wasn’t going to work, how I was a bad person, how this wasn’t going to work, etc. He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know wasn’t true.
I established standard-issue customerXretail employee eye-contact with the nerd. The other one left for a customer. “What’s up?” He said, fully breaking what I’m sure is supposed to be a more formal greeting that would embarrass him.
“Yeah, I think you’re holding a game for me.”
“What’s your name?”
“Tim.”
He grabbed the Electroplankton and started to ring it up.
This was analytical, on my part. Not mentioning the name of the game was, only maybe, a stretch. A believable one! It's common for a person to forget to mention the name of what they have held when picking it up. Hell, sometimes you’re not even sure what it is you’re picking up! This is just a stupid favor your doing for your spoilt brat of a brother! The item isn’t the focus, strangely enough: I am. If I’m having something set aside in the first place, I’m doing so under pretense that I am more important than the other shoppers of the day. I'm here for My game. What game? As though that matters.
He looked under the counter for a second, breathed a sigh, and looked back at me, defeated. My heart raised an eyebrow to that.
“Sorry, man.”
I unconsciously took a half step back.
He held a repulsively large bag at shoulder level, “This is the only bag we’ve got.”
“Heh, that’s fine.” That part was pretty lame, I admit.
I didn’t thank him for holding it for me. Fuck him. That’s his job – to break store policy by doing shit like that to keep customers like me happy. That he’ll catch hell for it tomorrow isn’t really my concern. I spent the rest of the day being insisted to that it was my concern; yet, deep down, and in fact, very shallowly, I knew that wasn’t true.
The game, it… beeped on the way out. With my friend literally whispering to me in my ear the whole time, telling me how I wasn’t going to get away with this, my girlfriend making a fuss trying to figure out what I’m doing; how cool am I?
My heart didn’t skip a beat.
colin wilkes hopes you're not Tim Evelyn.
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