Circuit City – We’ll have Mario by 2pm, or you get $20

By Christian Ponte by Apr 9th, '07 at 10:05pm CST

Super Paper Mario hits retailers as early as late afternoon today, but many bigger retailers don’t usually stock new games until mid or late week. Not the case this time, says Circuit City! Their circular ad promises that the game will be in stock and available by 2p.m. tomorrow. If it hasn’t been stocked for sale yet or if it’s sold out by then, the store promises you a free $20 dollar gift card. Sweet deal!

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I really dislike pre-ordering, and as ars technica points out, this is concept that could work out very well for retailers. Rather than getting consumers to pre-order with the threat that they won’t receive a game on day one, promise that you’ll have a large enough stock of the popular games and offer a consolation if you don’t come through. You’ll be on better terms with consumers that way.

Hopefully none of you in denser cities won’t take advantage of this and scour the area for Super Paper Mario-less Circuit City stores looking for free gift cards. They’ll probably have the game in stock, and it’s not worth the gas money, anyway. Be sure to pick up a copy of the circular at the front of the store if you find no copies of the game and intend to redeem your gift card.

ars technica

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Categories: Wii

About the Author: Christian Ponte

Co-Founder/Owner/Director

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  • trudy

    Long-time reader, first-time commenter.

    I have to say that I disagree with you on the whole pre-order thing; potential compensation (like you say: “…they’ll probably have the game in stock, and it’s not worth the gas money, anyway…”) is not going to keep the gamers coming to your store for releases–especially if that store is Circuit City, which is far from being a video game utopia. Pre-orders will. And I think certain large video game chains have realized this.

    For a long time, I was with you on the whole disliking pre-order thing; then I realized: I’m buying the game anyway when it comes out. What’s the point of not pre-ordering it? “Fighting the man”? Putting five bucks down means I’m guaranteed a copy of the game. That money goes towards the cost of the game. The employee who does my preorder doesn’t lose their job for not getting enough pre-orders. I win, they win. What’s really the problem?

  • drktrpr1

    damn, no CC near me :-(

  • http://www.thetanooki.com Christian

    From a practical standpoint, I agree with your points trudy. You’re absolutely right, if I’m going to be getting a game anyway, it makes sense to pay it off as soon as I can.

    However, with most games, I usually wait a while until I can afford them. For the absolute must-haves that I have to have day 1, I don’t like pre-ordering simply because it ties me down to a specific chain such EB Games, when I may be so impatient to wait for them to unpack and enter the games into the system that I’d rather just go to the Target a few blocks away where they’ve had them stocked for several hours prior. Rather than having to deal with canceling my pre-order and having to worry about a refund, I never put money down in the first place and can go to whatever store has it first and pay up.

    If I’m going to want a game bad enough to have it day one, I’m going to want to go to the first place that has it, not to a place I’m restricted to due to a pre-order. In most cases, I generally wait a while to pick up games, though.

  • drktrpr1

    Pre-ordering isn’t for everyone, and stores know this. Theoretically they’ll have enough copies for the people who preorder and those who want to pick it up at the store. I know I’m camping out a few hours early for Metroid Prime 3 instead of taking my chances pre-ordering.