I moved to New York from London (the proper one. The one in England) about two months ago now, and last week discovered how crappy PC Game stocks are here in Manhattan.
How?
Well last week I suffered my first Civilization III craving since I moved.
Normally I’d just have dug it out of the pile of CDs in the corner of my room, but I traveled light when I moved here and unfortunately that pile is now approximately 3470 miles away. Given that it usually takes me three hours to work up the mental energy to drag my arse in to the Kitchen to get a coke, I knew that the chances of me being able to make it to that CD Pile were obviously pretty slim. Not to mention the fact that, you know, there was an entire ocean in the way.
As is the way with Civ III cravings though, I wanted to play it now. Not after waiting two days for it to arrive from Ebay (if I was lucky), or after a day of hunting through the soul-destroying world of warez sites and the resulting Porncopalypse. now damnit.
So I made up an excuse and left work early, there are a couple of big game stores near where I work and figured that they were bound to stock a copy – sure, its an old game now, but its unheard of for a game store back in the UK not to have it. In fact, I’m pretty certain its actually Illegal. Game stores must have at least one copy of the latest Civ game in stock at all times or the owner can be flogged and exiled it to the colonies. I think its one of those weird old laws we have that we’ve just never got round to repealing - like how cabbies are officially required to carry a bale of hay at all times or why you can technically still be given the death penalty for committing Piracy (the eye patch kind, not the kind without the social life).
Anyway, could I find a copy? Could I bollocks.
In the end I went home and rang pretty much every game store I could find listed within a 5 mile radius in an effort to find a copy. That’s not an easy task when you’ve got a strong English accent:
Ring Ring
“Hello?”
“Erm, hi, do you have Civilization?”
“That meant to be a joke? Listen you damn Limey, our country may not be as old as yours and sure, maybe we ain’t got a lotta history, but we got huge hearts and balls to match. God Bless America!”
Click
Not one single store anywhere had a copy. One place had a couple of the expansions, but not the original (which seemed rather short-sighted to me). Rest assured I spent that night curled up in the foetal position sweating profusely as I underwent the horrifying and painful process of Civ III withdrawal.
They say the death of PC Gaming is coming, and, though I’ve always been optimistic, I’m starting to fear they may be right. In fact if you’re in Manhattan, unless you want to play Vietnam games or one of the 28 different bastard-sons of the Sims, then it seems that the grim reaper is already here. 