Breaking My Heart Like You're Breaking My Discs
By jakob187 27 Comments
Folks, I write these blogs week after week for a couple of reasons, some of which you may know and others you may not.
- I like conversation. Being that I am a Gemini, it's in the stars for me. I'm a talkative kind of guy that loves to hold discussions, have arguments, debate issues, or just general random chit-chat.
- I'm opinionated as fuck, and those opinions need to go somewhere. Whether someone wants to hear them or not, they can't just sit in my head all day long. It's one of the main reasons I spent three years running an independent game review website, wrote album reviews for the high school newspaper as a "freelance journalist", and am generally considered by those close to me as the most trustworthy source for an opinion on entertainment products.
- I appreciate this community. Given that these are the only forums that I visit, as well as the only gaming website that I bother with, there is something about blogging on Giant Bomb that you just don't get anywhere else. I don't know what it is exactly, but it's there. Therefore, a big thank you to all the people who have continued to follow my blogs as well as comment on them.
The reason I point this out is because this blog isn't going to necessarily have to do with any particular games that I've been playing. If you pay attention to achievement tracking, you can tell that I've been playing the shit out of Bad Company 2, and most of my points from last week's blog still hold up this week...with the addition that Conquest Mode sucks royal ballsacks.
Game cases are a fine, delicate art. Recently, many companies have been moving to a "green" packaging, where about 20% of the plastic is not present (reducing the weight to 47g, down from 66g three years ago) in order to both save some money on manufacturing costs as well as provide the idea that the company is saving the environment (which the publishers say is actually because retailers have been complaining about packaging over the last three years). Now, maybe I'm in a very different boat with this because of where exactly it is that I work, but these new "green" cases have been leading to a lot of discs cracking in the middle, registering the game unplayable. The problem is the center piece that the disc sits on, which has very very very small pegs sticking out on the sides, which rubs into the disc itself every time you pull the game out.
Here's a total tally of games that we've seen cracks in at work:
- Modern Warfare 2 - 3 copies
- Left 4 Dead 2 - 5 copies
- Guitar Hero 5 - 1 copy
- Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End - 1 copy
- LEGO Indiana Jones - 1 copy
As if these "green" cases aren't bad enough, there are also the three-prong centered cases. This has caused 3 copies of World at War and 1 copy of Fallout 3 to get cracked in the middle as well.
Ladies and gentlemen, we'll complain about a lot of things here on the internet. I know that I take good care of discs, and I make sure to apply the proper amount of pressure for the disc to come out of a case without these cracks developing. Hell, I'm one of the few people I've ever seen that actually holds a disc by its edges to place it into the tray!!! However, with these new "green" cases, even the proper amount of pressure will lead to eventual cracks in the disc.
Is this a practice we should stand for? These companies KNOW that they are casing their products in something that could potentially damage the disc. We pay a good $60 for each game, and THIS is what we are given? It's not a travesty, and it's not a shame - it's a goddamn crime!!!
Again, I'm aware that because of where I work, I have to switch out games on a regular basis, meaning that our copies will get far more wear and tear than the average household consumer's product will. Nonetheless, there are copies of Crimson Skies, Halo, and many other games that are far older than Modern Warfare 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 that HAVE NOT cracked, HAVE NOT become unreadable, and HAVE NOT had any issues on any machine at any point.
I know that I'm not the only one who is having these kinds of issues. What can the average consumer do to prevent this from continuing to happen? With more and more games getting put into these cases, when will it get to the point that we cannot have a game without it wearing and tearing over time because we are simply trying to get it out of the case?
Until next time, piece.
P.S. - One small point about games that I've been playing: THE SECRET ARMORY OF GENERAL KNOXX IS TOUGH AS FUCK!!!