I can't decide if I'm going to Anime Boston or not.

I've never been there (the event, not the city), which is weird since it's not exactly far away or anything. My friend Sarah goes every year, in full costume (if you've gone, and seen a Faye Valentine, warrior Riku, or Ayane, you may have seen her), as do some of my other friends, and every year we say that I should go as well.
This would be the first year that we all aren't coworkers. That's only relevant because I couldn't go in the past because I had to run the store while they all went. So this would be the first year that we're all actually able to attend.

So I toss the question out to the masses. Should I go? Is anybody else from the world of Destructoid going?

Oh, and if I go, I want to go in costume. Leading thought right now is Team Rocket. The black-clad Neo Team version, not the grey Jesse/ James look.

I await the wisdom of my peers.

I have decided that it is actually Sega that can solve all of the world's ills. Financial crisis, war, hatred, poor hygiene, those weird little dessert cakes at Chinese buffets that look different but for some reason all taste exactly the same, and so on.

They can do all of this, and more, by releasing a new Phantasy Star game.

I don't mean another online entry, like Phantasy Star Online or Phantasy Star Universe (both of which have claimed far more of my life than I feel comfortable admitting), or the PSO-like Phantasy Star Zero coming out for the DS later this year (which I will buy, and it will own my soul as its predecessors have).

No, I mean... Phantasy Star V.

The world needs a new, true Phantasy Star RPG. Turn-based gameplay. Exploring a vast world. Crawling through dungeons in that fantasy/ sci-fi setting the series is known for.
Of course, we'd need a deep story, gorgeous cinematics, and the little gameplay updates the genre has seen since the Genesis days.

I'm not even picky as to the system. Next-gen consoles would be ideal (for the 360, my system of choice, but I would go out and buy a PS3 the day the game was released if necessary). A DS version would be acceptable. Really, whatever it takes.

Naturally, a certain android named Wren would have to make an appearance.

So there you go. The solution to the world's various crises can be solved by Sega bringing a new Phantasy Star RPG into existence. Seems easy enough, really.

So, Gamestop likes their customers to reserve upcoming titles. They post "Coming Soon- Reserve it Now" on posters and game cases all over their stores, they have videos telling customers to talk to their "game advisors" about reserving whatever title they're talking about onscreen at the time, and their employees are instructed to ask every customer if they want to reserve something.
For just five dollars down (ten for special editions), they'll tell you, you can have a copy of the game waiting for you on day one, guaranteed to be waiting for you!
In fact, their employees are pretty much expected to get these reservations, and can face repercussions (up to getting terminated) for not meeting the expectations set forth by the company.

The funny thing is, and the point I'm meandering towards, is that according to their new policies, this "guaranteed" reservation is not actually a guarantee that you can get the game day one.
I used to work for Gamestop. When I started, we were expected to hold a reserved game for 48 hours. We told customers who were reserving a game that it would be guaranteed to be there within that time period.
Partway through my five years with the company, the mentality began to change. We were encouraged to "play the float", which meant to gamble a bit and sell into your reserved copies. They indicated that only about 65% of the reserved copies of a game were usually picked up, so we could generally be safe in selling into that other 35%. Plus, in many cases (like a big Madden or Halo release), we'd be getting more every day, so we were never in danger of selling out.
We were always advised to use our best judgement, though, and if we felt we were getting close to the wire we'd stop selling to walk-ins to insure our reservation customers were covered. The important thing was that the reservation customers could get the game we guaranteed would be waiting for them.
The policy continued to morph as time went on, and we were gradually expected to sell more and more, until it became clear that the reservation itself was becoming pointless.
Shortly before I left, Rock Band 2 was released. I ran a low volume store, so we only had 8 reservations for the game, and we only got 10 copies in for the Sunday release. This is not a large number, and we had gotten no emails to indicate when our next allotment would be. The extra 2 copies sold quickly, and we were hesitant to sell the reserved copies simply because there weren't a lot to play with. Customers were flowing in throughout the day to pick up their reservations, and we were turning walk-ins away.
We held the copies for the 48 hours, as we had promised our customers, and during those two days we didn't get any more copies sent to us.
On the day that the 48 hours expired, I had a visit from my district manager and regional director. We had sold all but two copies of Rock Band 2, which they felt we should have just gone ahead and sold without worrying about the reservations.
As the regional director told me, "I'd rather you sell through them, and have to deal with a complaint or two from customers, then hold onto them and wait for sales that may or may not happen."
I understand that it's a business, that they want to sell things and make money. Fine. However, what he expected of me was "Screw the people you guaranteed could get the game they reserved. Just sell them, and if somebody gets mad, deal with it."
I've been doing customer service for almost twenty years. If I guarantee a customer something, I fully intend to follow through on that promise. I don't like the idea of circumventing my integrity and just dealing with the fallout.

So I've been gone from there for a while now, but I still get information from various employees, and it seems that the practice is still in full swing.
With the recent release of Halo Wars, my former district manager ordered all of his stores to sell every copy to anybody, INCLUDING THE LIMITED EDITION, regardless of reservation. So, as they didn't want to get in trouble, they did so.
The store in question had, the last time I heard, three separate incidents of customers coming in to pick up their reserved limited edition game and being unable to do so. In addition, as these were "limited", the store was frantically calling other stores but nobody had free copies to share. Especially because other stores within the same district were having the same issue.
Great. So the game sold out. Congratulations. All it took was pissing off people that you had promised could get the game on the first day.

So, you can reserve a game, but if you're not right there first in line, you may or may not be able to get it day one. Of course, they do say that they will definitely get you a copy, often meaning that they'll get one from another store or wait for another shipment to come in, but by that point you could go to Target or Best Buy and just pick it up on release day.
Of course, if you ask a game advisor, they still swear that your reserved game will be waiting for you on day one, guaranteed.

Hell, I don't know. Maybe I'm old fashioned. Maybe my theories about customer service, in which you actually try to avoid complaints rather than take actions and then pretty much expect them, must be outdated.
Which, I suppose, is why I don't work for Gamestop anymore...

Have you ever sat down and read a gaming forum?

In many cases, they can be amazing: Gamers coming together, discussing ideas or helping each other, sharing knowledge or swapping horror stories. Really, it's almost beautiful (in a non-sappy, totally hardcore sort of way, of course).

However, there's another sort of forum dweller, the ones that give those of us who just want to share information a bad name. These are the ones who get noticed, who get talked about, who make waves. While some of us just want to come together as a community and an industry, the others are there for a much darker purpose.

What amazes me, in perusing just about any forum, is the fact that people will post for no other reason than to insult those who are trying to discuss a topic. They'll often admit that they haven't played the game in question, or don't like the genre, but yet they feel the need to jump in just to say that.

I don't think you see that in other industries. Do science fiction fans sign onto forums for romantic comedies, just to say how much they hate chick flicks and that people who watch them are stupid? Not likely. Nor do you see fans of an author flaming the forums of another writer's following.

Yet, in games, it's not only common, it's what we're often known for. Log onto any gaming forum, look up any subject, and start sifting through the responses.
As an example, let's say you hit the web looking for information on Mass Effect for the Xbox 360. You come across a forum that looks like it has what you seek, and you start perusing the posts. While you're undoubtedly come across gamers who just want to share what they know, you'll also find all sorts of horrible and useless stuff as you continue to scroll down. Fans of the PS3 feel the need to point out that their console is "better", they need to point out that Mass Effect is lame but would have been awesome if it came out for Sony's box. People who would rather play sports games need to come out to insult people who would rather play RPG's. Sometimes the insults have no point at all, and just get aimed at another poster.

It's rude, it's pointless, and all it does is show how immature many gamers are. This is especially obnoxious now, when so many of us are trying so hard to shake off the negative connotations the word "gamer" has to so many people. With politicians trying to force their values onto us with laws and restrictions, the press trying to link every tragedy to a game, and so many people trying to treat gaming like the entertainment world's weird uncle, we need to be on our best behavior now more than ever. If some lawmaker trying to pass their anti-game bill took the time to research and started reading forums, he'd quickly find more than enough ammunition to set the industry back twenty years.

We need to step up, realize that we're stronger as a community. We need to stop insulting each other, especially with no reason other than the fact that our taste disagrees with someone else's.
Gaming makes more money than any other entertainment industry, has become a part of mainstream culture, but until we stop acting like middle school kids we're not going to reach the level of maturity and real legitimacy so many of us are striving for.

So the next time you're on a forum, stop for a second. Think about it. Do you need to chime in? If you don't have the system in question, or have never played the game that's being discussed, and if you don't have anything meaningful to add, then simply don't. If you disagree with something someone said, take the high ground and answer maturely. Don't get goaded into a battle. The stuff you learned in school applies here: ignore the offenders, or move on.

We have a choice. We can bicker and act like assholes, and forever be seen as a bunch of kids with silly electronic toys.
If we stand together, though,we can change the world.

As Anthony stated when he started this month's musing, nerds and expanded universes go together like no other social or fan group.
The fact is, you'll probably never see a series of books based upon the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, or web pages devoted to fan fiction involving the characters from the show ER.
When it comes to something like Star Wars or Star Trek, though, you've got tons of novels. Tabletop role-playing games. Video games. Comic books.
Games have novels that go beyond the original stories. Movies are made (ignoring anything by Uwe Boll, of course). Web sites tell tales created by fans (just look for Final Fantasy 7 fan fiction to see that in action).
As geeks, we're clamoring for more, and the question posed is: why?

Looking at universes that start as games and then branch out, my thought is simply that we're interacting with these characters on a way more personal level than in any other medium.
It's one thing to watch a movie or show, watch the characters interact with one another and tell the story that the creators intended us to see and hear. No matter how much we may love what we see, it's passive enjoyment. We may feel the emotions the writers intended us to feel, but in the end we're observing someone else's characters.
With games, we ARE the characters. We're not just watching Master Chief battle the Covenant, we are Master Chief. When he takes out a room full of Flood, it's our fingers on the trigger. We're not just sitting in a theater watching an actor leap over a treacherous chasm, but it's our reflexes that keep the Prince of Persia from falling to his death. We're still following an established script, in a sense, but the story is being woven around us, not simply in front of us.
Instead of observing, we're an active part. We may be holding out breath as the hero battles insurmountable odds on the movie screen, but it's a different experience when it's "you" battling those odds.

So why would we want those stories, tales that we took an active part in, to come to an end?
For a moment, whether it be a few hours or several months, games transport you somewhere else, allow you to be someone else, and you're given a piece of a much larger tale to play. Therein lies the point, "a piece of a much larger tale". In Halo, you're Master Chief, playing one part of what is obviously a much bigger story. It makes sense then, if you really liked sharing a piece of this character's life, that you'd want to learn more and continue the saga beyond the game.
Often times the settings are just too vast to encompass in a game. Something like Starcraft has so much to it, so much detail, that it's impossible to cover everything that everybody would want to know. It's not like a TV show, where more information can get doled out each week (unless you're Fox and cancel it. cough...Firefly...cough), or a movie where you're told exactly as much as you need to know. In a game, there can be so much more, and expanding the universe allows fans to see and read what the games simply can't reveal.

In the case of movies:
Geeks have the ability to really connect with a story. We're not just watching, we're experiencing.
To put it another way: I've never talked to someone after watching a chick flick, and heard them say they wanted to be a particular character. Ask almost any nerd if they wanted to be a Jedi, though...
Plus, the worlds that the "geek" movies portray are often detailed well beyond the scope of the film, which makes a point similar to the one I made about games above. In a romantic comedy, you're given what you need to know, and everything else is irrelevant. The setting is usually a real place, so if you want to see it you can just go there, and the characters play their roles through the tale's beginning, middle, and end.
In something like Star Wars, though, there is so much to the universe that just can't be told in the movies. Planets are mentioned, battles are referenced, none of it relevant to the story at hand but still interesting to those of us who don't just watch, but who FEEL these sagas.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the matter. There'll be a line of books and an animated TV show soon to expand upon them.