A few random outbursts about the podcast:

- “Deus Ex” is one of my all-time favorite games, and one of the first fully 3D RPG's I'd played (not counting sprite/voxel rendered.) Though I feel really old realizing that it's been long enough to consider it a “flashback.”

- I think Warren Spector could beat up Peter Molyneux. (Well, okay, I don't really know that. But I prefer Warren's games over Peter's, more often than not.)

- We had to dig out our copy of “Murphy's Rules” to find your claim to fame about the darts. So you kinda sorta know Kovalic, almost! Only not really. Awesome! (I tried to find a copy of it online, but alas the Pyramid website is no more.)

- Good point about the pug, btw. And as far as I know, you can't do that in the Sims, either. Though we never had the pet expansion, so I don't know. Not that I would have tried either way. But ANYway…

- BTW, there was something else, but it slipped my mind. Something to do with acronyms, IIRC. PSP vs. DSi? MK vs. DC? DRM-free MP3? DLC for PS3? QoS for DSL? I don't remember. LOL

Great podcast! I was wondering if you had any opinions on GameStop selling used games as “new”, since, as you know, discs and stuff are removed from boxes to prevent theft, but employees play these games before they're sold!

http://kotaku.com/5206952/law-of-the-game-gamestop-practice-appears-deceptive

This sort of makes people want to buy from Amazon more, doesn't it?

Jordan Lund sent me an email on this very topic. He said:

It's an interesting case… Here's a dirty little secret… I worked for Software Etc. 20 years ago… Wow, that seems weird to say… Software Etc. merged with Babbages, bought Funcoland, merged with Electronics Boutique and presto… the current GameStop.

It was standard practice back then to check out games and software, this was, naturally, before the more draconian copy protections, registrations, etc.

As employees we were allowed to check out items, customers who were unhappy with their purchases were allowed to return them, and the resulting items were re-shrink-wrapped and sold as new.

Of course this was also before the “you opened it, you own it” policies we have now.

I'm somewhat torn. Bookstore employees are allowed to check out and return books. Even if they weren't customers are still allowed to browse books and magazines in-store without them being sold as “used”.

I know when people return t-shirts or jeans to Walmart or Target they're re-sold as new.

I guess it's going to come down to local laws on new vs. used.

Oops, I revealed his dirty little secret.