I don’t normally consider myself all that nerdy. Ok, so I went to an engineering school, but I also played sports. I surf and skate. I go out at night. I’ve even kissed a girl or three before. Can you believe that? Hrmmmmm well I also played countless hours of Halo in college. When I went on snowboard trips the second thing I packed after my board was my XBox. But I braved the elements from lift open to lift close. Then we played Amped all night long. Ok I’m a nerds nerd… guess what that means? It means I shelled out $69.99 for the collectors edition of Halo 3 when I went into GameStop on my way to work this morning. Microsoft must be loving me right? Wrong…

I was standing in line and I saw another of my kind a few people in front of me… he was arguing with the cashier and complaining. I’m thinking man this kid is a tool. I heard something about this is my third copy, I’ve done this, this and that… blahbbbbity blah. Come on dude just shut up so I can get to the register and get to work quasi on time.

I had time to email a few friends and see if they wanted me to pick up a copy for them. 1 yes 2 no’s. The first rule of early game buying… always look out for your buddies. If they back out on you, flip it on ebay. Thats the second rule.

(In your head, you must be saying get to the point soon or I’ll leave you… its the journey that counts not the final destination.)

So I get to the front and snag a Collectors Edition and a regular edition. Never spend more than you have to for that buddy. Seamless transaction, and I walk out the door and a few blocks to work. No harm no foul. I grabbed my copy and hear the sickening clatter of a disk bouncing around naked and alone in a metal case.

Shit… I tore off the packaging and cracked it open. The disc was scratched well beyond playing ability. It looked like those cd’s you sometimes find in parking lots, face down, chipped and scratched. For a second I though… squish the label back on and give it to the buddy and keep the other copy.

Anyways to make a long story short I walked back to GameStop, and talked to the manager. He was really cool about it, and proceeded to replace the game for me. But here is where it gets crazy. He insisted that I open my copy to make sure it wasn’t torched like the last one. We went through 5 more copies before we found one that wasn’t. Do the math 6 of 7 of Microsoft’s babies were defective. I’m not a big business guy, but I think the $ 0.50 they saved by not putting the game in a sleeve, or by not using a proper disc clip might be costing them a pretty penny. Mind you this isn’t the low priced version, this is SE/pinafarina/amg/wolfsburg version. With limited edition bucket seats and a sport shifter. They extracted $20 extra bucks from me for the metal tin and didn’t even think to make sure it would survive the road rattles to get from factory to store.

Dont believe me, read this article

How much with the big M lose? Probably no loyal fraggers, but certainly a warthogs load of dough in replacing the faulty discs. I know for sure that I’m not the only one with the problem. In fact when others watched my exchange with the manager, they all started to open their copies in the store to make sure they didn’t walk out with a faulty disc. As for the plight of the standard edition disc? It was A-Ok. Those cheapo green plastic cases do a great job of locking the game in place.

The moral of the story is buy the Standard Edition if you want to play the game tonight

Stay tuned for more Results and stats may vary, maybe the pallet was treated roughly, I don’t know, but I am sure that someones head will roll before the week is out, or whenever this hits the mainstream press…