So Khoa and I headed out to Microcenter on my one day off today, to get a preorder of Windows 7 (only $40 for the Home Premium if you preorder like... today), and also to see if they had a copy of Chrono Trigger for DS (because it's the most awesomest game evar and I wanna play it again). So we have to ask someone there to find the CT copy for us, because it's apparently the last one and we can't find it on the shelf. We take this copy up to the front register and the following happens:

Employee: Wow, I've never heard of this game. Chrono... Trigger. Weird.

Me: Really? It's one of the best RPGs ever made, re-released on DS.

Employee: All I know is Pokemon. Whenever anybody asks about DS, they're always asking if we have Pokemon. *laughs* You know what the best game for DS is? Mario Kart.

Me/Khoa: Yeah...

Employee: Do you have it?

Khoa: Well, we've played it a couple times... but I can't justify buying it.

Employee: You should just get an R4.

Me: Oh, I have one.

Employee: You have an R4 and you're still here buying games?

Me: (thinking: wtf?) Well... yeah. I work in the games industry, it makes sense for me to be supporting it.

Employee: Oh really? Where do you work?

Me: I work at a game company called ****.

Employee: Oh? That's cool. What do you do?

Me: Oh, mostly tech support. I used to work at Namco though, so I think it's good to support the game companies by actually buying the games.

Employee: That's cool. I've always wanted to get into the game industry. How do you get a job there?

Me: Oh, you just have to do searches. The temp agencies hire the game testers, I found my listing on Craigslist.

Employee2 from the next register over: Sweet.

Employee1: I like how you're just listening in on our conversation like that.

Employee2: What? You're talking about games. I'm so there.

Employee1: Yeah, I'd totally love to work at EA testing out their sports games.

Me: Oh yeah, that's not hard, EA hires a LOT of testers. I know a lot of people who used to work there.

Employee1: That's awesome. I'd love to play games for a living!

And the conversation pretty much wound down after that. I have two WTF reactions about this whole thing:

1. I am at your store, purchasing a video game, and you are not only encouraging me to pirate said games, but seem confused as to why I am not already doing so. "You have an R4 and you're still buying games?" "Yes...? Because it's the right thing to do and not in any way illegal?"

2. You want to get into the gaming industry but you've never even HEARD of one of the best games of all time? Sure I don't play first person shooters, and don't like them in fact, but I can at least recognize the names of the most popular ones, even if I've never played them.

Furthermore, I own an R4 for two reasons:

1. So that I can test out games that I might not otherwise want to take a chance at purchasing (for example, I would never have found out what an awesome game My World My Way is if I hadn't played it on my R4 for a few hours first) since my trust in game companies was killed by FF8 years ago.

2. It allows me to carry my entire game library in a single cartridge instead of having to find a convenient portable storage solution for several dozen stamp-sized plastic parts.

I will NOT play a game on my R4 and enjoy it without actually purchasing it. If I enjoy playing a game, they deserve my money, and they shall get it at my earliest convenience. I also buy my games new, because I want to support the companies that actually make the games, not the companies that vulture over their remains after people are done with them.