Wal-Mart .vs 1 Million Women

Wal-Mart is the nation's largest employer. It is also the most sued entity, even more so than the U.S. government. While a good chunk of the latter may be because it is such a huge target, where there's lots of smoke, there's probably some fire.

In a case that has been brewing since 2001, the case of 1 million women filing a class action suit against Wal-Mart for discrimination looks like it is headed for the Supreme Court.

You check out an actual news article on the latest developments in the case here.


What will the Supremes do? Given Wal-Mart's arrogance when it comes to being held accountable, such as spending millions to avoid a $7,000 fine in the case of a temp worker trampled to death, the Court may let it proceed. Two lower courts have already ruled on this in favor of letting the case proceed as a class action suit.

Wal-Mart's revenue is in the neighborhood of half a trillion dollars. Their profit in 2009 was $14 billion. But a case this size could actually hurt given the numbers. We're not talking bankruptcy hurt, but it would give them a bloody nose for the fiscal year. Will it be enough to make them change their ways?

Ironically if Wal-Mart had settled the case when it was 7 women, they would have gotten away with a pittance compared to what they'll pay if they lose now. Kind of like spending millions to avoid a $7,000 fine.

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Used Games - Frugal Spending Or Development Theft?

My exposure to this controversy started with this Penny Arcade comic. That led to further reading. And it looks like the dust-up was triggered by this article.

The ramblings that follow are just my opinion, not those of anyone like my employer (who I tend to leave out of my blogging.)


First, I'll admit that I had never given this issue much thought, and even thinking about it there are still two sides and I'm not 100% behind either.

On the developers' side, I can see their point. They invest money in developing a game, not a cheap endeavor, on the hopes of selling enough copies to make a profit. Used game retail undercuts that model. And while the buyers of used games may use "being on a budget" to justify buying used instead of new, if they are that hard up maybe they shouldn't be spending money on a video game. The same justification is leading to the death of brick-and-mortar specialty retailers in favor of mass online retailers.

There are a couple of ways to end a large chunk of used game retail. An online verification model or digital distribution model would eliminate the ability to use used games. The people that will howl the loudest are the ones that, as THQ put it, aren't their customers anyways. Of course the latter model will kick the legs out from under video game retail as a whole, a very big Eff You to the retailers who have been peddling these companies wares over the years.

If you know me, you'd think that this would be the end of it. I'm all about being willing to pay and extra buck to make sure the right people get the money. I buy my comics from the same comic book store for years even though it would be cheaper to get them online.

Here's the dilemma. If we endorse this sort of restrictions on this type of media, how long until it spreads like wildfire to other media formats? Will I no longer be able to take a blu-ray I bought to a friend's house? Will someone not be able to take music from home to work? While these may seem like a stretch, it's a slippery slope.

Regardless, developers are already introducing disincentives to buying used games and it's not like second-hand shoppers can vote with their dollars. Actually, their refusal to buy the games used would help the publishers' cause. If you have Gamestop stock, you might want to reconsider.

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Musings On DDI

There is a lot of chatter in the gaming blogoshpere about 4e and the upcoming Essentials line. One of the items I see mentioned a lot is the DDI (D&D Interactive) Character Builder. While I have seen a great deal of praise for the tool, others bristle at the notion of having to pay a monthly fee.

I fall (or fell while I still played 4e) into the latter camp. After buying book after book at $30-$40 a pop, another $10 a month seemed like highway robbery.


The thing is, if DDI is as useful as its fans tout, maybe WotC should look at it as more of a tool to bring in more customers rather than a raw revenue stream. They could look at F2P and freemium MMOs as an example.

Buying a PHB would give you a code that would give you access to the character builder for races/classes contained in the PHB as well as access to Dragon. Buying a DMG would give you access to the Adventure Builder Tools and Dungeon magazine. Buying additional titles would give online access to the materials covered in those books. Of course, you could just buy the appropriate codes to gain access to the material you wanted.

Dragon and Dungeon become even more useful for previews to entice customers to buy those new books. I'm sure someone with more business savvy in the field could come up with more ideas along this vein.

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Wal-Mart In The News

Just a couple of interesting articles. The first is about how Wal-Mart has spent 2 million dollars fighting a $7,000 fine in the trampling death of one of their temp employees.

The second article has a lot of insight into Wal-Mart and is an interesting read. Anyone want to start a pool on how long until the Chicago unions try to get in the new Wal-Mart (which will be in a childhood neighborhood of mine, Pullman)?

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Telcos = Greedy Bastards = No Surprise

Here's a couple of interesting articles on how telecom companies are focusing on milking customers for short term, Wall Street appeasing gains rather than investing and keeping pace with the rest of the civilized world.

This article is really the core of the discussion, the second article mostly references the first but brings up at least one other good point.

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Gamer View On Net Neutrality

Right now Comcast's fat cats are high fiving each other over the courts finding that the FCC can't force net neutrality under current regulation. A chunk of that is because the FCC classifies broadband as lightly regulated. Before Comcast and their ilk celebrate too much, they need to remember that the FCC could reclassify broadband as a higher regulated category.

Meanwhile, here is an interesting article from Massively.com.

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How Will iPad Change Comics?

It looks like Disney/Marvel is already working on cashing in on the iPad craze. It offers a free app that let's people download and read comics on their iPad for $1.99 per issue, a significant reduction from the usual $3 - $4 cover price. And the best part for Marvel is the save printing costs and don't have to give a cut to Diamond (which has an effective distribution monopoly) or retailers.

While this option won't satisfy collectors and old fogeys like me that like to have a physical book to read, it would be crazy not to see how this could totally change the shape of things for comic book fans.

When enough people adopt e-comics (or should I say iComics) to be profitable, there is little incentive for the publishers to maintain the traditional model, with which they have struggled to be profitable. All they would have to do is have to comics also readable on conventional computers and e-readers such as Kindle to ensure that most of their readers would migrate from dead-tree format to the much more profitable electronic model.

Enjoy your local comic book stores while you can, kiddies.

Oh, and here's an article that talks about the Marvel/Disney app for iPad.

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Futility Of Wal-Mart Boycotts

There's another scandal for the evil empire in the news, complete with people getting all self-righteous and worked up and threatening boycotts. And even though Wal-Mart is being apologetic, they aren't losing any sleep.

No call for a boycott has ever had a significant effect Wal-Mart's results. There's two main reasons, according to this article.

The first is that Wal-Mart is too big. Even if somehow a pissed off group managed to deter $1 billion dollars worth of sales, that would have as big an impact as me making $2 less a paycheck.

The second is that no group can manage to wean enough people off Wal-Mart's low prices, especially not now with the rocky economy. Most people don't care enough about some vague and distant wrong (in their eyes) to pony up an extra chunk of change at the check-out line.


Now as much as it pains me to admit it, the latest flap involving the racial remark over Wal-Mart's PA system in New Jersey really isn't their fault. I really doubt the Emperor told his dark minions "hey let's make a racially charged statement in a random store to piss off a bunch of customers and draw bad publicity."

It was either a customer, or in my opinion more likely an ex-employee. All of those people coming out of the woodwork with indignation are just looking for an excuse, and since no one cares if Joe Asshole gets called to the mat for being a racist but all the networks will cover it if the nation's largest company does, they are talking about Wal-Mart instead of the clown that did the deed.

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No Thanksgiving for Wal-Mart Employees

The nation's largest employer is going to be keeping their employees at work this Thanksgiving. Rather than shut down and give their people the day off to be with their families, Wal-Mart plans on avoiding the Black Friday chaos that led to an employee's death last year by staying open.

Now we'll see if other retailers try to follow suit to avoid handing Wal-Mart a monopoly and ruin Thanksgiving for millions more. Frankly I wish they'd just move back the open times, as they can't beat Wal-Mart without spending a crap load on labor, and open at a more reasonable hour like 8 a.m..


The other thing I'm curious about is how Wal-Mart plans on handling the crowds that form inside their building. While the crowds will be spread out more, there are sure to be incidents as people get into it over the latest cheap DVD player in the pile.

Here's a link to the article about Wal-Mart's plan.

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Movie Rentals Biting Into DVD Sales

In echoes of Wal-Mart, online content suppliers Apple and Amazon have become too important to the studios for them not to do business, but Apple and Amazon run on such thin margins they are taking a big slice out of conventional DVD sales, which are much more lucrative to the studios. You can read more details here.


The question is now can the studios recover from their own short-sightedness and failure to put together a profitable online business model? Will they cut prices on DVDs (and Blu-Ray) to try to prop up sales? Or will they do something most of Wal-Mart's suppliers are afraid to do and play hardball? My uneducated guess would be a little of both... push the content providers for a little more margin, because if the studios cut off the providers people will likely go and rent or buy movies the old fashion way, while cutting the MSRP on movies a bit (and roll out the back stock very heavily discounted) to try to reduce sales erosion.

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China Could Have the World By Its Rare-Earth Balls

After putting its competitors out of business, China is the sole supplier for a wide range of rare earth minerals used in high tech devices. Now it is contemplating plans to cut off other countries.

Why does this remind me of Wal-Mart?

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Project Impact - Walmart's Hit List

The recession has been a boon for Wal-Mart. Shoppers pressed by the economy swallowed their standards and traded down while competitors already on shaky ground went under. Now Wal-Mart is rolling out an initiative to gun for other competitors it thinks it can kill off, Project Impact. Some of the stuff seems to be no brainers, like cleaner stores and friendlier staff. The big questions are can Wal-Mart afford to transform its massive store base, can it pay the new staff enough to stay friendly while maintaining razor-thin margins, and can it keep shoppers from leaving as the economy improves?

It reminds me of a scene from Demolition Man... "After the franchise wars, all restaurants were Taco Bells."

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Disney buying Marvel

In another sign that the end times are nigh, Disney is buying Marvel and getting the rights to Marvel's 5000 characters. Check out an article here.

I can just see it... High School Musical 4 - Singing Mutants with Hannah Montana as Kitty Pryde.

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Wizard's fan site policy ruckus

Wizards of the Coast released a fan site "policy", which has created some chatter. In a nutshell, in exchange for using the graphics from their fan site kit you have to agree to a bunch of conditions, some of which are reasonable and should be done anyways, some of which are not.

Instead of going into a detailed breakdown I'll point you to couple of good posts that go into deeper detail. Check them out at The Seven-Sided Die and Geek Related.

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Good EFCA article

I just read a good article regarding the Employee Free Choice Act. The author, a small business owner, does more than just criticize unions and the impending legislation, he points out the things small businesses do that could lead them to getting stuck with a union. You can check out the Newsweek article here.

Businesses had better get ready, because the EFCA is a matter of when, not if. And if you want a good example of union effects on businesses, look at some of the troubles the car companies have. Businesses that don't want the additional costs imposed by unions had better get on the ball with employee relations.

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Consumer electronics shopping at Wal-Mart

A lot of noise has been made about how Wal-Mart is trying hard to expand their market share in consumer electronics, vying with traditional CE retailers as well as on-line competitors for ex-Circuit City customers.

As my regular readers know, I'm not a fan of Wal-Mart... quite the opposite in fact. I bash them enough to have an "evil empire" tag devoted to them. But it's hard to criticize their latest effort second hand. So I decided to do some snooping and visit the local Wal-Mart. Seeing as it is located in a fairly affluent suburban area, I figured it would be a fairer assessment of their efforts than the one by my work, which is in a decaying urban area.

If this represents an even moderate effort on their part... their CE initiative blows.


While I get that this store is not one of the new "remodeled" CE departments, there are a lot of things that can be done without sinking a mint into new fixtures.

The merchandising sucked ass. The best way to find stuff was just walk through the department. It was even worse in the DVD department. The new release and promo runs were as big as the catalog and made no sense. Want to find a movie? Walk up and down the aisle. And don't expect to save any money, overall their DVD prices looked higher than those at CE stores.

The computer section looked like it was transplanted from a Big Lots for the most part. The notebook demos were encased in plexiglass, so forget playing with them. And price wasn't a selling point here either, prices on hardware and software looked the same as other retailers and the selection was pathetic.

The TV section, where they are really supposed to be putting an effort, was weak as well. There was nothing impressive on their wall, the prices were the same as elsewhere, with third tier brands making up the price-leaders.

I was never approached the whole time I was in the department. Remember, this is a suburban area with people with above average disposable income. In TVs I literally got within 3 feet of an employee who was using an endcap as his snack station and talking on his cell phone and he ignored me. Out of the half dozen employees on duty, there was one who seemed engaged and was actively helping a customer. The rest were just there to make their $8 an hour.

I hope this is a trend, because I consider myself Wal-Mart's Rush Limbaugh... I want them to fail. Except I don't have millions of followers. Or millions of dollars. Or a political party that wishes I would shut up.

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Gen Con staying in Indy through 2015

I was pleased to see this news in today's newspaper (yes, I still read the newspaper).

Gen Con has signed a deal to stay in Indianapolis through 2015. Needless to say I found this to be great news.

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WotC yanks PDF support

The gaming blogosphere has lit up over Wizards of the Coast's decision to cease selling their product in PDF form. Evidently they were concerned about piracy bting into their sales, which is pretty funny considering PHB 2 is on the best-sellers list.

Maybe I'm archaic, but I prefer dead-tree format to PDFs, but a lot of these young whipper-snappers are all about electronic books. I think WotC's decision will do more harm than good. I guess we'll see withthe next big release how long it takes to find that book online.

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Players Handbook 2 Is A Best Seller

Caught whiff of this over on the RPG Bloggers Network, that the PHB 2 was on the Wall Street Journal's Best-Sellers list.

I'm kind of surprised, not so much because nay-sayers have been blaring the trumpet of doom over 4e, but because many gamers are notorious skinflints and the book is easily available by Cheap (free) means that don't get it on the WSJ list.

Then again, all of the reviews I've read have been positive, as have my impressions of the book. So far, it has been a lot of neat stuff I'd like to try as opposed to awesome stuff my character has to have to rock (or that I dread my players getting their paws on).

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10 Ways to Save Your FLGS

In case you didn't know, FLGS stands for Friendly Local Gaming Store, an endangered species of mom & pop retailer that was a huge part of the gaming hobby's early years. Now they are being driven out of business by the likes of Amazon, unable to maintain the overhead of a brick and mortar store and compete with an online mega-retailer's economy of scale.

I read an interesting blog article with some good ideas in it. If you're a gamer, take a look.

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