The ScooterBlog

So here’s an interesting six months for ya … get featured in EGM, host a huge video game art party that gets the attention of the entire gaming net, and then get busted by the feds. Seems like something’s out of place, but not so much.

ACME Video Games, that trendy “chic” video game store that got love in EGM for its plasma screens, its celebrity customers (thus the subject), and its big time events. (Grant you, we do these things in the midwest every week for, well, the rest of us, and no love!)

Well, apparently what they didn’t tell anyone is that on the side to fund all of these things, they also were selling chipped XBox systems pre-installed to the hilt with games.

Now, I’ll preface. I have zero issues with mod chips and the development devices of the world. I have a modded XBox (and a non-modded one), that I enjoy dinking around with, installing emulators and the homebrew XBox Media Center on, and I generally enjoy playing with gadgets and anything that will expand the usage of said gadget. So for ACME to be offering to chip an XBox, even put a larger hard drive in, that’s all good.

But common sense should have prevailed that should you be installing 77 commercial games on said system when you sell it (as one of the undercover investigators is alleging), that’s not just a red flag but a homing beacon for trouble. If the end user is gonna use it for the backup purpose, then more power to them, that’s on them.

We’ll see I’m sure how this case turns out but I can’t see ACME winning cause now it’s a case of copyrights and not a case of the rights of the mod chip (which has been ruled legal in Austrailia). In the meantime, anyone wanna lob a phone call fo shizzle to the Snoop to tell him to buy his games from the Game Junkizzle?