Topic: Ding-dang smoking gamers!

So I got what I thought was a pretty good deal on a mint-condition copy of Wii Sports Resorts for £37 which left me with some store credit remaining and the game is terrific. Then my wife is using the remote with the motion+ and jacket when we're trialling multiplayer in Jambo! Safari and notices the thing is permeated with cigarette smoke...I was horrified!

I think I had caught a whiff at one point, but I was starting a cold and shrugged it off. A baby wipe sorted the remote I put in the jacket and attachment isn't too bad and will likely fade in time, but the jacket was a write-off. I tried soaking it overnight in washing up liquid and that just made it reek of lemony cigarettes.

Now I've had to shell out a few extra bucks for a new motionplus jacket, reducing my savings on RRP to £3.

Just a rant, but man, GAME should have a disclaimer or just refuse to take 2nds off people who smoke!

ewww did you take it back?

That's a bummer

This has happened to me before, and, to be perfectly honest, it's part of why I almost never buy used games.

I've bought a few used books (mainly online) and had similar experiences, too.

The best was when my roommate bought some long-out-of-print science fiction book he'd been looking for for years. He bought it on ebay or something, and when we received it, its stench was ungodly. I honestly think it must have sat on the floor of a portapotty for seven years straight. The physical condition of the book wasn't bad, but the stink was insurmountable.

We locked it in a small cabinet with burning incense overnight, and the next morning the incense hadn't made a dent. It was the single wost-smelling thing I've ever encountered in my life...and it was just a book!

Games that reek of smoke usually aren't too bad. I just leave them outside in a protected area for a few days and the smell fades (mostly) away. Books, like in TB's story, are another matter.

What did you do?

Every once in awhile you get a stinker. Part of the fun of buying used games. Just put it out somewhere and leave it. The smell will eventually go away. Just takes a long time.

If it were mine, I would have thrown it away, but I'm pretty sure he kept it. I have absolutely no idea why.

One thing's for sure though...we never solved the problem. I moved out a few months later, and the thing was still stinking.

I thought about taking it back, but it was mainly the jacket and I really couldn't be bothered. I got the new jacket today and everything is rosy again.

My father was a chain smoker before his stroke and drove a big rig for a living. He sent my daughter a bunch of soft toys and then some actually rather nice books which smelled like they must have been in the cab of his truck for weeks -- no way we could give them to her. They were all new so we simply left them out in a storage cupboard outside the main flat for weeks and eventually they were okay. I just couldn't believe how oblivious he was about the issue!

Yeah, I've noticed that as well. Smoking in general is a mystery to me. The social aspect of smoking is still there, but it's only there because someone decided to start and thought they were cool and other people decided to. A lot of times it has to do with a parent or peer who smokes. Despite all the bad things about... Why would anyone want to be close enough to smell you when that's all you can smell? Plus it's cold outside in winter
Also, I'm talking about now, not ten years ago.

@Sean: when you smoke, that's all you smell... you get used to it, and after a while you don't even realize the smell is there at all.

there was this one time when our family received a box of spice cookies from my grandmother, who lived with my grandfather and her sister, both smokers (Nana herself wasn't a smoker, but she was constantly around it because they smoked in the house). We opened the cookies and me, my mom, and my sister all took one and tasted it... I am totally not kidding when I say that cookie tasted like ashes. They were unsalvageable; we had to throw them out. Nana called later that day to see if the cookies had arrived and to ask if we liked 'em, lol... she hadn't tasted anything wrong with them herself because she was so used to the smell of smoke everywhere and probably hadn't batted an eye when my grandfather or great-aunt had lit up while she was baking. it was pretty funny, actually. :3

Link-Hero, are you really Dewey Cox in disguise?

My dad smokes in the house and I'm sure our house smells horrid, but I'm used to the smell and really can't smell anything.

I don't run into nearly as many smoky games as you might think I would working at GameStop. I can recall more products that smelled like Marijuana than regular cigarette smoke, and even those are definitely fewer than 10 (you decide whether that's too many for two years at the store)! I'm pretty sure I've never brought a stanky game into my house, at any rate. Well...they might've occasionally stunk of SOMETHING, but not either kind of smoke I just mentioned.

Not about smoking so much but similar, I almost got a copy of Wario Land Shake today that was sitting out the front of my local Video Rental shop. Its an ex-rental so it was bargain priced but then I had a closer look at the box. The box was heavily water damaged and so were all the other games (including that Birthday game to my delight). My guess is that during the last few weeks when we had heavy rain they left all the games out exposed to the rain. Ex-Rental DVDs and new DVDs on the other hand.... they were all inside the shop in very good condition.

blasphemy!

@skywake: And these a-holes were trying to SELL this stuff in that crappy condition? INFIDELS!!!

Here is an idea, ask the shop assistant if you can smell the game before buying it, it will be worth it just to see the look on their face.

rofl

"oh hi, I want to get this game but first.... would you mind if I gave it a smell? It doesn't even need to be a huge smell, just a little whiff so I can see whether I like the smell or not."

Why would that be necessary if you're buying it in-store? Couldn't you just smell the display case? It's not like the disc is likely to smell any different, after all. Unless you're buying a game in a store replacement case, of course. In which case, your standards for quality in used product are already too low, IMO.

how can a disc made out of plastic smell like cigarette smoke???
I bougt used games from smoker households, never ever mentioned a difference from new games...

Because the smoke particles penetrate it. Plastic is still porous you know! Of course in my case the game disc/box/booklet were fine, it's just the Motion Plus and especially the silicone jacket that were contaminated.