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Most of the time saving money on games is as simple as using a coupon or finding something marked down in a store. Other times it takes some work, some haggling, and some serious arguing with douche bag store managers. This is a story about saving money the latter way.

Currently I’m taking a few days off work in Anchorage which means no Xbox Living for a few days. However, because of the larger selection of stores, it’s a prime opportunity to stock up on cheap gaming goodness.

Best Buy in particular has a massive $10 game sale this week. I was able to stock up on a huge amount of stuff, plus GTA: Chinatown Wars for a cool $20. One of my old college roommates swears this is the greatest thing ever, and you really can’t go wrong at that price. Unfortunately, in the midst of all the sweet deals, the Anchorage Best Buy was out of one of the games on their list I really wanted, Pure, an extremely fun-looking, well-reviewed racer.

But no matter, I thought, I decided that while I’m in town, I would get it price matched at Wal-Mart. And that is where my plan went awry.

See, Wal-Mart wants to sell Pure for $50, and they don’t want to give you a $40 discount on the game despite their own policy. So I took the Best Buy ad to the cashier in electronics, who took it all the way to the store manager. He and his assistant spent a good 30 minutes trying to find a way out of honoring Wal-Mart’s own policy, before they settled on saying that even though Pure is pictured in the Best Buy weekly ad, the price tag is far enough away that they probably aren’t selling it that cheap. Oddly enough, the Best Buy employees in Anchorage were completely oblivious to this sale, and very, very frightened when two dozen gamers rushed them when they opened to grab their cheap games. But, everything rang up at the right price so it was all good, except for this Pure debacle.

So me and the store manager, who for whatever reason had more bling on his fingers than Souljaboy, despite the fact that he was a middle-aged white guy, go back and forth for awhile. It’s really more effective if I describe what happens next as if it were a Pokemon battle. Let’s call the blinged out manager Fiddy Dolla for the sake of the story.

CHRIS USES BAIT AND SWITCH ARGUMENT

IT DOESN’T SEEM TO BE VERY EFFECTIVE

FIDDY REFUSES TO COMMENT ON BEST BUY’S AD

IT HITS FOR 5 HP!

CHRIS SAYS YOU’RE TRYING TO WEASEL OUT OF YOUR OWN POLICY

IT HITS FOR 10 HP!!!

FIDDY TRIES TO WALK AWAY

NO ESCAPE!!!

CHRIS WHIPS OUT A WAL-MART AD FOR LAYOUT COMPARISON

IT’S SUPER EFFECTIVE!

So at that point, Fiddy Dolla, decides he’s going to get smart and call Best Buy, figuring there’s no way they’re selling this game for $10. Another lengthy conversation follows with an I’m sure very tired and confused Best Buy employee who tells him the price is correct. I will give him props for listening to Best Buy’s word, even though he refused to put him on speaker phone.

FIDDY HAS FAINTED! WAL-MART IS ALL OUT OF POKEMANAGERS

At this point, Fiddy, realizes he’s lost, makes a snide comment to the Best Buy guy about how games are “a waste of time” and he doesn’t play them or know what they really cost, and he says will sell me Pure “and only Pure” for $9.99, which is all I wanted to begin with.

He and a cadre of assistant managers continued to glare at me as I pay for the game, like I’ve legally shoplifted it, but hey, Wal-Mart shouldn’t have such policies if they don’t want to honor them.