This story first ran on Kotaku Australia on December 5, 2022. It has been retimed for the Easter long weekend. We’re not here! Back on deck Tuesday! – David.
Earlier this year, we brought you a story about an EB Games promotion that sought to find the company’s earliest ever customer.
They weren’t necessarily looking to find their first-ever customer. That would be very hard to do. But they could try to get as close to the first as possible.
Sure enough, after all the searching, EB Games didn’t find its first customer. But they did find Clem from Charlestown.
This year, we searched for our EARLIEST customer! Sure enough we found Clem who visited our Charlestown store to purchase Zork Grand Inquistor all the way back in August 1998!
Thank you to all those who entered and congrats Clem, you’ve scored yourself our grand prize! 🎁 pic.twitter.com/0IQIVTcz3G
— EB Games Australia (@EBGamesAus) December 5, 2022
Clem purchased a copy of Zork: Grand Inquisitor on PC from EB Games Charlestown Square, just south of Newcastle, in 1998. He provided his receipt, which, as you can see in the pic attached to EB’s tweet, carries a date of August 2, 1998, at 1:13 PM. He paid $49.95. You can buy it on Steam today for $9.95, which seems kind of high to me, considering the game came out in 1997. It seems, in the scheme of things, Clem’s investment has not depreciated all that much.
The picture EB Games provided shows Clem holding the same box he purchased that day, some 24 years later.
His purchase was made around a year after EB Games commenced commercial operations in Australia. Its first store was at Sydney’s Westfield Miranda in 1997.
I don’t know why Clem kept his receipt filed away for 24 long years, nor do I understand how he managed to keep it in such good nick he could use it to prove he was EB Games’ earliest customer. Perhaps he did the same thing many of us have done over the years: tucked it inside the box and forgotten about it. Most of my receipts go blank after three days’ exposure to basic light, so whatever his solution, Clem’s clerical techniques have my utmost respect.
Congratulations, Clem, you are EB Games’ earliest recorded customer. I hope you enjoyed Zork: Grand Inquisitor. I remember it being pretty good.
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