By now, those of you who know me are aware that my local post office will not let me ship anything via Media Mail. I spoke with one of the clerks yesterday and he told me that the service is only for educational items and music-related things.
So I went to the USPS and looked at the new rules and regulations... and found that, in fact, videogames are most definitely
not elegible for Media Mail shipping. In fact, movies, software, or games are not allowed.
http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/173.htm
In case that's too much for you to read, here's a summary:
* Books that contain no ads for anything but other books;
* 16mm films (and film catalogs)
* Printed music
* Printed test materials
* Sound or video recordings (I believe these are not commercial ones)
* Playscripts and manuscripts for books, periodicals and music
* Printed reference charts for educational purposes
* Medical, loose-leaf pages and/or binders containing them
* "Computer-readable media containing prerecorded information and guides or scripts prepared solely for use with such media."
Note that it does not say that videogames, computer games, computer software, DVDs and VHS tapes are elegible.
I also asked why big shops like Amazon can use Media Mail, and they said that it's actually a separate rate called "Standard Mail", or something. It's just as slow, just cheaper.
So everyone who keeps using Media Mail had better stop doing it... or else you may get slapped with extra postage fees when your local post office starts to get anal about this. Well, at least now I can tell people who complain about me not shipping via Media to go read those rules.