One excuse for poor buying habits that comes up time and time again is:
“It’s my money, I can spend it how I want!”
And if you say that, you’re absolutely right. You can spend your money however you want, that’s an important legal right you possess, I wouldn’t take it away for the world.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t complain about how you spend your hard-earned money. You see, when you buy something, anything, then you’re effectively saying “Okay I’m going to give you money because I want this, I’m supporting you and the way you operate.” This may not seem like a bad thing and it’s not necessarily bad – in fact, it can be a great tool to make the industry a better place.
But sadly, it’s usually not used that way at all. Using games as an example, when you buy something with, say, on-disk DLC and excessive DRM, you’re saying that “It’s okay, even if you have on-disk DLC and excessive DRM, I’ll still support you.” When enough people do that, then the company has no reason to stop, and, logically, they’ll think if people accept this, then they’ll accept even worse things that are more controlling.
It doesn’t stop there, though. If one company can get away with it, then other companies will start to think they can get away with it, and eventually all or almost all companies will have anti-customer policies, and then I won’t be able to experience all the great game series I love (and this extends beyond games too, it’s the same for anything you buy) without stuff getting in the way. And if there’s too many things in the way, it won’t be worth experiencing at all.
All I’m asking is that you be a responsible consumer. You have the internet, do a little research before you buy something, find out the producers’ policies, find the cheapest price, etc. Think about more than your own personal needs and think more of the rights of all the consumers (which is everyone, even corporate big wigs buy things, including games).
So, indirectly, whether you realize it or not, how you spend you money affects me and affects everyone around you. That’s why I can complain about how you spend your money.
While I do wish more people would vote with their wallets the right way, it doesn’t appear to bother the majority of “gamers” (or their parents who buy them these games). From a console point of view, it’s really sad, because gone are the days of expansions (well almost anyway… It’s so rare these days that it might as well have disappeared), and instead we get mindless dlc for more weapons, different skins for our characters, or something equally useless.
There also seem to be a trend where they are pushing you to pre-order in order to get the most out of the game, which really gets on my tits. Take the latest Metro (ranger mode) or the last and the next batman games (play as a character which ties into the story). If you don’t pre-order you can still get these things, but you have to pay xx dollars for it. It’s especially bad with Metro as they even market Ranger mode as the way the game is meant to be played. REALLY? Why take it away from gamers who support your product then?
Gah, I’ll stop ranting before I make this post a real longwinded rant
yep, theres only ever a small outcry about these types of things. Dlc has gone to shit yeah and it’s nearly always overpriced garbage, I miss expansions too. Pre order bonuses are COMPLETE bullshit, they shouldn’t even exist or if they do it should be something like a tshirt or a neat pen or a poster or the games soundtrack or something.
And hey I don’t mind long rants at all as you might’ve noticed
This has been going on for a while now. I wonder where it’s going to…