How Publishers Exploit Your Confusion And Your FOMO (The Jimquisition)

Kraken

Among the other depraved sins of this kind of pre-order pressure, it's also a kind of stealth pay-to-win. "You don't want to be one of those 'newbs' who doesn't know where to go or what to do or the optimum loadout for maxed DPS when you start playing, do you? Good luck finding a team that's willing to put up with the burden of your inexperience if you go the 'peasant' route, loser" is the not-entirely-subtle message of most multiplayer games that go this route- even ones that forsake the PvP aspect entirely. Or, given the increasingly crowded release schedule and possibility that the game you bought will turn out to be a flop because you were pressured into buying it before seeing a review, you could just get to it right when the population of the servers is starting to ebb, which is always fun. Barely have they got your $50 ($60... $75... Do I hear $100?) before they're telling you you should have put your money away for the next "unmissable" experience.

Trevor Bond

Another reason I've bought something like 3 games in the past 8 years.... too many shell games.

Anthony Blanker

You got the right one, at least. xD... But yeah, it's getting silly.

Rachel Sandler

I don't know if it was intentionally confusing to boost sales or just a mark of how convoluted Kingdom Hearts (and the naming scheme) is, but I had some FOMO trying to buy Kingdom Hearts 3 this past week. It's been a looong time since I played 1 or 2 on my PS2, and I've never played any of the other games, so I wanted to re-play all the games available on the PS4. There's a "Kingdom Hearts: The Story So Far" disk and a "Kingdom Hearts: All In One Package" digital version and there's also Final Mix and 1.5 Remix and 2.5 Remix and 1.5+2.5 and I got so fucking confused that I just closed my eyes, bought "All in One Package" and am now hoping that I'm not missing out on any story. Not that the story is possible to follow, but I'd like to give it a try, at least. And I consider myself pretty good at untangling things and making logical decisions, but I just couldn't follow this one at all.

Dr. Judge, Private Eye

I feel like Anthem is going to bomb. Hard. And Bioware will suffer for it while EA learns nothing.

Aaron Hatton

All this BS is one of the reasons I almost exclusively play single player games.

Perpetual Noob

Good lord. So there's only one way to play Anthem on February 15th. 2 ways to play 10 hours on Feb. 15th. And everyone gets to play on the 22nd. What a freaking stupid mess. There's more clarity with Kickstarter campaigns. Also, congrats on the title belts. And I loved that ending. :D Someone throw Jim a life preserver! Save the belts! ;)

Perpetual Noob

And I'm already drunk.

Freakish Uproar

^ As the marvelous Mrs. Krabappel would say... "Ha!"

noxamillion

My two takeaways from this video:<br>That is too much effort to obfuscate a consumer.<br>Do not participate in a drinking game where you take a shot for the number of gold editions a Ubisoft game has.

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