The Economics of Hype - deaduck's Blog

deaduck's Blog

The Economics of Hype

Posted on June 4, 2013 at 12:35 AM.

A few years back I started having some health issues that completely changed my life. Not life threatening,but simple matters are a whole lot less simple now.

Keeping a full time job is not likely without perfect conditions and I don't have the job skills to compensate for at home work.

Enough of the woe is me...the point is my economics changed.

What money that is available after bills has to be considered carefully. My situation is hardly unique and overall my life is good but what I found out is how susceptible I had became to hype.

The big movies of summer, the hot new games and so on...I was following along with the economic demographic that they were marketing to. And not because of quality or need but because of HYPE.

I don't need to define hype to anybody living in this mass media age. It surrounds us in it's all consuming embrace and we welcome it like a missing lover. Like a pack of giddy schoolgirls, my buddies rush to try the Cool Ranch Doritos Taco having spent a half hour decrying the Taco Bell franchise as a whole. Medically, I have abstain from this...but their disappointment is palpable enough I can taste it. "Not as good as I hoped" they frown.

So I can't rush out and buy the latest game...no matter how good it sounds...and I discover after the reviews and a few weeks pass, I am glad I didn't for most of them. But then there still are a few.

So if I buy them used, I still can't buy the DLC as it drops... and that stuff looks pretty cool. I will wait for the Game of the year edition.

I can't really afford the game of the year edition either. Until the price drops...then I realize...I am playing the best possible version of the game...bugs fixed, DLC added for a fraction of the cost...all because I couldn't afford the hype.