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Gaming Impulse Buys

Posted by Bob Mackey

Gaming is an expensive hobby, and freelance writing is not exactly a lucrative career (no offense to my kind, handsome bosses). So, when it comes to buckling down and buying a game, I tend to split my time between fretting and doing online research for hours on end. But with certain games, something just snaps and shuts down the reason center of my brain--which tends to operate even when I'm drunk. I've fallen victim to the siren song of music games so much that I really should have started to notice a pattern in my life by now. Let me break it down for you:

- 2000: I walk into my nearest Funcoland (coincidentally, the worst name for a business ever), see a new copy of Samba de Amigo and the maracas, and promptly hand over $120 + tax. I had no idea why I was even in the store in the first place.

- 2001: I see an official Konami Dance Dance Revolution bundle featuring the game plus a dance pad. Inexplicably, I find myself buying it. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

- 2005: What's this? Taiko Drum Master? At this point, it had been marked down to twenty bucks, so it's probably my least impulsive impulse buy.

- Today: I get a fat freelancing check in the mail, and my paycheck was just deposited in my bank account last night. I immediately drive to target and purchase Rock Band 2 against my will. IT IS HAPPENING AGAIN

Mind you, I had the common sense to be ashamed of myself. Here I was, on the income of a student and in economically insecure times, buying 200 dollars' worth of fake instruments. When the kindly clerk rung me out, she asked if I was buying it for myself, to which I sheepishly lied, "It's a gift." I don't expect Target to save me from myself, but they don't need to know about my secret shame.

So far, it's been worth it; I've ignored these guitar games for their generally lousy (in my opinion) track selections, but being able to play Weezer, The Cars, The Pixies, etc. is right up my alley. I just hope said alley is nice and warm for when I'm homeless in the future. Also, a place to crap would be nice.

Related Links:

Warner Music Wants More Royalties
The Economist Weighs in On Music Games
Wii Music: A Rare Miss For Miyamoto?

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Posted Nov 14 2008, 06:00 PM

Filed under: music, gaming culture, bob mackey, rock band 2, gaming habits, capitalism

Comments

Roto13 said:

Looking at music game track lists isn't necessarily a good idea. I hate pretty much every song in Elite Beat Agents, but they're fun to play a game to.

I impulse anti-bought today. I was going to buy Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World but it wasn't there, so I ended up spending my money on a Movie Gallery card that basically entitles me to rent seven games for the price of three, and wait for Christmas for ToS. So yeah, I was going to buy a game and then, on impulse, I decided I'm not going to.

November 14, 2008 8:45 PM

Demaar said:

On the bright side, you get a bunch of cardboard boxes in the bundles. I'm much the same really.

I basically broke down in April after it was announced that Rock Band wouldn't be coming out here in Australia until November (which is, well, now) and imported the game + drums and guitar. Then come Rock Band 2 I did the same thing all over again. Add in a bunch of MS points and you can see that I have some kind of sickness myself.

November 17, 2008 8:26 AM

About Bob Mackey

For a brief period of time I was Bull from TV's Night Court, but some of you may know me from the humor column I wrote for Youngstown State University's The Jambar, Kent State University's The Stater, and Youngstown's alternative newspaper, The Walruss. I'm perhaps most well-known for my bi-weekly pieces on Something Awful. I've also blogged for Valley24.com and have written articles for EGM, 1UP, GameSpite and Cracked. For all of my writing over the years, I have made a total of twenty American dollars. It's also said that I draw cartoons, which people have described with words such as "legible." I kidnapped the Lindbergh Baby and am looking to do so again in the future.

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Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

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Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

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