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Whither the Impulse Shopper?
An essay discussing the frustrations of the pre-order graces the pages of GameGirl Advance today. From the article: "I have had explained to me this morning, very pleasantly by an earnest young man, how there will be no PSPs available for drop-in customers on Thursday, and how, because of this, if I haven't pre-ordered, I won't be getting one for months, windfall tax refund or not."
First things first: hooked on phonics is a nice catchphrase and all but it will only allow you to gain the skills needed to function in the very lowest sphere of society. Here's a hint.
Next thing up: as I've grown older and lost a lot of free time, video games have sunk in priority. Therefore, the whole notion of a pre-order is of no value to me. I operate on a much slower cycle for video games and the new games in my collection are almost always last year's hits. The only recent exception being the latest GTA, which I got right around the day it was released - first week, I believe. But I still did not preorder. I simply found a copy in Best Buy that had been misplaced or hidden by someone within the horror DVDs.
Update For for the dupe. Not going well. Appreciate all the hate mail. Really encourages improvement.
I'm trying to be an adult about this and buy my PSP Value Pack with my tax refund. But they've made it so that in the gaming world -- not strictly limited to the gaming world, either -- you have to buy anything you might actually want to buy weeks or months in advance of its release. I can today, at least for the next couple hours, pay fifty dollars to "pre-order" something I will not get until Thursday no matter what. My tax check has yet to make an appearance and I've promised myself, PSPs being the sorts of things tax checks are for
I've run into this attitude before. I've dated girls who wanted to go on vacations *now*. Future and retirement be damned. More money will come from somewhere down the road, *right*?! Why plan for tomorrow, when you can squander today?
Seriously. There is so much wrong with the opening paragraph of that article, I can hardly decide where to begin. Before we have the issue of being so impatient that you can't wait awhile for the arrival of a stupid VIDEO GAME... we have the issue of you treating your tax refund like some sort of windfall. Like it's a gift from the heavens, rather than hard-earned money that you should have had your hands on the entire time rather than handing it over to the government to earn interest on throughout the year.
Really, have some patience. In fact, rather than wasting your tax refund on a stupid videogame, you could be really crazy and invest it. Or just stick it in the bank. When you're older and able to afford a life beyond that of eeking along on Social Security, you'll thank yourself. And whatever sucker has been snared into spending his life with you will thank you, too. Remember, there isn't always going to be mommy and daddy (or someone else) along to take care of all your necessities. You may have to pay for your own dinner once in awhile. You might even have to pay for your own rent, mortgage, transportation, health insurance and groceries. And those things are decidedly more important than some "PSP" (okay - granted I have no idea what a "PSP" is, but I'm presuming it's a videogame of some sort).
Of course, the frustration of the opening paragraph applies to both genders, but this is an article by a female on a female oriented gaming site, presumably wanting people to take females seriously. So... there you have it. I replied accordingly.
I usually order my games through Amazon.com. Sometimes I'll know I want a game months in advance of release and I'll place an order on it. Saves me from having to remember later.
Other times, I won't know about a game I want until it's too late to pre-order. Or I'll only decide the day it has been released that, indeed, I do want it after all. In those cases, I'm usually able to find it within one or two stops. If not, I just go online, order and wait for it to arrive.
Really, it's just a game. Who cares? It's not like I'm trying to replenish blood pressure pills before they run out or something.
Oh - and as I've mentioned before - why are you (article's author) treating your tax refund like a lottery check? That's hard-earned money that you handed to the government all year long that you should have had the foresight to claim properly so you could have put it to use, earning interest, in your own hands. Really, the way people treat refunds like a *gift* is beyond me!
You've got a pretty cheap ass for a gamer.
"WTF is an "impuse shopper"?"
Quesiton: Is this an indication that whoever posted it is stupid, or are YOU stupid for not being able to replace the missing L?
"Derp de derp."
Is this an indication that my comment is stupid, or are YOU stupid for not being able to see that it's a general comment on the lack of proofreading in the title?
Peace.