It's E3 time, which is where the Entertainment industry tries to get you all very excited about the stuff they're coming out with. For me, it's the games. It's all about ... Buy our stuff. Preorder our stuff before we deliver. Kickstart our stuff.
But it's mostly about the getting you excited about stuff they want you to buy.
Yeah. The entertainment industry these days want our money. All our money. And they aren't that bothered about giving us all the product we want or all the product they promised. A big thing in the games industry at the moment is Downloadable Content (DLC), where they'll sell you the base game and then expect you to buy lots more bits and pieces for it. Flight Sim X is on Steam sale at the moment, you could buy it for £4 (I'm interested) with discount. All of the DLC (with discount) would set you back £177.
Crikey !
And you'd also be looking to spend £100+ on a flightstick and throttle to get the most out of that. I have a flightstick and throttle, I think it's essential for Elite. But I only spent £45 on mine (don't buy the Cyborg Fly5, it's trash, breaks early and the middle deadzone makes it awkward to use). My Thrustmaster Hotas X is a good bit of kit, I'm glad I ditched the Fly5 for it.
Where's this going ? I dunno ! I forgot. Oops.
Try to resist. Trust your judgment, not the shiny promises made my the marketing men. Figure out whether you can trust your sources. They may be taking incentives to promote the good while ignoring the horrid (I put no credibility in games mags, they continually promote awful buggy rubbish)
Personally, I never buy stuff when it comes out. The exception is the new Elite and the WoW expansions when I was still playing. Why wait ? Because you'll see the opinions of others, there are rarely important spoilers and discounts are usually not too far around the corner.
Why pay full price when a bit of patience will save you cash ?
Who do I trust for opinions ? I watch youtube people like Totalbiscuit, Jesse Cox, Hannah and Kim of Yogscast. TB gives dangerous first impressions videos, his enthusiasm for gaming is very catchy and I've bought a few games on his recommendation (that I've subsequently barely played!) because he made them look awesome. Similarly, TB and Jesse will usually not hold back if they see flaws in a game. That's valuable honesty. I'm not so sure about other youtube people, the impressions they give for games sometimes ignores the terrible elements of those games.
But I still love watching Hannah and Kim stuff, they're the two Yogscast people who I still regularly watch, the interest has waned from the rest. They either play games I have no interest in or they've ... just gone terribly boring, puerile or childish and most of all, only funny in their own minds. But they still have big audiences so their target audience must like them.
Mentioning audience ...
I used to think of this blog as a bit of a guilty secret, based on the reactions of people when I told them about it. Think of the Heinlein quote "writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards." I like that quote.
Recently, when I mention the blog or send links to post, I've been seeing people tell me it's a really cool thing that I'm doing with it.
That's the lovely lady who keeps telling me the posts are great posts. (All feedback appreciated, good feedback sends me wibbly)
There's our new finance angel (and she is an angel, with a look that gets more action from us than the cattleprod that we knew her predecessor had hidden away for us)
And everyone else who keeps coming back.
I see the hits coming in on the hidden hit counters and think it's awesome that people are stopping by to have a look. It moves this away from being that guilty secret to ... hey ! maybe I'm entertaining someone, getting them to think about stuff or just getting a chuckle or a smile.
If I do get chuckles or smiles, that's a major win in my book.
Ramble Detector ALERT !
Watched Mad Max last night - awesome film. The promise from the trailers is fully realised. It's an epic thumping of the senses but also has a bit of story, lots of attitude and some pretty decent characters too. Thoroughly enjoyed this one.
Back to work - and it was 3 days before a teacake was on offer. I may have faded away.
(Except I'm nowhere near fading away right now, need to lose weight again !)
An amazing lady's birthday is coming soon, hopefully she'll let me get her something shiny.
I should be doing my hard disc upgrade while the cricket's on ! After this.
I'm trying not to rant about cyclists with attitude problems who ride on pavements and/or ignore cycle paths.
Steam and GoG summer sales are threatening my wallet but I have mostly resisted so far (the old classic Homeworld and I'll buy Creeper World too)
And Lexus summer sale is being curious too. Only had this car for 17 months and they want me in the next one already !
Last bit - don't succumb to hype !
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