Oh good. I was missing the "I'm totally advocating for you" since Tanooki cooled off. These conversations never get old.
Or they might just be greedy, purposefully creating artificial scarcity, to fleece the compulsive fans, and people desperate for physical releases in an increasingly digital world. While fueling the scalper market.
How do you know how or why they operate exactly, have you seen their inner documents or something? Most importantly, why as a consumer you would ever argue against your own interests?
You do realize that everything has an "artificial" scarcity because if a company produces too much supply they're left with unsold inventory and lose money, right? And a company that loses too much money goes out of business, which means now I can't purchase anything they used to make. Is that in my interest?
Your disbelief in how manufacturing works doesn't mean it's not true. Now, I don't know the specific lot sizes they have to deal with, but it is a very real thing. Anyone who did even a cursory look into manufacturing contracts would know it's a thing.
The whole industry is a luxury, hell as someone who comes from an impoverished background, the whole first world is a luxury in itself full of things that in decades past would be described as decadence.
What does that have to do with anything? Is it OK, to purposefully limit stock because is a luxury? Scalping is OK because its a luxury? Lootboxes are OK because is a luxury?
That was a good job misinterpreting what I said in order to continue your outrage train. The game already exists, as I said. Do you know why it didn't already exist in a physical form? Because it wasn't cost effective to do so in the scale that standard game publishers deal with. Here comes LRG; they believe there is a market for people who want to pay more for physical releases, and they're right. But they also know it's a niche market, because most people care about whether or not they can play the game. And guess what, digital games are very playable. That's what I meant by LRG being a luxury; they're satisfying the people who feel strongly about having something tangible to go with their digital goods. And you knew that's what I meant, but since it doesn't fit in with your outrage narrative you glossed over it.
It is ok to purposefully limit stock for anything that you can't classify as a necessity. Companies can't magically have more inventory show up just because you want to buy one. And if they misjudge the demand they can take a major hit. If you're selling a AAA title and ship 5 million units, but only sell 4.5 million the balance sheet looks very different then if you're selling a physical version of a digital release, ship 2000 copies and only sell 1500 units. As for scalping, you could argue that traditional retail is already "scalping"; they get it cheaper from a distributor than they sell it to you. Scalping is people taking a chance on the idea that they can get more money for something than they paid for it. I certainly hope you've never sold an old SNES game for more than $60-80 (depending on the title); selling Earthbound for $200 or whatever it goes for now is scalping. As for lootboxes, I feel that lootboxes that gate cosmetic or otherwise reasonably attainable content (e.g. Overwatch and TF2) is fine, but when the content is exclusive and materially affects gameplay or is hard enough to attain through free gameplay that the average player would feel compelled to purchase them then it's crossed a line. They should serve more as a reward for playing with the option to accelerate the reward, rather than a barrier to enjoy the game.
And again, why would you, as a consumer, wouldn't want for these things to be available for everybody, why would you ever be OK with having to be online at a very certain time, for a product that will go out of stock in less than a minute, and could theoretically be manufactured as much as demand needs it to?
It's not a question of want, it's a question of understanding the economic realities of the situation. I could create a long list of things I want that I sure as hell won't get because it's not feasible. Complaining about how unfair it is that you don't get something you want is the actions of a petulant child. I assume you've never tried to purchase tickets for SDCC or PAX; it's the same thing. Sure, with cons you have the fire code capping attendance, but as pointed out earlier, manufacturing contracts mean that LRG is just as limited in their ability to set stock. Now, let me float an idea to you. What if they made preorders unlimited within a two week window, but people at the tail who fall into a partial batch can have their preorder cancelled and their money refunded (e.g. 1000 manufacturing batch size, 2500 people preorder, the first 2000 get their item and the last 500 get a refund)? Would that be a better solution for you? Because that seems like a bigger feel bad for customers than "I didn't get one of these limited spots", which we're already used to for concerts and other such items.
Why would you ever argue against better options as a consumer? Even if everything you said was right, why wouldn't want to have a better deal? Instead something that benefits a business entity that makes profit off of you, instead of the benefit of you, and every consumer like you.
Again, I can want things all day long, but no amount of wanting will change some basic realities of the businesses involved. And it's certainly not worth getting worked up over. A mild "man, I missed out" is sufficient. When you miss out on concert tickets do you loudly complain that they should have used a bigger venue?
I'm sorry, but I will always advocate for consumer rights and call out bad business practices no matter what.
So fiscal solvency is a bad business practice now? I'm pretty sure it's exactly the opposite. And consumers do NOT have the right to infinite supply.
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
