Purchase is Participation

[Archon]

Purchase is Participation

Am I hardcore gamer? I play video games perhaps as few as ten hours a week, but still think of myself as a hardcore gamer. It's because I spend $100 or more a month buying games and game related products. And my philosophy is that "purchase is participation."

My philosophy began in tabletop RPG and wargame circles, where it's very common to buy rules sets and games with no expectation of ever playing them; simply reading the rules is enough. I now take it one further and don't even read the rules anymore.

Likewise, I didn't have to read the entire insufferable Wheel of Time series. I own them. All. In hard cover. That's enough to make me a hardcore Robert Jordan fan, no? Nor did I actually ever watch the extended edition LOTR DVDs. I bought them and that's what matters. Whiz Kids Games has built an entire business model out of purchase by participation. Does anybody actually ever field all those Heroclix they buy? I certainly don't.

If you haven't considered this philosophy I urge you to consider it. It's very freeing. Take, for instance, massively multiplayer games. In most of you, there's still probably that small twinge of guilt when you pay EA $20 to buff your new UO character when you reactivate, because you haven't raised your skills the traditional way. Now you can buy skills guilt free. You earned them.

Or even more broadly, consider that by purchasing a gym membership, you needn't work out. Purchase is participation; that percentage of your paycheck going to club dues alone is making you fit. Buying vegetables and putting them in your refrigerator frees you to eat junk food during the work day.

So, what do you all say? Who's with me? Let's go buy some games, put them on the shelf to collect dust, and feel good about it. Because we're hardcore.

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[Lex Darko]

That's an interesting way to think of being a gamer.

Hmm, after looking at my own view on the subject I see this philosophy of purchase is participation as purchase puts one foot in the door to a community. Actually interacting with the community is what puts your other foot through the door. So while purchase may in some form be participation that person is missing out on the community he/she is claiming to be apart of.

So to someone who only believed in this philosophy I would say you have a lot of open doors waiting for you to walk through.

 

[Archon]

Ah, the true beauty of Purchase Is Participation ("PIP") philosophy is that it lets you happily participate in the communities of games you've never played. Heh.

 

[Goofonian]

The funny thing is that by actually making purchases, your contributing a whole load more to the industry than a truly 'hardcore' 12 year old kid who spends 60 hours a week playing pirated games and participating in communities such as online forums.

I think I might shed a tear if I actually have a look at all the money I've spent on games I've not done justice to. I bought metroid prime 2 the day it came out and have played it for around 2 hours, now its in the bargain bin. I paid full price for shadow of the colossus and after beating the first 2, decided to play through ICO first. I just finished ICO and will be picking up shadow again very shortly, now that its gone platinum and I could have gone and bought it for half price.

It's funny, a little while back the decision was made to not purchase any more games until I'd finished the ones I was currently playing. Then despite having not gotten through metroid or prince: two thrones, guitar hero, god of war, ico, colossus and psychonauts all mysteriously appeared in my game pile. bugger.

 

[DrRosenRosen]

In the context of physical objects, it sounds to me like Archon is describing a collector. It could be stamps, insects, baseball cards, or anything you'd like to imagine. In terms of the intangible, as in the gym membership example, perhaps it's peace of mind. I might feel better about myself if I paid for a gym membership even though I didn't use it. I could go whenever I felt like it...

 

[Jonatron]

I don't get this article at all. I want to buy my cake, eat it, then enjoy the burp a while afterwards. And it'd better be a damn good value burp.

 

[twcblaze]

I'd have to say I disagree with this theory, sure, you're contributing to the developers, but essentially, if you buy a game and don't play it, all you've bought is the disc and not the experience within... sure in some games that might be a sweet release (here's looking at you, ninja gaiden) but in other cases you're just robbing yourself of the whole reason you bought the game in the first place.