Morts Musings

It’s been a couple of weeks since my piece about the ethics of Christmas, and with the silly season still ongoing I feel the need to engage in another festive rant.
The post-Christmas sales, or New Year’s sales if you prefer, are another mid-winter tradition which marketing monkeys seem to have convinced us are a must-do holiday event; As if it wasn’t enough that people have been running around like headless chickens throughout December, and in some cases November too: buying gifts for distant relatives, tasty treats for over the Xmas period, and stocking up on essentials, just in case the country grinds to a standstill under a centimetre or two of snow; we’re expected to continue the shopping frenzy through into the new year, as the retailers, who a week earlier were mostly charging us top notch for the pleasure of wading through their crowded stores, in search of that special something, now expect us to go through it all again, as they desperately try to shift all the stock which they weren’t able to sell us in the lead up to Christmas.
However, for all that the stores are still manic to the point of inducing “pedestrian-rage”, at least the New Year’s sales offer some decent bargains, and even an old curmudgeon, like myself, can’t grumble, too much, at a bargain, even if it does mean wading through a sea of vacuous shopaholics!

Still, the sales’ attraction to me is purely pragmatic; they’ve got stuff I want, it’s cheap, I’ll go buy it and then get the hell out of the shops as soon as possible! So it confuses me how the marketing people have yet again managed to hype and glamourize, what should be a series of simple financial transactions into some kind of major must-do holiday event in it’s own right. Are they really that good at their jobs, or are people, in general, just really easy to manipulate? I guess the answer’s a bit of both, but that the latter is especially true if the words “bargain” or “sale” are involved; everyone likes to think they’re getting a good deal, and apparently that extends to buying pretty much anything, even things which we didn’t necessarily want or need!

What I really don’t get is stuff like this! Why on earth would an online multiplayer game feel the need to mimmick real world craziness & hold a holiday furniture sale?! I can see the point of struggling round the shops looking at sofas if you need a real settee, but honestly does your make-believe elven wizard really need a new dining table? I thought these games were meant to be about killing monsters, collecting “phat” loot, & “grinding” for levels? not the finer points of interior design & furniture arranging! Don’t get me wrong I spend a lot of time playing computer games, even these kinds of computer games, and accept that as hobbies go it’s all pretty sad, but surely this is a new nadir in the world of fantasy gaming?!
I’m wondering if the sorts of people who would partake in such a fanatsy furniture sale are just Sims players who’ve gotten lost? Yes, very prejudicial of me, but even geeks need someone to look down on. *grin*