Post facto rationalizations of behaviour are almost universally wrong.

Heh, this isn't supposed to be a thread about my psychology, now is it?

Well, that's interesting but I didn't stop going to video rental stores because their business model sucked. I subscribed to Netflix. I didn't stop buying used games at Gamestop because their business model sucked (or because they were too expensive because I've bought many dirt cheap games there). I stopped because the games no longer contained all of the content due to DLC codes instead of being on the physical disc. I'm really not arguing with your narrative because it's enlightening. I just think that you might be dismissing some criteria more than you should although I agree absolutely with the Netflix/streaming point you made as I've been clear to state the physically delivery was what moved me over.

If it was about convenience, then why didn’t you switch to Blockbuster’s DVD by mail service? In addition to a conventional mail queue you could also return movies and use your subscription in store, giving you the convenience of DVD by mail and the flexibility of in-store selection for the same price. It was a better service.

Unless it turns out that you didn’t actually switch to Netflix, you subconsciously fired Blockbuster and rationalized it to yourself in a positive way. Oops.

Here’s what Blockbuster looked like from a customer perspective at the end:
- You wait for weeks after a new movie comes out to rent it, because you know Blockbuster gets rented out of new movies and you don’t want to deal with that ****.
- You decide it’s finally time to see the movie. You get in your car, drive to Blockbuster, and go in the store.
- They’re rented out. ****.
- You ask an employee if they have any returned copies behind the counter you can rent. “No,” they say. “But according to the computer, we have 45 previously rented copies of the movie you can buy for $19.99.”
- “Oh **** off,” you think.
- You may not notice that it’s pretty suspicious they have so many rental copies to sell, but none to rent, but your brain does.
- You leave the store empty-handed, disappointed, and angry.

And then you switch to Netflix:
- You add the movie to your queue.
- You wait months.
- You eventually do get it.
- You’re never empty handed, disappointed, or angry, even when it takes longer or is actually less convenient.


Because it turns out that when people talk about things like “convenience”, they aren’t talking about quantifiable measurements of product delivery efficiency or personal effort. What they’re really talking about is the emotional state the product or service puts them in. And the scammy money grubbing **** Blockbuster and GameStop pulled was putting everybody in a pretty foul mood, whether they recognized it or not.

Since we’re still talking about busting I have to post this and point out how much I admire it for making subtext into text.

To be clear, I'm not laughing at you saying "haha you're too dumb to understand why you do the things you do". It's a well-researched observation in psychology and marketing. You truly don't know the real reasons why you do things. I don't, either. Nobody does. Our motivations are as inscrutable to us as a stranger's.

The people I'm laughing at are the business morons and analysts who don't get that. The media says streaming killed Blockbuster? They asked like 30 people, and they all said they switched to streaming. So it must be true, right? Well I can trick you into describing in detail why a **** sandwich tastes better than turkey on rye. So maybe what people say doesn't mean **** all.

But I never had those experiences. Not really. I don't remember having to wait an appreciable time on Netflix to rent a movie. I do recall them stating some films might take longer but they never took "months" that I can recall. I also don't recall being able to purchase newly released rentals that were unavailable to rent but it is likely that due to the overall inconvenience of renting films at a video rental store I had pretty much stopped before Netflix really launched. I'm just saying that the viable vastly more convenient options pretty much put the nail in the coffin.

One odd thing. Crash was like the number one movie on Netflix forever. I have no idea if they even list that stuff now but I enjoyed the film but number one for years? Why?

But not Blockbuster’s. How strange.



You’re grossly overestimating the convenience of Netflix. The vast majority of rental customers went into a store with no strong ideas about what they wanted to watch, only mercurial preferences about what kind of movie to watch that evening. The second largest group wanted to rent major new releases. DVD by mail didn’t serve these customers well: exaggerated wait times aside, you couldn’t expect to rent a new release on release day, and you couldn’t browse and choose a movie to suit your mood on movie night. But even if Netflix didn’t serve these customers well, they at least tried to serve them, instead of trying psychological tricks to convert them into a different kind of customer altogether.

You can stamp your feet and insist you’re different all you want, but the psychology of brand loyalty is clear. People do not abandon brands because other people are doing something better. They abandon brands because the brand starts doing things worse.

Here’s another example: by the turn of the century virtually every cable service and STB had pay per view on-demand. That’s about as convenient as you can get, isn’t it? Rent a movie by pressing a button on your TV remote, the charge will show up on your next cable bill.

So why didn’t it kill Blockbuster? Because convenience isn’t the only thing that matters. Because people still liked Blockbuster’s brand, it was a family outing. Because making your cable bill even bigger felt worse than spending the same money at a store.

But if you asked someone back then, they’d probably rationalize some nonsense about Blockbuster having knowledgeable and helpful employees or something.

Ehh, PPV was always 2-3x as expensive as renting (even at blockbuster). There were so many things wrong with blockbuster -- late fees tacked on even when you weren't late. Short return windows. Return windows differing based on what movie you rent. Aforementioned lack of having what you wanted to watch no matter how many times you stopped by. Kids bugging you to buy candy priced 5x the same candy across the street at the grocery store. That awful "movie rental" place smell.

Every once in a while I still rent from redbox/dvdexpress and although the initial price is cheaper, I still have problems with the late fees and rental windows hidden in the fine print. For example at DVD express if you rent a movie at 10PM you don't have until 10PM the next day to return it, you have until 7PM. <24h rental period is stupid. (Yes, I understand why they do it.) Redbox only has older movies.

Netflix DVD-by-mail was great while they were putting effort into it, but there were definitely drawbacks. You get what you get. I had movies at the top of my queue for years that never came and eventually were just deleted by Netflix. When they stopped focusing on dvd and went to streaming the dvd service just got worse. The entire website is impossible to browse now, they just force their own shows or the same movies you've already watched over and over. They deleted reviews, they deleted star ratings, they deleted any useful tool for judging the quality of a movie. I think they're one of the most user-hostile companies out there. Their streaming service went from awesome to terrible in a couple of years and I can't stand using it now. Stop advertising movies I've already watched. Stop showing me titles that I've skipped past hundreds of times.

The amazon streaming interface is ok but once they started pushing their own boxes they nerfed the experience on Roku. It's slow and all the images take forever to pop up. They have a big selection when you consider the option to rent but it's 2-4x as expensive as picking up the same movie at redbox/dvdexpress. Also why can't I just view a list of available movies ordered by release date? And I'm not talking about all the **** movies that never went to theaters. I'm not talking about the date the DVD was re-re-re-released.

I have the HBO add-on and there's no way to even sort at all, much less by some criteria I'd actually be interested in (genre, date added to HBO, rating, etc.).

The experience all around is really awful. I hope someday something else viable will show up. No, AppleTV isn't it, their apps are awful, the remote for the AppleTV is the stuff of nightmares, and they're coming out with yet another streaming service.

I think there are two pieces of good news out of all this: I never watch commercials anymore (even on TV shows via hulu). If I can't get content without commercials, I just don't watch it. Second, no more being forced to watch previews before watching a movie. No more un-skippable intros and FBI warnings and awful blu-ray menus. No more completely losing my place in a blu-ray because the player went to sleep when I was making popcorn and having to sift through those awful chapter menus.

Actually, I am different generally speaking. For example, when you're talking about used games at Gamestop being more expensive than new ones on the shelf, you're referring to recent used games. I didn't appreciate that point at first because I'm never even a recent used game buyer. I'm buying old, cheap games. But of course you're right. The video rental stores in general just sucked but when they were the only horse in town you were pretty much stuck. Oh, what is that you're thinking?



Yeah, like Brian said. Too expensive for me back then. Even today I don't like to digitally purchase a movie although I have a few, mostly really great deals or even free. At least slow shipping on Prime gets me $1 credits towards media so I do rent the odd film that I've tired of waiting for another legal way to watch.

ARE YOU ALL EXCITED ABOUT THE NEW STAR WARS GAME? YOU HAVE TO BE, BECAUSE IT IS STAR WARS AND A GAME AND YOU PLAY A JEDI WHO CAN RUN ON WALLS AND SLOWLY FIGHT STORM TROOPERS! YOU MAY ONLY SHOUT ABOUT THIS GAME BECAUSE IT IS STAR WARS!

hey don't be a jerk, what about all of those hazardous looking animations you can stop with the force button?

I'll try it :-|

Looks like a typical console linear cover shooter, minus the cover. Also yeah the fake hype is annoying.

What's with them literally having no characterization? I hope they do a bit more on release because what you see in the video has no story. Why should I even care?

Why even do all the climbing/parkour if it serves just as a way to linearly move from one location to the next (instead of gameplay reasons)? Is it just to mask the loading times?

Atleast the saber combat is not as awful as the Force Unleashed. I haven't played the singleplayer of Titanfall 2 so I don't know if Respawn is good or not. It's weird how Jedi Outcast, despite all of its flaws, has the most satisfying saber combat...

It's an EA game so I'm expecting very little.

How tragic is it that, as a lifelong Star Wars fan, I've been entirely too apathetic to watch a trailer for a major Star Wars game?

I wouldn't be surprised if EA just wants to get this singleplayer game out the door. If the returns on the movies themselves are any indication, this game could be too little, years too late.

It looks like modern Tomb Raider with lightsabers tbh.

I'll probably play it unless it turns out to be toilet on release.

Speaking of Blockbuster:

get urselve some of these to go with it:

http://ivaretailsupply.com/product_info.php?products_id=39

It's a Respawn game. They haven't made a bad one yet.

(it COULD be bad)

But the Visceral project was leaking bad news and drama for years before it got cancelled, and there's been nothing like that out of Respawn. The fact that EA's letting them use a non-Frostbite engine and make a straight singleplayer story suggests they're getting a surprising amt of autonomy. And they have a really good design process & good creative leadership.

I’m sure it will be technically excellent, but I’m not sure what can be said for a safe, management-sellable Jedi action/adventure game.

Like, based on that preview I can’t tell what this game offers that God of War 4 doesn’t. That’s a terrible sign, because God of War 4 had tedious gameplay but made up for it with amazing character work. I’m not sure it’s possible to make the character work in Owner of Droid compare favourably against Dad of Boy, no matter how good you are at game design. You’re always gonna be stuck working inside the framework of Star Wars, with its sterile morality and safe, neutral characters.

Kylo Ren ordered a firing squad to execute civilians before his organization committed mass genocide.

Can he be redeemed????

Honestly the prequels are so ****ing stupid. Darth Vader was evil in the OT, but not like "genocide" kind of evil, but just commanding bad guy kind of evil.

Then RotS has to roll around to where he goes school shooter over Padme possibly dying, the dumbest motivation ever in history. And you'd think literally killing children would make someone ****ing irredeemable.

Why is that crap even in the movie? Other than us laughing at the attempt at shock value.

Yeah, it's kinda weird having a main character like this, an almost happy-go-lucky kid going on space adventures with a buddy robot while puncturing grown men in the heart with a burning rod of plasma. I mean, Kyle Katarn was more justified doing what he had to do. What are they trying to go for here?

I mean, I know what you're saying and I usually give the benefit of the doubt. But EA has such a ugly reputation that's hard to overlook even if their impact may not to be so deep. Especially after the whole anti-consumerist, dangerous lootbox fiasco. It would take years of convincing from EA to build up trust (at least for me).

Now imagine this game, but instead of Generic Jedi you play a former imperial inquisitor, and instead of Generic Droid your companion is the force sensitive son you’re trying to protect from the Empire.

I’m sorry and you’re welcome.

Or maybe start off as a Jedi on the run and then become an inquisitor to realize power in tumultuous times.

Would that be morally outrageous for SW these days?

No, in fact it’s part of the new canon that some Jedi turned dark side and became inquisitors to protect themselves. Might sound risky to the octogenarian non-gamer, non-movie watchers who run EA tho.

Sorry for the bleed over from more political threads, but here’s a lil business observation for y’all. If EA were successful because they actually understand how to make and sell games, then they wouldn’t need to be continuously renewed with the blood of small studios. They’d set up internal processes and save themselves a lot of money. But they don’t do that because they can’t, they are run by people who don’t even give a **** about their own product.

The only reason EA still exists is because back in the 80s they accidentally enough money to afford exclusive rights to valuable properties. now they’re big enough that often nobody else even has the opportunity to bid on them, they automatically go to EA. That’s it. There ain’t no business magic here. They’re the rich kid who got a job in daddys firm.

So this single player Star Wars game. It’s not being made because EA has figured there’s demand for a single player Star Wars game. EA has to make it because Wall Street noticed:

- EA squandering their very expensive Star Wars license.
- EA’s obsessive focus on multiplayer live services games that keep making less and less money.
- EA executives talking **** about single player games.
- God of War 4

So they’re doing it because right now EA’s executives look ****ing stupid. Not to game customers, to investors.

I mean, it offers Star Wars, for one--just delivering a reasonably good Star Wars game hasn't been possible since way before the Disney acquisition, so it looks poised to clear that low bar at least. Has there been a SW game with a GOOD character-driven story aside from maybe KOTOR?

I agree the characterization isn't showing well so far (although w/Chris Avellone involved I'm hoping there'll be more to it that they haven't shown). But also Titanfall 2's campaign was pretty light on storytelling and still held up on really well on the strength of its mechanics & level design. That's what I'm hoping for--if the story is decent that's a bonus for me.


I will say I'm surprised at how hands-off EA has been with Respawn so far, as it seems uncharacteristic of them. They may wind up treating Respawn like Bioware further down the road, but who knows. For the immediate moment I'm optimistic, but your lack of confidence is understandable haha



It sounds like maybe you guys don't want to play Star Wars games

(1) Not really, but keep in mind that when Star Wars games were relevant the technology to create that kind of experience didn't exist. Dark Forces and Jedi Knight both established their characters much better than any of their cohort. Beyond that, Kyle Katarn wasn't boring. He was always much more conflicted and ready to commit violence than any other so-called "Jedi" they've shown in later media. He's basically The Punisher if he were a PG space wizard. This wasn't just about creating an interesting character for the games, either: it served the gameplay, putting reason to the player's agency. But more importantly,

(2) it was thematically consistent with the Star Wars media that we'd previously seen up to that point. Luke Skywalker was not a monkish pacifist in the movies: two thirds of the movies were about Luke resisting the dark side. Appropriately, two thirds of the Dark Forces games* were about Kyle Katarn finding his own path between the light side and the dark. This is what Star Wars was like back when it was good.

So my answer to this is: no, I really don't want to play Star Wars games anymore. Star Wars is boring now. It used to be about the characters and the adventure. Ever since the 90s it's been about sexless monks joylessly dismantling robots or meat-robots. There's already no shortage of games offering that. And most of those games won't remind me about how awful Star Wars has gotten.




EA is always hands off with new acquisitions. Not a policy thing; management doesn't want to associate themselves with new studios until they've proven themselves successful. Apex Legends saved EA's bacon last FY so it's raised Respawn's stock a lot, and that means there's gonna be an awful lot of EA managers trying to put their fingerprints on this game. Maybe you'll get lucky and get a good Star Wars game out of this, but mark my words whatever they do next is going to be ME:A tier.

I still play Star Wars games! Dark Forces and JK, last night.

I guess I'm just an aging dinosaur, though.

has anyone tried jkgr yet

Or any other emotion-lessly