Rant 140 19/5/12 Subject: Playing with demand

Rant number 140


The tricks that people play in the high street really do grind my gears. I think though though that the worse one of all is playing with demand.

I was going to buy a game today from a shop in town - only to find that they have all sold out - alongside all of the other retail outlets.

I mean, did they not expect people to want to buy the product?

Of course they did, but they are playing games with demand.

This kind of trick gets played all of the time by people who release their new products - trying to increase demand and keep it high by holding back stock.

Now that would work well for me, except - I'm not really that impatient. I'll just hang on until I can get it - or my enthusiasm to purchase it runs out.

You can't tell me though, that the companies who manufacture popular products like games cannot produce enough to satisfy demand: that's just bull.

Games are sold on DVD's - which are one of the cheapest commodities in the Western world, there is no shortage of these available now are there? Even we as the general public are able to buy blank DVD's for pence these days.

No - the reason they do it, is to try and keep the price up and to create a 'hype,' so that people will purchase through their expensive online store. They did the same thing with the Nintendo Wii - and milked the marketing strategy for bloody ages - like years. This served a double purpose of increasing demand and of helping to mask the shortcomings in the game lineups and hardware.

Its really not that bloody hard to ascertain that you need to make more of a product that is popular and use the chuff loads of money you have made to make more, but they won't until they feel that the strategy is at the end of its run.

I hate being played for a mug by anyone, and just think these silly games are stupid. I have no plans to stop attending the high street - but this kind of thing is just more likely to send me towards using online services exclusively.

Then there is the fact that it panders into the hands of the unscrupulous bastards on eBay, the fraudsters and those who break copy protection. Short sighted strategies do damage in the long run every time.

It really annoys me.

Rant over.