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Procrastinato on 16 December 2009
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rajendra82 said:
Procrastinato said:

He's not laughing at people. He just doesn't understand it, personally.

If you like the kind of social experience Home gives you for free, I can understand why you might be willing to pay some small sum of money to spruce up the experience, for you and your friends, some.

People buy postcards, and plastic trinkets from vending machines next to bubblegum machines, for more. I think I understand it from that perspective -- which isn't to say I understand it directly, but I do see the similarity.

I don't understand why people spend money to watch movies in the theater (where the volume is always WAY too loud), when they could just rent the Blu-Ray at some later point, and watch it in their home theater with their friends, while eating better popcorn/snacks than are available at the movie theater anyway.  Yet people do it.  Lots of people.

I have never bought any XBox360 Avatar/PlayStation Home clothes, but I can see how some people might be tempted to spend a few bucks a week to splurge on those.  But to compare the guilty pleasure of those microtransactions to the sheer joy of watching a movie in a real theatre is plain silly.  I like buying Blu Ray just as much as the next guy, but to watch a Blockbuster movie on a giant screen with 4K digital projection (with 3D glasses on in many cases) beats the pants off anything I do at home on my 60" plasma and 5.1 Surround sound setup.  And I can never play the movie at home as loud as I want, because my wife always makes me turn it down.  One must be able to feel the bass thump of each explosions through the subwoofers as well as hear every line of dialog being whispered by a couple during their intimate moments in order to truly experience a movie.  And I don't go there for the quality of snacks.  If I am hungry before the movie starts, I might get some food, but I won't be doing it for the taste and not comparing it to someting I buy for that purpose.


Your take on the theater illustrates my point well.  I cannot stand the theater, because I have no control over the volume, and its always deafeningly loud.  On top of that, a single movie ticket is near $12 where I live -- I can rent a BD for less than that, and have a half dozen friends watch it, to boot.  I'd rather rent a movie and eat $70 in good food with friends, instead of having my eardrums sore the next day, and have to risk my life driving through traffic in a 3-car entourage to see a show at the local theater with pals.
From that "different things, different people" perspective, the Home/Avatar purchasing makes sense.