I wasn't sure where to stick this, so it goes in the off-topic section.  

There is a new book out, called "Buyology", that looks into why people buy.  Apparently research is saying now that strong brand loyalty matches what you see with people who are strong followers of a religions faith.  You can see this clip here on it (lucky it was up on Youtube):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f07NfbPbWA

So, if anyone who wants to try to be balanced (I realize that it is a losing battle in myself), and wonder why some people come off as the worst of human nature fanboys, recent research shows that it is because they have a religious experience, and faith.

Next thing you know, fanboys will be blowing themselves up at gaming conventions.

I'm a fan of this quote.

Our enormously productive economy...demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption...We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever increasing rate.

-Victor Lebow, retailing analyst
quoted by Vance Packard in The Waste Makers, 1960

Becuase it is hilarious, or becuase you truly believe it? I find it hilarious. If your life is only about consuming and satifying your immidate desires, your life will probably be satisfactory if you live in a developed nation, but you wiill not reach your potential in inteligeence or anything else, your life will lack meaning, and you will ot move humanity forward as much as you could have if you made that your goal.

In my high school, people who only focus on sonsuming (video games, movie, music, food, drugs, sex, ect) get worse grades,  orare phycotic, or are very self-centered and will probably not suceed very much once they get out of college.

I feel I am completly balanced in the video game market, yet I am religious. How does that work? I am assuming it is becuase I was tuaght to think analytically when making purchases, but not when following religion. Still, my personal opinion appears to contradict the theme of the book.

The theme of the book is looking into why people buy. There are examples of brands, like Apple, and Harley-Davison, where the product takes on religious overtones. Now, not every product will do that, NOR will every person have this, but numbers of people do. Apparently, individuals who are hardcore fanboys, their console of choice takes on religious overtones.

What the book says is that certain brands trigger the same part of the brain that is trigged in religious people with their religion. Hawkeye, in your case, odds are your videogame interests aren't anchored the way your religious beliefs are. But the unbalanced fanboy?

After all, who else argues about the importance of videogame sales in reference to their preferences, unless it is religious in nature, and they are defensive, or need to convert?

In my case, I do have a bit of emotional attachment still to the Atari Fuji logo, for example:

It is in my XBox Live profile.

Consumerism has become a kind of religion, look at how chirstman is now just as much about shopping as it is about the birth of Christ for example. Whilst I definetely don't subscribe to a view like that its pretty obvious that a great many people do. The world is getting increasingly fat, wastful and continues to buy more and more even if they can't afford it (see credit card debt etc). Just because something doesn't apply to you doesn't mean it doesn't apply to others.