Later today I’m heading for a burger. A patty of minced
meat, layered with an array of epic toppings and placed between two soft halves
of a brioche bap. Excited. The price for this delicacy? About £8 or £9, pretty
standard. If I have a pint with that? About another £4.
Here cinema trips are an expensive thing these days?! In
Belfast you’d now pay near £7 for a cinema ticket! £7 for two hours watching a
multi-million dollar production, up on a big screen with surround sound. I mean
when you compare that to the price of a burger… Erm.
I’m one of these dullards that thinks about money quite a
bit, how I spend it and how I’m never really saving enough. I’ve a lot of ideas
about the concept of money and value in relation to hobbies, particularly games
and film. One is to do with our general perception of price and another is do
with that piracy malarkey. Might not get both points splurged out in here and
if I do there’s fair chance you’ll just disagree with me anyway….
Point one: Why do the majority of people have such a wide
difference in value perception between food/drink and other forms of entertainment?
I was guilty of it myself for years. I wouldn’t spend £40 on a new game for a long
time, thinking it’s way too expensive. Yet during the same years I’d happily
spend £40 on a round of triple vodkas and black aftershocks (I’m older than the
Jager Bomb craze) Next morning I’d have an empty wallet, a sore head and the toilet
bowl would be my favourite chair for the day. If only I’d bought that game…
Multiple hours of sober, non-stomach-destroying fun. I’m still kind of guilty when
it comes to the cinema. There are times when I think ‘let’s save money and wait
to the cheap night,’ yet I wouldn’t think twice about blowing the same moolah
on a pizza delivery.
That’s pretty much that point done, hardly seems blog worthy
now… Basically next time you look at buying a thing on Amazon and think nah it’s
too expensive, consider how many hours you’ll enjoy it for compared to a pint
or burger or a dress you’ll wear once (hey wife!)
Point two: It’s related. You think the cinemas too expensive
and who can blame you? Just go online and you can stream it to your TV or
tablet without paying a penny. Yeah here we go, my thoughts on piracy. I’m here
to declare that you’re all bad people. Not really, because then you’d stop
reading…. And also because I’ve probably, maybe done it before myself. Unless the
authorities are reading this. It wasn’t me.
I’m just sharing and rambling. I’m a big fan of film and
games and if I really want to see or play one then I want to pay for it. I do,
really! If you had offered me a perfect stream of Civil War to watch at home on
opening weekend, I’d have turned you down. I wanted to see that on a big screen
and I want that option to stay open. These films make money of course, so there’s
no feeling sorry for them but if everyone used the likes of Showbox? Well then cinemas
would close down, films wouldn’t be made and I’d go on a rampage (of mildly
angry tweets)
I remember reading about Scott Pilgrim, a film I really
like, about how it didn’t make half as much as expected. One of the reasons
cited at the time was that it’s the target audience are the sort of tech savvy folks
who just downloaded it for free straight away. Imagine if those people had paid
for a cinema ticket instead. The world would be completely different, I mean we’d
probably have Scott Pilgrim 2…
TV’s a weird one as half the reason the big shows get
downloaded is because UK folks don’t want to wait for a channel here to show it
days after the US or sometimes we don’t even get them at all. Sky took an
interesting move with Game of Thrones, airing at the exact same time as the US
(so about 2am here) as well its traditional 9pm slot. Because who has the patience
to wait till 9pm?! I want my boobies and dragons at 7.30pm damn it.
Games? Piracy seems a lot less prevalent than it was in the days
of chipped PS1s. I’m fond of a bargain and pick up loads in online or store sales,
but still feel a mild sense of pleasure that my money is going to the creators
of something I like and hopefully that means they’ll create more. A few years
ago I bought an indie title called Armillo after it dropped to less than £3. I
read bits on twitter and gaming sites about how it hadn’t sold well and how this
small team of developers were disappointed. I played the game, I enjoyed it and
hell I actually felt bad that I had paid so little for it (admittedly not bad
enough to send them more money, but the point kinda stands)
And that’s the point. Oh you missed it… Free stuff is great,
but if you really like something it can be nice to spend a little on it too.
Totally up to you though, no judgment here. If everyone spent like I do on
music then it’d be a very quiet world (I like music obviously, just feel less passionate
about supporting that industry)
Overall point: Money is a weird thing and if you really
think about how you spend it, or what you view as worth spending it on then..
You’ll have done some thinking. Hurrah! I made you do that.
