Tell Us Dammit: Would You Boycott Triple-A?

There’s been a fair bit of news lately about the local price hikes on games, and IT software in general. It doesn’t look like it’s going to end anytime soon, and the most common comment is along the lines of “Yeah, well, nothing will be done about it.” Everyone agrees what’s needed is for people to vote with their wallets. But are we willing to do that?

Publishers charge us more because we pay it. There’s no legitimate reason for us to pay higher prices on digital services, other than to get us to pay more money, and to appease the publishers’ relationships with retailers.

But, completely hypothetically, what would happen if we did decide to boycott the triple-A? There are certainly enough interesting indie games to line on for a long time, and surely many would get their triple-A games from other sources. Or perhaps the point would be that we’re willing to simply not play the games until we get fair prices. When I say “vote with your wallets”, that’s what I really mean. There’s no magical 2nd publisher making the exact same product you can move to. There are clones, but you want your game. Voting with your wallet, in this case, means telling the publishers they’ve actually gone so far that you just can’t pay for it anymore. At all.

This isn’t a fully thought through plan, nor am I saying I support it. I’m merely asking the question. Let’s speak broadly about it for now, even though realistically, specifics would have to be sorted out. There would have to be rules regarding retail vs digital, buying from overseas, piracy, etc.

It’s unclear what proportion of people would even be aware of such a boycott. How many people read the gaming sites, as opposed to just blindly walking into an EB and making a purchasing decision based on box art? Who knows.

But just very broadly, is that something that people could do? Imagine that triple-A title you’ve really been looking forward to is coming out in a month. Would you be able to commit to not buying it, to make a point to publishers?

[Image via Shutterstock]


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