Lurker > Doe

Avirosb posted...

Nintendo alone does not own Pokemon.

I think "The Pokmon Company" would be more precise language, but the point pretty much stands. The owner(s) of the Pokmon IP have no incentive or desire to compete against themselves.

Avirosb posted...

Fan artists are regularly commissioned to create art of intellectual properties they don't own the rights to, and frequently do so.

I don't know that commissioned fanart IS legal technically. Though it certainly does happen, as does the knockoff manufacture of say a Pikachu plush. However, in terms of commodities, neither of those are really interchangeable with the official merchandise, so when it comes to something like these recent Pokmon Van Gogh themed merch, it's basically Pokmon Company who is fully in control of its supply.

@StealThisSheen posted...

...Okay, wow, yeah, we're done, here. You're going to defend scalping no matter what, you've proven that.

Instead of a Twitter clapback, I would appreciate you taking a moment to explain what you think scarcity is and why the second hand purchasers of a limited good are creating the scarcity, rather than its manufacturer. I think I'm a reasonable poster and I'm certainly one of the more left-wing posters on CE, and I'd like to resolve our disagreement on this rather than posture and split off.

StealThisSheen posted...

At the end of the day, anybody pretending to be "anti-capitalism predators," and yet defending scalpers... Well, they're just bullshitters.

"Defending scalpers" is very loaded language. I don't think anyone ITT thinks scalpers are some kind of force for good on Earth, or that they aren't greedy. For me, I think that people place an irrational amount of anger at scalpers because they feel entitled to something's list price, when the list price is arbitrary. The company outright could get away with charging you just as much as a scalper does (or if not you, then enough people to sell out their stock).

StealThisSheen posted...

This argument also seems rather shortsighted, since... Nintendo literally does not benefit from artificial scarcity.

Branded IP merchandise is effectively a form of monopoly because nobody else can create that same product. You can't sell it unless you've already bought it from Nintendo, who can choose exactly how many of say a Pikachu van gogh plush exist. So yes Nintnedo benefits from artificial scarcity. It's as artificial as scarcity exists, enforced by law thus ignoring competing market forces.

StealThisSheen posted...

It's the scalpers that create the scarcity, since they buy up all the product before actual normal purchasers get the chance to.

If scalpers buy up let's say 90% of the stock through bots (which is wrong categorically but beside the point on pricing), they still did not create the scarcity. Nintendo chose to only create that much product. Also, scalpers collectively have weaker market power than a single company, since scalpers are each out for themselves and thus compete with other individual scalpers' prices.

Retailers are only not allowed to "price gouge" in the US in specific circumstances ie for necessities in time of emergency. Price gouging itself doesn't really have a single definition but the idea is prices beyond a 'reasonable' level taking advantage of the buyer's inability to wait or seek alternatives.

Otherwise, retailers can basically charge whatever they want for whatever they want. The theory is that market forces such as a competing retailer lowering their prices will force such retailers to bring theirs down, and where that eventually lands is 'reasonable'. Of course in reality capitalism benefits owners and producers over laborers and consumers.

StealThisSheen posted...

I have to assume Doe is a scalper, because that is... Quite a defense. Imagine arguing "Scalpers wouldn't be able to make money if the initial price was higher to begin with," and thinking it's a good argument.

That's literally the fundamental thing people are annoyed with about scalpers. Just a moment ago you said they "artificially" raised the price as if the merch the Pokmon Company pushes out is the state of nature. It's not, it's a profit business.

StealThisSheen posted...

Again, this ignores the fact that scalpers artificially set the price by taking advantage of limited supply

But... the price of scarce resources is a directly a function of supply. That's how scarcity works.

What makes the scalper's price artificial and the MSRP organic? They're both just named prices. If people are still willing to buy the higher price, that just means the lower price was an inefficient business decision. Do you see what I'm saying?

There *does* exist a price where Pokmon Company could sell all of their stock but where scalpers would not make an effective profit. That price is around where scalpers are setting their price. If that price was the MSRP in the first place, then scalpers wouldn't be able to raise the price without finally turning off the buyers.

If you're thinking "the scalpers can just raise the price again", well no they can't, because whatever price scalpers were originally selling was already the max possible price. Otherwise scalpers would have named that price in the first place, since as you point out, they control the supply.

Basically, the only difference between the company MSRP and the scalper is that the scalper is willing to ask for the price people are actually willing to pay for it, while the MSRP for these items has been underpriced.

StealThisSheen posted...

You don't see anything wrong with purposely forcing people to pay far beyond market price, out of nothing but personal greed? Really?

Not trying to be semantic, but scalped items are at market price. Nobody is forced to pay any price that any scalper chooses to list their bought product at. The fact people do buy from scalpers indicates the prices scalpers list the items at is closer to the market equilibrium rate (the price where the demand for it is equal to its supply) than the MSRP was.

My point is that if the Pokmon Company or Taylor Swift listed their toys or tickets at the same price scalpers would take them to, they'd still sell all of the supply. If that happened, would they be as 'wrong' as you consider scalpers to be?

StealThisSheen posted...

You realize scalping exists far, far beyond "plastic toys," right. People scalped basic human necessities during COVID, for example. Ticket scalping has also always been a thing, and so on. This seems like an extremely narrow view of the problem.

If you read my full post you'll see I directly address how scalping life saving goods is wrong, since people's lives and health shouldn't be determined by their wealth.

The thing is though, scalping hand sanitizer isn't really what these conversations center around, is it? I remember some specific news stories during COVID about stuff like that, but in the OP post they're talking about Pokmon merchandise. Probably the most infamous scalped item in recent memory was the PS5.

Ticket scalping a concert, I don't see what's worse about it than a Pokmon Van gogh shirt or a PS5.

archizzy posted...

Then you probably wouldn't believe the true story about the movie 127 hours.

GranolaPanic posted...

Wasnt there a real story of a mountain climber having to cut off his own leg off after a bolder crushed it? It was made into a movie with James Franco.

I read his first hand account a long time ago. IIRC the amount of time his arm was pinned basically killed the flesh in his arm already from lack of circulation. So it wasn't as painful when he got around to it as doing the thing in Saw 1 would be.

it is greed obviously. I do think the narrative that scalping is particularly evil is kinda lolzy. They're buying up (typically) plastic toys that were made limited in the first place by the distributing company's production decisions.

Scalpers try to find the max price people are actually willing to pay for the goods, but that means the actual company could've just sold the stuff at that price. People ITT are mentioning you can't find stuff at MSRP. Then the MSRP is below market rate, and the Pokmon Company is making a mistake. If the original MSRP was set at a high price so that there were only as many genuine interested buyers as there was product, would that be considered as 'greedy' as scalping is? I don't think so, it'd just be 'normal', collector items are sold for absurd MSRPs often. Scalpers are hated because they're viewed as effectively "stealing" the good deal (MSRP below buyer's maximum price) from people not interested in selling the thing later. But then what entitles you to the good deal over the scalper?

It'd be another matter if the thing being scalped is a necessary good or life saving good (eg hand sanitizer in a pandemic). But Pokmon Van Gogh t shirts being scalped is pretty mild

Now in the case of using bots to bypass lottery style distribution systems against their terms of service, obviously that's unethical, maybe outright a crime.

This Mexico episode is so weird

Keiko O'Brien in season 2

I have wired Sennheiser HD 560s

Once you know, you can't go back

specialkid8 posted...

That's...clearly not what he's saying.

"Slavery wasn't strong enough to break up the black family, but welfare was"

mf just made me click on a YongYea video

I've only read Catcher in the Rye.

It's great, obviously.

Shalhoub won the primetime Emmy for best comedy actor for this episode

"What are you doing in there, what is that?"

"It's my will"

dude was more traumatized by this child than by the asylum

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/8/2/AAcZIZAAE4Rq.jpg

Final boss of the season: airplane

darkace77450 posted...

Dude just blamed Obama for America's high healthcare costs. They're not even trying.

They're absolutely trying btw. just not to tell the truth

Tonight?

I had my fill with the first one I think, I just can't imagine a significant new development here since we already felt out the candidates. @ me if they bring up Trump's valuation fraud liability

Woah. Did you try exiting and restarting the game / your computer? Just in case. I had a weird bug before which that fixed.

Otherwise you may be able to roll back the game to previous patch

IDK how we still have articles with the tone of 'skepticism' when anybody not drinking the koolaid can see it's not a healthy development cycle going on. It's problematic to promise features to people doing special preorders and then indefinitely delay the delivery of that product via feature creep. full stop

spikethedevil posted...

Any links without a fucking pay wall?

I always throw the link into archive.org and generally one of the saves of the webpage is the full version

Block_that_Kick posted...

I just cant imagine the thought process from this dude.

Null_Gain posted...

I don't know what he was thinking. He thought he was in a lot of trouble before with the assault charges; then to go and do this? Oof

He wasn't action rationally, obviously, humans love doing stupid things in the moment

Background_Guy posted...

So I guess they decided he's too useless to even be used as a propaganda tool? Wow.

Dude deserted from his US-SK post into NK. He was walking propaganda for them. Better to give him away now that they've savored it rather than kill him and indicate they're no better. The guy they put on trial they could paint as an American aggressor, this guy they painted as a victim of America.

MICHALECOLE posted...

Did you see asteroid city? They did wheel around the sets

they ran from set to set

you know what. bad example. maybe I just think the trailer is very twee

Zithers posted...

people say this about every new wes movie

i'm pretty sure its just his style

I mean with this I think it's being played up from this story book angle where a child's mind is putting together the imagery as the story is being told. Contrast with a trailer of his latest, Asteroid City, and while it's distinctly Wes, we're not seeing people wheel around the sets. The x-ray shot would never happen in most feature length Wes films. Like the people in most Wes films still have an awareness of what's truly unnatural, eg people's reactions to the aliens. In this trailer the main characters don't have so much as a pretense of inhabiting the world around them.

The Fantastic Mr Fox is his best movie

This project looks like a self-parody of his style

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELqdLvz60zA

MC_BatCommander posted...

Tomb of Giants and Duke's Archives are both fine

"Fine" is a stretch when they're utterly miserable to play even if in a form intended by the devs. For Archives the real issue is Crystal Cave but the forced death is also stupid.

In DS1 after doing Anor Londo you have like four areas of shit left to do and yet there is no more to look forward to except Gwyn... that is unless you treat the DLC as the next area and forget about the original stuff.

Meh

Staged

I think you guys greatly overestimate how important mods are to Skyrim. Based on the available sales data, for instance, the median gamer played Skyrim on the Xbox 360.

Mods definitely helped prolong its cultural influence in terms of viral shit like Thomas the Tank Engine dragons, but in no way is the game unplayable without them. I played Skyrim on the Xbox as a teen and it was a great time with no mods.

Then there's the little phenomenon of 'modding enthusiasts' spending far more time curating mods and adjusting their load order than they do ever being immersed in the game.

also are any of those flags official? They're all words words words

The only thing I'm loyal to is Paarthurnax

Mothman is a good dude

People are too interested in prequels as a whole. Or specifically, wanting to see events described for world-building or character background as stories. I mean if you think about it, the fact the great war or journey is only mentioned indicates the actual story you're already playing must be more interesting than that idea would be in practice.

It's almost impossible to have a jrpg-size adventure that doesn't describe a part of someone else's life or the world's history in a way that would lend itself to a story on paper. That's just because time and history are continuous. But besides brand recognition and fanservice, making one of those your next story just puts a bunch of restrictions on what you tell to make sure events line up.

Better Call Saul is awesome, but I think the fact it's the prequel to Breaking Bad is the weakest part of it. You can't make episodes about people being "In the game" and their lives threatened when you know they never so much as lost a finger. That's not to say being a prequel can never function favorably for the work, but in general there's a lot more downsides than upsides.

boxoto posted...

what do you mean by companion?

I'm playing as Wyll, so I'm wondering what I'm missing out on, lol.

I mean if you play as a custom character ("Tav" since that's the default name) then when you find Wyll you get to engage in extensive dialogue with him all the time and hear him react to events happening to your party. But AFAIK if he's your origin character then you're not gonna experience him as a person nearly as often, and even when you can choose dialogue options specific to his story, they're not voiced.

boxoto posted...

also, besides being able to alter their appearance (and having access to race/sub-race specific stuff), is there any benefit to playing a custom character over an origin character?

If you play as an Origin character, that person can never be your companion. Since you won't have a main character for them to bounce off of you'll be missing a lot of dialogue content.

The only Origin character who is not a companion is The Dark Urge. Be aware the lead dev is on record discouraging using the 'Durge' on your first play-through, though it's not the end of the world if you do

I had Shadowheart use that for all of Act 2 and then some

Beveren_Rabbit posted...

Mr. Robot is an incel fantasy for normies. If the MC didn't have sex with his drug dealer the first episode it wouldn't be praised. If he wasn't having sex normies wouldn't be able to tolerate the show.

You come straight off from /tv/?

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Mr Robot is totally different genre. That's in the league of Breaking Bad and Saul

Relient_K posted...

Never seen Columbo but psych is my favorite show. Is it good?

AFAIK Columbo sort of originates the niche of the quirky detective appearing dumb while walking all over people. The episodes start with you seeing the murder committed and the murderer, then the rest of the episode is learning how Columbo figures them out and beats them. Sometimes other officers don't even recognize Columbo is a detective, and he has a disarming whimsical vibe that makes him appear harmless to the killer. But then at the end of a scene he'll famously ask "Oh and one more thing..." and hit the perp with a tough question that reveals he's already figured out far more than he was letting on.