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When you have a lot of time to sit at home and think, ideas pop into your head.  Like the reason we continue to shell out $60 for a Video Game,  $10-$15 to watch a movie in theaters, $2-$4 for a comic book; with possible knowledge that what you’re spending your money on isn’t worth the price tag. This has gone on for quite some time between the companies, the product, and the consumer. We go to the retailer and hand over our hard-earned money for a product that isn’t up to par. The scheme, is that the Retailer (aka the Middle Man) and the Companies make money this way. They will build up a product through extensive marketing schemes and make you think, “Hey this ______ is fantastic, I must buy it”. It sounds like their brain washing us, the consumer, but no, that isn’t where I’m trying to go with that example. Where I’m going  is that they trick people, those with bad impulse control, into purchasing something that won’t live up to that person’s expectation. We all have encountered these moments where we see a trailer and think its going to be good, see it later…and its not that good.

Classic example of this, and where it happens the most is in the Video Game industry. On an annual basis, consumers storm down to their local retailer and pick up a $60 game, expecting a solid product. The same can be said for movies when they hit theaters and comic books after seeing the previews. We spend time and money on a product that is either weak, lacks innovation or a combination of the two. The point being here, we need to stop buying into promotion and buy into innovation. If we continue to buy sub-par products or imitators, like Call of Duty or the iPhone for example, the companies will simply believe that is what the consumer wants, and will continue imitating and not innovating.  By not spending money, we send a message as a consumer to the companies that we won’t buy their product until solid, until it’s innovative, until it’s a stable release. We force them to make a better product or upgrade their current product to where it lasts; for the consumer and the company for years . PlayStation 2 is a perfect example of a great lifespan in electronics. For over 10 possibly going to 20 years, the PlayStation 2 has had a better life span than the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 systems. It was built to last and not to break down on you in 4 months.

I want to leave with this last thought, We have the “Occupy” movements going on about Wall Street and corporate greed. How about as consumers, we “Occupy ______” and ask for well-made products that live up to the hype that we hungrily feed into. If companies can put the time and the money into making a high quality trailer that gets you out of your house and into a retailer, movie theater, comic book shop or book store than we can put in the time to make sure that we do not fall into the trap the companies set for us to fall into.

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