Poll: Entertainment You Refused to Purchase due to Principle Alone

[PainInTheAssInternet]

As the title says, have you ever been so revolted by something involving a piece of entertainment apart from the product itself that prevented you from purchasing it?

Since I'm the OP, I'll be a jerk and take the most notorious recent example; Aliens Colonial Marines.

I enjoy Alien through Alien 3 to an absurd degree (I still have a place in my heart for Resurrection, but screw the AVP movies) so I really really REALLY wanted to get Colonial Marines to 1) come out and 2) be good. I had the Extra-Special Super Duper Uber Edition that allowed me to wield Ripley's jury-rigged Pulse Rifle/Flamethrower combo, have the skins of some (not nearly all) of my favourite characters (I like the precious skins) and have a power-loader model.

Then the reviews came in and I got a refund before going in and retrieving it. The guy at the desk informed me that all the pre-ordered copies that arrived at the store were being cancelled (though it is a small town here in Waterloo, Ontario). You know the story of what happened next, so I won't bother wasting any more of your time.

Bottom line is that I was so revolted by the revelations about the development of this game that I just couldn't buy it. The sheer gall that either Sega or Gearbox had to slap a season pass for DLC even after being lambasted for the base product and Pitchford's promises made at a time when he surely would have known it would be a failure really didn't help. The whole thing just reeked of a cynical, mean-spirited attitude that Aliens fans like myself would buy anything related to the franchise and the quality of the product just wasn't that high a priority for that reason. I got the strong impression that they didn't care and thought of us as blind fanboy/girl idiots.

For people questioning why it was the epicentre of a shitstorm, that's why.

I fully acknowledge that it may have been a fun experience that I would have enjoyed, but I simply cannot enjoy it with that impression of their intent.

So once again, is there something that you might have enjoyed but refused to buy because you were against something related to it?

EDIT
I feel that I should also mention that I refuse to buy anything relating to the product even if it has fixed some of the problems. Yes, I am spiteful and yes the production bothered me that much.

 

[Zhukov]

Oh look, another person who mindlessly listened to a review for Colonial Marines instead of actually playing the game before making judgement, how goddamn original. You should of actually played the game. It's was nowhere near as bad as everyone made it out to be.

I always find this attitude hilarious.

If all games were available free of charge, then fair enough. Sadly, in our world, in order to play the game one would likely have to pay for it. As in, with genuine currency. Currency that could be used to purchase other, less shitty things.

As someone who has played it (for free on a roommate's console) I'd say that would be a very silly thing to do.

Why oh why would anyone shell out cash for a product that has been met with nigh universal derision?

...

OT: I gave L4D2 a miss on account of the Australian censorship business. Even refused to pick it up when Steam made it free for a couple of days.

 

[josemlopes]

Oh look, another person who mindlessly listened to a review for Colonial Marines instead of actually playing the game before making judgement, how goddamn original. You should of actually played the game. It's was nowhere near as bad as everyone made it out to be.

I always find this attitude hilarious.

If all games were available free of charge, then fair enough. Sadly, in our world, in order to play the game one would likely have to pay for it. As in, with genuine currency. Currency that could be used to purchase other, less shitty things.

As someone who has played it (for free on a roommate's console) I'd say that would be a very silly thing to do.

Why oh why would anyone shell out cash for a product that has been met with nigh universal derision?

...

OT: I gave L4D2 a miss on account of the Australian censorship business. Even refused to pick it up when Steam made it free for a couple of days.

To be honest you could buy it for less then 2$ so it really needs to be that shitty to not be worth the price.

 

[Buzz Killington_v1legacy]

Yes. I could go into the details, but they deal with the kind of Shakespeare esoterica that only I and about fifty other people find interesting, so I won't elaborate (unless someone really wants to know).

Long story short, though: I didn't try to see a recent Shakespearean production that I would have otherwise really enjoyed because of a detail unrelated to the show.

 

[FalloutJack]

Oh look, another person who mindlessly listened to a review for Colonial Marines instead of actually playing the game before making judgement, how goddamn original. You should of actually played the game. It's was nowhere near as bad as everyone made it out to be.

Oh look, another abusive wiseguy who forgot to read the code of conduct.

OT: I don't have an X-Box. And as such, I don't have any of their games. And while some of their games might've tempted me, there were plenty of turn-offs as well. Halo is one. Halo is something I wouldn't touch because I did not like the way people overreacted to it. It looked okay, honestly, but the thing is that it was JUST okay, not special. It doesn't gain as much attention from me as one of Atlus' really strange games. But even though I have founf myself loving games put out by Atlus, I don't shout and carry-on about their work with nearly as much energy as a Halo fan. The excitement is internalized, zen-like. I enjoy the games. And games that people seem a little uhhealthily attracted to? Worry me.

 

[RedDeadFred]

No. If something looks good and I have a large amount of confidence that I will enjoy it, I will buy it. I don't care if it has things like day 1 DLC. I don't like that, but it's certainly not going to stop me from having a good time with a game. The dev's don't owe me anything.

I don't buy games with DRM though. It's not really a principle though, it's just because I don't have great internet. If I had outstanding internet, then I probably wouldn't care.

 

[ZorroFonzarelli]

I grew up an old-school Star Trek fan. There is no way on earth I will ever watch one of the new Abrams ST movies, read any books, or play any games of them. They crap all over the franchise, and turn a 40+ year running established mythos into another comic-book reboot.

It sickens me. People will discover in time just how much they screwed up something awesome.

But there's absolutely no way I'd enjoy them to begin with.

RIP Star Trek
1966 - 2005

 

[thiosk]

Im a steam user. I am not interested in most other digital distributors, partially because I find Origin and EA unappealing, but mostly because I'm tired of remembering more registration information. The games that activate through steam but still require additional login to GFWL or the UPLAY scheme are likewise unattractive, and I now screen purchases against that, after making some mistakes with ANNO2070 and one of the warhammer rts games.

 

[Zeke17]

Ender's Game the movie releases this january in my country and I just will not see it, even though it looks interesting and is part of a genre I love, I can't stand that writers anti-gay talk. Even if he would not make a penny of it, I still am not even remotely interested in what stuff such a bigoted mind spawns.

You didn't miss much. I really like the book but the movie didn't do it justice at all. It's the first Harrison Ford movie I've seen in which I think it would've been better without Harrison Ford.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II. I played through the original enough times to have gained an appreciation for it. I was hoping that the Force Unleashed would be a new anthology series taking place at different points in the Star Wars timeline, showcasing little-known Jedi or Sith of exceptional power and filling in gaps in the greater Galaxy's lore here or there. The first game answered a question nobody asked and was a nice, insular experience with closure: Something a lot of games are lacking recently.

Then Force Unleashed II was announced...Starkiller is returning...despite the canonical ending killing him off...and his quest this time around is to save Juno Eclipse...who he loved...

...

NO! I'm sorry but that is just WRONG. That is bad behavior to be punished and ya know what? If Lucasarts being purchased by Disney is the punishment than so be it. The Force Unleashed had infinite possibilities but it chose the laziest way to continue from a somewhat promising start. Force Unleashed II does not exist as far as I'm aware...it can exist as fan-fiction I suppose but aside from that, no. Cloning has done more damage to the Star Wars franchise than Time Travel has done damage to (insert here because I can't think up a good example)

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

Yes. I could go into the details, but they deal with the kind of Shakespeare esoterica that only I and about fifty other people find interesting, so I won't elaborate (unless someone really wants to know).

Long story short, though: I didn't try to see a recent Shakespearean production that I would have otherwise really enjoyed because of a detail unrelated to the show.

Your name takes this post to a new level of hilarity.

It's was nowhere near as bad as everyone made it out to be.

Yes. Yes it is. It's completely atrocious on nearly every level.

OT:
My feeling has always been that a principal is something that should stay in school. If I want to buy something, I will, outside influences be damned.

When I refrain from buying things it's because I know probably won't like them.

 

[lacktheknack]

Oh look, another person who mindlessly listened to a review for Colonial Marines instead of actually playing the game before making judgement, how goddamn original. You should of actually played the game. It's was nowhere near as bad as everyone made it out to be.

If it was free, then you'd have a point.

As is, reviews are specifically there to tell us if it would be worth a purchase. Literally EVERYTHING said about A:CM pointed to "nope".

Tell me more about how I should have to invest a whole day's worth of pay into something that everyone says I'll hate.

OT: Assassin's Creed 2 and its many subsequels.

Now that the Always-On DRM is gone, I'll probably pick them up when they go on a huge sale.

 

[kickyourass]

Well there's Ender's Game for a recent example, if Orson Scott Card was just a bigoted asshole that would be one thing, but this level of active crusading against 'the gays' is another entirely.

Also the Xbox One, I don't care what the current features are, I don't care how much they changed it, and at this point I REALLY don't care what games are on it. The fact is Microsoft was 100% willing to basically cripple the gaming experiences of basically everyone who played on it. I am not going to support a company that has that much hostility towards their consumer base.

Other than those though nothing comes to mind as something I refrained from on principle alone, most of the time when I have a moral reason for doing that it's coupled with a measure of confidence that probably wouldn't have liked it as well, so I'm not sure that counts.

 

[Signa]

Plenty of things. I won't buy anything that has DRM that I can't tolerate (limited installs, always online), I won't buy needless sequels (Bioshock 2, Skyrim), and I will boycott certain companies that I dislike (EA, Ubisoft), unless a really good deal is offered for a game that is more likely to impress. So far, none of the companies have managed to convince me to break that promis to myself.

To be fair, I did pick up Bioshock 2 when it went on super-sale. $5 is hard to say no to, especially when there isn't anything inherently wrong with its design as a product.

 

[Bruce]

Simcity.

I found that Diablo III was pretty much unplayable, and thus decided from there on in to not buy games with always online requirements on principle.

 

[Zeraki]

Oh look, another person who mindlessly listened to a review for Colonial Marines instead of actually playing the game before making judgement, how goddamn original. You should of actually played the game. It's was nowhere near as bad as everyone made it out to be.

If you actually read what was written in the OP, then you would know the reason they refuse to buy the game is due to Gearbox's shady business practices during development. One of which was showing a false pre-rendered "gameplay" trailer to trick people into believing they were getting something completely different, up until the game came out. They also flat out lied about a lot of what was going to be in the game. What Gearbox advertised was literally not the game that was released. So yeah, people have every right to vote with their wallet and not support sleazy crap like that.

Allowing them to do something like that without calling them out on it can lead to a dangerous precedent, where developers/publishers can get away with similar things in the future.