Poll: Entertainment You Refused to Purchase due to Principle Alone

[Raikas]

Huh, when I read the title of this thread, I thought it was going to be one of those questions about giving money to artists with questionable sociopolitical views or with criminals pasts - but no, it's about Aliens Colonial Marines.

But to answer the question, I'm generally happy to support the creation of entertainment that I'm likely to enjoy - I imagine that I have a moral line somewhere, but I've honestly not seen a product be that I was interested in fall be released by some company or individual who fell on the other side of that line.

 

[Ieyke]

Have an Xbox, refuse to own a 360 or Xbone on principle. The RROD bullshit and all that they tried to do with the Xbone are just unforgivable.

Refused to buy anything from EA since they ruined Battlefield 2142.

 

[DoPo]

Dunno if it counts, but Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. Now, don't get me wrong - I love the game, and I have the CD version already, however, it would be quite more convenient for me to also get it through Direct Download service of some sort (well, there is Steam, GameFly, and I think one other that offer it, but it's mostly Steam, to be honest). Yet, I the thought Activision would get more money for it from me is not that appealing. I'm OK with other people buying it - I even have it on my wishlist on Steam just to be notified for sales but I just won't do it. Honestly, even if somebody happens to buy it and gave it to me as a gift...I think I wouldn't accept it.

 

[loc978]

Everything that requires Origin to run, from Sim City to Mass Effect 3. Same with anything that requires Games For Windows Live (with some sadness. I wanted to support Gas Powered Games, but they signed on with the devil), and (after one ignorant purchase) UPlay.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Have an Xbox, refuse to own a 360 or Xbone on principle. The RROD bullshit and all that they tried to do with the Xbone are just unforgivable.

Refused to buy anything from EA since they ruined Battlefield 2142.

That right there. The 360 looked like it had some good games but I never got one because the whole RROD thing really tuned me off. The fact that it was a known problem that took them so long to fix, it just shows real disregard for the consumer.

 

[nathan-dts]

Dragon's Crown, I guess. Will grab if it's ever free on PS+.

 

[The_Scrivener]

Killer is Dead.

The misogynistic minigames turned me off big time.

 

[shogunblade]

With the exception of the movie, I refuse to buy anything Watchmen related, from the two games, to the modern date graphic novels that are out now, to clothing or merchandise. I realize that people have a big issue with the movie, but I did see it, and I think on its own, it works as well as it does, but I really don't want to own anything else.

I refuse to buy most game sequels, especially if I think the games are perfect the way they are. I love the Max Payne games, so Part 3 will never see the inside of my house or game system, for that matter. Two ended wonderfully.

If my sister hadn't bought the sequel first, I'd have stopped with the first God of War game. That was the best ending to that game. Kratos did not need a half a dozen spinoffs, personally.

Due to the previous established sequel rule, I will never play Bioshock 2, and probably not Infinite, but I hear that is quite fun, and it's not a continuation, but an extension of the series, so to speak.

I refuse to watch any sort of parody movie (Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox story aside), or typical horror film, so unless it's getting great reviews, I tend to skip most of those films, and sometimes, even the ones with good reviews are bad, so I still tread on thin ice, oddly enough.

 

[O maestre]

All EA products... that unfortunately meant Mass Effect 3 was and never will be a part of my collection. I don't have to explain why EA deserves to be boycotted now do I?

 

[Vivi22]

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.

Yep. The OP should clearly go pay money for every game that gets critically gutted as one of the worst ever made before he decides whether it's worth playing or not.

I'm sorry, but even if the game were free, it deserved the lambasting it got based on the lies told leading up to it's release alone.

 

[Diddy_Mao]

For a long long time I absolutely refused to buy anything produced under the LucasArts or LucasFilm umbrella.

I'm not a die hard Star Wars fan and even I was starting to get annoyed at George's attitude towards his flagship franchise and the fans that made it popular. (An attitude that could politely be defined as contemptuous.)

I don't suffer any illusions that Lucas owed anyone anything. It's his creation to do with as he pleases.

That doesn't mean I have to line up to pay for the constant stream of disappointment.

 

[Vivi22]

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.

If you've never seen them then how do you know they crap all over the franchise? I mean, it's fine if you choose not to see them because of things you've heard that make you think that or because people told you they do, but you can't actually state that they crap all over the franchise without watching them.

And saying the franchise died with those movies is a bit much. We already had Voyager and Enterprise to crap all over the franchise and kill any chance we had of the previous continuity continuing any time soon, if ever.

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

Wanna know how much money EA got from me in the last years? Maybe 10-15 bucks a year when a 5-10 year old game i'm interested shows up on the budget table.
The only exception Mass Effect.

What did i skip.. hm. Definitly Sim Shitty, most Ubisoft stuff: The last games i bought from them was AC II and Call of Juarez 2. The first was as boring as it's predecessor and the latter was just not good and everything that followed from both was either bad or boring. Or both.
Then after D3 Blizzard has to create something really amazing before i buy anything from them again. After crushing WoW with everything after BC (and also late BC) and killin' the Diablo franchise for me they're basically of 0 interest to me.

Hm, that's actually about it: Blizz/Acti, EA and Ubisoft. If i make ME an exception EA only got money for Mirrors Edge (good decision), APB (bad decision) and Plants vs Zombies (good decision) since 2008. And maybe a Fifa game since i usually buy one every +5 years.

If i look back on my last gaming years 95% consists of Mobas, MMOs and Indy games. With Portal, Borderlands, Elder Scrolls and Saints Row in between. And hundreds of hours of Civ

 

[Gizmo1990]

Some stuff. I will not get an Xbone. I don't care if they removed all the DRM stuff the fact is they tried to screw us over so they will not get my money.

In reguards to games I will always try it before I judge it. I guess the closest I got was DMC. I did not like the look of the trailers and yes I did not like the new look Dante had and I was (and still am) of the opinion that a reboot was unnessasery so I did not want to support it. At the same time I love Devil May Cry and could not complain about it without playing it so I got it pre owned. My money did not go towards Capcom's profits, so I did not support a reboot I did not agree with and I am able to say that I think it was an unnessasary, easy puddle of mouse piss with something other than fanboy outrage, guesswork and assumptions.

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

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.

A couple of others spoke in my defence, but I should speak for myself.

I realize that I phrased the post poorly, but I had pre-ordered the $100 package. This decision would truly make it unique amongst my entire gaming library as I have picked all my games from the bargain bin for $20 since my early 2000s PC days. Even my PS2 and PS3 I got for about half their original price (PS2 was even lower) because I bought the PS2 right before the PS3 came out and I got my PS3 about 3-4 years into its lifespan. Bottom line is that I'm very cheap when it comes to gaming which further highlights how unusual this decision was because I'm that big a fan of Aliens.

After the reviews started to tear it apart, I decided to cancel it because I only was willing to spend 5x my regular amount of money on something I'd really truly enjoy which the reviews strongly stated that it would likely not be the case. After that, I decided to wait until the prices went down and then I would pick it up from the bargain bin.

Then I got the news of why things went wrong and it painted the entire advertising campaign in a new light. Then I became too revolted to touch the game even if they attempted to rectify it. Hence, I continue to refuse purchasing this game on principle.

Incidentally, I am not mindless. I have watched LPs on it and it hasn't improved my perception of the game or the story it's trying to tell.

EDIT: 5 people have refused to purchase my mother. So that's nice.

 

[w9496]

Nope. If something looks good, I don't care whether or not the creators eat children or worship Satan, I'm going to at least rent it.

Doing something on principle sounds a bit unreasonable to me, especially with something as trivial as video games.

 

[sethisjimmy]

GTA V. I didn't really feel comfortable supporting the weirdly hateful position it introduces on transgender people.

However I did want to play it eventually, so I picked it up used.

Pretty impressive game mechanics wise, but I found the narrative elements meh.

 

[bug_of_war]

I won't buy needless sequels (Bioshock 2, Skyrim),

Just out of curiosity, why do you believe Skyrim to be a needless sequel?

OT: Nope. I refuse to purchase things when I think I wont like them, but I don't see the reason to deny myself a piece of entertainment because of some external factor.

 

[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.

Created an account, so I could ask you to elaborate. I'm actually interested.

Okay, you asked for it:

There was a recent production of Twelfth Night at the Globe with Stephen Fry as Malvolio, which I would really have loved to see, but Olivia (the female lead) was being played by...Mark Rylance[footnote]Yes, a guy. It was one of those original-practices shows where all the parts were played by men.[/footnote]. I've seen Mark Rylance in one or two other things, and I liked the recording of Richard II at the Globe that I saw with him in the title role...but Rylance is one of those tedious people who's convinced that Shakespeare didn't write the plays attributed to him, claiming that other people[footnote]For instance, Christopher Marlowe or Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford. Both are problematic at best for different reasons.[/footnote] have better claims to authorship. He's gone so far as to sign the so-called Anonymous [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Reasonable_Doubt][footnote]I could go off on a whole other rant about that one, but I'll spare you. [/footnote].

Look, I love Shakespeare. Love it. I've been seriously studying it for over a decade now--I have degrees in this stuff, even--and one of the ways to reliably get my blood boiling is to support nonsensical conspiracy theory bullshit like, say, the idea that Marlowe wrote Shakespeare's plays when actually he was dead before Shakespeare had produced more than two or three plays at most[footnote]Told you he was problematic.[/footnote]. As a result, despite how much I would have loved to see Stephen Fry on stage, I refused to put any money in Rylance's pocket by going to actually see the show.

...and now I'll get off my soapbox.