Thursday, August 9, 2012

In a major coup for self-control, I resisted plunking down $170 on Kickstarter’s darling of the moment last night, though it was touch-and-go for a while. To be perfectly honest, this was technically my third time resisting, because I had actually backed it twice before. Backed it, and then promptly backed out after having second thoughts.

But with the funding period in its final hours, coupled with a limited brown edition of the hardware, I considered recommitting. In fact, I found myself on the payment confirmation screen, cursor hovering over the pledge button, before I talked some sense into myself. Indeed, I was on the razor’s edge, due in no small part to the limited edition offer.

I’m a sucker for those. For whatever reason, mixing scarcity and exclusivity hits all the right receptors in my noggin, liquefying my guards against marketing and rendering me extremely pliant. It’s not just game consoles, either. A limited run Beefy Nacho Burrito at Taco Bell? Yes, please, and quickly. A burrito would set me back only a buck or two, as opposed to the 170 clams I would’ve sunk into a brown Ouya. Then I realized someone was basically spray-painting it with an arbitrary color–and lacquering it, potentially, with a rich coat of my gullibility.