Dear Future Gamer

I have to disagree with Jonathan White's ideas about perceived value being a 'fatuous concept' (FG41). It's not a matter of volume, but value. His own example of tabloid newspapers proves the point - broadsheet newspapers, being bigger, are most often more expensive, with broadsheets being above 50p while smaller tabloids are around 30p.

I recently bought an Aureal Superquad from a local retailer for £50 and was given a card in an anti-static bag, with the manual/driver disk attached with an elastic band. I have no complaints - theoretically it was plenty of protection for the card - but I would still have preferred it to have been boxed, even though the boxes just get chucked or 'stored'. If I'd handed over £150 for my Voodoo3 3000, only to be given a card in an anti-static bag and the driver disk held on by an elastic band, I don't think I'd have been as happy as I was. Budget games used to be sold in their CD case form, but more recently you'll find they're released in the same big boxes the younger releases are.

Having been interested in psychology for some time, I can quite believe the perceived value concept, which is why at another local retailer that sells secondhand PC games, boxed ones go for about half to two thirds of their original price, whereas un-boxed games go for about £5. It may not be right, but the human mind still answers to primitive drives, hence the reason sex still sells, and bigger is still quite often classed as better. If everybody thought completely logically then yes, it wouldn't make much difference (and Tomb Raider probably wouldn't be in its fourth incarnation), but behind all the higher brain functions provided by our larger brains, we still have the same set of instincts of our predecessors. As such, I get much more satisfaction from purchasing a nice, big, shiny boxed game than if I just bought a CD case containing the game.

It may not be right, it may not be completely logical, but that's the way it is.

Ronnie Lawson

FG: This box thing could run and run couldn't it? Suffice to say, yes, we do perceive goods with high production values as being 'better' than those without. We know it's not right and we know it's not completely logical and we know it's likely to stay that way. Time to move on from big box ponderings, methinks.