As soon as the calendar month tag flips to December, all hell breaks loose: the PR departments switch to hyper drive, Marketing overdoses on dirty tricks and retailers go out of their way to create a “new and exciting” web of promotions in which they hope the naive, unsuspecting consumer will get caught… again. No matter how old, cheap and obvious the whole ritual is, customers act surprised each and every time and go along with it, sacrificing embarrassing amounts of money on products they would normally ignore if it was June. I wish I could say gamers are special, that they developed some sort of immunity when it comes to advertising and that years of experience have thought them not to go with the flow, not to believe that shiny and cheap means better, and not to let themselves mind controlled by simple spells such as “Holiday Special!”. But … More