Buyfaggery: Fuck Amiibos

Article, Buyfaggery, Video Games — By on February 4, 2015 6:50 pm

This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.

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I’m going to try to make this post as high-functioning as I can, but since this involves Nintendo I can’t promise anything.

What are Amiibos?

These motherfuckers.

These motherfuckers. $12.99 retail, but you’re gonna be paying a lot more if you want ’em all.

They’re simply fun, cute toys that you can connect to your Wii U or New 3DS (it’s a new form of the 3DS console, in case you don’t keep up on your children’s toy news) to unlock periphery benefits in supported Nintendo games.

You know, periphery benefits like costumes, new gameplay modes, and actual characters. Oh, and these are all exclusive to your purchase of Amiibos; you can’t unlock them in any other fashion.

Sounds a lot like DLC, right? Well, sure. If you mean limited-edition, retailer-exclusive DLC.

If you're confused right now, don't worry. The headache is part of the Amiibo experience™.

If you’re confused right now, don’t worry. The headache is part of the Amiibo experience™.

 

 

Limited-edition, retailer-exclusive DLC

Limited edition

And I don’t mean limited edition like you’d normally think.

Though I do mean that too.

Though I do mean that too.

See, Nintendo is keeping the supply of Amiibos low to the point where everybody who wants one (even at MSRP) is shit outta luck. And Nintendo ain’t keen on restocks. For some reason, Nintendo thinks it makes sense to drum up demand when you can’t supply.

We will aim for certain Amiibo to always be available. Due to shelf space constraints, other figures likely will not return to the market once they have sold through their initial shipment.

So if you want a character, you’d better buy it ASAP, cuz there are good odds you won’t have another chance at getting it. Hard to think of any company that hates its fanbase as much as Nintendo does.

Sega, maybe?

Sega, maybe?

 

Retailer exclusive

The first batch of exclusives.

The first batch of exclusives. Limited to (in America) Gamestop, Toys R Us, Best Buy, and Target, respectively.

If you wanted to get a Rosalina, for example, you could either have ordered it from Target in the 10 total minutes they were available online, or waited in this fucking cold outside till they opened this past Sunday.

I'm not fucking you. People lined up at 8 AM for a fucking plastic doll in February.

I’m not fucking you. People lined up at 8 AM for a fucking plastic doll in February.

You could also be like me and go on a grocery run at noon and pick up a couple you found still lying on the shelf. But most people aren’t quite at my level, so I can’t always recommend the Lazy_Sage option.

And what if there isn’t a Target you can easily access? Sucks to be you, I guess. Cuz you won’t be getting her for any less than a premium price.

And of course with all this madness, scalpers are running wild.

Especially not with all the scalpers controlling the supply in lieu of Nintendo.

 

DLC

Unlike with Skylanders or Disney Infinity, Amiibos are used across a wide variety of games, so their value needs to be assessed in that context. It’s a little harder to just ignore these things if you’re a fan of, say, Hyrule Warriors.

You need a Link Amiibo to play as Link - Spinner Mode.

You need a Link Amiibo to play as Link – Spinner Mode. $13, and you have to go out and hope it’s in stock, or buy it online and wait.

Sure, if you’re the kind of person who never buys DLC, you probably don’t give a fuck. But Nintendo isn’t trying to prey on you here, so you’re in luck.

 

 

Unclear Benefits — Better Speculate

Nintendo does not always operate within the realm of sanity, which makes predicting their moves very difficult. And they are very tight-lipped on what their Amiibos can fucking do, so it’s not hard to expect the worst (or best, if you’re a masochist). Like… what games will support Amiibos in the future? And what benefits will the Amiibos provide? Nintendo is content to let you guess.

 

Let’s say you’re a Fire Emblem fan.

See, fujoshi? I didn't forget you as my neckbeard was growing in that previous section~

See, fujoshi? I didn’t forget you as my neckbeard was growing in the last section~

The next series iteration (projected to release this year) may support Amiibos. And since it’s a Nintendo game that has series characters appearing in other games via Amiibo…

Nintendo announced that amiibo of Fire Emblem characters Marth, Lucina, Robin, and Ike will unlock corresponding characters in Codename S.T.E.A.M.

…I’d say that “may” is much closer to “will”.

 

So, what if Nintendo offered up Rosalina as a Fire Emblem character if you used her Amiibo? You know, the one that Target has stated it will never re-stock and is already at an after-market price of $40 just four days after release? What if her price goes up to $50? $80? $100+?

"I'm so fangirl I'd just have to buy it!"

“I’m so fangirl I’d just have to buy it anyway!”

Even if none of the above applies to you, I’m sure you can see how frustrating this shit can get… for people that aren’t me, cuz I am like -way- above this bullshit.

 

 

Basically…

Amiibos are an exploitative form of DLC that’s reminiscent of abusive microtransactions with how much they target the completionists in the Nintendo fanbase. It’s disgusting and shouldn’t be celebrated by anyone.

But Nintendo is giving me the chance to hot glue Lucina, so I guess we can call it even.

But Nintendo is giving me the chance to hot glue Lucina, so I guess we can call it even.



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22 Comments

PP says:
February 4, 2015 at 7:01 pm

>I’m not fucking you.
:(

Am I the only one who doesn’t see the point?
What does Nintendo gain from having one of these things costing $1000+ second hand?
Hype for newer ones?

Reply
Dark_Sage says:
February 4, 2015 at 7:04 pm

I believe that’s the idea, yeah. Plus free advertisement for their under-performing systems when the news covers the shortages.

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Ibi says:
February 4, 2015 at 7:53 pm

Nintendo has been pulling this under-supplying bullshit since the NES days. Scummy bastards.

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QQwerty says:
February 4, 2015 at 8:02 pm

Amiibos are fucking stupid. People are paying $50+ for a (let’s be honest) a really shitty-quality figurine when the same money could be used to buy much larger and much nicer models.

All because of the fucked-up supply and interactivity. Also, scalpers should kill themselves.

Luckily for my wallet, I don’t care about amiibos. They’re ugly anyway.

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Villemand says:
May 17, 2015 at 3:27 pm

I have an Amiibo, because i like collecting things, and when i see a cute little Mega Man figureine on the shelf, i buy it! And it was no way NEAR 50$. And i must admit, it is a really flippin nice quality, in fact, some of the best quality figureine i’ve ever seen.

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Anon says:
February 4, 2015 at 8:19 pm

You missed one of the worst things about this whole shitty deal. Ideally you could buy just one Mario or one Peach or whatever and use that in any game that supports that particular figure so you don’t need to spend $13 a pop, right? WRONG. If the game needs to save any data to the base (some are read-only, some are read/write), only one game can use that base at a time. If you have a Mario set up for Smash, you can’t just take that into Mario Kart 8 without wiping all your saved information for Smash.

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Dark_Sage says:
February 4, 2015 at 8:45 pm

That’s a good point; I forgot about the data storage piece.

I’m still buying into the system somewhat, but it’s hard to feel good about it, which is not the way to build lasting customer loyalty.

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IH says:
February 5, 2015 at 5:37 am

You don’t have to erase the data on the figure for using it in Mario Kart 8. Mario Kart 8 only reads it. The only other game other game that will write on the amiibo other than Smash is Mario Party 10.

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LotusGG says:
February 4, 2015 at 9:48 pm

On the wasteland I live, there isn’t even Targets for people to line up for stupid toys.

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anon says:
February 5, 2015 at 12:47 am

It’s okay when Nintendo does it.

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Nyara♥ says:
February 5, 2015 at 12:47 am

The figures are charming and a nice gift, though. Too bad Nintendo is sadist and Nintendo followers are masochist, as for everyone else it’s a pity.

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nintendo fanboy says:
February 5, 2015 at 12:23 pm

Nintendo tried to survive just with their loyal fanbase a few console cycles ago, and almost died (citation needed). They have now found that if they want to keep producing top-tier videogames, they need money. First they sold wiis to every non-gamer at the expense of true gamers getting less quality (if only in the hardware). Now the best way to do it is ripping us off. I wish I could get their games at reasonable prices, with the nice club nintendo rewards of years past, and without all this buyfaggery (dlc, figures, new hardware every so often), but that didn’t seem to work. So I’ll begrudgingly support them by being a buyfag.

tl;dr

fanboyism

Reply
Switches says:
February 5, 2015 at 2:46 pm

Fortunately, the Wii is very hacker friendly, thus I regret selling mine a while back when I was younger. I’m about to buy a deluxe black one this year so that I could install special software that will enable me to play pirated games.

Win win for me, and I won’t get banned from multiplayer!

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Dark_Sage says:
February 5, 2015 at 3:06 pm

Or you could just use Dolphin instead.

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Switches says:
February 6, 2015 at 11:40 am

I tried playing some Wiiware Indie games using Dolphin on my AMD rig. Problems like audio failure happened. I then went on Dolphin forums and they said AMD chips are the ones to blame.

Should have bought an Intel chip. ;_;

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Ash says:
February 5, 2015 at 5:01 pm

There’s no online multiplayer for Wii games anymore. Nintendo shut it all down in order to blackmail ardent Mario Kart and Smash fans into buying the Wii U.

http://kotaku.com/nintendo-killing-online-services-for-wii-ds-1532216462

Do what D_S says and just use Dolphin. The Wii was just a glorified Gamecube, so even a weaker rig will be able to run most games.

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Anon says:
February 5, 2015 at 7:45 pm

Well, it’s not like there wasn’t a reason. All their online services depended on Gamespy, which shut down. It’s not impossible to re-write the system to work with something else, but considering the age of the consoles in question they probably didn’t see the point in going to the trouble. I wouldn’t fault them too much for that one.

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Anon says:
February 5, 2015 at 3:29 pm

“Nintendo tried to survive just with their loyal fanbase a few console cycles ago, and almost died (citation needed).”
They did almost die once, but that was before they ever made consoles. Since then they’ve been extremely conservative and look to make sure they’re always making money. As a result, they have a warchest bigger than God and can hemorrhage money for decades before they run into financial straights.

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brw says:
February 6, 2015 at 1:10 am

I bought(preorder, not from a scalper) my Captain Falcon because I wanted a Captain Falcon fig and when the hell else will I ever get the chance to have one? Fuck every other amiibo and any dlc properties that come with them. Nintendo won’t be getting any more of my shekels with this awful cash grab.

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Villemand says:
May 17, 2015 at 3:33 pm

I love Amiibos, they are awesome. Really well sculpted and painted little figurines from all of youre favourite Nintendo games. I have five standing on my shelf, because i am a collector. I do have games that i can use Amiibos on, but i dont care, it is something as small as an outfit in Mario Kart, or a character you can play against on Smash Bros. No matter how you look at it, they are cool figureines, and they fit better on the shelf than on your Wii U sensor thing.

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wefllagn says:
February 1, 2016 at 11:26 pm

as someone who uses amiibos alot and knows people who collect them, yeah they’re pretty fuckin dumb.

it’s worth it in the end though because you get to train them in smash

Reply
Sheep says:
February 2, 2016 at 2:19 am

The Twilight Princess functions sound dumb as hell and could easily just be in the game

Reply

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