Nostalgia Balm

Everything is terrible right now. Everything. California is still on fire, there's a pandemic and America is tearing itself apart. Some see a culture of institutionalized racism that has normalized police abuse of power and are protesting to end it. Others foam at the mouth and try to drive their needlessly oversized pickup trucks through crowds, pepper spraying people and shouting racial slurs. Because discourse. Yeah, it's a goat rodeo and I'm not sure I can take another four months of this, much less four years.

Basically the Republican platform now is vote for

Trump or racists will run you down in their pickups. 

It's not likely this will happen to you, but
if Nintendo ever approaches you about
collaborating on a CD ROM, walk away.

And that's why I, a grown man, just threw money at Nintendo today. Yeah, twist, right? This post is going to be about video games, so bail out now if that's not your cuppa. Nintendo, the Japanese company famous for video games and shady business practices, announced a bunch of Super Mario re-releases today and I immediately started pre-ordering and I am ashamed of myself. And surprisingly not for being a grown-ass adult who plays video games. Instead for my weakness in the face of nostalgia.

It's a business model built on the
fact that we are, at the core, chumps.

The company announced a bunch of games and tchotchkes celebrating the thirty-fifth anniversary of Super Mario Bros, which is a little like throwing yourself a party. I mean, I love video games, but business is gross. To celebrate-well, to leverage brand awareness (see?), the company is also re-issuing a number of Mario games. Mario games that many fans almost certainly already own, but will definitely be buying again.

"Ow! My nostalgia gland!"

-Us

Poking us right in the nostalgia glad to get us to buy the same games over and over agin has become something of a tradition and that's fine. I suppose our own damn fault for falling for it. And in fairness one of the re-issues is a Wii U game so maybe like ten people got to play it the first time around, so least that double dip is mostly forgivable. What's less forgivable and dare I say, less fathomable, is that the compilation with  Mario 64, Mario Sunshine and Mario Galaxy, is being released in "limited quantities."

"Sorry kids, that's-a tough-a shit!
You-a should-a pre-ordered!"

-Nintendo, evidently

Yeah, what? Limited quantities, meaning they're only going to make a certain, arbitrary number of the physical copies and then that's it. You snooze, you loose. And fine, limited runs aren't that unusual, it happens all the time with indie games but this is one of the largest publishers in the world selling one of the most popular series, so like why is it limited? Now look, I'm not a business person or anything. As recently as two paragraphs ago, I referred to business as gross. But shouldn't they want to make more money?

We're sorry, but we ran
out of...uh...internets?

But wait, it gets even weirder: the digital version will be limited as well. Yeah. Despite the functionally unlimited nature of digital downloads, Nintendo is opting to make Super Mario 3D All-Stars available digitally until March, and then it gets pulled from the eshop. Which, I mean, what's even the point of that? All something like this does is create a false sense of scarcity that leads idiots like me to try and snap up a copy before they run out oh...oh, yeah, I hear it now.

Goddamnit. You see? This is what I'm talking about. I'd like to think I'm a stronger person than this, but between the world coming apart and the Achilles heel that is nostalgia for old games, I'm pretty screwed.

"I can't think of a better use for this in a time of social and political
upheaval than re-buying old video games. So, here, take it!"

-Dumbs like me