10 Manipulative Gaming Tactics You Fall For Every Time

If you have a product that you know for certain is going to be a huge hit, you'd want to make sure you're going to have enough supply to meet demands, right? Tell Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft that. Everybody wanted one when the Switch launched in early 2017. Everyone desired one when the PS5 and Xbox Series S/X were released in late 2020. Was anybody capable of getting one? Oh, no. Why? Their supplies were insufficient.

Now let's be honest here: we don't really need these consoles when they come out; we want them. For some strange reason, when a company says that their new console will only be available in limited quantities at launch, we immediately assume that we'll never get one, so we struggle to buy one. It's that paranoia about not being there from day one, not being a cool kid, that drives us to search for many of these products when they're launched.

Then the scalpers dig in their greedy paws. Knowing that we want that new console right away, or we're going to be left behind by our friends, they're buying all the new consoles they can and selling them at twice the price. The sad thing is, our desire for something new is so great that we're going to pay that price.

It doesn't make you cool to pay almost double for the hottest new thing. It just makes you look desperate.