Pretty much all those events are a primary source of revenue. Artists make more money off touring than album sales. They aren’t marketing.

You don’t pay to test drive a car. This is more analogous to that.

Why should this be any different from literally any other store selling an item and advertising it and allowing demos for free? Or did they charge you to demo the PS4 unit at your game store?

Oh I’m sorry, are you paying for Kotaku? You have a subscription or something? No? You just access the site without paying anything, huh? Neat.

If you don’t like ads and don’t wish to support a site’s use of them by all means install AdBlock. But don’t act as if the ads are on top of anything else.

The part where they’re doing it so they can try to sell it to you, just like any other demo station. This is a test drive, not a rental.

They are charging you for what is essentially an advertisement. That’s bonkers.

Would you like bookstores to charge you to read a few pages of a book before you buy it?

You don’t pay to read Kotaku

Oh yeah, I forgot that Kotaku charges you by the article *eyeroll forever*

Ummm i dont think GAME realizes thats a breach of retailer contract. The second Sony hears about this, GAME is gonna be swimming in all the lawyers thrown at them.

It’s not a service. It’s a demonstration to see if you want a product.

It’s not a scandal, it’s stupid. If you want to know why it’s stupid, then study Diffusion of Innovations. It’s a widely accepted and well regarded theory about how ideas evolve and spread.

Don’t ever pay to be marketed to.

My university has a bunch of Oculus and other devices. We even have a lab for free 3D printing where you can do that and play with Oculus.

The point is that you shouldn’t be paying at all.

I’m honestly surprised Sony is Okay with this.

*cuts in line, puts headset on*

Yes but there are quite a few places doing Vive and Occulus demos for free all you have to do is book.

THIS. Why are these idiot analysts missing the forest for the trees?

“The Switch lacks a killer feature”