[quote name='allyourblood']I never even hinted at this magical "most" you seem so fond of. But if you don't think some of them do, I'm not going to change your mind.
Poor people don't have the knowledge? What a joke. Either they're resourceful, or they're not. A quick stop into a few retails stores will net them inexpensive games. That's just the way it works. Saying most of them don't visit retail stores is absurd. I'm not saying they shop there all the time, or even most of the time.
Again, you're taking the examples you've seen and applying them to everyone. I'm at least conceding that the examples I've seen apply to some of the poor, but not all. You keep speaking in absolutes as if all poor people subscribe to your opinion 100% of the time.
"would really like to have" does not qualify as a necessity. Why wouldn't they deserve to play video games or buy them for their children? Seems reasonable to me. I agree with you completely, there. But if a 10 dollar game means the family starves, there are way more important things to settle before sitting down for a round of 2-dollar Excitebike.
Well, to be fair, neither. I don't know who's poor and who's not just by looking. As you said yourself, you can't tell if someone is poor just by the way they look. But, in my own experiences, I have known plenty of poor folks who have bought (and currently buy) inexpensive items from the numerous sources I mentioned. Fine, cling to the Ebay example, but what about the various other options I posted?
For the record, I live extraordinarily close the US-Mexico border. I see poverty-stricken families and those struggling to make ends meet practically out my back window. It is a cold, hard reality here and I have been intimately involved in the lives of some folks who have had a hard time making ends meet.
Read through my posts again. You won't find anything close to my implying that a majority of poor people own new consoles or games. Not even a hint. I'm simply stating that I believe a lot of poor people (not most) do indeed own these items on occasion.
First, how do you know they're poor? Are you asking? Or are you judging them based on what they're wearing? Are they telling the cashier, "I'm poor, whatcha got for me that's cheap?"
Sounds like me when I was little. My initial library of NES games never grew beyond five titles. They were Super Mario Bros, 720, Mach Rider, Mega Man and Super Mario Bros. 3. That was it, until adulthood when I decided to revisit the older titles and began buying them secondhand. My mother simply couldn't afford to buy new titles upon release. But despite not having hardly any disposable cash, she would save throughout the year to make special purchases on rare occasions for my sister and I, which included my NES system, which was purchased new, when the system was still popular. I bought one of the games myself, and it took me a few months of saving to do it.
You're missing what I mentioned once before and have repeated above: poor people have the ability to save money (and they do!): You're saying they are likely only spending $1-$2 per game. I'm saying that while that may be true, they are also absolutely saving those 2 bucks for a while, here and there, over several weeks (or longer), and over time they're dropping 10 to 20 dollars on retail games. It happens. Again, I am not saying most poor do this. But certainly more than a tiny percentage.
Inner city, not many. Boonies? Tons. And they have the best ones, at least in my experience. 'Round these parts, the poor take buses to the swap meets, and ride bikes to yard sales, even several miles away. Old bicycles, some probably from the dump, if it suits you.
Oh, but they can and do. Not all, but some.
Bah, quit putting words in my mouth. You keep stating these fabricated remarks in order to support your argument, but I never once implied either one.
I agree 100%, but none of this invalidates what I've been saying.
I don't care one whit for someone pulling one over on Gamestop or for being a reseller. Wanna scam GS? Yay. Wanna resell some games? You're my new best friend. The two aren't at all related, and I'm not going to argue either point.
Back to thrift store finds...[/QUOTE]
I wasn't going to respond but now you're changing what I actually wrote and what you originally said... and I won't stand for that.
Your argument is that poor people "often buy new games; yes, even PS3 and 360". We were talking about poor people in general so you clearly implied most when you did not specify. Now you're claiming I don't think some of them do, when I clearly said, "I'm sure the numbers are more than most people think, but I am willing to bet most poor do not own PS3." Of course you're also being vague so you could be referring to four different
ing things in the statement.
Ya poor people don't have knowledge from sources like CAG and other sites, nor can they afford the weekly newspaper, and many do not have the education to know. No fault of their own. Most that stop into a retail store are not going to have time to scour all the racks to find the few really cheap games, nor are they going to know in most instances where the
Target keeps their clearance titles. Nor are they going to be able to visit store after store.
I did not say most don't visit retail stores. I said they don't visit them all the time nor do they visit retail store after retail store. And some can only frequent the stores nearby. So that means they may be limited to only a Best Buy or a Target or a Kmart. Not all of them.
On the contrary you're the one talking as if your examples apply to all poor people.
Just because someone is resourceful and uses the dump for necessities like furniture, a light, a bed, tools, a tv so they know what's going on (so they know school has been canceled due to snow so they know what to do about childcare), does not mean that shopping at the dump should be the least of their worries. It's being resourceful. Necessities to you may mean only consumables, but for them to have any realm of sanity they will want to be able to have light in their house, to be able to fix things, sit on a chair, and take care of their child.
You really think a poor person buying their child a $2 game while shopping for clothes is the same as a poor person supposedly sitting on ebay and bidding for games. Or did you respond to the wrong quote... I did respond to all of your examples. We already talked about clearance sales, i.e. the poor do not have CAG telling them when clearances go down, most are not going to know about where Target puts their small clearance stash up, they're not going to the stores as often. Some will get in on clearance deals. Dollar stores, pawn shops are equivalent to buying from thrift stores often.
Resellers use almost all your examples. And as I said most poor use stores immediately available to them, they cannot afford to go out of their way to all the different stores. So when the poor in one section all frequent the nearby thrift store they're at a loss when a reseller grabs all the games. Just like in another town where all the poor who frequent the nearby pawn shop are at a loss when it happens there. I'm not claiming people should not resell, I am just saying when you grab a game - the poor person who would've bought it is not going to get it. I can't say it's wrong because it's how our law is.
Well now you've finally been specific about what you were saying. When you say poor people and you don't specify that to me means you're talking about poor people in general.
Of course you can't always tell someone is poor, but sometimes you can. You can tell if they drive a broken down car AND have rundown clothing AND sometimes by the way they talk/what they talk about AND sometimes by their parenting skills AND what they're looking at in the store and buying AND how they pay for it AND where you are shopping (the type of store and area). Usually a lot of these things need to match up (why I put AND) because one alone is not enough to probably know they're poor.
I agree with you that some poor can save and afford some new stuff. But there is a large segment of society that cannot. And there are people who would purchase games at specific stores that cannot.
In the boonies in poor areas I know of people do not have yard sales because there's no point. Nobody knows about them because they live too far away and people aren't biking 10+ miles to get to them. Furthermore, most in the boonies are poor themselves and have nothing to sell.
Yes the poor use various sources. But many only use the sources they live by that they can reach on a gallon of gas, on foot, on their friends way to the washers, on a bike from the dump, etc. So when charlie comes and picks up those games the poor person loses out.
But you did. When you talk about a type of people and you don't specify it's implying that you're talking about them in general. Like if you say white people can't dance, you're implying most white people.
Saying poor people use other places besides thrift stores doesn't invalidate what I'm saying either. There are segments of the population that can only rely on local stores. And there are also those that cannot afford games that cost $5+.
The two are related because both are immoral to some degree.
If you want to keep arguing send me a PM and I'll give you the respect by reading it and maybe I'll respond. But we've done enough OT here.
