Jemas speaks truth.
Observe.
This cheesy looking thing is $99.99.....and I gather all the little figurines are sold separately.
And this thing is somehow a prop for controlling a Nintendo Wii game (or at least the newest iteration of this -- I think its called 'Trap Force' -- uses it to control a game)
Soooooooo....to start playing this from scratch...
$99 for the Nintendo Wii.
$79 for the Vidya Game/Starter Pack. (Edit: the starter pack comes with three of those figurines)
$99 for this playset. (Edit: Just looked it up. The set comes with that little dude at the top, who is....irony of ironies...called 'Kaos'.)
Lets be optimistic and say 5 bucks for each of the little figurines, so thats another $40. (Edit: Actually, the starter pack comes with three of the figs, so it you'd have to buy the other three, for $7.99 each. So that'd actually be $23)
So, total ~$300
For the same $300 you could get
This book...
THIS Starter pack....
This artillery...
Some air support...
AND a Farseer to command it...
and still have enough left over for a can of soda.
Though, if you ask me, I'd throw down another $80, so you can get some Dark Reapers and Fire Dragons....or an Avatar of Khaine or an Autarch....or maybe a warlock or exarch for each squad....
So, yeah. Skylander....hella lame. Chris should've chosen his obsessive hobby more thoughfully.
I mean, shit....he's 2/3rds of the way to being an avatar of Slaanesh already.
....or maybe Nurgle...
Sure, mark me "autistic"....but you know in your heart of hearts its truth.
Ok, I'm gonna weigh in on some of the Skylanders sperging going on here. (note, I neither play, nor collect Skylanders stuff)
As somebody who works for one of the biggest retailers in the UK, I have to say that Skylanders really isn't all that bad. The figures are genuinely well made and are really quite charming, and they're not particularly overpriced, especially in comparison to other toys out there.
They're also quite popular with the parents because they enjoy playing the games with their kids, they're going to be buying video games and some form of figure/doll that's part of a series for the little 'uns anyway, so they may as well get ones that go together.
The minimum outlay is one of the sets that include the game for your chosen console, the "portal" that interacts with the figures, and two or three figures/things that you can put into the game world. You can get this for £36 for the Wii over here. That's it, that's all you need, you don't need to buy more stuff if you don't want.
The quoted example comparing Skylanders to Warhammer 40k is ridiculous because you've listed the console as part of the price. That's like saying a bluray player is expensive because you need to buy a tv to go with it. You've also listed a completely superfluous playset that's in no way, shape, or form required to play the game.
If you were going for a proper 40k comparison. you should add a gaming table in place of the console, and some of the Games Workshop's battle terrain in place of the playset.
You also need somebody else with an army to play against.
Yeah, yeah, I'm going off on one of my spergs, but there is a point....
It's easy to shit on everything Chris does because he's, well he's Chris. It's easy to take somebody's interest and twist it and put a negative spin on it, but it's not the fact that it's specifically Skylanders he's buying, it's the fact that he's buying yet more frivolous crap, regardless of the form it takes.
He's still spending hundreds of dollars on child oriented, cash cow stuff when he's seriously in debt, about to move back into an unfinished home, and supposedly his mother still needs her teeth fixed.
Ok, what I'm trying to say is, millions of kids enjoy the same stuff Chris does, don't let the fact that these things are connected to Chris drag down their reputations.
I'll quote one of my favorite lines from the cwcki. "Crayola is the official art supplier for the
Sonichu franchise,
whether they like it or not"
