Interesting Links for 02-11-2012

[andrewducker]

• The people that spend thousands in "Free-To-Play" games, so that the rest of you can freeload.
  (tags: games free money )
• Why Buzz Lightyear is Worth Billions More Than Han Solo
  (tags: money movies merchandising pixar starwars disney )
• The truth about the EU budget
  (tags: viaNWhyte europe money )
• Five year olds are generous only when they'

Comments

[aiela]

The F-T-P article was interesting. I'm a monthly subscriber on Glitch, which is FTP, but we're talking $15 a month, not $5000. (And the game would be totally fine to play without paying - I actually have a glut of credits I haven't spent; I subscribed because I believe in what Tiny Speck is doing, not because I "need" the few things that in game credits will buy you (furniture and clothing upgrades, neither of which I particularly care about.)

I _have_ played games where a significant cash outlay would help you, but I can never see the point. I tend to have an addictive personality but I'm cheap enough that that keeps it under control. ;)

[andrewducker]

I've also supported people doing good thing before - and I vastly prefer a straight subscription to buying individual items.

I hate the idea of "Pay to Win" - so locking people out of areas if they haven't paid for access to them is fine, but giving them better weapons/armour/whatever because they bought it feels wrong to me.

[aiela]

I agree completely.

[bracknellexile]

3m cohabiting people, not 3m cohabiting couples - a much smaller percentage of the population. Still, at least your description will be right in 15 years or so :)

[andrewducker]

Cheers for that - I really can't read. It would help if the BBC would use the same counting method for cohabitees and marrieds!

[bracknellexile]

Thinking about it, I guess cohabitees aren't actually necessarily couples. For example, Alex and I are a flat of two people but not a couple, merely flatmates. Quite how that's counted is completely unclear in the article.

Makes the numbers fairly meaningless really when you've no idea if "co-habiting" means "in a relationship" or "living in the same house/flat", specially as the implied meaning of directly comparing cohabitees to married couples (i.e. couples to couples) is at odds with using people for one number and couples for the other (people in two-person households to couples).

[andrewducker]

If you look at the data they've separated "families" (both with and without children) from "unrelated people living together". You and Alex will presumably fall under the latter category, unless there's something you're keeping from us.