This may be a little off topic but since I love video games and logic, I thought I’d take a moment to share some thoughts I was having.

I just read this post from Kotaku talking about the new proprietary memory card that will be used for the PSVita, Sony’s upcoming gaming handheld. The tl;dr version: Sony’s making a new type of memory card. They will only work with one gadget. They will be expensive.

This is not the first time that a gaming company, especially Sony, has asked us to pony up for a proprietary storage medium. Sony has virtually cornered the proprietary format market: MiniDisc, MemoryStick, BetaMax, even those little cassettes that go in your answering machine. All of this, I must assume, was in the hopes of making one that lasts and becomes a standard. Well, they kinda did with BluRay even though it’s appearing at the twilight of physical media. But I digress. Microsoft’s also in the game with their custom XBox360 hard drives costing about twice the going rate. In fact, every non-standard CD-ROM or cartridge is also a proprietary format when you get down to it.

Anyway, this post isn’t really about storage being proprietary. It’s about storage being expensive. The companies create this proprietary media then sell it to us. We’ll have no choice but to buy it so they can charge whatever they want. That makes sense I guess. So to sum up their thinking…

• Make a thing customers need to use our product
• Sell it to customers for $$$
• Get rich… Right?

There’s one glaring flaw here. If I may be so bold as to illustrate my consumer-centric logic…

• If storage is $$$…
• I don’t buy storage
• I don’t have much storage
• But I need it to play games!
• I can’t play games :-(
• I don’t buy the games I can’t play
• I spend less money and have a generally un-fun experience with the gaming system

To look at the same argument conversely…

• If storage is El Cheapo!
• I buy lots of it
• I have lots of room for games
• I spend the money I saved on storage buy games without worrying about where to put them
• I have a more fun experience with the gaming system.

To try to turn this from pure gripe into something useful, I will just say this. Don’t make me your willing customers have to work hard to spend money on you. Always be aware of decisions that benefit your company by punishing your customers.

This is not just a video game rant. The online world is also fraught with similar follies. One phenomenon is discussed in this great post about the Mobile App Splash Screen Anti-Pattern by Martin Sutherland. Another example is any site that makes me create an account before I do even a simple task. Virtually every restaurant website ever made has made me endure a Greek techno slideshow and download a PDF menu just to find their hours and address.

Don’t let this happen to you, or to your clients! Always Be Closing! And let me buy more video games, dammit!