#subscription box services

[24australia-blog]

Subscription boxes 'addictive as gambling'

[simoneanjos]

Subscription box services: the world through your letterbox

Subscription box services: the world through your letter box

I don’t know about you, but I’m nearly joining the “units of time” club to keep track of my daily tasks. Exactly how Nick Hornby’s characters in his novel About a Boy does. The only difference between Will Freeman and I is the fact that I actually have a job.

And I wish I had some extra “units of time” in which I could fit everything that I’d like to do, see and/or buy.

We tend to believe the…

View On WordPress

[nancydrew428]

Nancy Drew Subscription Box Service

None exists, but just think how cool it would be if @nancydrewgamesofficial started one. Like, you could specify which things you want most.

Do you want Her Interactive games (if so, which ones would you be interested in)? Do you want any of the game soundtracks? Do you want any of the few DS games? Do you want Nancy Drew t-shirts? Nancy Drew jewelry? Nancy Drew inspired clothing? Nancy Drew inspired jewelry? Books (if so, what series)? Posters? Coloring pages? One of the few puzzles that you can buy from Her Interactive? A chance to go to a Nancy Drew convention? A DVD of the 2007 ND movie? Any of the DVDs of the ND movie series from the 1930s? A season of The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries TV show?

Like, seriously, Her could do this to keep us occupied while we wait for MID. People probably aren’t buying that much from them, at least not like when a game comes out. Some people are deciding “eh, forget them” because it’s been so long since the last game and because we still aren’t getting updates. So if they can’t get MID out now, why not do this?

It’d be like the Dollar Shave Club or Loot Crate and I would be all for it. Her Interactive could call it the Nancy Drew Crate or the Nancy Drew Subscription or something.

[lifeasarandomdudeknowsit-blog]

Entry #201 - Retro Gaming Hooha

Well, I accomplished what I set out to do this weekend.  I finished not one, not two, but THREE Perlers. I'll have to thank the person who commissioned me last week for motivating me to get back on the crafting wagon, because it got me to not only finish his piece, but the two pieces I had mentioned a while ago as part of that twelve tasks thing.  I finished those two pieces today and shipped them off a little while ago.  That is a huge weight off my conscience.  I still feel awful for making the person who asked me to make those wait so very long for his pieces, so I'm sending them as a gift.  I can't ask for money when it takes me several months to actually make the damn things.  Delaying their crafting has weighed on my mind every day, so knowing they have been sent is a huge relief.  I have a feeling both people will be happy with their Perlers.

There was a somewhat odd moment yesterday while making one piece, though.  Normally when I'm crafting these pieces, I like to have some sort of background noise going on throughout the process.  Since my eyes are too tempted by visual media, I end up listening to podcasts during the bead-placing step. Yesterday, my choice of podcast somehow placed me in a very strange mental state when I was about halfway through the piece.  I was listening to an episode of Comedy Bang Bang, a show that I listened to a while ago and just recently began listening to again after the current flock of podcasts ran out of new episodes.  For those who haven't heard, Comedy Bang Bang is a surreal improvisational podcast where the host interviews people both real and fictional, and everything is improvised.  It tends to swerve into the strange and potentially macabre at times, and at one point yesterday, my mind sort of drifted into that universe for a couple of minutes.  I felt as though I was actually sitting in the room with those characters, and it got so weird I had to shut off the audio and walk around for a bit to recall that I am, in fact, in this universe and not their universe.  I have never experienced anything quite like that, and I did not experience it today while making the other two pieces.  But that was a thoroughly strange few minutes for me.

I feel like talking about something I discovered this morning while perusing Facebook.  Normally, when I browse through Facebook on my phone, it will show little advertisements every few posts about things it thinks I might find interesting.  Of course, since Google shares all of everyone's information, every other website knows about your search history, which is why my Facebook ads usually revolve around shirts, video games, and Asian girls with big boobs (totally kidding about that last one...or am I?).  So it was a surprise this morning to see an ad for one of those subscription box services centered around sending people retro video games.  I was curious, so I clicked on the link, and was surprised to see a very interesting-looking business.  Of course, when I clicked the back button to find the offer code that the link had posted, the Facebook app instead decided to show me the most recent posts of my friends, and I could not find the link again. But a ten second search on (of course) Google resulted in my finding the name of the service: Retro Game Treasure.

What Retro Game Treasure does is it sends its subscribers 3-5 retro video games every month that the subscribers can keep for good.  Seems like a pretty sweet deal, right?  But how do they know which games you have so they don't send duplicates?  Apparently, you have to enter your entire game library into their database so they don't send you games you already own.  It sounds a little fishy to me, but I'm still interested.  I watched a few reviews and unboxings on Youtube, and it does look like a legitimate company that sends out games of good to questionable quality.  I saw one person get Star Fox for the SNES and another person get Top Gun for the NES.  So it's sort of a toss-up.  But you can specify which consoles you want to get games for as well as what genres you want them to try to send.  So if I only selected, say, RPGs and platformers, they would only send those...I assume.

I also discovered through another Youtube review that there is a similar subscription service called Video Games Monthly.  It basically does the same thing as Retro Game Treasure, except you can choose how many games you want shipped to you each month, which I think is a bit nicer as far as the monetary aspect is concerned.  You can have them ship three, four, five, or TEN games every month.  I'm curious who would actually subscribe to get ten retro games every month from them.  The shipping box must be huge!  Alas, despite my piqued interest in these services, the monthly subscription cost is simply far too high for my broke ass. Retro Game Treasure starts at $35 a month if you subscribe on a per-month basis, and lowers the cost slightly if you order three or six months' worth of boxes in advance.  Still, it's far too rich for my blood.  Video Games Monthly was a tiny bit less expensive, with the three game box costing $30 and the ten game box costing $75, but still, these are luxury services that I cannot afford right now (and probably won't be able to afford until I have a well-paying job with a fair amount of disposable income).

I say this, and of course I'm wildly tempted by the Wii U yet again because that damned Virtual Console is calling my name.  I have a sneaking suspicion that neither of these retro game subscription services will drop a copy of Earthbound or Chrono Trigger into an unsuspecting subscriber's order any time soon, which is why I so very much want to pick up a Wii U.  You have no idea how badly I wish to say I own a (virtual) legitimate copy of Earthbound.  One of these days...

Okay, that's enough retro game hooha for today.  Tomorrow is my busy day, so I will get prepared for it now so as not to overload myself during my extra day off.  Talk at you tomorrow!