There's fucking ads in board games now

It's Hasbro. This is part of their Blueprint 2.0 strategy to monetize everything.

https://corp.hasbro.com/annual-report-2022

Maybe it's just years of labor organizing, but I'm deeply unsettled by this for some reason. Surrounding the consumers on all sides with crosshairs centered on them gives me a bad vibe.
- Welcome to late stage capitalism where air should be monetized at this point. You could make a lot of money paying people to breath and taking away all of the supply. Obviously we failed at something if the air is still free.
- Hasbro is uniquely shitty, and has/had multiple important individuals that are former pinkertons.
- Crosshairs on people? Fine. crosshairs are on CEOs? panic.
- Corporate doesn't just want a lot of money, they want all of the money.
- Also, how easy it has to be to convince an average American that this is a good thing. That they want you to be at the center, because they care about you, or some other horseshit.

The original 1965 broadcast version of A Charlie Brown Christmas special, a 20 minute rant against consumerism, had scenes like Snoopy crashing into a Coca-Cola Sign. Because advertisers paid to have their ads built into the show itself.

https://youtu.be/aeyLZHaGj3s

Capital has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself. Even those who would critique capital end up reinforcing it instead.
- I was just thinking about this last weekend when I heard a Run The Jewels beat on a TurboTax ad during an NFL game.
- I work at a used book store. Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto is a great seller, one of the best selling titles we ever get in, in fact. As a result, we keep raising the resale price on the thing each time a new one comes in, and it keeps selling. I've never had to mark down a Communist Manifesto for sitting on the shelf for too long. It's a textbook example of supply and demand in action... and I think that Karl would kind of hate that.
Nice
Also here’s the link without the tracker
- Thanks! What site do you use to clean the tracker off of links?

I've seen publishers advertise their other titles within the box, which honestly, not an issue for me. These, however, are crossing a line.

If any of the components have advertising on them I'm removing that game from my library and never touching another game from that publisher, ever. One of my reasons for getting into board gaming was to avoid this shit.
Yeah - it seemed pretty normal for a Parker Bros game from the 70s to come with a couple of inserts that advertised their other games. I want to say the same thing about NES cartridges.

https://instructions.hasbro.com/en-ca/instruction/the-game-of-life-tripadvisor-edition

This is like saying a LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean set is an ad for Disney.

It's literally just the "tripadvisor edition." It's a legal agreement between both parties to brand the game with tripadvisor stuff. The traditional Game of Life is still out there, without this. There's also a litany of other versions of these special editions of the game. The tripadvisor one does seem a little weird, but it's not any weirder than Game of Life Yokai Watch edition. I didn't know life involved death and ghosts.

~~Like you bought the advertisement knowing it was an advertisement because it says "tripadvisor edition" right there on the fucking box.~~

This is exactly what was ordered, there's absolutely nothing to indicate this is a "TripAdvisor edition".
I don't consider licensed themes like a "LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean" set to be ads, or at least if it is its more like some sort of "mutually beneficial" ad. Those are actually cool or neat or themed in something of interest that has a fan base like a show or movie. Some random logo of a website/service slapped all over is not that.
- Interesting, apparently been spammy for years
- Damn, that's a bad look. I just assumed it was the tripadvisor edition because one existed. It sounds like this is a stealth "Amazon edition" that's different than other retail copies. I wonder what the agreements were that lead to this edition?
Thank you for clearing it out. Important detail indeed. You get what you pay for I guess?
I didn't know life involved death
You learned about mortality from Game of Life Yokai Watch edition?

I just don't anymore.

I don't buy a wire- or mechanical- puzzle I make one. If I want a tile-based game (think scrabble, qwirkle, rummy) I make them with upcycled junk and paint markers.

I don't buy bread or pizza crusts or tortillas, I make them. I can make a month of bready products in an optimized hour of work for 1/30th the price.

I play indie games by inexperienced developers who charge $4.99 because I'd rather try new mechanics even if they fall flat.

I'm currently precipitating copper into an aqueous solution on my stovetop and later I'll try electroplating the copper onto some random thing. Because this is free and fun AS FUCK. Forget going to the arcade or to a pre-packaged event show or movie.

I am just drifting away from everything that's not hand made. Fuck it already.

No shade here but do you also work a full time job? If so shit where do you find the time.
- In full forensic accounting, you make/save money by getting off the "convenience" train.
  Once you realize that a checkerboard costs $5 but a piece of paper and 24 pennies costs... well nothing... it starts to make more sense. Because most stuff in life, you use once then throw away or stuff into the closet and never think about again.
  Breadmaking is just one great example. If I save $300 by making some bread I have to earn $300 less at work. I work less now.
I need to see a picture of your phone. Could you send me a chalk rubbing?
(Sorry, had to joke) More to the point, how does it take you an hour to make pizza dough, bread and tortillas? Pizza dough on it's own takes 15-20 minutes active time, and then it's a long wait
- Dough is a great discussion topic to explore.
  Once I learned to make dough, I realized it's actually a total of 30 minutes work distributed over 4 hours. Reorganize and re-prioritizing my time made it work. Simple planning.
  If I make dough, I make 2Kg so I cut it up, freeze the chunks I wont be immediately using and I have dough for as long as I need. Why make new dough every time? Batches.
  It's way simpler than you guys think. Scoffing is fun, but getting off the "convenience train" was the best thing I ever did. Requires a bit of upfront adjustment and learning, but change isn't free.
  edit: Another guy above was mean/joking about not having a job. Think, guys. If I save $300 on bread that's $300 I don't have to earn at work and pay taxes on. I win big for just learning to stop the bs already and take control.

I just want to point out... They took a quote from what appears to be a review... Then credit tripadvisor for it rather than the person who made the comment/review on the tripadvisor platform.

Bad citation.

And it's the most generic boring non-specific review imaginable. Any Markov chain would generate better results.

It's branded right there on the front. It should really be free since it has ads, though!

imo if you pay for something, ads should be illegal lest it's like the company logo
- What about products subsidized by advertisement to reduce the price?

Nothing. Is. Sacred. If we had any form of functional government they wouldn't be stuck 75 years behind on progress and dumb issues like this could be taken care of. The only chance of this happening now is some random gov official doing it as a PR stunt.

Gotta get the kids started on associating themselves with our brand now. Subvert the competition asap.

Just wait until toilet paper real estate starts being used.

I would pay good money to have toilet paper with the face of my previous middle-manager on it.
- Sounds like a money maker. Now just as AI to it and you're set with your 2025 business model
SPACEBALLS! the Toilet Paper!
- -you won't believe this shit

And that's why you should always use an adblocker (black permanent marker)

Remember in that Dethklok show that I can't spell when people went to the live performance of a band that had a less than 10% survival rate for their audience, on a frozen mountain top, to hear a fucking coffee jingle?

We're not far removed from that, people will be lining up to buy fucking tickets for a high budget McRib ad come this Novmeber.

Metalocalypse?
- Yes, that's the one, unfortunately it kept being flagged as misspelled. In retrospect, portmanteaus are probably not considered real words by spellcheckers.

And they did this since 2017 (I think)