farblog

I’ve had “Marmite” written on a blackboard in my kitchen for the past two or so months: I can’t seem to find any in the shops. The only sensible conclusion is that there’s a nationwide shortage.

One theory — though admittedly one that’s perhaps not entirely plausible — is that Electronic Arts has persuaded Unilever to divert its massive manufacturing resources from producing Marmite to, instead, designing and fabricating The Sims 2 expansion packs. Certainly some large, evil organisation (no, not that one) must be behind the rows of pointless products I ran into at a game store lately:

In case you can’t make it out, titles shown above include The Sims 2 Kitchen & Bath Interior Design Stuff (for £9.99), The Sims 2 IKEA Home Stuff (for £9.99), and a whole heap of other packs at £10, £20, and £25 price points.

Now don’t get me wrong: I like The Sims. I played the original a fair bit when it came out, although, like most people, I suspect, my games ended after I got bored and tried to enact Sim City-style disasters on my sims. (I also wanted to get my sims a copy of The Sims to play in-game, but I think that was just me. Or maybe not.)

I’m aware that The Sims 2 was the best selling PC game of 2004 (but we’re somewhat past that now, no?). I just didn’t think the level of cynicism in the PC games addon market had reached that of console games. I mean, srsly? Kitchen fittings? For £10? I wonder if the marginal cost of production is low enough that they can just throw anything at the wall and see what sticks?

Much like spam.

EA: stop spamming my local stores with pointless stuff and let Unilever make me more Marmite!

Ta.