Purchase Justification Syndrome

[Final8y]

Working here at bit-tech, I’ve noticed that over time a curious ailment that afflicts all of us at some point or another. It can lead to perfectly rational people ignoring others and making completely irrational decisions, generate more anger and animosity than a BNP speech or, flowing a different way, warrant jubilant praise where none is due. The condition I speak of I’ve dubbed PJS, short for Purchase Justification Syndrome.

We’ve all experienced it at some point, to some degree – that twinge of brand loyalty; that feeling of being swept up in the hype, and before long we’re protesting and protecting our purchases or favoured brands as if they were an ideal upon which we’d built our lives. Back in my ill-informed youth, suffering from acute PJS, I blindly picked up an ATI Radeon X800 Pro following the strength of the ATI’s previous generation of GPUs, ignoring the media advice to opt for an Nvidia’s 6800 series card instead.

Those who criticised my choice were met with as sharp a tongue as those who questioned why I was upgrading the cooling on my £300 brand new GPU. As far as I was concerned, ATI could do no wrong following the superb 9xxx Series of Radeon cards. Of course, as time went on Shader Model 3, which the X800 failed to support, started to become a minimum requirement of games and as the confidence in my purchase waned, I was slowly cured of my PJS. Never again would I support a company so blindly on the faith and quality of a previous product – especially in the tech industry, where progress between generations of hardware can be enormous and the devil is very much in the details.

Mine was a mild case, but PJS can hit dangerous levels if a sufferer is surrounded by those of a similar disposition. Think of the feeling of “us” VS “them”that’s so common between fans of a particular motherboard manufacturer or CPU company, those users who stand up refuse to use company X’s products because they’d never use anything but Company Y. When faced with a positive opinion of “the enemy” (or a negative opinion of their chosen brand) the first response is suspicion, followed swiftly by anger and then rampant defence, in spite of any rational information proffered towards them. Needless to say 'fanboys' as we know them are sufferers of chronic PJS.

Diagnosis – Purchase Justification Syndrome Diagnosis – PJS
He said Nvidia was rubbish - get him!

PJS works both ways though. While positive PJS (PJS+) finds us vehemently defending products or companies out of some miss-placed loyalty, negative PJS (PJS-) causes us to lambast or shoot down those products or companies for which we’ve somehow garnered a poor opinion based on no personal experiences. Especially in our increasingly connected world, our opinions are being influenced long before we get hands on with a product, and that has a serious knock on effect, sometimes without us even realising.

The release of Modern Warfare 2 and next year’s Bad Company 2 is a prime example. Following weeks and weeks of bad news coming out of Infinity Ward PC gamers’ opinions were forged into a relentless spear of hate through online forums and word of mouth, while DICE capitalised by making themselves the heroes and openly supporting dedicated servers. I’m not going to delve into the pros and cons of this particular issue (which we’ve discussed at length in last week’s gaming podcast) but I’m willing to bet the majority of us had a pretty poor opinion of MW2 on PC without ever playing it and carried that into our experience of the game – a classic case of PJS-.

It’s inevitable though that our opinions will be shaped by not only the efforts of marketing companies, news and social media, but also by our own experiences. If you’ve never had a hard disk from a particular company die, of course you’ll support that brand. It’s when it comes to ignoring superior products (or, on the flip side, choosing ones with obvious flaws) for the sake of supporting your trusted brand that perhaps we need to take a step back and reassess where your loyalties should lie.

That, of course, is where we at bit-tech and Custom PC come in. We try our hardest to remain as free of PJS as possible, remaining neutral and subjective throughout our reviews process, producing an unbiased view of a product. It might not always be the popular opinion (memories of S.T.A.L.K.E.R Clear Sky and GTA4 reviews), but we call it as we see it and take our impartiality as seriously as we do the thoroughness of our testing. We all suffer from PJS at some time or another, but with the help of bit-tech and Custom PC and the technology media at large available, there’s no reason for anyone to be a chronic case.
Written on 26th November 2009

http://www.bit-tech.net/blog/2009/11/26/purchase-justification-syndrome/

 

[bJN]

interesting read...

 

[Tigjaw]

I'm so glad you posted this article, it makes me happy to put a name to it

For so long my family just thought I was being greedy but now they know!

Now we just need a cure for this PJS hmm... Perhaps an i5?

 

[TAC4U]

Huh. I thought the X800 series was great. I had an X800XL when it was first released and it was a great purchase. The lack of SM3 only came into effect towards the end of the products life.

Still, some of the points are valid but I found myself disagreeing with their review of Clear Sky. Despite its problems I still see it as an incredible game and I didn't actually come across many bugs myself, certainly not considering the scope of the game. I do agree that people need to calm down with certain issues, like blindly supporting ATi or nVidia. Certainly I have my preferred company - based not only on performance but company ethics/politics - but that doesn't blind me to when the other company offers a better card. And it's the same with hard-drives, as my personal experience has lead me to prefer Seagate over all others (though inevitably this will change when it comes to SSDs).

It's human nature to defend one's own purchases or decisions but rationality and common sense usually aren't far behind. It's just a shame that some people take things too far.

 

[Xelene]

Can't say i've ever been particularly loyal to any brand, just pick whatever item matches my requirements at the time

 

[Xelene]

Huh. I thought the X800 series was great. I had an X800XL when it was first released and it was a great purchase. The lack of SM3 only came into effect towards the end of the products life.

Had one of those x800 GTO2's that you could flash into an x850, which was great, swapped that for an 8800 which was great, and swapped that for a 4890 which is great

Same deal with CPUs, love my i7 920, and it's a good replacement for my Athlon X2 which replaced a P3.

 

[Final8y]

Can't say i've ever been particularly loyal to any brand, just pick whatever item matches my requirements at the time

+1
ATI/AMD just happen to meet my requirements on a regular bases.

 

[drunkenmaster]

Huh. I thought the X800 series was great. I had an X800XL when it was first released and it was a great purchase. The lack of SM3 only came into effect towards the end of the products life.

Yes, basically, the SM3 wasn't even close to an issue anywhere near its launch from what I recall, I can't even remember the one main game the SM3.0 thing was a big issue, but it barely registered in the first couple games that used it and that was long long after launch and frankly, I also don't remember many reviewers saying anything about it other than it "might" be a problem in the future.

THe x800xl was a great card, huge value, great performance and a massive leap in power from the 9700 series, its not like it was 10% faster than a 9700 while a 6800 was double.

But the thing is, they've basically used that one example to set in stone their assumption that its a bad thing, and then gone on to pronounce themselves as the heroe's of unbiased reviewing and thats about it. Theres not much thats useful in the review at all.

Infact, considering the huge amount of hate MW2 got on these forums alone, the threads on the actual game after launch were overwhelmingly positive compared to the massive negativity of threads before.

If anything people went into the game hoping to hate it and couldn't, which tells a story less about PJS which might be the most contrieved term I've heard in a long time, and more about the wanton abandone with which people will jump on an internet bandwagon without a thought.

Personally I think custom PC mag is utter utter crap and this reads as a PR article about them claiming to be really unbiased based on some very odd examples, of which there would have been FAR far better to make their point.

Phenom 1 for instance, 2900xt/pro, 5800, a half dozen Nvidia mobo's, and dozens of other products over the years(and most of those wouldn't be great arguments either).

 

[drunkenmaster]

+1
ATI/AMD just happen to meet my requirements on a regular bases.

Thats a good way to put it, I've had plenty of C2D setups over the past few years, but over the past decade its usually AMD. Not because I couldn't get better performance from Intel rigs if I want to, but I can get all the performance I need, for cheaper at the moment, on AMD.

Thats what the article should be about, and frankly what I thought it was about in justification of purchases. How many of us have spent more on a case, psu, gpu, cpu, memory, mobo, hdd's, cables than we need to, just to have a faster computer when we honestly just don't use or need that extra power?

That would have also made a much more interesting article, I had that bug for years, the must have top end system all the time bug. I upgraded constantly, I still have it to a degree sitting here with a 5850 over the 4870x2 it replaced. But I'm more than happy with a cheap mobo and cheaper amd quad that gives me more than enough power, than spending extra on an i7 rig, which in the past I would have done and mostly just wasted the extra money.

 

[Final8y]

Thats a good way to put it, I've had plenty of C2D setups over the past few years, but over the past decade its usually AMD. Not because I couldn't get better performance from Intel rigs if I want to, but I can get all the performance I need, for cheaper at the moment, on AMD.

Thats what the article should be about, and frankly what I thought it was about in justification of purchases. How many of us have spent more on a case, psu, gpu, cpu, memory, mobo, hdd's, cables than we need to, just to have a faster computer when we honestly just don't use or need that extra power?

That would have also made a much more interesting article, I had that bug for years, the must have top end system all the time bug. I upgraded constantly, I still have it to a degree sitting here with a 5850 over the 4870x2 it replaced. But I'm more than happy with a cheap mobo and cheaper amd quad that gives me more than enough power, than spending extra on an i7 rig, which in the past I would have done and mostly just wasted the extra money.

Well it was a toss up between an i7 & a PhenomII but when doing the maths & wanting unlocked multi the PhenomII won.

 

[TAC4U]

Yes, basically, the SM3 wasn't even close to an issue anywhere near its launch from what I recall, I can't even remember the one main game the SM3.0 thing was a big issue, but it barely registered in the first couple games that used it and that was long long after launch

Indeed. It was Bioshock that caused the most uproar but it came out over 3yrs after the launch of the X8xx series. That's like complaining that the 5870 doesn't support Modern Warfare 5 when it's released in early 2013 - not really sensible. nVidia had the same thing with DX10.1 but again it wasn't an important spec revision. Sure both companies dragged their respective feet regarding these issues but the core performance of the cards was of far more concern than a minor specification. Still, the specs should have been supported.

 

[Disjunto]

Had one of those x800 GTO2's that you could flash into an x850, which was great, swapped that for an 8800 which was great, and swapped that for a 4890 which is great

Same deal with CPUs, love my i7 920, and it's a good replacement for my Athlon X2 which replaced a P3.

I still have my X850 XT somewhere, that card was great... cept in the SM3

anyway, on topic. Interesting, and very true read I can say I'm an amd guy, for two reasons, they have always seem better priced (PJS ) and my initials are AMD, so gotta support them

EDIT: found it.... dual slot beast that thing is also.... reminded me of my other favoured brand... I seem to only buy Sapphire, not a clue why though

 

[arc@css]

Can't say i've ever been particularly loyal to any brand, just pick whatever item matches my requirements at the time

 

[Kanifee]

god thats so true, first step in the road to recovery is admiting there is a problem.

 

[Orangey]

The release of Modern Warfare 2 and next year’s Bad Company 2 is a prime example. Following weeks and weeks of bad news coming out of Infinity Ward PC gamers’ opinions were forged into a relentless spear of hate through online forums and word of mouth, while DICE capitalised by making themselves the heroes and openly supporting dedicated servers. I’m not going to delve into the pros and cons of this particular issue (which we’ve discussed at length in last week’s gaming podcast) but I’m willing to bet the majority of us had a pretty poor opinion of MW2 on PC without ever playing it and carried that into our experience of the game – a classic case of PJS-.

It's not a "classic case"; it's not a case at all. The author decided to write an article on something which he apparently knows nothing about. If someone deludes themselves into thinking MW2 is a good online experience, even after reading the news about dedis etc before purchase, that would be a case of PJS - no plus or minus ********. Hating a game before buying it and continuing to hate it after playing it is just being honest.

 

[kylew]

Funny coming from Custom PC. They're usually heavily biased towards nVidia and say some of the most ridiculous things in their reviews, though to be fair it's diminished a lot in the last year.

This does really read like a PR article though.

They also forgot the category of "people who are genuinely unhappy with a company which have been doing themselves no favours what so ever by constantly treating customers and potential customers like idiots."

Plenty of people had more than enough reasons to complain about MW2.

This article is gonna kinda promote the labelling of fanboys even more.

We all know there's many reasons, for example, to be biased AGAINST nVidia, rather than be biased towards ATi and hate nVidia for that reason, yet many people don't seem to understand this.

So now people bring up valid complaints, and get told to go away for being a fanboy, so now anyone's a fanboy if they complain about anything.

So now am I a fanboy for thinking the GT210 being rebranded to a 310 is an utter farce? Or am I an ATi fanboy? (despite them not being mentioned).

I wonder if and when intel gets larrabee out, which company will I be labelled a fanboy for if I complain about nVidia providing they're still up to their usual behaviour?

 

[=VTA=MANFACE]

I'm an nVidia fanboy.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

The main reason this exists is that a lot of the time when one brand "beats" another with slightly more FPS or slightly better image quality it's blown out of proportion and suddenly one side is king and the other is ****, when in reality you can drop a bunch of cash in either camp and come away with a product which is great value for money.

So yeah people do like to justify their purchase but it's usually only when they're in an environment which strongly enocourages them to do so, thats all our fault for making the high end market such an arms race for that extra few FPS, it's part and parcel of fast moving high end market where enthusiasts clash.

It's human nature, so what?

As for IW and MW2, they did something that is unquestionably stupid, they got roasted for it, thats the natural order of things. If a car manufacturer built a car with square wheels in a misguided attempt to innovate we'd all laugh at them and call them stupid, becuase it's stupid. Don't want to get roasted for being stupid, then don't be stupid.