The Outer Worlds 2 dunks on you with a 'Consumerism' flaw that secretly makes you stupid if you bought its $100 version for early access: 'Promotions and sales have riddled your brain'

Premium editions with early access periods, love 'em or hate 'em (let's be real, you probably hate them), we can't deny the fact that they help make the line go up for studios because, er, well. They keep doing it, so it's clearly profitable enough to tank the negative PR. The Outer Worlds 2, despite getting a solid thumbs up by resident RPG sicko Ted Litchfield in his review, is no exception.

See, the $100 premium edition of the game gives you access to Obsidian's latest five whole days early. Also, to be fair, a few bonuses that are technically worth the price—two future DLCs, access to the artbook and soundtrack, and a couple of bundles with armours and weapons in them. Standard stuff.

Oh, and also the privilege of Obsidian sticking its tongue out at you and going ner-ner.

See, in The Outer Worlds 2, you can pick up optional "Flaws". These are typically curse/kiss debuffs with a slight upside, forcing you to play around them—and they're typically triggered by certain in-game events. This one, however, is discovered by shelling out $100 for the premium edition like Obsidian's good little pay-piggy, oink oink, yes you are. Here's what it does, courtesy of disenchantor on the game's subreddit.

theouterworlds from r/theouterworlds/comments/1ofs8jr/premium_edition_flaw_lol

"You're the reason our marketing works. Promotions and sales have riddled your brain, and you're more interested in buying the next big thing than financial planning." Picking Consumerism honestly isn't all that bad compared to, say, the bad knees perk that makes it impossible to stealth.

All of your sales made to vendors are reduced by 10%, but also, everything becomes 15% cheaper. Which… er, by my calculations, is just a straight 5% price reduction at vendors, right? I'm sure there's some economic or mathematical truth that disagrees with me, but I figure if everything's 15% cheaper anyway, I still come out on top.

A sneaky side-effect of the flaw, per my fellow writers who are playing through the game, is that it also gives you unique dialogue options. They tell me these seem more along the lines of low-intelligence choices in something like Fallout—and I have a sneaking suspicion that Obsidian just copy-pasted the dialogue from the Dumb flaw.

Which is very funny, given the prompt makes zero mention of this. And, to be clear, it's completely fair enough that they aren't bespoke—I don't think it would've been in anyone's interest to lock a bunch of dialogue behind a $20 upsell.

Anyway, it's a fun little tongue lodged in the cheek from Obsidian, even if it does seem a little deflective. Yes, it's nice they're being all self-aware about it, but the point remains that you're still playing almost a week early if you shelled out some extra dough—you're also getting two future DLCs, but I figure it's past time we stopped doing this altogether, surely?

I got a similar feeling I got when I saw one of the DLC packs bundled with that edition, called "the Commander Zane’s Anti-Monopolistic Battle Pack"—at least, on the Steam page. Obsidian's owned by Microsoft, which isn't necessarily any of the developers' fault (the videogame industry is hell) but Microsoft's spending spree has been one of the most destructive events in the industry since the Embracer debacle.

Like, just 'cause I'm having a chortle at the anti-monopolistic battle pack, doesn't mean I'm not actively contributing to a monopoly. And even if this flaw's a great bit, "advanced access" is still kinda rotten as a concept. Ah well.