Biggest piece of misinformation you've heard someone say.

So I work at a video store, yep one of those, and I tend to overhear lots of stupid/funny/interesting things, often concerning movies, sometimes games, sometimes anything else. Now in this case, it wasn't that big of a deal and I've heard much worst, but the other day I was listening to kids (around 13 years old) talking about the current consoles (PS3 vs 360) and their differences.

They were talking about online stuff and how hackers will go on PS3 because they don't have to pay or whatever nonsense. But then at some point, one of them just tells his friends "Yeah but anyway they're the same console, the only difference is the disc they read." Now that's a very rough translation of what he said in French, but he basically implied that the guts of both consoles were the exact same with the only difference being PS3's ability to read Blu-rays.

I'm sure we've all had these situations where we hear someone say something that is just flat out wrong, even though they state it as fact. Obviously, some people just don't know any better and some just share what they've "heard". I didn't correct them because I didn't want to be that guy that jumps into conversations going "Um, actually..." but I kind of hate to see misinformation like that get spread out. Again, console specs are not something non-enthusiast tend to even care about and stuff like how RAM is used and CPU/GPU speeds are not that big of a deal to be ignorant about, but I thought it was funny.

What's the worst piece of misinformation you've heard or read?

I love hearing stories like this. But I can't think of anything off the top of my head. Also, meh, they were 13 years old. Everything they say is wrong.

People keep insisting that Mass Effect 2 has a good story. I think these people's literary experience peaks around the level of a Highlights magazine.

This goes back to when I was around 9 or so, and Primal Rage was the new hotness to us kids that didn't know any better. (I still have a soft spot for that game, but from a critical eye, it wasn't exactly Street Fighter)

Of course, at that age and at that time, the video game lies flowed like wine. But this one kid I knew took it to a whole other level of ridiculousness. We were talking about Primal Rage, and he starts telling me about Primal Rage 2, in which the fighters are human. (as I found out years later, he was right... whether by chance or by stumbling across a test cabinet, who knows)

So, being 9, my only response was some variation of "Nuh-uh!". He continues, saying that there's a whole series of Primal Rage titles... THOUSANDS of them. He tells me about ninja characters, a chainsaw guy, bla de bla. I didn't believe a word of it, but he seemed to truly think he was telling the truth.

In hindsight, it occurs to me that he had likely played the flood of Mortal Kombat-a-likes out there at the time, and assumed they were all from the same series.

For some reason, this has always stuck with me and cracked me up.

Every comment ever

I have a game example for that, too, but I know it would spark needless controversy.

I remember hearing some guy telling someone who was overweight. That if he kept doing situps he will develop a six-pack within 3 weeks, which was complete bullshit.

To get a six-pack you need to have low body-fat, and the muscle to support a six-pack. Other then that you won't see a six-pack

I have a billion of these, but right now the one that sticks out is this one time, some millionaire kid I used to talk to on XBL tried convincing me Majora's Mask was on the PS2. Shit still makes me facepalm.

I remember overhearing a conversation by some school kids on a bus. It went something like this:

Kid 1: Have you seen the new Korean guy at our school?

Kid 2: No, is he black?

Kid 1: No, he's Chinese.

That's some misinformation right there.

"I heard the Xbox One is gonna cost like $1000!" - Customer at Gamestop

What game ? come on man dont leave us in suspense!

I'll give you a hint: it's the subject of my next blog.

Alright i will keep a track of your next blog !

Alright i will keep a track of your next blog !

Favorite from my gamestop days: "Hell I got a PS3 controller hooked up to my Xbox, I just like the controller better." said the white trash man trying to sell six wrapped copies of NBA 2k12

I remember as a kid talking with my friends about a game I recently got on my gameboy, Final Fantasy Legends 2.

"Oh that's one of those RPGs right? Those old Final Fantasy games are based on Pokemon, right?"

Soooooo many incorrect things in that statement!

Well that's just goddamn hilarious.

"Mission Accomplished." Or really anything from dubyah.

Old guy at Walmart didn't want to sell me Red Faction: Guerilla because of the Virginia Tech shooting. I was 12 or 13 at the time, my mom was with me, I was ready to buy the game. If I knew any better, I would've been like, "Ok, you don't want my money, see ya."

Best Buy employees don't know that Playstation Network cards exist. Or much about video games, I guess, they tired to convince me that the Jak and Daxter games weren't released on PS3.

That's all I can think of.

I was talking to a dude who was buying a refurb PSP-1001. He said he wanted the original fat model because the 2000 and 3000 would break apart in your hand. He also said he was buying it because it was the only way to play the best game ever, GTA Vice City Stories.

I didn't bother to tell him that I hosted a GTA podcast and that the PSP GTA games had been on PS2 for years.

@chiablo said:

There's always one of you, isn't there?

Mass Effect 2 did have a good story. It had engaging characters and a tale that played out like a season of television. Stand alone episodes (or character vignettes, if you prefer) and an overarching narrative involving the alien menace at hand. If you want to argue that the plot of Mass Effect 2 did nothing to push the myth arc of Mass Effect forward, I'll agree. To outright dismiss the story on the other hand is dumb. It may be a simple story, but it is exceptional in terms of execution.

OT: My stepfather tried to tell me that there were WMDs in Iraq. This was back in 2003 and I couldn't believe a fairly intelligent guy like him couldn't see through that wall of bullshit.

"Black people have extra muscles in their body, that's why they are better athletes than everyone else."

To be fair, even though the PS3 and 360 don't have the same specifications, but the differences are moot. Anyway, I can't really think of an example off the top of my head - I can think of heaps of times I've been angry at people for speaking out of their ass, but I can't think of any specific examples. Maybe I'll come back when I think of something.

He can't be a black Chinese Korean? ;)

Was on Cracked a few weeks back and there was an article along the lines of "6 reasons video games are doomed". Basically every entry included a terrible piece of misinformation, including calling the new kinect a "spy camera with no off button". One of the highest rated comments was "no way i am having that in my house with how easy it is to hack into webcams".

Apart from that you overhear the most ridiculous advice in the gym all the time.

How's this misinformation? That's an opinion.

If you can hook up a PS3 controller to your Xbox, you're some kind of magical, mystical faerie of technology ;)

Um... there are adapters out there to do just this. They have been around for a long time. Did not know this was not common knowledge.

That Borderlands 2 is "fun".

I was going to call out a specific comment from this thread, but I thought better of it.

I heard a GameStop employee try to sell someone on a 3DS reservation (obviously this was a few years ago) by saying there wouldn't be any new DS games after it came out.

I didn't say anything because I was dropping off a job application.

The biggest piece of misinformation you two have ever heard was from whoever told you what misinformation means.

"I love you"

=(

That <insert you favourite company here> doesn't care about money, they're doing it because they're passionate about games and care deeply for their customers.

@smcn: I'm sure he knew that wasn't true. People get really touchy about be asked to per-order things, so Gamestop employees end up having to lie to try to make the sale. I worked for Gamestop for years and never did it myself, but I listened to a coworker who had been with the store for 6 years get fired over the phone because his pre-order numbers weren't up to snuff. I'm not saying any of this is right, or defending Gamestop as a company, just trying to provide perspective (though you are right, that's a big one).

OT: When I was watching that RIPD quicklook and Jeff/Vinny were arguing that Oblivion hadn't come out yet. That was funny. Also I was recently at a game store and heard two kids (middle school aged) talking about how awesome it was that the Legend of Zelda was finally coming to Xbox.

Back when I was a kid some guy in the grade above me was going around trying to convince people he had built a Nintendo 63 and that Nintendo was going to buy it from him.

Xbox One is 30 times stronger with the "infinite cloud"^^

In middle school my sister (lets call her Sallie) saw her friend (lets call her Debbie) massaging her own boobs in the ladies room. When Sallie asked Debbie why she was doing this, Debbie replied "because last year you told me if I massaged them they'd grow bigger!"

I laughed.

That the heretical theory of the development of life on earth over millions of years by means of spontaneous genetic mutation didn't happen.

The "Mission Accomplished" was stating NATO defeated Saddam's military, which did happen.

Dude at Gamestop wouldn't sell me a copy of City of Heroes: Architect Edition, because he said it didn't come with the base game. I just left and was going to buy the game from Wal-Mart or somewhere else, but no one else had it, so I had to go back there and force him to sell it to me. Then, he said something like, "See you when you come in to return it."

Something not as severe, when I went to pick up my Wii pre-order(same Gamestop) the employees were telling people they needed a memory card to save games, but they didn't have any in stock yet.

I buy things on Amazon now.

I listen to a lot of game podcasts, so I've kind of been absorbing a bunch of "knowledge" about the industry by osmosis. I referred to CoD: Ghosts as "Call of Duty 10", and he said that "some of the games don't count, because some of them are made by Activision and some of them are made by Triarch." So our conversation for the next 15 minutes was just me ratteling off the history between Infinity Ward and Triarch and how the guys who made Modern Warfare formed their own studio and... Yeah, apparantly my head's just full of useless information now.

Just about anything Europeans say about American football.

what 13 year olds talking out of their asses?! That is unheard of!

But seriously, the measure of how awesome you are as a 13 year old is how much bullshitting you can do to your friends to make them believe you know 10 times more than they do.

Also people do this all the time, even - no - especially in these forums. It doesn't take long to find. I try to ignore it though, so I couldn't tell you what the worst I've ever heard was, probably anything that includes the word 'illuminati'.

Paul Revere saying, "The British are coming." Absolute bullshit. We were still British at the time!

To be fair CD Projekt Red seem to be like this. They give every piece of DLC for free, even new content updates and stuff. If they make something new for their game, it's always free regardless of how big the content is.

One of my friends at the time of launch talking about how he was going to get a Modded original Xbox. (Damn it Microsoft! it just happened, I totally typed Xbox one and had to go back and change it.) He told me it was going to be fucking AH MAZING, his dad knew these really badass engineers that could take apart his Xbox and disable the "Disc Lock" so it could be used to play any game. You heard me, PS, PS2, Gamecube, I think he even mentioned Dreamcast. The crazy thing is the way he told me about it inferred that this was a standard function of the hardware, like Microsoft built it this way and only put in hardware locks because of legal pressure and only these super secret ninja engineers knew how to disable it.

I had no idea what to say, I didn't want to tear this guy apart, I liked him, still do but come on man! Really? REALLY?

Weirdly similar to your story @strife777. Just in a different era. Well that and he was old enough to know better.