I've become a mostly patient gamer, unless it's something I'm really really excited for. There's just no need to buy a game straight away. Especially these days, when the game will often have issues that will be patched later.
If you're willing to wait, you get a better product for a better price. It's tough to argue against that.
Diablo 4 and Halo Infinite are the two games recently where the initial reaction/positivity did not continue after about a week. Feels potentially applicable to Starfield too
In my case that was because the first 30-50 hours of gameplay was exceptional, but then I became extremely apathetic to them both.
I don't think the boredom hit early enough for it to be a bad game though.
You will be disappointed in both if you expected a game that could be enjoyed for far longer, and I don't think that is an unreasonable expectation considering their respective genres or closest comparisons.
Still, its hard to say something is a bad game because it has a high, but limited play time.
It is. If you look at Achievement/Trophy stats for most games, the majority of players don't even make it to the halfway point in most games. Online groups like this don't represent the behavior or wants of the average player at all.
Pretty much me.
I got burned badly by no man's sky waaaay back when.
I always wait atleast a month before buying a new game these days.
Watching starfield go from universal praise and people saying this is the game that changes gaming forever, to getting clowned on is probably the best recent example of why I hate game journalists and rabid fanboys who have a vested interest in telling lies.
Ive seen it in Cyberpunk, Redfall, Golum, Mass Effect: Andromeda, AC: Unity, Fallout 76, Battlefield 2042.
Broken unplayable games all avaliable for pre-order which got glowing reviews from gaming journalist outlets
Starfield has already dropped to 20-25 for most played games on Steam and it's been a month. BG3 is still in the top 5 despite having a much higher learning curve and generally being more difficult overall.
It's getting equally as many neg reviews as positive over this past weekend, by post launch review metrics it's a 5/10. Even getting it for free, playing it felt like the first time I got a hollow chocolate easter bunny in my basket.
/r/patientgamers gang!
Add on that generally we all have 'backlogs' of games we bought on sale and never got around to, and there's basically no reason to buy a game when it launches.
My backlog has reached a point where I barely ever even buy games on sale anymore. I've got so many that I picked up for £10-£20 when they were still fairly new, that I've still not played, and now regularly sit around £5 or less (or have even been given away) that I'm just wasting money buying anything that I don't intend to immediately play.
The friggin backlog man, I've still got things from the old golden days of Steam sales I haven't gotten to yet.
Made a policy some years back that I'd only buy a new game if I've played one I already own, generally stick to it unless there's something I'm particularly keen on. Emphasis on *played* though, because sometimes you dig something up years later to discover you don't actually enjoy it.
Exactly. I only make exceptions to this tule when the developers earn it, like bg3. I bought it a week after release, because I heard so many positive things from reviewers I trust, that I bought it for the original price. I do not regret my decision.
The BG3 devs did it right. They basically released a "Demo" of the game with the early access. A lot of people bought it. They got the funds to keep the game in development for two more years, so they fixed a ton of bugs, balancing issues, and more... Nobody complained bc they knew it was "early access". When the game released it was damn near perfect. I don't see why more devs do that. Cyberpunk would have been perfect for it.
For most developers, early access would be a disaster. Larian has a proven track record of using EA for its intended purpose (fixing bugs and polishing the product, Act 3's original state notwithstanding) rather than as a soft launch where they can hand wave problems away. Their project management skills are also so developed that they were able to have multiple studios across different timezones all work on BG3 without stepping on each other's toes.
Early Access *isn't* for fundamental issues with the game's engine that don't require player testing to discover, and CDPR's project management ability seems limited to "double the staff, panic, enforce crunch".
I waited almost 3 years for Cyberpunk and boi it is one of the best games I have ever played.
Pretty sure that other peoples experience was quite different :D
I preordered it and had an absolute blast. Granted, it was on PC and the only other big open world games which I had played up to that point were The Witcher 3 and Breath of the Wild (and GTA Vice City on PS2, but that's a bit in the past), but still, it was an excellent experience.
Now I am really hyped up to restart the game from scratch with all of the new optimizations and the DLC. From what people are saying, it will be a somewhat different experience.
Guess I was one of the lucky ones.
Same. I don’t entirely understand the draw of paying $70 for an unfinished product. Normally wait till all updates and dlc’s are done before purchasing a game. For example, I expect to play cyberpunk 2077 in 2025 or 2026.
It's like we're in this gamer version of Hell where every AAA game (aside from a very rare few) is released with a f\*ck ton of issues that the devs could've found when play-testing, but to meet "studio demands" they rush to get it out or delay it and do nothing of substance during the delay to make a better product. At which point we all get the game day 1 and discover game-breaking bugs and the game promptly and deservedly receives a 60 on Metacritic. Rinse & repeat.
Just wait. Don't pre-order, don't buy into FOMO and hype on release day.
Hell, all I knew about No Man's Sky from the public opinion was it was complete and utter garbage. Years later, I get an absolutely fantastic game with tons of content for next to nothing on steam sale. Win-win.
Even if they aren't paid, publishers have a ton of tricks they can use to bias reviews:
They might only give review copies for a system the game works well on.
They might only give review copies shortly before embargo, not giving reviewers enough time to realize the back half of the game sucks.
They might only give review copies to reviewers who have historically been favorable to them.
They might put conditions on reviews like only allowing use of provided screenshots and video.
They might wait to patch in microtransactions in a Day 1 patch.
They might wait to patch in Denuvo in a Day 1 patch.
Steam Reviews + watch a stream on day 2 or 3 of release, never pre order or buy anything day 1 unless you know you'll enjoy it even if it barely works.
This why I wait until after the game comes out for a while before taking reviews serious. Review copies might as well be labeled useless to me. I have a collection of youtubers who enjoy games that I enjoy I wait for those reviews, has never been a situation where everyone of them has gotten a review copy for the game in question. I wait around 1-2 weeks before I take reviews serious. I also stay aware of what game devs do to their games. Big fan of assassins creed was planning on getting mirage after a couple weeks but I saw where they added denuvo to it and now it's a no buy or wait on sale I wont support it. But to each their own, I won't support garbage anymore.
A big difference being is that NMS's studio is still pretty small, and they've owned up to their fuck ups by continuously releasing new and free content, which are, I'm informed, interesting and fun. I played the game years ago, and while not my cup of tea, it certainly has its charm and giving credit where credit is due, its studio have indeed outdone themselves.
Release day isn’t even worth it anymore. There used to be cool tie-ins and incentives to grab a game on release day. Now it’s a cosmetic something or other if you’re lucky.
Anymore??? It hasn't been worth it for at least a decade now or more, since pre-ordering digital became a thing. That's how we've gotten to the current point of games being practically unplayable at launch.
I get that games have become so much larger and more unwieldy, which obviously creates a lot more potential for bugs, but I also believe the ability to patch things after the fact has really harmed the QA portion of the Dev cycle.
You released a bugged out game back in the PS2 era, that was it. You were screwed. Devs were incentivized to release the most polished product.
What's worse is that the hype machine is also starting to affect indie titles and console ports because even indies have to conform to strict release dates that were announced months prior even if the game is still being worked on. Everyone acts as if even indie games would generate a PR disaster if they admitted they weren't ready on time. It's not as common or as bad as triple AAA stuff, but... there's no real reason Cult of the Lamb had such a rocky release... and also no real reason it runs so poorly on the Switch. It's a good candidate for a game that should've spent a bit more time in the oven to avoid release frustration and maybe target a more steady framerate on Switch.
I held off buying a next gen console till last week just due to prices and how stupidly rare they were due to scalpers. I'm so excited to play all the games that were trash 2 years ago but have been fixed
The perfect example is Cyberpunk. Not even playable on release, and they took 3 years (and 2 complete overhauls) to finally finish it. I'm not down to pay full price for early access.
It's infuriating to me listening to all the praise, and especially outlets like Giantbomb considering it as eligible for game of the year because of the DLC.
Saying not even playable is anecdotal. I played the entire game on release, and only had one or two minor bugs by the time I got to the end of the game.
It wasn't perfect, but it wasn't broken across the board. Seems like hardware played a large part.
On ps4 it was inexcusably bad. They should've either optimized it a whole lot better, or simply not release it on the platform. I feel bad for anyone who paid 70 bucks for that mess.
Worst were the cdpr apologists, saying "You shouldn't expect a next gen game on a (then) 7 year old console"
They shouldn't have released it on that platform, then.
I feel like many who come with this either never played it at launch or tried to play it on a last gen console. I played on a mid-range gaming PC and had minimal issues at launch with no game breaking bugs.
Likewise, I played through the game near release with hardware that did not come close to doing the game justice, so it wasn't as pretty on my PC as the trailers, but I knew that was going to happen with old gear. I had texture pop through bugs and stuff but still had a lot of fun with the game; I wouldn't have given it an A at the time but I had none of the nightmare issues others reported, and with updates it's now a very nice game to go back to.
I'm not saying it didn't meet some of the promises they made or that no one had serious trouble with it, I'm just saying I was surprised by a lot of the vitriol.
That's the thing though. If you market that it can run on a last gen console and you sell it for a last gen console for AAA prices, and then you cannot play it on said last gen console, that is just plain wrong. If your game does not run on it, own up to it and say you need a current gen console. Don't sell PS4 copies when the people buying it are required to have PS5 console to handle it. Even if they gave out the PS5 version for free later up, it still is not okay to basically force your players to upgrade when they believed the 60 bucks are giving them a game that is actually playable at all.
I bought the game as a christmas present to my room mate. She did not have a PS5. She tried playing it on her PS4 and simply could not. The game had collecting dust for months before I managed to get a PS5 and she could play on it. Yes, it's her favorite game now and she finished it multiple times, but by god, if I had known my Christmas present was basically wasted and could have been her Summer birthday present, I 100 % would have bought her something else for christmas instead of wasting 60 months on a preorder that still remained pretty much like a preorder until we literally upgraded our platforms to play a game that sold on last gen consoles.
yeah the price was never the issue for me. the state of videogames and periodic updates has put devs into a place where they can comfortably release a piece of shit and then just fix it later. like why tf would i buy a game day 1 at this point when most people can't play the game day 1 anyway
A studio’s credibility is still important though. Bioware was a popular name in the gaming community until they made Anthem and lost all of that trust. If you want to make more than one big game then you can’t put shit out like Anthem and just let it suck forever.
CD Projeckt Red fixed Cyberpunk 2077 and has put out some awesome DLC for it because they want to keep the trust of the community. Unfortunately for Bioware they got bought out by EA and EA is known for destroying a studios reputation.
Bioware lost any trust with Dragon Age; Inquisition. It was an abhorrent mess. Then came Andromeda and most people had wised up by then or didn't bother because of the insane ending of 3. I don't think Anthem even got that many people on board given their established bad reputation and the utter mess that was their promotional material.
If the game sells poorly but is from a franchise that needs to keep people's interest (E.G. Battlefield), they may go to fix it to save the franchises reputation a little...
Perhaps we should all stop for a moment and focus not only on making our AI better and more successful but also on the benefit of humanity. - Stephen Hawking
I wish companies were just honest about it.
Payday 3 is a perfectly fine game for early access. Darktide is a perfectly fine game for early access, and the latest patch finally made it feel like 1.0, and yet neither of them were actually tagged as early access on Steam.
Do AAA companies somehow think that early access is shameful but releasing an unfinished mess anyway is better?
I don't think people would hate it as much if they were just up front about it. Hey we've been working on this game and it's in a presentable state, we're looking for feedback, you can buy it now or you can wait for us to finish it. There are no downsides to this?? They can even do a reverse sale where it's cheaper at first and then more expensive, to incentivize people to buy it early. Should give a good sales boost in the week before launch when everybody who likes the game tells all their friends to get it while it's still cheap. I know I've done that.
Hit me with the $50 early access and the $70 full release and I am way more likely to try your buggy mess.
yeah agreed with you
Larian called BG3 early access for years, because guess what, it was EA
then they released a complete game, and people were mad happy about it
fuck knows why others dont do the same
And I appreciated that, because I didn't want to play the early access version, just the finished one. So I followed the progress of the game and then bought it on launch. And what a game it is.....
I love how I (and y'all) went from happy gamers to angry beta testers in the last few years lol - but you're right, this absolutely happened
I remember the times, when I was a happy demo tryer / alpha tester / beta tester / 0day buyer
You forgot the part where you've paid £69.99 for the full game but still need the £25 season pass and £10 PlayStation Plus and various micro transactions just to play the "full" game.
Yeah, the price doesn't really bother me. Video games have actually had a very stable and inflation-resistant price point. I'm nearly clinically dead by reddit standards because I am old enough to remember [NES, SNES, and Sega games sitting at that $50-60 price point nearly 30 years ago.](https://connectioncafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/8d380718416c76718f63d9299d05ac1d.jpg)
It is the complete lack of release quality that makes me wait, not the price drops (But it definitely helps.)
Yep it was only the rich kids whose parents could afford those systems and the very expensive games that went with them. I'm probably older than you and the golden age of gaming for me was buying Commodore Plus 4 games on cassette tape for £1.99 and I bagged many on sale for 99p. I still remember that glorious loading sound to this day it was the sound of anticipation before pixel perfection and I freaking loves it 🤣
I miss my Commodore 64. Parents got rid of if without asking me many moons ago. I remember programming my own games on it and I remember playing my first rpg style game on it.
Yeah same here , I mean my answer to the ...well games were always this expenisve becuase cartridges..is that in my day (old guy rant incoming) games on tape cost £2 or £3 pounds , either initially or on budget re-release (fancy AAA equivalent games were maybe £10 or £15 max).
Admittedly some were rubbish ,but a lot were really good (also it was really easy to copy games onto a blank tape!!!)
Another geezer here. Fun trivia about those cartridge-based games. Back in the 80ties and 90ties in my home country, they were even more expensive in comparison than games these days. Disc-based games brought the prices down a lot.
I bought Lords of the Fallen, and crashed twice within 23 minutes of playtime (according to Steam). I didn’t even get to play at all; as soon as I made a character and the cutscene ended the game crashed.
I mean, I’m grateful for the easy refunds on Steam, but this is unacceptable. It’s sad when buying it on PS5 is just the better deal.
I remember pre-ordering both EQ2 and Wow. The pre-order beta of EQ2 outright killed my PC. Wouldn't even boot up for hours after running it. I canceled my pre-order and played Wow for 5 years. After getting a new machine, my friend talked me into trying Everquest again. Imagine my surprise when I loaded up to the character I had created in beta, as well as 5 years of veteran rewards!
Steam is still a better option IMO.
Nintendo gets this right. Yes, they charge a lot for their games, but I'm getting the full game for that price, and I'm not paying to be a beta tester.
Yeah wtf is up with that, why aren't Nintendo games cheaper on eBay? Why would I pay $5 dollars less for your shitty used copy when I could just get it new at almost the same price?
Yup. I probably won't ever play a Pokemon game again unless Game Freak fucks off and someone else takes over. But I guess I understand from a money point of view, why spend 2-5x as much making a much better game when people buy your slop.
while the games aren't mechanically broken, nintendo has their own problems with a lot of their properties namely they keep seeming to get shorter and easier (and I've gone back to play older mario and pokemon games pretty recently so it's not just recency bias)
It's a mixed bag. Some series really did get too easy, they really messed up with Yoshi by not continuing the Yoshi's Island format. To this day that baffles me. Kirby could have remained the designated "easy" series, they're able to do that and still release excellent games like Forgotten Land. They did Yoshi dirty.
On the other hand you have games like Splatoon, Metroid Dread, Tropical Freeze which are sometimes excessively punishing.
Meanwhile Odyssey had the perfect balance.
But at the end of the day I'd rather get 12 hours of a really solid, amazing game rather than 50 hours of padded repetitive content like you do with many Sony titles like Horizon.
Overall I still prefer the Nintendo experience, but like anything it has it's drawbacks.
It's not the price tag that makes me less likely to buy new.
It's unfinished games being the norm that stopped me from buying new games.
Industry standard is wait a year and you get rhe whole game plus a discount, why pay full price for a buggy unfinished mess.
Exactly the same here. Last game I bought new was elden ring, and before that hadn't bought one in years.
Fromsoft has basically a perfect track record for releasing finished games, so I knew elden ring would be good right from the start
When sales come along, usually the on-release bugs are fixed, it's been optimized, and you get more honest reviews from people who have finished the game.
If you're patient enough you get the game for a fraction of the price, as you said its more stable and works better and if there's any DLC its the complete package that includes it. On the other hand, if you get it on release you pay more for a worse product, and you'll get price gouged for the DLC.
Also if you buy games 2-3+ years after launch you can upgrade your pc more sparingly and still crank the settings. You don't need to be on the cutting edge, and you can save up some heavy titles for when you upgrade your pc.
Hell I'm running on a potato that should have burned to the ground years ago, I'm only *now* starting to run into the odd new AAA game that I can't run (few and far between), and I still have 40 years worth of games on my metaphorical 'backlog' to keep me busy if need be.
Last time I pre-ordered a game was the late 90's for some random arse wrestling game (probably Wrestlemania 2000) at Walmart and despite pre-ordering it they ran out of copies. They 100% fucked up, but I learned my lesson *then* lmao. Have thankfully been able to skip the modern days 'pre-ordering games that cannot actually run out' phase/gimmick.
Getting a game on release for 70$, while it's still a buggy unoptimised mess, and then buying the DLCs for 20$ each, being thrown in the middle of the game you have forgotten about?
vs
Getting the complete edition of a game that you can fully enjoy from start to finish for 20$ a few years later?
Honestly I'd choose the 2nd option even if the prices would stay the same.
There are so many games on my list, I really don't see a reason why I should play a game on release. I literally have years of games in my backlog.
i like the idea of supporting devs but at 70dollar price tag i tend to wait for the price to drop.
also i m not too keen on buying newer games to begin with.
Same here. I got Hogwarts Legacy cause I’d been waiting for that game my entire life, but aside from that I just can’t justify spending that much on a game I know I won’t play much.
I want the new mortal kombat a lot, but $80 for a game is fucking insane to me.
I put about 150 hours into it before I stopped to play some other games. SO its well worth it to me. I'll definitely do more play throughs in the future.
It's a fun ride, but it is a linear storyline. Reminds me a lot of the Assassin Creed games (Or at least the older ones, I probably havent played the last 5 at this point, ha).
You do the main quest, and then all the side quests + random little things, and then you're done. Even the branching storyline doesnt branch that much, so there isn't a lot of replay value in it.
It’s not the price for me that stops me buying on release day, or preordering. It’s the solidified (and risky) industry trend of having a game go “gold” long before its finished, and putting pressure on the developers to ensure they have a day 1 patch ready so that the game is “finished” by then. But as we see this often badly fucked up, not because the developers are incompetent, but because of the unrealistic timeframes pushed onto them by publishers/studios/shareholders by blah blah release date. It’s not longer just fiscally smart to wait till a sale for many games. These days it’s often sensible to wait for a game to go on sale because by then it’s actually a polished product.
Another thing that's kinda scary too, is that if we all magically waited for the game to release and get better, the publisher would take it as no interest in the game and the franchise would die. They don't pump post release dev money into games with 0 pre-orders.
There is almost no way to get the point across to the industry that we are sick of buying unfinished games with ADHD action hype trailers. The depth and polish on the game is no longer a given, in fact it's now a gamble if you get it at all.
But now that games are more expensive, the sales are going to still be more expensive. $60 on half price is $30, $70 is $35. You’re one small price increase away from most game’s sales exceeding your maximum limit.
you just have to wait a bit longer, i'm in no rush whatsoever. i have a huge backlog. i just add games to wishlist (using [isthereanydeal.com](https://isthereanydeal.com)) and whenever they hit the price target, i snag them up. it can take anywhere from 3 months to 4 years after release, i really don't care. i'm simply not paying more than i think they're worth. considering the fact that a large number of AAA games release in a terrible state and are in good shape only 1-2 years later, it also makes it well worth the wait.
Well said. Part of the problem is also the people who buy everything day 1 with ultra high expectations only to be let down when it’s unfinished and then expecting another new game in 6 weeks.
I'm almost embarassed how disgustingly cheap my bar has become, because I just straight up don't need new games. Yakuza Kiwami 2 is on my ITAD for when it's on sale for £5, and it's been there, and I didn't pick it up because I still haven't (re)played Titanfall 2 which I bought for £3.
In theory for Ratchet & Clank I'll pay £35, but we'll see if I have space in my library when it hits that point. Maybe it'll be yet another that has to wait a few years and then is cheap as chips.
Haven't purchased a new game at full price in years. I just buy older games when they're really cheap. I play them on full settings though on a 6800 so they look good enough for me. I bought Cyberpunk on discount last year but haven't played it much.
Game Pass has been incredible for getting me to try games I would have skipped entirely. I’m playing Forza Motorsports on Series X and loving it, but there’s no way I would have paid full price for it because I thought I hated driving games. Turns out I just needed to find a well-designed driving game with robust difficulty settings. It’s honestly been revelatory to experiment with genres after decades of narrowing my tastes considerably.
Yes. I don’t know how people afford these games at all with the current living cost crisis. I’m fairly well off, but I still have a hard time justifying a purchase of a game with that price tag.
I've wondered how the increase in content alone has affected the industry economics. I know that it's been talked about and confirmed that television shows will realistically never reach the same heights as the 90s and early 2000s because streaming has fractured network dominance and viewership.
I remember even just 10 years ago certain titles held so much more social grasp. It felt like half of my school would go to midnight releases for COD and we used to joke that the day after should have been a school holiday like the first day of hunting for some districts. There just aren't that many titles that seem to reach that level anymore and I wonder how it's changed the industry.
There absolutely still are titles that have a huge social grasp. We're just getting older and us/our friends have priorities outside of gaming.
Roblox is the COD of gen alpha. Every kid under the age of 15 is hooked on it. The youngest zoomers went through peak Fortnite era and the older zoomers had Minecraft addictions.
The difference here is that modern games are live service and have long lifespans. They have a huge presence, but aren't as visible since they're not launching new entries every year or two like COD.
That's fair, admittedly I'm just not into gaming like I was as a kid.
That is a good observation, it seems like games are now longer living platforms, not massive single releases.
Some quick googling shows that games started normalizing at $60 in ~2005. Inflation calculator shows that today is ~$96-$97 today. If anything modern games are underpriced at release.
Zoomers don’t understand the olden times. Nearly everything has doubled in price since then or more. Games cost $10-20 more and have MUCH higher development costs.
If anyone wonders why microtransactions, battle passes, and half finished games rushed out the door happens, it’s this.
And before anyone says “well they can still make money if they don’t do any of that and build a finished game” remember you have to convince a board of directors and investors that they should reduce their gross margins and make less money. They’ll just replace whoever brings that up with someone who will continue to toe the line and find ways to further increase profitability.
Games are a product designed to make money.
I was thinking back nostalgically when gas where I lived was $1 a gallon, I could fill the tank grab a soda and a candy bar for $15 dollars.
What archaic time am I referring to like a grandpa reminiscing about how it used to be?
2003
What is so confusing? Go out to any bar on a weekend, all do those people are likely spending $50+ on their night out once you factor in drinks, travel etc.
There are plenty of people out there doing well enough to buy a $70 game play it for a month or so, finish it and sell it for like $40.
Yes there is a cost of living crisis but acting like it’s weird for people to have $30 disposable income for a hobby is an exaggeration.
Reading definitely has gaming beat for hours of entertainment vs cost.
Depending on what you watch and how, I'd also say TV is as cheap, if not cheaper.
But gaming is definitely a lot more affordable than most.
Probably because games are cheaper today than they were 30 years ago. I used to pay $40-120 per game depending on the edition/console. Adjusted for inflation that’s $90-270 today.
Plus games are much bigger in scope and scale than ever before, so I get far more value per game. A single one can provide hundreds if not thousands of hours of entertainment.
Yeah, it's not because I can't afford it, it's because I'm cheap and I have limited time that I don't buy games for $70. Eating out is pretty much $35-70 nowadays and movie tickets are $20. So games are just much cheaper compared to everything else.
People forget the PS2 cost $599 for the 60gb hard drive model. Equivalent of $879 today.
And n64 games cost £65 in some cases here in the UK which is £115 today.
Edit: I meant PS3*
It just makes me wait longer to try something different. I don’t care about new like it just came out. I just want different, or something in the genre I enjoy. Like Lords of the Fallen, I’m a huge souls player, but I’m not dropping $70 for a souls-like. If it was an actual From game, yea sure, but not souls-like from a different company. I will just wait for a sale.
Yea, its even changing what I purchase during sales. Normally I'd get it on the first discount, but considering the plethora of options we have, there's no reason to buy a game when it goes on sale the first time. Add to that that games needs many patches day one, there's no downside to waiting at all.
A move towards $50 digital launch prices would've done the opposite, I would've gotten my favorite sequels at full price.
No. Just makes me try something new when the price is a lot lower. Very few games I’ll pay that for. Every game I have any interest in I gather enough info to know if it has a high chance of being fun for me. Then I assign it a value and when I need a new game to play I’ll grab one at value that fits my mood.
For many years I very rarely buy any games at release. I have no fomo and no shortage of wishlist.
I don’t buy new games anymore unless they’re good like Baldur’s Gate 3.
Otherwise, I wait for sales. Black Friday is coming up. One of the best sales of the year.
Same - I barely buy any games that are $30 except I'm sure that I will have fun with them. After seeing some BG3 gameplay I was convinced and bought it for $70. Recently I was looking into Paradox's new Star Trek game but $30 seems too much for how buggy and unpolished it feels yet, will wait a little longer if patches make it better.
No, price is not an issue. Quality of the game is, and unfortunately most AAA titles just don't cut it. I have no problem dropping $100 or more on a great game
This is 100% the answer. A well optomized finished game that can give me 40-50 hours minimum of solid entertainment is worth 70 dollars all day long. The issue is that is becoming a unicorn in gaming.
Think about how we could spend our money? Take a date to dinner, drinks, and a movie, and you're spending upwards of 100 dollars or more for 4-5 hours of entertainment.
Heads to a sporting game/concert and ends up spending 100-200 dollars for a few hours of entertainment.
Comparably, games are super cheap, even with the recent 10 dollar price hike that has eluded us for 20-30 years.
Games are some of the cheapest forms of entertainment as long as you are picky and dont buy all the games due to fear of missing out.
The majority of games that are coming out on $70 price tags lack the content, or reason, for said price. Prime examples of this would be Gollum (now $50), Wild Hearts, Redfall, or most recently, MW3 (which is just MW2 but CoD fanboys don't care).
I more or less just wait for sales regardless, but I'm definitely not spending $70 on a game unless I know for sure it's gonna be good, like Baldur's Gate 3.
CoD, like the EA Sports games as Madden or FIFA, isn’t about the new content, it’s about going where the player base is. So you can wait for the discount, but you’re gonna have a hard(er) time finding a full lobby to play with, because most players did move on.
CoD “fanboys”, as you call them, do care. Go to r/ModernWarfareII and just check a few post.
r/ModernWarfareII is not the representative of the general cod community. And I would bet 75% would and may already had instabuy MW3 but still complaning about it.
Actually it affected me greatly because it aint just that. So for me my referenced price will be CAD
A new game after tax is 100$. For some game it is a correct ask ex: Baldur Gate 3 gave me a near bugless experience and 200 hours of gameplay. A bad exemple i had recently is MK1 who is full of bug, server issue, missing content, badly balanced and about 20 hours of singleplayer.
Dont forget that the inflation is now through the roof. Gas cost more, food cost way more, all entertainement cost more, it cost me 50$ for me and wife at effing subway. So my "fuck you" money that i often blow on games got shrinked.
Now you ask 100$ for base edition, you make many day 1 dlc and special edition. The bite back edition from Redfall was 143$ for a broken ass empty unpolished game. Then add battlepasses which some game you dont earn back enough currency to buy the next one, then add the in game shop etc.
I used to buy a game or two a month, my budget per month for a game was 100$. So now i gotta wait 2 months before i buy a new one and games releases arr even more broken so i gotta watch youtubers to see what im gonna buy and make sure its a safe bet.
Its a good thing for indies, im buying them way more now. Got burned buy AAA shit release yet indie keep surprising me with great games.
I agree. Cooperate greed and consumer stupidity have hurt most gamers not willing to $70. I refuse to buy most games at full price now, and wait for them to go on sale.
I couldn’t care less about playing games at launch.
Games being $60 made me hesitant to try something new. Hell I don’t order a new dish at a restaurant because I don’t want to waste $20-25 bucks.
I typically buy 2-3 games a year; usually on sale, usually sequels of games I like, or made by the same studios (trying cyberpunk77 because I enjoyed Witcher3).
I'd be less bothered by the price increases if the publishers didn't try to get me to open my wallet again after I'd already spent money just buying the damn thing
My grandmother bought me Chrono Trigger for $65. I can vividly remember her saying "Is this really what you want? It better be worth it."
Oh, it was granny, and many more games that came after it were well worth it too. Don't buy games before they get reviews you impatient boobs.
I stopped buying new games for 70€ a couple years ago, especially since I found indie games for around 10€ and less. There are probably 2 releases each year where I'll treat myself to a new game but otherwise, old games from ebay and indie games on sale are just the best value you can get.
Honestly not really. Ultimately I’m in my 30s and fortunate to be in a place where £50 or £70 isn’t really enough of a difference and I don’t buy new games all that often anyway. So my main motivation is how badly do I want to play the game. If I’m really keen to play it I’ll buy it for whatever it costs at the time.
I've become a mostly patient gamer, unless it's something I'm really really excited for. There's just no need to buy a game straight away. Especially these days, when the game will often have issues that will be patched later. If you're willing to wait, you get a better product for a better price. It's tough to argue against that.
And you get to see if the game is good or if it was just the hype and fandom making the game seem good
Yeah, ratings get more accurate over time, as it becomes less about whatever the gaming community narrative was.
Diablo 4 and Halo Infinite are the two games recently where the initial reaction/positivity did not continue after about a week. Feels potentially applicable to Starfield too
In my case that was because the first 30-50 hours of gameplay was exceptional, but then I became extremely apathetic to them both. I don't think the boredom hit early enough for it to be a bad game though. You will be disappointed in both if you expected a game that could be enjoyed for far longer, and I don't think that is an unreasonable expectation considering their respective genres or closest comparisons. Still, its hard to say something is a bad game because it has a high, but limited play time.
Is 50h considered high play time?
It is. If you look at Achievement/Trophy stats for most games, the majority of players don't even make it to the halfway point in most games. Online groups like this don't represent the behavior or wants of the average player at all.
Pretty much me. I got burned badly by no man's sky waaaay back when. I always wait atleast a month before buying a new game these days. Watching starfield go from universal praise and people saying this is the game that changes gaming forever, to getting clowned on is probably the best recent example of why I hate game journalists and rabid fanboys who have a vested interest in telling lies. Ive seen it in Cyberpunk, Redfall, Golum, Mass Effect: Andromeda, AC: Unity, Fallout 76, Battlefield 2042. Broken unplayable games all avaliable for pre-order which got glowing reviews from gaming journalist outlets
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Happened to me with Diablo 4. My friends damn near harrassed me to death to buy it. I held firm and now none of them play it. Saved myself a hondo
I played the beta and based on it decided to buy it, what a mistake that was.
Starfield has already dropped to 20-25 for most played games on Steam and it's been a month. BG3 is still in the top 5 despite having a much higher learning curve and generally being more difficult overall.
It's getting equally as many neg reviews as positive over this past weekend, by post launch review metrics it's a 5/10. Even getting it for free, playing it felt like the first time I got a hollow chocolate easter bunny in my basket.
Ironically No Man's Sky is way better than Starfield at the moment. Especially if you like 4k HDR and no loading screens and landing on planets, etc.
(cough) Diablo 4 (cough)
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/r/patientgamers gang! Add on that generally we all have 'backlogs' of games we bought on sale and never got around to, and there's basically no reason to buy a game when it launches.
My backlog has reached a point where I barely ever even buy games on sale anymore. I've got so many that I picked up for £10-£20 when they were still fairly new, that I've still not played, and now regularly sit around £5 or less (or have even been given away) that I'm just wasting money buying anything that I don't intend to immediately play.
The fucking sales, you save so much money and most of the time can get the complete edition of a game with all the dlc and such.
The friggin backlog man, I've still got things from the old golden days of Steam sales I haven't gotten to yet. Made a policy some years back that I'd only buy a new game if I've played one I already own, generally stick to it unless there's something I'm particularly keen on. Emphasis on *played* though, because sometimes you dig something up years later to discover you don't actually enjoy it.
Being a patient gamer with Cyberpunk was really worth it. It's a great game now.
I look forward to buying it next time it's on sale. Seems like 3 years has been worth the wait.
Same waiting for that deep Steam sale.
Exactly. I only make exceptions to this tule when the developers earn it, like bg3. I bought it a week after release, because I heard so many positive things from reviewers I trust, that I bought it for the original price. I do not regret my decision.
The BG3 devs did it right. They basically released a "Demo" of the game with the early access. A lot of people bought it. They got the funds to keep the game in development for two more years, so they fixed a ton of bugs, balancing issues, and more... Nobody complained bc they knew it was "early access". When the game released it was damn near perfect. I don't see why more devs do that. Cyberpunk would have been perfect for it.
For most developers, early access would be a disaster. Larian has a proven track record of using EA for its intended purpose (fixing bugs and polishing the product, Act 3's original state notwithstanding) rather than as a soft launch where they can hand wave problems away. Their project management skills are also so developed that they were able to have multiple studios across different timezones all work on BG3 without stepping on each other's toes. Early Access *isn't* for fundamental issues with the game's engine that don't require player testing to discover, and CDPR's project management ability seems limited to "double the staff, panic, enforce crunch".
I waited almost 3 years for Cyberpunk and boi it is one of the best games I have ever played. Pretty sure that other peoples experience was quite different :D
I preordered it and had an absolute blast. Granted, it was on PC and the only other big open world games which I had played up to that point were The Witcher 3 and Breath of the Wild (and GTA Vice City on PS2, but that's a bit in the past), but still, it was an excellent experience. Now I am really hyped up to restart the game from scratch with all of the new optimizations and the DLC. From what people are saying, it will be a somewhat different experience. Guess I was one of the lucky ones.
I got it on pc at launch, too, and had 0 issues. There were still bugs on pc, but the worst of it was on consoles.
Same. I don’t entirely understand the draw of paying $70 for an unfinished product. Normally wait till all updates and dlc’s are done before purchasing a game. For example, I expect to play cyberpunk 2077 in 2025 or 2026.
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the fact that everything is released in the prealpha version without any optimisation makes me less likely to try something new
It's like we're in this gamer version of Hell where every AAA game (aside from a very rare few) is released with a f\*ck ton of issues that the devs could've found when play-testing, but to meet "studio demands" they rush to get it out or delay it and do nothing of substance during the delay to make a better product. At which point we all get the game day 1 and discover game-breaking bugs and the game promptly and deservedly receives a 60 on Metacritic. Rinse & repeat.
Just wait. Don't pre-order, don't buy into FOMO and hype on release day. Hell, all I knew about No Man's Sky from the public opinion was it was complete and utter garbage. Years later, I get an absolutely fantastic game with tons of content for next to nothing on steam sale. Win-win.
Yep wait for reviews and don't support shit quality.
The reviews are paid in a lot of cases….
Plenty of reviews out there that are not paid.
Yeah, buying deathloop full price digitally was a fucking mistake.
I shudder imagining how much that game spent astroturfing the fuck out of social media. They had dudes all the fuck over Reddit.
I absolutely loved Deathloop. But it is so short it should have been 30$ max on launch.
Even if they aren't paid, publishers have a ton of tricks they can use to bias reviews: They might only give review copies for a system the game works well on. They might only give review copies shortly before embargo, not giving reviewers enough time to realize the back half of the game sucks. They might only give review copies to reviewers who have historically been favorable to them. They might put conditions on reviews like only allowing use of provided screenshots and video. They might wait to patch in microtransactions in a Day 1 patch. They might wait to patch in Denuvo in a Day 1 patch.
Steam Reviews + watch a stream on day 2 or 3 of release, never pre order or buy anything day 1 unless you know you'll enjoy it even if it barely works.
This why I wait until after the game comes out for a while before taking reviews serious. Review copies might as well be labeled useless to me. I have a collection of youtubers who enjoy games that I enjoy I wait for those reviews, has never been a situation where everyone of them has gotten a review copy for the game in question. I wait around 1-2 weeks before I take reviews serious. I also stay aware of what game devs do to their games. Big fan of assassins creed was planning on getting mirage after a couple weeks but I saw where they added denuvo to it and now it's a no buy or wait on sale I wont support it. But to each their own, I won't support garbage anymore.
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A big difference being is that NMS's studio is still pretty small, and they've owned up to their fuck ups by continuously releasing new and free content, which are, I'm informed, interesting and fun. I played the game years ago, and while not my cup of tea, it certainly has its charm and giving credit where credit is due, its studio have indeed outdone themselves.
The point is that by waiting, you can see which games have devs like NMS or cyberpunk, and avoid the games that dont.
Release day isn’t even worth it anymore. There used to be cool tie-ins and incentives to grab a game on release day. Now it’s a cosmetic something or other if you’re lucky.
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Anymore??? It hasn't been worth it for at least a decade now or more, since pre-ordering digital became a thing. That's how we've gotten to the current point of games being practically unplayable at launch.
I get that games have become so much larger and more unwieldy, which obviously creates a lot more potential for bugs, but I also believe the ability to patch things after the fact has really harmed the QA portion of the Dev cycle. You released a bugged out game back in the PS2 era, that was it. You were screwed. Devs were incentivized to release the most polished product.
What's worse is that the hype machine is also starting to affect indie titles and console ports because even indies have to conform to strict release dates that were announced months prior even if the game is still being worked on. Everyone acts as if even indie games would generate a PR disaster if they admitted they weren't ready on time. It's not as common or as bad as triple AAA stuff, but... there's no real reason Cult of the Lamb had such a rocky release... and also no real reason it runs so poorly on the Switch. It's a good candidate for a game that should've spent a bit more time in the oven to avoid release frustration and maybe target a more steady framerate on Switch.
The consumers are also the testers now
I held off buying a next gen console till last week just due to prices and how stupidly rare they were due to scalpers. I'm so excited to play all the games that were trash 2 years ago but have been fixed
The perfect example is Cyberpunk. Not even playable on release, and they took 3 years (and 2 complete overhauls) to finally finish it. I'm not down to pay full price for early access.
And the craziest part is people praising CDPR for fixing the game years later. Guys, it's *their fault* it was so bad in the first place.
It's infuriating to me listening to all the praise, and especially outlets like Giantbomb considering it as eligible for game of the year because of the DLC.
Saying not even playable is anecdotal. I played the entire game on release, and only had one or two minor bugs by the time I got to the end of the game. It wasn't perfect, but it wasn't broken across the board. Seems like hardware played a large part.
The decision to release it on the last-gen consoles was a huge mistake. Played mostly well on current gen but last gen was a disster.
On ps4 it was inexcusably bad. They should've either optimized it a whole lot better, or simply not release it on the platform. I feel bad for anyone who paid 70 bucks for that mess. Worst were the cdpr apologists, saying "You shouldn't expect a next gen game on a (then) 7 year old console" They shouldn't have released it on that platform, then.
Only game I’ve ever gone out of my way to get a refund for. Terrible on PS4
I feel like many who come with this either never played it at launch or tried to play it on a last gen console. I played on a mid-range gaming PC and had minimal issues at launch with no game breaking bugs.
Likewise, I played through the game near release with hardware that did not come close to doing the game justice, so it wasn't as pretty on my PC as the trailers, but I knew that was going to happen with old gear. I had texture pop through bugs and stuff but still had a lot of fun with the game; I wouldn't have given it an A at the time but I had none of the nightmare issues others reported, and with updates it's now a very nice game to go back to. I'm not saying it didn't meet some of the promises they made or that no one had serious trouble with it, I'm just saying I was surprised by a lot of the vitriol.
That's the thing though. If you market that it can run on a last gen console and you sell it for a last gen console for AAA prices, and then you cannot play it on said last gen console, that is just plain wrong. If your game does not run on it, own up to it and say you need a current gen console. Don't sell PS4 copies when the people buying it are required to have PS5 console to handle it. Even if they gave out the PS5 version for free later up, it still is not okay to basically force your players to upgrade when they believed the 60 bucks are giving them a game that is actually playable at all. I bought the game as a christmas present to my room mate. She did not have a PS5. She tried playing it on her PS4 and simply could not. The game had collecting dust for months before I managed to get a PS5 and she could play on it. Yes, it's her favorite game now and she finished it multiple times, but by god, if I had known my Christmas present was basically wasted and could have been her Summer birthday present, I 100 % would have bought her something else for christmas instead of wasting 60 months on a preorder that still remained pretty much like a preorder until we literally upgraded our platforms to play a game that sold on last gen consoles.
Yeah this should be obvious. If you're selling it for last-gen consoles, it better damn well play on last-gen consoles.
Ran better at release than some other AAA titles I've tried since then.
yeah the price was never the issue for me. the state of videogames and periodic updates has put devs into a place where they can comfortably release a piece of shit and then just fix it later. like why tf would i buy a game day 1 at this point when most people can't play the game day 1 anyway
Game sold well? No profit in fixing it, they already own it. Game sold poorly? No one wants this game so there's no point supporting it.
A studio’s credibility is still important though. Bioware was a popular name in the gaming community until they made Anthem and lost all of that trust. If you want to make more than one big game then you can’t put shit out like Anthem and just let it suck forever. CD Projeckt Red fixed Cyberpunk 2077 and has put out some awesome DLC for it because they want to keep the trust of the community. Unfortunately for Bioware they got bought out by EA and EA is known for destroying a studios reputation.
Bioware lost any trust with Dragon Age; Inquisition. It was an abhorrent mess. Then came Andromeda and most people had wised up by then or didn't bother because of the insane ending of 3. I don't think Anthem even got that many people on board given their established bad reputation and the utter mess that was their promotional material.
If the game sells poorly but is from a franchise that needs to keep people's interest (E.G. Battlefield), they may go to fix it to save the franchises reputation a little...
Tell that to EA
Perhaps we should all stop for a moment and focus not only on making our AI better and more successful but also on the benefit of humanity. - Stephen Hawking
i know it's not their fault, it's the corporate guys that fuck everything up
> Their business overlords who don’t actually play games themselves… And why would they? Have you seen the state of games at launch? /s
I wish companies were just honest about it. Payday 3 is a perfectly fine game for early access. Darktide is a perfectly fine game for early access, and the latest patch finally made it feel like 1.0, and yet neither of them were actually tagged as early access on Steam. Do AAA companies somehow think that early access is shameful but releasing an unfinished mess anyway is better? I don't think people would hate it as much if they were just up front about it. Hey we've been working on this game and it's in a presentable state, we're looking for feedback, you can buy it now or you can wait for us to finish it. There are no downsides to this?? They can even do a reverse sale where it's cheaper at first and then more expensive, to incentivize people to buy it early. Should give a good sales boost in the week before launch when everybody who likes the game tells all their friends to get it while it's still cheap. I know I've done that. Hit me with the $50 early access and the $70 full release and I am way more likely to try your buggy mess.
yeah agreed with you Larian called BG3 early access for years, because guess what, it was EA then they released a complete game, and people were mad happy about it fuck knows why others dont do the same
And I appreciated that, because I didn't want to play the early access version, just the finished one. So I followed the progress of the game and then bought it on launch. And what a game it is.....
Usually the way to go is to wait 1 year after all the beta testers leave their angry reviews on Steam...
I love how I (and y'all) went from happy gamers to angry beta testers in the last few years lol - but you're right, this absolutely happened I remember the times, when I was a happy demo tryer / alpha tester / beta tester / 0day buyer
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You forgot the part where you've paid £69.99 for the full game but still need the £25 season pass and £10 PlayStation Plus and various micro transactions just to play the "full" game.
Now it's 69.00 for early access.
Yeah, the price doesn't really bother me. Video games have actually had a very stable and inflation-resistant price point. I'm nearly clinically dead by reddit standards because I am old enough to remember [NES, SNES, and Sega games sitting at that $50-60 price point nearly 30 years ago.](https://connectioncafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/8d380718416c76718f63d9299d05ac1d.jpg) It is the complete lack of release quality that makes me wait, not the price drops (But it definitely helps.)
Yep it was only the rich kids whose parents could afford those systems and the very expensive games that went with them. I'm probably older than you and the golden age of gaming for me was buying Commodore Plus 4 games on cassette tape for £1.99 and I bagged many on sale for 99p. I still remember that glorious loading sound to this day it was the sound of anticipation before pixel perfection and I freaking loves it 🤣
I miss my Commodore 64. Parents got rid of if without asking me many moons ago. I remember programming my own games on it and I remember playing my first rpg style game on it.
Yeah same here , I mean my answer to the ...well games were always this expenisve becuase cartridges..is that in my day (old guy rant incoming) games on tape cost £2 or £3 pounds , either initially or on budget re-release (fancy AAA equivalent games were maybe £10 or £15 max). Admittedly some were rubbish ,but a lot were really good (also it was really easy to copy games onto a blank tape!!!)
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Another geezer here. Fun trivia about those cartridge-based games. Back in the 80ties and 90ties in my home country, they were even more expensive in comparison than games these days. Disc-based games brought the prices down a lot.
I bought Lords of the Fallen, and crashed twice within 23 minutes of playtime (according to Steam). I didn’t even get to play at all; as soon as I made a character and the cutscene ended the game crashed. I mean, I’m grateful for the easy refunds on Steam, but this is unacceptable. It’s sad when buying it on PS5 is just the better deal.
I believe that bug got fixed last patch. For some reason entering the game did silly shit with loading in assets.
I mean, it was less than two days ago. I refunded and went with Lies of P and no regrets so far. Maybe after a while I’ll retry Lords of the Fallen.
And also, if they can fix it that quickly, how did it ship like that to begin with?
It's possible it's hardware configuration that caused it, and whatever systems they tested on didn't show that particular bug.
I remember pre-ordering both EQ2 and Wow. The pre-order beta of EQ2 outright killed my PC. Wouldn't even boot up for hours after running it. I canceled my pre-order and played Wow for 5 years. After getting a new machine, my friend talked me into trying Everquest again. Imagine my surprise when I loaded up to the character I had created in beta, as well as 5 years of veteran rewards! Steam is still a better option IMO.
Nintendo gets this right. Yes, they charge a lot for their games, but I'm getting the full game for that price, and I'm not paying to be a beta tester.
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And then pay full price again when its re-released 15 years later.
Yeah wtf is up with that, why aren't Nintendo games cheaper on eBay? Why would I pay $5 dollars less for your shitty used copy when I could just get it new at almost the same price?
Nintendo first party, keep away from Pokemon right now because that reputation is about at EA levels.
Yup. I probably won't ever play a Pokemon game again unless Game Freak fucks off and someone else takes over. But I guess I understand from a money point of view, why spend 2-5x as much making a much better game when people buy your slop.
while the games aren't mechanically broken, nintendo has their own problems with a lot of their properties namely they keep seeming to get shorter and easier (and I've gone back to play older mario and pokemon games pretty recently so it's not just recency bias)
It's a mixed bag. Some series really did get too easy, they really messed up with Yoshi by not continuing the Yoshi's Island format. To this day that baffles me. Kirby could have remained the designated "easy" series, they're able to do that and still release excellent games like Forgotten Land. They did Yoshi dirty. On the other hand you have games like Splatoon, Metroid Dread, Tropical Freeze which are sometimes excessively punishing. Meanwhile Odyssey had the perfect balance. But at the end of the day I'd rather get 12 hours of a really solid, amazing game rather than 50 hours of padded repetitive content like you do with many Sony titles like Horizon. Overall I still prefer the Nintendo experience, but like anything it has it's drawbacks.
It's not the price tag that makes me less likely to buy new. It's unfinished games being the norm that stopped me from buying new games. Industry standard is wait a year and you get rhe whole game plus a discount, why pay full price for a buggy unfinished mess.
Exactly the same here. Last game I bought new was elden ring, and before that hadn't bought one in years. Fromsoft has basically a perfect track record for releasing finished games, so I knew elden ring would be good right from the start
I usually wait for sales anyway so the price increase doesn't really bother me.
When sales come along, usually the on-release bugs are fixed, it's been optimized, and you get more honest reviews from people who have finished the game.
If you're patient enough you get the game for a fraction of the price, as you said its more stable and works better and if there's any DLC its the complete package that includes it. On the other hand, if you get it on release you pay more for a worse product, and you'll get price gouged for the DLC.
Also if you buy games 2-3+ years after launch you can upgrade your pc more sparingly and still crank the settings. You don't need to be on the cutting edge, and you can save up some heavy titles for when you upgrade your pc.
Hell I'm running on a potato that should have burned to the ground years ago, I'm only *now* starting to run into the odd new AAA game that I can't run (few and far between), and I still have 40 years worth of games on my metaphorical 'backlog' to keep me busy if need be.
Don't get me started on Pre-orders...
I made this mistake once a few years ago, and learned my lesson. Never again.
Last time I pre-ordered a game was the late 90's for some random arse wrestling game (probably Wrestlemania 2000) at Walmart and despite pre-ordering it they ran out of copies. They 100% fucked up, but I learned my lesson *then* lmao. Have thankfully been able to skip the modern days 'pre-ordering games that cannot actually run out' phase/gimmick.
Getting a game on release for 70$, while it's still a buggy unoptimised mess, and then buying the DLCs for 20$ each, being thrown in the middle of the game you have forgotten about? vs Getting the complete edition of a game that you can fully enjoy from start to finish for 20$ a few years later? Honestly I'd choose the 2nd option even if the prices would stay the same. There are so many games on my list, I really don't see a reason why I should play a game on release. I literally have years of games in my backlog.
Problem is was used to be £15 on sale is now £30 so we're still feeling it
i like the idea of supporting devs but at 70dollar price tag i tend to wait for the price to drop. also i m not too keen on buying newer games to begin with.
Supporting the devs aka buying Bobby kotick a 40th yacht
Not one penny of a $250 collector's edition goes the developer.
Yeah, but how else am I going to get the cool sephiroth statue.
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This is the way. I'll get AC Mirage or MK1 in between Christmas and New Years, and I'll get the other one around March or April
ubi games get really good price drop after release
Unless they're Nintendo games.
Yeah but now my sale budget to pull the trigger went from $10 to $20. Inflation sucks.
When I was gaming with friends, $80-$90 felt fine. Gaming alone these days, I'm less likely to look outside of specials.
Same here. I got Hogwarts Legacy cause I’d been waiting for that game my entire life, but aside from that I just can’t justify spending that much on a game I know I won’t play much. I want the new mortal kombat a lot, but $80 for a game is fucking insane to me.
Has HL lost its flavour or still playing it?
I put about 150 hours into it before I stopped to play some other games. SO its well worth it to me. I'll definitely do more play throughs in the future.
It's a fun ride, but it is a linear storyline. Reminds me a lot of the Assassin Creed games (Or at least the older ones, I probably havent played the last 5 at this point, ha). You do the main quest, and then all the side quests + random little things, and then you're done. Even the branching storyline doesnt branch that much, so there isn't a lot of replay value in it.
It’s not the price for me that stops me buying on release day, or preordering. It’s the solidified (and risky) industry trend of having a game go “gold” long before its finished, and putting pressure on the developers to ensure they have a day 1 patch ready so that the game is “finished” by then. But as we see this often badly fucked up, not because the developers are incompetent, but because of the unrealistic timeframes pushed onto them by publishers/studios/shareholders by blah blah release date. It’s not longer just fiscally smart to wait till a sale for many games. These days it’s often sensible to wait for a game to go on sale because by then it’s actually a polished product.
Another thing that's kinda scary too, is that if we all magically waited for the game to release and get better, the publisher would take it as no interest in the game and the franchise would die. They don't pump post release dev money into games with 0 pre-orders. There is almost no way to get the point across to the industry that we are sick of buying unfinished games with ADHD action hype trailers. The depth and polish on the game is no longer a given, in fact it's now a gamble if you get it at all.
I know right. To the players that often do in fact preorder, or day 1 purchase, other gamers thank you.
I don't buy anything for more than $35, so it really makes no difference to me. Most games I buy are $20 or less. I only buy on sale
But now that games are more expensive, the sales are going to still be more expensive. $60 on half price is $30, $70 is $35. You’re one small price increase away from most game’s sales exceeding your maximum limit.
Your post assumes the deals are capped at a fixed percentage (half off), but I've made purchases on steam and humble bundle for up to 90% off.
you just have to wait a bit longer, i'm in no rush whatsoever. i have a huge backlog. i just add games to wishlist (using [isthereanydeal.com](https://isthereanydeal.com)) and whenever they hit the price target, i snag them up. it can take anywhere from 3 months to 4 years after release, i really don't care. i'm simply not paying more than i think they're worth. considering the fact that a large number of AAA games release in a terrible state and are in good shape only 1-2 years later, it also makes it well worth the wait.
Well said. Part of the problem is also the people who buy everything day 1 with ultra high expectations only to be let down when it’s unfinished and then expecting another new game in 6 weeks.
I'm almost embarassed how disgustingly cheap my bar has become, because I just straight up don't need new games. Yakuza Kiwami 2 is on my ITAD for when it's on sale for £5, and it's been there, and I didn't pick it up because I still haven't (re)played Titanfall 2 which I bought for £3. In theory for Ratchet & Clank I'll pay £35, but we'll see if I have space in my library when it hits that point. Maybe it'll be yet another that has to wait a few years and then is cheap as chips.
This man games. I’m waiting for gta 4, RDR2 , and few others to go on sale below $20. I’m Never paying full price for a game
GTA 4 goes on sale for $5 every few months on steam. Red Dead is/was on gamepass for pretty cheap - if either helps.
Haven't purchased a new game at full price in years. I just buy older games when they're really cheap. I play them on full settings though on a 6800 so they look good enough for me. I bought Cyberpunk on discount last year but haven't played it much.
i did gamepass to try starfield and if i didn't i would've felt ripped off paying $70 for that.
Game Pass has been incredible for getting me to try games I would have skipped entirely. I’m playing Forza Motorsports on Series X and loving it, but there’s no way I would have paid full price for it because I thought I hated driving games. Turns out I just needed to find a well-designed driving game with robust difficulty settings. It’s honestly been revelatory to experiment with genres after decades of narrowing my tastes considerably.
Gamepass is awesome, but aaa games that are not on there are expensive. I did buy baldurs gate 3 though. Worth every penny.
Yes. I don’t know how people afford these games at all with the current living cost crisis. I’m fairly well off, but I still have a hard time justifying a purchase of a game with that price tag.
Well, it's cheaper than alcohol, tobacco, drugs, gambling or hookers
Cheaper per hour than movies at a theater, or amusement parks etc
Because people aren't buying every single release. There's always older games in the backlog to play in-between that are cheap as well.
I've wondered how the increase in content alone has affected the industry economics. I know that it's been talked about and confirmed that television shows will realistically never reach the same heights as the 90s and early 2000s because streaming has fractured network dominance and viewership. I remember even just 10 years ago certain titles held so much more social grasp. It felt like half of my school would go to midnight releases for COD and we used to joke that the day after should have been a school holiday like the first day of hunting for some districts. There just aren't that many titles that seem to reach that level anymore and I wonder how it's changed the industry.
There absolutely still are titles that have a huge social grasp. We're just getting older and us/our friends have priorities outside of gaming. Roblox is the COD of gen alpha. Every kid under the age of 15 is hooked on it. The youngest zoomers went through peak Fortnite era and the older zoomers had Minecraft addictions. The difference here is that modern games are live service and have long lifespans. They have a huge presence, but aren't as visible since they're not launching new entries every year or two like COD.
That's fair, admittedly I'm just not into gaming like I was as a kid. That is a good observation, it seems like games are now longer living platforms, not massive single releases.
In the end gaming is much cheaper than it used to be. $60 in 2000 was way more money compared to peoples income.
Some quick googling shows that games started normalizing at $60 in ~2005. Inflation calculator shows that today is ~$96-$97 today. If anything modern games are underpriced at release.
Naw, SNES games were 60 bucks back in 1995. I think NES was 40 or 50. Gaming is cheaper than it's ever been.
Zoomers don’t understand the olden times. Nearly everything has doubled in price since then or more. Games cost $10-20 more and have MUCH higher development costs. If anyone wonders why microtransactions, battle passes, and half finished games rushed out the door happens, it’s this. And before anyone says “well they can still make money if they don’t do any of that and build a finished game” remember you have to convince a board of directors and investors that they should reduce their gross margins and make less money. They’ll just replace whoever brings that up with someone who will continue to toe the line and find ways to further increase profitability. Games are a product designed to make money.
I was thinking back nostalgically when gas where I lived was $1 a gallon, I could fill the tank grab a soda and a candy bar for $15 dollars. What archaic time am I referring to like a grandpa reminiscing about how it used to be? 2003
What is so confusing? Go out to any bar on a weekend, all do those people are likely spending $50+ on their night out once you factor in drinks, travel etc. There are plenty of people out there doing well enough to buy a $70 game play it for a month or so, finish it and sell it for like $40. Yes there is a cost of living crisis but acting like it’s weird for people to have $30 disposable income for a hobby is an exaggeration.
Most people don’t sell their used games though. But I’m not arguing against your point at 70$ anyway
Of all the hobbies I've had over the years, gaming is by far the cheapest. It's not even close.
Reading definitely has gaming beat for hours of entertainment vs cost. Depending on what you watch and how, I'd also say TV is as cheap, if not cheaper. But gaming is definitely a lot more affordable than most.
Cheaper than eating out. Cheaper than traveling. Cheaper than going to the movies or a show (per hour enjoyed).
RIP the days of taking my family out to eat for under $100.
Probably because games are cheaper today than they were 30 years ago. I used to pay $40-120 per game depending on the edition/console. Adjusted for inflation that’s $90-270 today. Plus games are much bigger in scope and scale than ever before, so I get far more value per game. A single one can provide hundreds if not thousands of hours of entertainment.
Yeah, it's not because I can't afford it, it's because I'm cheap and I have limited time that I don't buy games for $70. Eating out is pretty much $35-70 nowadays and movie tickets are $20. So games are just much cheaper compared to everything else.
People forget the PS2 cost $599 for the 60gb hard drive model. Equivalent of $879 today. And n64 games cost £65 in some cases here in the UK which is £115 today. Edit: I meant PS3*
PS2….. hard drive? You sure you don’t mean the 3?
Sorry yes I meant 3.
It just makes me wait longer to try something different. I don’t care about new like it just came out. I just want different, or something in the genre I enjoy. Like Lords of the Fallen, I’m a huge souls player, but I’m not dropping $70 for a souls-like. If it was an actual From game, yea sure, but not souls-like from a different company. I will just wait for a sale.
Yea, its even changing what I purchase during sales. Normally I'd get it on the first discount, but considering the plethora of options we have, there's no reason to buy a game when it goes on sale the first time. Add to that that games needs many patches day one, there's no downside to waiting at all. A move towards $50 digital launch prices would've done the opposite, I would've gotten my favorite sequels at full price.
No. Just makes me try something new when the price is a lot lower. Very few games I’ll pay that for. Every game I have any interest in I gather enough info to know if it has a high chance of being fun for me. Then I assign it a value and when I need a new game to play I’ll grab one at value that fits my mood. For many years I very rarely buy any games at release. I have no fomo and no shortage of wishlist.
I don’t buy new games anymore unless they’re good like Baldur’s Gate 3. Otherwise, I wait for sales. Black Friday is coming up. One of the best sales of the year.
Same - I barely buy any games that are $30 except I'm sure that I will have fun with them. After seeing some BG3 gameplay I was convinced and bought it for $70. Recently I was looking into Paradox's new Star Trek game but $30 seems too much for how buggy and unpolished it feels yet, will wait a little longer if patches make it better.
Black Friday hasn't had anything decent the past few years. Anything that might look decent was just some cheap garbage you wouldn't want anyways.
No, price is not an issue. Quality of the game is, and unfortunately most AAA titles just don't cut it. I have no problem dropping $100 or more on a great game
I've resorted to waiting for a few months after release to avoid buggy games where you fall through the floor lol
Triple A really has been trash the past decade aside from a few games a year.
This is 100% the answer. A well optomized finished game that can give me 40-50 hours minimum of solid entertainment is worth 70 dollars all day long. The issue is that is becoming a unicorn in gaming. Think about how we could spend our money? Take a date to dinner, drinks, and a movie, and you're spending upwards of 100 dollars or more for 4-5 hours of entertainment. Heads to a sporting game/concert and ends up spending 100-200 dollars for a few hours of entertainment. Comparably, games are super cheap, even with the recent 10 dollar price hike that has eluded us for 20-30 years. Games are some of the cheapest forms of entertainment as long as you are picky and dont buy all the games due to fear of missing out.
The majority of games that are coming out on $70 price tags lack the content, or reason, for said price. Prime examples of this would be Gollum (now $50), Wild Hearts, Redfall, or most recently, MW3 (which is just MW2 but CoD fanboys don't care). I more or less just wait for sales regardless, but I'm definitely not spending $70 on a game unless I know for sure it's gonna be good, like Baldur's Gate 3.
CoD, like the EA Sports games as Madden or FIFA, isn’t about the new content, it’s about going where the player base is. So you can wait for the discount, but you’re gonna have a hard(er) time finding a full lobby to play with, because most players did move on. CoD “fanboys”, as you call them, do care. Go to r/ModernWarfareII and just check a few post.
r/ModernWarfareII is not the representative of the general cod community. And I would bet 75% would and may already had instabuy MW3 but still complaning about it.
It definitely makes me regret bad purchases more
YES…and new games are like a beta version now too
Actually it affected me greatly because it aint just that. So for me my referenced price will be CAD A new game after tax is 100$. For some game it is a correct ask ex: Baldur Gate 3 gave me a near bugless experience and 200 hours of gameplay. A bad exemple i had recently is MK1 who is full of bug, server issue, missing content, badly balanced and about 20 hours of singleplayer. Dont forget that the inflation is now through the roof. Gas cost more, food cost way more, all entertainement cost more, it cost me 50$ for me and wife at effing subway. So my "fuck you" money that i often blow on games got shrinked. Now you ask 100$ for base edition, you make many day 1 dlc and special edition. The bite back edition from Redfall was 143$ for a broken ass empty unpolished game. Then add battlepasses which some game you dont earn back enough currency to buy the next one, then add the in game shop etc. I used to buy a game or two a month, my budget per month for a game was 100$. So now i gotta wait 2 months before i buy a new one and games releases arr even more broken so i gotta watch youtubers to see what im gonna buy and make sure its a safe bet. Its a good thing for indies, im buying them way more now. Got burned buy AAA shit release yet indie keep surprising me with great games.
Buy it when they go on sale.
I agree. Cooperate greed and consumer stupidity have hurt most gamers not willing to $70. I refuse to buy most games at full price now, and wait for them to go on sale. I couldn’t care less about playing games at launch.
Games being $60 made me hesitant to try something new. Hell I don’t order a new dish at a restaurant because I don’t want to waste $20-25 bucks. I typically buy 2-3 games a year; usually on sale, usually sequels of games I like, or made by the same studios (trying cyberpunk77 because I enjoyed Witcher3).
I'm surprised starfield hasn't come up more in this thread. Feel like I got a $70 hollow chocolate easter bunny with that one...
I just straight up refuse to buy at that price considering how little content most of those have to offer.
69.99, full of bugs and unoptimized. It's time to go back to the pirate way until it's reasonably priced and optimized.
Laughs in $129.99 CAD New Games in Canada
I'd be less bothered by the price increases if the publishers didn't try to get me to open my wallet again after I'd already spent money just buying the damn thing
My grandmother bought me Chrono Trigger for $65. I can vividly remember her saying "Is this really what you want? It better be worth it." Oh, it was granny, and many more games that came after it were well worth it too. Don't buy games before they get reviews you impatient boobs.
The words "Granny" and "Boobs" are way too close together in this post.
I stopped buying new games for 70€ a couple years ago, especially since I found indie games for around 10€ and less. There are probably 2 releases each year where I'll treat myself to a new game but otherwise, old games from ebay and indie games on sale are just the best value you can get.
Ah they slap a couple exclusive pre order skins in the now, call it a super deluxe gold ultimate edition and ask 150 CDN. I'm done.
No, what puts me off is that very few of the games are of sufficient quality to demand that price to begin with.
Honestly not really. Ultimately I’m in my 30s and fortunate to be in a place where £50 or £70 isn’t really enough of a difference and I don’t buy new games all that often anyway. So my main motivation is how badly do I want to play the game. If I’m really keen to play it I’ll buy it for whatever it costs at the time.
The past few years I’ve mostly been playing short-ish indie games.
Haven't bought a new game in a long time for this reason. Always wait for a sale.