How Much Do You Pay For Games?

[Goron_3]

Simple question.

 

How much do you spend on gaming? Do you buy games at full price? Or do you predominantly play Indie titles which are much cheaper? Preowned or brand new?

 

The industry has changed a lot recently and there are more and more opportunities to play games which are incredibly cheap/free which have a lot of content, as opposed to playing games which cost £40-£50 at launch.

 

As for me, in the past 3 years I've only Nintendo 4 games brand new/at a cost over £30, all of which were Nintendo games (Pokemon X, Pokemon Black 2, Luigi's Mansion and Skyward Sword). Every other title has been purchased preowned from places like CEX. Having purchased a PS3 so late in the generation its been great to be able to catch up on so many older classic games are such cheap prices.

 

That said, the biggest change in my spending habits is that I look more and more to indie titles, through Steam/psn etc to give me my fix of gaming. I've noticed more and more that these titles are so much more innovative than many £40 releases on say, my Wii U and they are also much cheaper. I've certainly got more out of The Walking Dead, Hotline Miami, Mark of the Ninja than I have of sequels like GTA5, Pikmin, Mario, Donkey Kong etc.

 

In short, I'm finding it harder and harder to justify spending money on full price retail games. Maybe that's because I'm a student or maybe it's because there's better value elsewhere, but I find that I have wait for prices to come down a lot, buy preowned (most likely) or look at Indie titles.

 

How about you guys? How much do you spend on gaming? Have your habits changed? Are you an indie man or a AAA type of gamer?

[Sheikah]

I rarely buy games at full price unless I really want them. Most games I'll wait until they're £20 or less before I buy.

[Shorty]

I don't usually buy discount games, but I will almost never pay a high-street price either. I can't understand people who buy their games in-store instead of on supermarket sites, amazon, shopto, etc.. Even game.co.uk is cheaper than its in-store equivalent. I'm a serial pre-orderer and the aforementioned sites are my enablers.

 

Sometimes there's that I must have this game right now mentality which might lead to going to buy a game on a whim. I understand that (and have fallen prey to it in the past) but is typically just a result of indecisiveness/poor planning :p

[nekunando]

I never buy games at full price any more as there doesn't seem to be much point I have more than enough games to be playing while I wait for the latest releases to drop considerably in price

 

The only exception I can see myself making in the near future is Mario Kart 8 as I know I'm gonna get more than my money's worth out of it and I'll get a free t-shirt and eShop download out of my £39.85

[Grazza]

I'm totally happy to pay £30-40 for a launch day game if it's something I really want. After all, if I don't like it, I can sell it and get a lot of the money back. Plus, I tend to play rare-ish RPGs that will likely disappear if I don't secure my copy.

 

If it's something I want to play but am not totally excited about, I will wait for it to be about £20, especially if it's the type of game which they will have printed a lot of copies of.

 

As for digital games... Yeah, I do buy quite a lot, but not retail ones. Getting a great game for £5-10 doesn't put me off paying full price for a physical one. What I won't do, however, is pay full price for digital retail games if there's any other option. There are three such titles on my 3DS - Super Mario 3D Land, Animal Crossing and Code of Princess. The first two were free, whereas Code of Princess was download-only. I would like to download all my retail games, but they'd really have to get the prices down to £20 or so.

[Jonnas]

Long gone are the days where I'd pay full price for most of my games. I'm now making it through my Steam&GOG backlog, and I don't expect to buy anything in retail until then.

 

But when I do/did, I'd search for the cheapest options. Doing so landed me a great deal for Valkyrie Profile for the DS, so it definitely pays off. The only times where I pay full price are for games I really want (like with Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, back then) or Nintendo games (like with Skyward Sword)

[Dcubed]

I buy full price on day 1 most of the time. Not from B&M, but from online retailers.

 

Nintendo's games don't really drop rapidly (and I want to support them as much as feasibly possible) and most of the games I like are from niche developers like Atlus and Platinum who need all the help they can get too. Indie games I typically buy at full price too (obviously the ones that I'm interested in) because I either want it ASAP or I just want to support them.

 

I don't really buy the typical "AAA" games that plummet in price rapidly anyway.

Edited May 8, 2014 by Dcubed

[Ville]

I try to buy most of my games used or just go for the cheap Steam / VC games, usually under 10€ in price. Which brings me to one really bad thing about the Wii U: there doesn't seem to really even be used games out there! And even if you have a multiplatform game that is going down in price naturally, the Wii U version is always the most expensive one! It makes no sense to me, the console people are buying the least, with the highest priced games, with the most gimped versions....aaaargh goddamnit.

 

Anyway, not sure about Mario Kart yet, but Smash Bros I probably will buy at launch...In general, I don't have that much money right now so I just don't think spending 50-60€ on one game is worth it, especially when you can get 5-6 other games with that same money!

[Jimbob]

I keep wondering why it's cheaper on game.co.uk than in-store, and have inquired about the stores matching online pricing. Simply put, they won't. Which is stupid to be fair, but hey ho.

 

It does depend on the game itself. I do try and buy in retail stores as much as possible, if it's reasonably priced of course. I'm happy to go out and buy a game at full price (at launch or whenever) if it's something i want to play. I do buy the vast majority of my Nintendo games via Shopto or GAME online as it tends to be (at times) up to £10 cheaper than in-store. Bought Mario Golf at launch for £8 cheaper online (£27) than in-store (£35).

 

Other titles on other consoles, it does vary. Currently, i've got Watch Dogs pre-ordered online, but i've got Mario Kart pre-ordered in-store. And with instore purchases, you do get the odd good deal. Best i can think of is recently with inFamous, got the Special Edition (with the hat) for £5 cheaper than the standard game at an online price because the store forgot to remove 2 pre-orders from my card, so claimed them.

 

I guess to wrap it up, i'm 50/50 on online and store purchases. You can get cracking deals whilst out and about which just ain't available online and visa-versa.

[Oxigen_Waste]

Never go over £20. Why bother, I can wait...

 

Which is why MK8 will be my first day 1 purchase in a loooooooong time and ONLY because it comes with a second game for free! ^^

[Ville]

Which is why MK8 will be my first day 1 purchase in a loooooooong time and ONLY because it comes with a second game for free! ^^

 

Yeah, that's a good deal. I just hope it works in Finland too, as we don't have our own Club Nintendo section...

[Clownferret]

One of the benefits of the Wii U bombing coupled with Blockbuster and HMV going pop has been the ridiculous bargains available for Wii U games. I have over 20 games and think I have paid full price for 3 or 4 of those and that was only because they were birthday/christmas presents and had only just been launched.

Highlights:

Sonic Racing - £7.99

Deus Ex - £5.45

Pikmin 3 - £8

W101 - £8

Fifa 13 - £9.99

Injustice - £7.99

Tekken - £13

Darksiders 2 - £9.99

Wii Party U + Wiimote - £14.99

AC IV the big boxed version - £27.99

Rayman Legends - £7.99

 

+ free game coming with MK8

 

The Wii U is a cheap way to play great games.

[Serebii]

I don't buy games at RRP, but at "full price" that retailers like ShopTo are selling for, which is usually £5-£10 below RRP.

 

Almost always Day 1. If I don't have an initial interest for a game, I tend not to bother. Like @Dcubed, I also don't tend to get AAA titles that end up dropping in price considerably, too, but rather mostly Nintendo titles that stay high.

Edited May 9, 2014 by Serebii

[Shorty]

Never go over £20. Why bother, I can wait...

One of the best reasons is for that multiplayer game that everyone is experiencing for the first time. Before they patch in some fun-sucking nerf, when nobody knows the map, when all your friends are online. That's one good reason to buy a game at launch.

[Blade]

I don't like to waste money so for me I don't see the point paying over the odds for something instore when I can probably get it much cheaper online.

 

I'm not bothered about supporting individual retailers. They are businesses and they can look after themselves. I care about my own £££.

 

I've also learnt this generation not to buy 3rd party titles at launch. I bought Splinter Cell day 1 only for it to become extremeley cheap a couple of weeks later.

[Rummy]

Usually around the £30 mark if not even less(though I often buy 'brand new' when it's fallen heavily in price). Sometimes if there's a game I really don't wanna part market dime with, I'll go to CEX or somewhere if there's a notably better second hand deal. I don't know why I'm still buying games though, I've generally got sealed/unplayed games(pandora's tower, last story, muramasa, super mario 3D world, wonderful 101, deus ex human revolution - not to mention the barely played/unfinished ones too). I've got about 30 PS3 games I got in a good bargain that I haven't touched yet either. A present of Kingdom Hearts, too.

 

There are of course some games I want as soon as they happen, to play whilst everyone else is, even then I'll not do a full price/high street buy, rather I'd go with ShopTo or whoever's got the cheapest online price.

 

Download I buy, or have bought, a lot of cheap stuff on Steam etc in the past. I love a bargain, and I also partake in some pay what you want style things with a minimal investment - many of which I've yet to play, assuming I ever will.

 

One of the best reasons is for that multiplayer game that everyone is experiencing for the first time. Before they patch in some fun-sucking nerf, when nobody knows the map, when all your friends are online. That's one good reason to buy a game at launch.

 

Definitely agree with this though - one of the reasons I bought Halo 4 was simply because I wanted to get on it whilst everyone else was too!

[liger05]

3DS £30 - £35

 

PS4 £45 - £50

 

Wii U £30 - £40

 

I get games day 1 so very rarely get games when they get discounted.

[Dog-amoto]

Don't buy many games Day 1 anymore but there is the odd one here and there. Getting PS Plus a year ago keeps me busy enough and it's rare that I want a brand new game now as I have a massive backlog to get through.

 

Still not gone next gen yet. And I don't plan to till next year.

[Guy]

I try and limit myself as I never get around to finishing games these days. I buy most new Nintendo or decent multiplayer releases though. Big fan of renting anything that will only take me 10 hours to complete.

[Goafer]

I used to decide on a game by game basis whether the current price was worth it, but now that I'm saving for a house I won't pay much above £20 unless it's something I really want or is a really rare retro game for a decent price.

 

Currently exploring free to play Android games, which is nice. I doubt I'd pay for any though.

Edited May 18, 2014 by Goafer

[Wii]

As little as possible. What? Is that too vague?

[The Bard]

I pretty much only play games on PC these days, which tend to be a little bit cheaper than their console counterparts. For example, I pre-ordered Wolfenstein: The New Order for £26.99 whereas it would have been £39.99 for the console versions. I will usually pay full price for about five or six games every year, things that I'm genuinely looking forward to, or that seem enticing and review super well on release, but for everything else, there are always Steam sales.

 

In 2013, there were very few games, for example, that I paid full price for, except Bioshock Infinite, Assassins Creed 4 and Company of Heroes 2.

 

But when you wind the clock back to 2011, I paid full price for Dead Space 2, Portal 2, Skyrim, Crysis 2, Deus Ex; Human Revolution, Battlefield 3, Assassins Creed Revelations, Batman: Arkham City, and I'm probably still forgetting some.

 

So it really depends, there are some years that are absolutely outstanding for videogame releases, and I couldn't really call myself much of an enthusiast if I didn't oblige my whims in those rare instances.

 

There's also the issue, recently, of paying a slightly discounted price upfront for games that you are helping to fund, for example on Kickstarter, or on Steam early access. Occasionally I'll throw in a couple bucks towards those, because that tends to be where a lot of esoteric ideas broach the gaming landscape. Kerbal Space Program and Hyper Light Drifter and Rust being a few notable examples.

[Charlie]

I tend to buy games on release day if it's something I'm looking forward to. This year I will almost definitely get Destiny and COD on day 1, quite possibly FIFA as well as we've really enjoyed this years version (the first one I've had since 2009).

 

Other games can wait as I don't really play them that much. I recently got Rayman Legends (Xbox One) for £18 and I'm waiting until next month to get Forza 5 when hopefully it will be down to £20 on the Live Store with Deals for Gold. I'm hoping that some retailers will match this for the hard copy.

[Miharin]

Official euro price for most console games is 59.95€ or 69.95€ but I'd be hard pressed to pay the higher price, especially for a digital version of a game. I usually wait for the inevitable sales. Latest games I paid full price for that I can remember are Dark Souls 2 and Pokémon Y.

 

Do you think that if Xbox One had stuck to the no used games-plan (and forgetting that stupid Gamestop-exclusive used games market), games would be slightly cheaper for it?

[Tales]

I buy most of my games on day 1 so I pay whatever is cheapest day 1 price.