Your current Game Buying Habits

[Blix]

So lately I've been thinking about getting some games but I haven't been able to because I'm pretty broke. I've been Wanting to buy No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle since it came out. Same is true for Resident Evil 5 for PC. I was wondering if some other people here are having the same problems. Have you not been able to get a game you want because you can't afford it, these days? Even if you eventually got it but had to push it back just to be able to sum up the money needed for it. Do you find yourself buying way less games than you used to?

[Typhoid]

I don't really play games anymore.
I go through phases, but this phase doesn't seem to want to end.
I'll play a few games with some friends, or watch friends play games - but I'd rather do something else on my own time than play a video game.

[ZebraRampage]

I definitely don't buy as many games. It's not always because of money, but more because I don't see the cost of the game amounting to the cost of enjoyment I'll get out of it. I think this has something to do with me growing up and being interested in other things too. I feel the same way as Typhoid in that I'd rather do something else with my time than play videogames.

The reason money might apply for me right now is because I just finished college and I'm looking for a job with no success so far, so I don't want to spend too much more at the moment, considering I just bought a really nice laptop.

[DarkMaster]

I don't buy any games anymore, at all. I can rent them for $5 and beat them comfortably in 5-7 days.

[Angrist]

The reason money might apply for me right now is because I just finished college and I'm looking for a job with no success so far, so I don't want to spend too much more at the moment, considering I just bought a really nice laptop.
That sounds an awful lot like me. :( Good luck man.

I also seem to go through phases. I seemed to only play games with friends a few months ago. But then we got New Super Mario Bros. Wii. That (and having more time) got me into daily playing games again.
Now I've almost beat Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. I beat (and got amazing scores in) Link's Crossbow Training. I started but got so terribly sick of Disaster: Day of Crisis. I also started Okami, which I'll play after FE.
I got Let's Tap, which is fun for multiplayer. Another Code: R is waiting for me, but I want to play the DS game first.

I got all of these games for €10 each. :) I don't have the money to buy full-priced games yet. When I finally do get a job, I might buy a DSL.

Oh, the next game I'll buy will probably be Starcraft 2.

[Vampyr]

I just buy games as they come out that I want. Renting doesn't make a lot of sense for me, as I play games slowly and need several weeks to beat them. Plus I just like having my collection.

[Professor S]

I only buy very highly regarded/reviewed games or trusted franchises new (Mass Effect, Bioshock, MW2, etc) that fit into my preferred genres (RPGs, RPG Action,FPS). The rest I wait until they are available used for $30 or less. I don't rent because most games I enjoy have high replayability. To give you an example, I'll be buying Bioshock 2 today, even though I doubt it will come close to living up to the original, simply because I love the franchise and the world they created and I want to know the next chapter in the story.

Recently I've found inexpensive Live Arcade games quite enjoyable, such as Pinball.

[Combine 017]

I steadily buy games, on average 1 a month.

[Teuthida]

Last game I bought was back in 2006.

Just been playing a lot of free flash games. A number of games that show up on WiiWare start out as free PC games.

[Thespis721]

I just buy games as they come out that I want. Renting doesn't make a lot of sense for me, as I play games slowly and need several weeks to beat them. Plus I just like having my collection.

I'm in this boat. It takes me RIDICULOUSLY long to beat games that I actually buy them faster then I beat them, but unlike the typical compulsive buyer, I think I end up buying much less then 1 a month. I end up buying games when they are much cheaper. For example, I just beat Uncharted: Drakes' Fortune and started playing Bioshock with some Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare thrown in. These are the originals.

However I uncharacteristically sank $50 in buying Mass Effect, Ninja Gaiden 2, and Fallout 3 off the Amazon buy 2 get one free deal. I'll get to those games after I finish playing Metroid Prime 3, Okami, and Dead Space. ;-)

[TheSlyMoogle]

Well I used to just not buy games at all. Until June of last year I had 2 games for my 360. haha 2. I now have 10. I basically buy about a game a month. I generally buy games that catch my interest in some way, and then also end up with good reviews. This doesn't apply to fighting games, as I generally don't buy them unless I've played them at a tournament somewhere, and watch a lot of videos/read about the mechanics of the game and talk to people who play it.

[BreakABone]

I'm addicted to buying games, there's really no way around it.

I may have close to like 100 games or so this generation alone. Most of it is done on bargain/deals, but I do buy a ton.

There are very few games I feel are worth buying on launch/at full price. And could possibly think of the games off the top of my head I've done it for.

I do prioritize as there are games (Mario Galaxy 2 comes to mnd) that I will get ASAP and others, like say Bayonetta, I'll wait until its like 20-30 bucks.

[Dyne]

I'm a smart buyer. I abuse my connections to get games cheap from the major western publishers, bwahaha.

TakeTwo isn't available to me, so I have to work around that. I just split up a Bioshock 2 four-pack with three buddies from work - worked out to be $33 each. I'm starting to see the benefit of PC gaming.

The only games I pay full price for are the ones I love the most anyways. Usually Japanese ones. Bayonetta, Half-Minute Hero, Yakuza 3, FFXIII, etc. Most of the others I can get for cheap.

[TheSlyMoogle]

Oh FFXIII you're so close to me right now. I need you. Gah.

[Thespis721]

I used to be like you BB. Last generation especially. I had 100+ games from the last generation. Maybe it's the $10 price hike (which usually ends up being a retail $10 price hike for when they drop in price), or maybe it has to do with me being so incredibly busy these past couple of years, but something has stayed my hand from buying a lot of games. I usually bargain binned, or online purchased my games.

But a few games I deemed a desire to get them now. NSMBWii, Arkham Asylum... not much though.

[Angrist]

Haha Thespis, you sound like me. Last generation I bought almost every Nintendo-made game for the Cube on launch day. Some I hardly played or liked. I think I own around 30 Cube games.

This generation is much slower for me. I just got to 12 Wii games, and 6 of them were very cheap. I'm still playing games of 2 years ago.

About New Super Mario Bros. Wii: We all know it's not getting cheaper. Not ever. So you might as well buy it now. :)

[Thespis721]

And I did. And I loved it. I'm three star coins away from completing the game!

[Blix]

Many people here have either the same problems as I do or similar ones. Lately, I have some stuff to attend in my life and it makes me feel guilty when I spend time playing a video game instead of doing some other stuff. The only thing I play are games that I can pickup again without having to remember exactly where I have been, what was the last time I did and what I have to do next. I left some Metroid Games incomplete thanks to this. I'll be very into a game, then suddenly some thing takes me away from it and I have to return to the game about a month later when I don't remember what I was supposed to do. The process of remembering little details is so frustrating that I end up just not getting back into the game. And it ALWAYS happens in the middle of a game. MMOs, on the other hand, I find easy to return to and continue my leveling and quests. But then again they're such time sinks...

And for some reason PC gaming is now my preferred gaming platform. Maybe it's the MMOs, maybe it's my love for steam (and it's weekend specials), or because I keep trying to push that expensive hardware to its limit.

[KillerGremlin]

I don't buy shit anymore. I'm currently playing Rollercoaster Tycoon/Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 on PC, and I resurrected some games on my Xbox. I've been playing the GTA: Trilogy and I play a lot of Peggle. I also play PokerStars and Counter-Strike. As for gaming purchases, I haven't lately....I bought the New Super Mario Bros. for my brother's Wii but I'm currently at college so it's just me, my PC and my trusty Xbox.

I find that my time is a lot more precious with a full class load so I spend my breaks doing a lot of casual gaming and my weekends sticking with classic games that I know are fun. I do a lot of emulation on the PC too....which is nice; my PC can smoothly do anything up to N64/PSX.

[Thespis721]

This is the greatest forum ever. It's full of a bunch of people who rarely play video games!

[Professor S]

This is the greatest forum ever. It's full of a bunch of people who rarely play video games!

And we wonder why we don't get much traffic anymore with a name like "Gametavern"...

[manasecret]

I play a game called "FE Review Manual". Every night I wrack my brain trying to remember what I learned six years ago. Fun.

[Bond]

And we wonder why we don't get much traffic anymore with a name like "Gametavern"...
So true. We're really more like a society of friends that occasionally discusses videogames than a videogame centric forum.

[ZebraRampage]

I play a game called "FE Review Manual". Every night I wrack my brain trying to remember what I learned six years ago. Fun.

It's unfortunate that you need to do that, because I took the FE Exam while I was still in school, and it wasn't too bad trying to remember everything. I hope it helps you though, because passing the FE Exam is such a relief. Good luck!


And we wonder why we don't get much traffic anymore with a name like "Gametavern"...

It really is that way. I guess we're all getting older too though, so it's only natural that we talk less about videogames.

[manasecret]

It's unfortunate that you need to do that, because I took the FE Exam while I was still in school, and it wasn't too bad trying to remember everything. I hope it helps you though, because passing the FE Exam is such a relief. Good luck!

Thanks, I need it. I think I'm like 13 chapters in to a total of 56 or so. Right now I'm just finishing up Statics, with the current chapter focused on centroids. I don't ever remember doing anything with centroids.

I'm running out of time. Every chapter is supposed to take about an hour to read and do all the practice problems, but so far most of them have taken me much much longer, at least 3 hours each. That's about all the free time I have in one day. So after work I'm staying up 'til midnight every night trying to do as much as possible, but there's only so many days of doing that I can do before I need a break. And then, try as I might, I lack the discipline to work hard on the weekends.

The test is April 17. That means I have about 65 days to get through the next 43 chapters and take a practice exam or two. And optimally I'd like to have the week before the exam to just review questions and not try to stuff anymore information in my brain.

I could always cancel and take the exam in October, but I really want to be done with it and not drag it out.

[BreakABone]

This is the greatest forum ever. It's full of a bunch of people who rarely play video games!

Its one thing you learn on the Internet, you don't actively need to own/watch/listen/play something for you to be a critic on it. :lol:

[Thespis721]

Its one thing you learn on the Internet, you don't actively need to own/watch/listen/play something for you to be a critic on it. :lol:

The internet? Dude, that has been around since critics were critics.

Case in point... Huckleberry Finn.

[KillerGremlin]

I don't think growing up has changed my gaming habits, I think part of the issue is the current generation has soooooooo many games.

Look at BaB....he buys pretty much every new game that comes out (exaggeration, but still...). How many of those games does he actually beat?

This is a good article on the issue (and funny):
http://www.gamespy.com/articles/106/1067470p1.html


I'm poor....and when you throw in my wicked longing for nostalgia and my need to fulfill that nostalgia by playing old games....it's just an equation to buy less new games. I don't think growing up has anything to do with it at all as I plan to game for the rest of my life.

[BreakABone]

I don't think growing up has changed my gaming habits, I think part of the issue is the current generation has soooooooo many games.

Look at BaB....he buys pretty much every new game that comes out (exaggeration, but still...). How many of those games does he actually beat?

This is a good article on the issue (and funny):
http://www.gamespy.com/articles/106/1067470p1.html


I'm poor....and when you throw in my wicked longing for nostalgia and my need to fulfill that nostalgia by playing old games....it's just an equation to buy less new games. I don't think growing up has anything to do with it at all as I plan to game for the rest of my life.

Well since you mentioned me by name, I thought it would be interesting to check as I haven't kept tabs myself.

Now according to my 360 profile, 73 "gameS" have been played. For some odd reason, they count Halo Waypoint, which isn't anything so gonna drop that down to 72.

Of those 72, I have questionable beaten 21 of them. I've seen the start and the finish.

That brings us down to 51 games or so. Now of those 51, I don't know how we count sports/wrestling/music/arcade games which don't really have a clear ending.

I own/have been played on my console 24 of those.
And you throw in the 5 games I've never played, but have been played on my console, it isn't a bad list of games haven't played.

Now on the Wii, I have 70 "channel" saves
9 of those are Wii channels/VC games

So we are down to 61,
Of those 61, I have beaten 18.

The second group, has....15 games.

And now for my PS3... I've beaten 3 games.

So I've beaten a grand total of 42 games this generation, which is still an impressive feat.

And played about 39 games that don't have real clear beginnings and endings.

[Terraeon]

Most of the time i buy something every other day i just got zombieland and The crystal bearers and a few days before that got an ipod touch also just got a $1000 Hd projector so i buy gizmos,Gagets and games quite often

[Bond]

Oh, I watched Zombieland a few days ago. It was pretty funny, eh?

[magus113]

Oh, I watched Zombieland a few days ago. It was pretty funny, eh?

There was a section in that movie that was just genius, and I don't want to spoil it for anyone that hasn't seen it.

[Jason1]

Zombieland is my favorite comedy in recent history. I love that movie.

[Combine 017]

Yeah its a pretty funny movie, but might I ask why you posted it in this thread?

[TheGame]

This generation I don't take any risks on buying games anymore. If I even have one doubt that I won't like the game, I rent it.. and this gen I've been generally right about all the games I had doubts about. Though, I'm thinking it's time to retire my madden collection, and GTA has fallen to rent-before-buy status. Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, and NBA 2k games are the last ones that I will buy before renting, since they haven't let me down yet.

[Angrist]

I beat Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. I'm now starting Okami.

Edit: I think I put around 130 hours into FE. :(

[Thespis721]

Why the frown face for that? If you had fun, then it's a well spent 130 hours.

Except you'll never get them back....

[Angrist]

I just bought Boom Blox: Bash Party for €17. :)

And well... I don't think FE was worth 130 hours. It's just that I often play too perfectionistic. I not only want no character to die, I also wanted them to have maximized stats. That was a lot of saving/reloading.