Buying, but not playing, new games

[Mr Pantomime]

So sometimes when Im browsing the Escapist, I come across people mentioning new games that they have in their backlog, a lot of the time they havent even opened the box. Now, this idea is very alien to me. When I get a new game, I like to open it and play it, even if it only for a little while. The closet ive come to doing this is with Steam games. But thats because I have to download them and my internet is slow.

So my question is, do you buy games and then not open them? Also, why? Thats mostly the point of this thread, im interested.

 

[Katherine Kerensky]

At this very moment, I have a copy of Persona 4 under my desk, brand new, still in the original packaging.
I need to get around to playing it >.>
Along with Steam games >.>

 

[New Troll]

All the time!

Usually it's because I will play a friend's copy of the game and love it, so I buy it and then just don't get back to it. Other times I find a game I want for a good price so I get it, but then don't get to it because I'm playing something else.

I don't game a great deal anymore so what time I do is usually spent playing either whatever RPG I'm into at the moment or Guitar Hero/ Rock Band. So I have several RPGs I haven't got to yet. I also buy games I think my nephew or son's sister would like just in case I'm watching either of them. And I have a couple two-player games to play with my roomate (or anyone else) but haven't yet.

 

[Something Amyss]

So sometimes when Im browsing the Escapist, I come across people mentioning new games that they have in their backlog, a lot of the time they havent even opened the box. Now, this idea is very alien to me. When I get a new game, I like to open it and play it, even if it only for a little while. The closet ive come to doing this is with Steam games. But thats because I have to download them and my internet is slow.

So my question is, do you buy games and then not open them? Also, why? Thats mostly the point of this thread, im interested.

Only if I got a really good deal. otherwise, I'd wait. I have some used games in my backlog, but rarely any actual new titles and even then, ONLY because I got a ridiculous price that wouldn't be around if I waited.

 

[Lord Honk]

Yeah, only time I bought two games at once (apart from the Humble Indie Bundle) was Fallout:NV and CoD:Black Ops, and it took me about 30 hours of Fallout to get to Black Ops. Judging from a lot of news posts about lag and whatnot, that doesn't seem to have been a bad decision. Then again, we all know of Fallout's bugs >.<

 

[rockyoumonkeys]

I buy new games, but I ALWAYS open them immediately, especially if they're for the X360, because too many times the disc will be damaged, if only a little, and I need to know right away whether I have to exchange it.

Once upon a time I owned a number of games I hadn't yet opened, and upon opening one of them well past the date by which you can still return it, found it was completely wrecked. Fortunately it had been a cheap one, and I got away with trading it in for a moderate loss. But that ended my days of buying but not opening.

As for whether I play them immediately or stick them right on the shelf...it's half and half maybe. I don't have a long-term plan for what games I'm going to play when, but I do know that there are games I'll definitely want to play. Some games will be ones I'll drop everything to play (New Vegas, Mass Effect 2, and the upcoming Dead Space 2), but others are more "who knows when I'll get around to it" games. Could be next week, could be next month. It'll be an impulse play, and it's nice to already have it on my shelf when I decide to play it.

Yes, this occasionally results in me paying full price for games that drop in price by the time I play them. Doesn't happen often, but it happens. It also sometimes results in me having games that become very difficult to find by the time I play them, so it's not always a bad thing. I'd rather get a game and sit on it than have to scramble for a copy when I finally decide to play it.

 

[Trivun]

The only games in my backlog that I've not even played, not counting games I've only bought recently (like Halo Reach, which I only bought yesterday and won't get access to my Xbox until I go home this afternoon), are Steam games. I have a few, including Psychonauts and the expansions for Rome: Total War, that I've bought in sales and haven't gotten around to playing yet. I will eventually, but I rarely have time to play games nowadays, so...

Otherwise, I tend to at least play games after I buy them, even if it takes me ages to get around to completing them. If I do build up a backlog then I usually set some time aside to play them properly and make sure to get games out of the way before buying new ones. The way I see it is, if I'm not going to bother playing the games, why buy them in the first place?

 

[DustyDrB]

This doesn't happen when I buy new games. I only buy games now 20% of the time though. When I'm bargain hunting, I'll buy a bunch of games just because they are cheap and not play them for months.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

I open them. It's mostly my DIGITAL games collection that has gone unplayed. Most Xbox Live Arcade games, PSN downloads, Steam bundles, etc.

 

[Moriarty]

I mostly buy things when they're on sale, so if steam decides put over 1000games on sale I don't have time to play most of them.

I still have at least 15 games lying around which I haven't gotten time to play yet.

 

[Rhope]

I sadly have a copy of Dragon Age Origins: Awakening I never got around to playing. I played DA:O to death, but things kept cropping up and I have not touched it. I will play it one day.

 

[Omikron009]

I almost never buy a new game until I'm finished with the previous one I bought. I've never bought a game that I haven't played.

 

[Serenegoose]

I have a few games I've never played - some are gifts that I've just not been in the mood to play, some are games I got in the steam sales but I got them because I know I will want them, not that I necessarily want to play them immediately. What games I'm in the mood for rotates quite regularly, so I can know I'll want to play an RTS that I see for cheap, but not that I'll necessarily want to play it that day.

 

[MisterShine]

So my question is, do you buy games and then not open them? Also, why? Thats mostly the point of this thread, im interested.

Technically? I have about 15 games on my steam account that I've never even installed. To be fair, quite a few of them were game packs that I only got for 1 or 2 of them and not the rest, but still.. And there's quite a few there too that I installed but never actually played, or only played for less than 10 minutes.

Seems a tad wasteful, but I got them all quite cheap and when the apocalypse comes I'll have plenty to keep myself entertained.

 

[Nimzar]

I mostly buy things when they're on sale, so if steam decides put over 1000games on sale I don't have time to play most of them.

I still have at least 15 games lying around which I haven't gotten time to play yet.

This.

The Christmas thing they just did was just cruel and and unusual.

 

[MrGalactus]

Bought Assassins Creed months, possibly years ago. Still haven't played it.

 

[Amethyst Wind]

Took me about 6 months to get around to playing Blue Dragon, I was too busy playing Gears of War online.

Don't look at me like that, I was in University!

 

[TiefBlau]

I would never buy a brand new game and then just leave it on the backlog. I buy new on very rare occasions, when I'm highly anticipating a game like Starcraft 2 or The Orange Box or Fallout 3. Playing it becomes a top priority. I have no problems waiting a few years for the prices of some new sparkly-yet-mediocre game to plummet.


My Steam sale backlog, however, is gigantic.

 

[Palademon]

Not enough games interest me for this to ever happen. But I'm going to use my christmas money to buy the games I wasn't hugely interested in. The only games I bought this year were ones I planned to before their release, which is probably why the year felt so boring and uneventful in the way of games.