Poll: Buying New Games For The Full Price

[Eclipse Dragon]

Rarely. There are very very few games that I buy at launch for full price. The next up is Ni No Kuni which I have pre-ordered. If The Last Guardian were to come out, that would be a day 1 purchase. Pokemon games usually are. I'd say overall, maybe twice a year, three times if it's a particularly good year. Otherwise I'll wait for a GOTY version or a price drop (it seems they happen quickly these days).

I wonder what it says about the game industry that people so rarely buy products when they're released hmmm?
Anyone want to venture an opinion? I'm interested in hearing it.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Yeah, most of my game purchases are pre-orders. Through a mix of online preview articles, rumour-mills and pre-release betas I tend to know well before release day whether I'll buy a game or not. Plus I'm the impatient type so waiting six months so I can save £5 just isn't going to happen.

 

[1080bitgamer]

I just bought Zone of the Enders HD for full price, but also bought Sonic Generations and De Blob 2 at marked down prices, so it goes either way. Then again, two of those came out at a reduced price, so maybe I just feel certain games don't need to come out at 60 bucks plus tax

 

[falcon1985]

Only if it's a Total War game. In most other cases, yay for Steam sales.

Captcha:
Cool heads prevail.
Indeed...

 

[Thyunda]

I rarely pay full price for games, because I like to finish what I have or borrow from friends before I actually buy anything. I won't buy Far Cry 3 till I finish the second game. Otherwise, I'll never finish it. My short attention span is actually crippling my attempt at finishing it, especially since I just got H.A.W.X from a friend, so I gotta finish that BEFORE Far Cry 2 because it will have to go back to my friend at some point, and I want to make the most of it.
At this rate, I'll be picking up Vaas' Island Adventure for a pound in a bargain bucket.

 

[BrotherRool]

I want to buy games new, but I rarely ever buy a game just as it's released, wait a few months/half a year and buy at reduced price. I bought Heavy Rain at release for release price because I thought no-one else was going to buy it and I didn't want such a kickass idea to fail. I got gifted the Uncharted games for Christmas' after release, but apart from that I can't remember the last time I bought a newly released game for full price.

Also indie games. Except in all honesty I hate a good half perhaps more of indie games, but every bundle always has maybe one game with interesting things to bring to story. And GOG is full of incredible games.

Right now I have 12 unplayed games to try out, thats an incredibly awesome situation and for the price of those 12 games I might be able to get one new game. And lets be honest, Planescape: Torment is reliably more awesome than pretty much any other game I could hope to lay my hands on

 

[mitchell271]

It depends on how hyped I am for the game or if it's in a series I like or not. For example, I got Skyrim at full price and I would've gotten Portal 2 at full price, I just didn't have any money to buy Portal 2.

Lately, I've just been waiting to get games on Steam when they go on sale. With more and more games getting ported to Mac, it's getting better and better being a Mac gamer.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

Unless it's a game I'm 99% sure I'll love and I expect to get alot of value from it, I'll wait for a sale.

The last game I bought full price was FTL in September, although that wasn't really a "full price" game and XCOM in October. Before that all I can think of is ME3 and Skyrim, although there have probably been one or two more in the past year.

 

[Asuka Soryu]

I only buy Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm games at full price. I'd rather get three 20$ games out of the bins they have a Walmart, then spend 60$ on a single game.

 

[verdant monkai]

Sometimes
I prefer the feeling of having a new game, rather than someone's old used copy. But if its a choice between get something pre-owned from my local game shop, or buy it from Amazon and wait like 2 weeks, I will get it pre-owned.

I used to only get used games but nowadays there is DLC and online passes ect. So if you want the most out of something you generally need it brand new. I also have more money these days so I can afford to not think all that much about getting a £20 game. And I can pre-order games I am a big fan of like Dead Space 3, I will be furious on the day that games go digital and pre owned no longer exists

 

[Yopaz]

I voted sometimes, but that has recently changed. A year ago I would have said usually, but now I have had to change that for various reasons.

First of all my backlog is humongous, I buy more games than I got time for so unless there's a game I just really need to have (like Pokemon or Paper Mario) I wont buy them unless I get a deal I can't refuse. I wanted to pre-order X-Com and I plan on buying it, but there's just too much to play.

Then there's the fact that I don't really have that much money, now I get by just fine, I got money to spare after all my monthly bills are paid off, but I realized that games take up a whole lot of that leftover cash (almost as much as my food budget). Considering how many games I have actually managed to beat I spend way too much.

I've got nothing against paying the full price even for games that don't turn out as good as I wanted them to be (looking at you, Saints Row The Third) the issue is more that I have more important things to do and I've got a really big problem when it comes to keeping focus. I spend more of my average day on The Escapist reading about games and discussing them than I actually spend playing them.

 

[thejackyl]

Full Price: Almost Never
New: Almost Always

What I mean is: Say I got to Gamestop and I see 2 copies of "Popular FPS 4" sitting on the shelf, one new, and one used. Chances are I will not buy it the day it drops (especially if I see a used copy on day 1). But I will buy the new one over the used one. Because fuck Gamestop and it's used game ripoffs, and I know how badly some people treat their games. I don't trust used game stores that won't let you look at the disc before buying it.

I've been to a local used game store where the disc was cracked, I've rented games from Video Connection/Family Video where the disc was missing, or wouldn't play, and I've bought used games from Gamestop that didn't work and I was accused of scratching them up myself.

Games that I buy on day 1: A Game I know I will like (New XCOM, Dishonored, etc) and/or have a nice preorder bonus (XCOM had a free DLC, TF2 stuff, Free copy of CIV 5)

Otherwise I will wait for a demo or wait until it's first price drop. Spec Ops: The Line, I heard good things about that, but everywhere I went it was $50-$60, and I wasn't paying that for a game that is purposely dated for sake of metaphor, but when I saw it for $15 a month ago, I grabbed it. (and it was pretty good. Not $60 good, but still.)

 

[Signa]

It's entirely circumstantial for me. I only really buy a game at full price if it's a game I'm really looking forward to, and I see no hints of anything that might sour the expereince. Case in point: I loved Bioshock, but I didn't get it at full price because of the DRM. I like how Infinite looks, but I'm really unsure of the 2 weapon limit I've seen in the videos. Bioshock 2 I avoided completely because I never saw anything about it that looked more than a cash-grab based on the first game. I ended up getting it for $5 and never played it.

On the other hand, I got Borderlands 2 for full price (preordered actually) because I wanted the game bad enough, and there wasn't a single thing wrong with anything I heard leading up to release. I can say for sure that was a good choice. Conversely, I saw a ton of things about Diablo 3 that scared me away pre-release, and I'm glad I didn't waste my cash. I was interested in the sequel to Diablo 2, because Diablo 2 was amazing, but it became quite clear that D3 was not going to be worth my money.

 

[Sack of Cheese]

Only with RPGs where I expect more than 30 hours of gameplay and replayability.

 

[Milanezi]

Since I live in Brazil I'm usually plagued by the most abusive prices for games, comparing with US$, if a game costs 60 bucks it SHOULD cost here somewhere around 120 "Reais" which is already expensive by our standards, HOWEVER with all the shady taxes and profit margins, IMPORTED releases (read "MOST releases") end up costing from 190 bucks to outrageous 240 (don't even go near special editions, they emit radiation) - the taxes alone are a strange story: here in Brazil whenever you buy something, ANYTHING, you'll pay for it with the taxes included, so you see it with a price on the store and that's the price you'll pay, different from the USA where you see a price in the store, but you pay "more" on the checkout because that's where the taxes are added. What happens in the end? In the USA you know EXACTLY how much more you're paying for taxes, in Brazil you don't really have a clue, and when someone who has a clue studies them they die in shock because it's so absurd it can't even be justified.

Due to all that, I'm FORCED to buy games on their release. WHAT?! You might be asking. But here, I'll explain. I buy my games directly from an importer, and I've been doing that ever since my parents were still buying ME the games lol, so the salesman knows me and he is free to charge his personal clients what he sees fit. So the releases come aroun R$ 140,00 (US$ 70,00), which is pretty cheap for Brazil, since it gets cheaper than importing it myself. But since they also distribute games for stores this means that AAA games don't stay there for long, if I let it slid it can take a while for him to get another copy, so I'd rather buy the game right away even if I'm not gonna play it too soon.

Every once in a year at least, however, I usually go to the US, where I pick up other releases as well as older games I might've passed but do wanna play. When in the US I don't shy from buying pre-owned as long as it's not a special edition or a game that I'm REALLY craving for (and can be found brand new).

 

[Milanezi]

It's entirely circumstantial for me. I only really buy a game at full price if it's a game I'm really looking forward to, and I see no hints of anything that might sour the expereince. Case in point: I loved Bioshock, but I didn't get it at full price because of the DRM. I like how Infinite looks, but I'm really unsure of the 2 weapon limit I've seen in the videos. Bioshock 2 I avoided completely because I never saw anything about it that looked more than a cash-grab based on the first game. I ended up getting it for $5 and never played it.

Than go play it. You just bought one of best for as cheap as you could, actually, so cheap it must've been like stealing lol. Seriously, the main "wow" factor is gone because you already played the first game, but the story is "smarter" this time around, and if you download the dlc, wow, oh boy, the DLC had the best story of all, actually made me cry.