What was the last risky video game purchase you made?

[Lufia Erim]

Excluding early access and kickstarter ( and the like). What was the last risky videogame purchase you made?

I was looking at my video game collection this weekand i realised something, about 99% of my games are "safe bet" games. What i mean by that is,they are either games from series i like, or games that i knew,for the most part, that i would enjoy. Rarely have i gone out and bought a game i knew nothing about or a game i wasn't sure i would like. Basically i don't take risks when purchasing games. Unless i am very sure i would enjoy it,i will not buy it.

The last game i purchased, while knowing little about was Bayonetta on the xbox360. And surprised i was with that little gemnof a game. I bought it new because i thought the box looked cool and i barely had my xbox360 for a month.

The reason i am asking this is because i realised something. People ,myself included,criticize developers/publishers for not trying anything new or being original. Not taking any chances. And always playing it safe. But my spending habits are exactly the same, i play it safe with the games i buy and rarely trying something new out of fear that i would get burned and lose 60+ dollars on a game i do not like. Thus being a hypocrite,when my money is only spent on "safe bets"

You could argue that it is not our duty as consumers to trust devs and take risks. That it is on the companies to convince us that their product is worth buying and to ship a solid game. And you would not be wrong, but when we collectively vote with our wallets on safe bets and avoid taking a chance on new games, what incentive do they have to try something new and different?

So escapists, i ask you, when was the last time you took a risk in regards to buying a new game? Did it pay off?

 

[Hades]

I consider the newest Nobunaga's ambition a risky purchase on my part.

On many levels it shouldn't be. I like strategy games, I like history and I like the period the game is set in. I also find it a shame the campaign mode in Total war games are as simple as they are.

Because of that last point I bought Crusader kings, had no idea what the hell was going on, got terrified and never touched it again. A lot of things about Nobunaga's ambition gave me warning signs that this game could very well go the same way. Add to that my fervent(if not entirely rational) distrust of PC gaming as a whole and I was really hesitant to buy the game.

The risk did pay off and I'm happy to have taken it.

 

[NPC009]

I tend to play it safe. Very save. I mean, sure, I buy a lot of almost random things during Steam sales, but those are rarely more than a few bucks. On the other hand, I do buy a lot of niche games, so I hope that makes up for it. Plus, as a critic I get to play lots of things I wouldn't normally buy.

Last big gamble was... Gunvalkyrie, I guess? It's a third-person shooter with an alternative history/science fiction setting (it takes place in 1906 but there's technology we could only dream of) and a twist: your can sorta fly thanks to jet packs. It's fast and frantic, and I sucked at it. The control were difficult to get the hang off and I was never great at shooters to begin with. Me being terrible at it aside, it's a neat game with cool ideas (I mean, come on, jet packs!). I never managed to complete it, but I can say I played on of the hidden Xbox gems. So, hey, it could be worse!

 

[tippy2k2]

I don't mind my risk taking games because generally when I do roll the dice in my game buying, I wait until it drops in price. So the games that I heard mixed things but wanted to try anyway (see Beyond Two Souls or Life is Strange), I just get them when they drop. Same with games that I've heard are excellent but I don't know if they'd be up my gaming interest (see Alien Isolation or Dark Souls).

I've found I'm pretty spot on when it comes to risks. I've been gaming for a long time so I've gotten good at knowing which "rough around the edges" games are going to work for me and which won't. I've had games that have not been as good as I hoped when I gambled on them (see Beyond Two Souls again) but I don't think I've ever been DEAD wrong on one of my gambles. I might make @BloatedGuppy cry as it was his recommendation but Blood Bowl II is probably the last "gambled and lost" game I bought but even then, I realized it pretty quickly and sold it on Amazon for most of my money back where it was basically a glorified rental.

 

[DefunctTheory]

I kickstarted Battletech. It's not much of a risk, delivery wise, but you never know, they may butcher it.

Besides that, I can't really think of a game I bought that was risky. They were all either 'guaranteed to be not crap, even if not great' (Fallout 4) or so cheap (Steam sales) that I could absorb the loss with no bad feelings.

 

[Elfgore]

Mad Max, didn't really know too much about it other than the fact it haD Arkham style combat and vehicle combat. I got burned pretty damn hard with the piece of poo I got.

 

[FPLOON]

Highschool Romance: It came out the same month as my birthday, I bought it around my birthday, and I do not regret making that risky investment...

Other than that, the same time I bought that particular game, I also bought Strania - The Stella Machina -, which was an even riskier investment because it's a top-down shump and, outside of Touhou, I don't really play them... on top of not knowing if my laptop could run it at it's preferred fps, of course...

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Usually i research the hell out of anything i consider. Usually am not disappointed. I guess the closest to a gamble lately would be Wasteland 2: director's cut. Having never attempted that style of game before. It pushed me to try Divinity: original sin, which was good but really took up a lot of time to do the smallest of things and i kept accidentally angering guards and having to restart continuously. That game was too much of a time sink for too little payoff. Also the running was slightly slower than i could bear.
A couple of games have been catching my eye that i am highly unsure of due to being (i think) Ps2 titles and not certain if they'll hold up too well now, Rogue Galaxy and Dark Chronicle (Dark cloud 2 for North Americanites). The former has an enticing trailer with even more enticing music. Tharsis is another one i cannot decide upon. Reviews are somewhat mixed at best.

 

[Spider RedNight]

Uhmmmmm proooobably Catherine. I knew roughly what it was about (thanks, ZP) but as an asexual... human who was still new to the JRPG thing and wasn't even aware what kind of gameplay it was, I saw it on the shelf and I was like "huh... sure."

Little did I know that it was Atlus and had Troy Baker and all these other voice actor people that I love and the gameplay was "whaaaat" and it's weeeeeird.

Also (and I'm not sure if this was before or after Catherine) but I got Deadly Premonition knowing nothing about it other than the first hour or two of the game is strange as hell. Once you get past it though it's actually a really interesting game.

 

[Bilious Green_v1legacy]

Bloodborne. I've never played a Souls game, and don't consider myself to be "hardcore", so I had no idea if I would enjoy it at all. Turned out I had a blast and was able to make it through the whole game (which I doubted I would be able to do when I started). It ended up being my personal GotY.

 

[Kotaro]

Unless it's from a series or developer that I like and trust, I never buy a game unless I have at bare minimum read reviews beforehand. I am willing to branch out into styles of games that I don't play often, but I always do my damnedest to avoid bad games.

 

[sonicneedslovetoo]

Snakebird, I bought it after seeing less than ten minutes of gameplay, I knew almost nothing about the game other than watching somebody briefly stream it.

Although debatably the most risky purchase I made was "Dragon: A game about a dragon" which on first glance looked like the most embarrassing game on steam but afterwards it turned out to be fairly charming in an almost Kirby sort of way.

 

[Erttheking]

I bought Dark Souls not knowing anything about it. I made a leap of faith and I was rewarded.

 

[Hawki]

Xenoblade Chronicles. Bought it last year along with a 3DS to play the damn thing. Now, in 2016, with over 60 hours of playing time, and two detours to Halo 5 and Legacy of the Void later, I've still yet to finish it. That said, I'd say the gamble paid off.

 

[BadNewDingus]

Total War Attila and no.

 

[Fijiman]

Getting Zone of the Enders HD collection. Still don't know if it was worth it or not as I have yet to play it, but I'm pretty sure I got it for free through some buy two get one free deal around the holidays, so I wont have lost any money if I don't like it.

 

[Jute88]

I usually go through trailers, gameplay videos, reviews and stuff like that before I purchase a game. Only exceptions to this that I can think of, are Mass Effect 3 and Witcher 3. I also had very little knowledge about Banner Saga, so that might count as a risky purchase. I don't regret buying it, but I expected the game to be longer than what it was.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Well, usually I can see what I'll like and what I'll dislike from a mile away, so even when it's a new IP I don't consider purchasing it that much of a risk, since I'll already have gathered enough information about it.

I think my last big videogame related risk was buying the Wii-U. Most of the big titles I didn't care for, but it did have Wind Waker HD (my Gamecube copy, as well as my Gamecube itself, was at death's door) and it was still quite early in its lifecycle then (or so I thought), so I took the plunge. And while the system definately has a lot of charm to it, there's nothing for me to play on it except Wind Waker HD and Super Mario Galaxy. I still like having it around when the mood strikes, but I'd like it even more if it had some more games on it I'd actually enjoy.

Edit. Oh wait, also The Witcher 3. I hated practically everything about The Witcher 2, yet all the pre-release footage I'd seen about W3 got me very itchy. Good thing, too, because that game turned out to be quite magnificant.

 

[DoPo]

I've found I'm pretty spot on when it comes to risks. I've been gaming for a long time so I've gotten good at knowing which "rough around the edges" games are going to work for me and which won't.

Yup, same. I keep being surprised by people claiming "but how could I have known I wouldn't like the game?!" when they get a game and don't like it.

 

[Eomega123]

I don't usually make huge risky buys, but I might drop $15 on an interesting looking Steam game. The most recent one would be Pony Island [http://store.steampowered.com/app/405640/]. I did enough research to know it was one of those seemingly simple games that like to get meta and mess with you, but I played it basically blind since that's the way you're supposed to play those games. While it was a mildly interesting experience that had at least one hugely clever boss fight, it doesn't even hold a candle to Undertale and wasn't near as compelling as the reviews made it out to be.

Before that was Apotheon [http://store.steampowered.com/app/208750/], which I bought because it looked unlike anything I'd ever played before. I mean, look at that art style - that's ridiculous. I wanted to see more of it, and a God of War made by people who actually knew mythology scratched all sorts of nerdy itches. It was kinda buggy and the combat took a lot of getting used to, but I'd say the purchase was worth it.

And before that was The Beginner's Gude [http://store.steampowered.com/app/303210/], which I bought sight unseen because a) It was from the guy who made the Stanley Parable, which I hugely enjoyed, b) The Stanley Parable was another one of those games that you're best off going in knowing nothing, and c) pretty much all the user reviews said something like 'just buy it and play'. That 'game' was definitely not worth the $10 price tag. 'Walking Simulators' can be interesting experiences, but this one simply did not tell a story I was able to care about. It didn't help that the game lacked any real way to interact with it besides listening to the narrator speak and shuffling from one set-piece to the next, so there isn't really any difference between playing the game and watching someone else play.