Topic: Do you ever pay full price for games?

[PyroMenace]

I wondering if anyone here does because I know many that don't and some that do. I rarely if ever pay the full $60 for a video game now. If I do, there is some incentive with it. I bought Halo: Reach for full price but best buy gave a $20 gift card with it. I also picked up Assassin's Creed Brotherhood when it was new but I had a $15 dollar gift card to use on it. Other than that I have bought games for $40 and under typically. Most games now are seem to be dropping in price faster. Ive listened to discussions where bigger games seem to be cutting their losses more and more, I think Bioware is becoming an example of this.

[Xessive]

It depends on the game and the developer. If it's something I'm wildly excited about I'll shell out the full price. Otherwise I generally wait for a Steam sale I'm a sucker for crazy sales.

When it comes to consoles I usually wait for things to hit the bargain bin because the new release prices are closer to $80 here.

Huh, coincidentally there was an article on Maximum PC that seems relative:
Electronic Arts GM: $60 Games Are “Exploitative”

Feeling a bit of sticker shock after watching the standard price of big-name PC games leap up to $60 over night? Well, you're definitely not alone. In fact, you've got at least one friend in a very high place, and he thinks it's high time we put our collective foot down and put a stop to all this bank-breaking nonsense. Oh, but there is one teensy little catch. His solution, you see, involves the dreaded M-word: microtransactions.

“I have trouble working out why free-to-play games have generated controversy – I’ve been doing this for four years now, so it feels kind of normal to me – but I can’t think of anything more exploitative than gating all of your content behind having to pay someone $60,” EA General Manager Ben Cousins told Rock Paper Shotgun.

[W7RE]

I'll buy brand new games for full price if it's something I'm really excited about. A lot of times you can get a new game from Amazon with $10-20 credit bonus. If you string those along you can end up paying $40-50 for brand new games, even console ones.

And I've seen a lot more exploitative behavior from "free to play" games than I have $60 games with no secondary fees.

[Xessive]

I'll buy brand new games for full price if it's something I'm really excited about. A lot of times you can get a new game from Amazon with $10-20 credit bonus. If you string those along you can end up paying $40-50 for brand new games, even console ones.

And I've seen a lot more exploitative behavior from "free to play" games than I have $60 games with no secondary fees.

I agree. I'm not a fan of microtransactions. One example was Dragon Age: Origins, where they put in content that you'd need to buy additionally in order to access (i.e. NPC's that just hang around and tell you to buy premium content). It just feels wrong when it's a game you paid full price for.

EA is trying to encourage pre-purchases by rewarding them with exclusive in-game content, but honestly the quality of these "rewards" is getting a little tacky.

[scottws]

I haven't bought a retail boxed game in years, but have gotten them as gifts.  I think when I got them they were probably at or near full price.  I've bought several games via downloadable channels like Impulse and Steam, but not at full price.

I haven't bought a console game in three years at least.

[K-man]

I visit Cheapassgamer daily, and I troll clearance bins everywhere I see them.  Very few games are a day 1 purchase now.  Most of the games I've purchased at full price in the past year have come with incentives.

Of course what happens is that while I spend less money per game, I generally buy more of them.  And my backlog is piling up.  So while I may be shopping smarter, I'm still being dumb for buying the games and then not playing them.  I fall victim often to the Atlus syndrome, which is "get it now or you may not be able to find it cheap down the road".  I've accumulated a ton of DS stuff with this mindset.

I think the last console game I legitimately paid full price for is God of War III.  The next one will likely be Skyrim, and I'll throw any amount of money it takes to get the best edition of it.

[Quemaqua]

The next one will likely be Skyrim, and I'll throw any amount of money it takes to get the best edition of it.

This.

I used to generally buy stuff day one.  I don't anymore, really, unless it's important to me for some reason.

[idolminds]

I'm like Kman, I live on clearance bins. Very rarely will I buy a game full price. It has to be pretty special or have some sort of reason for me to do so (like to play multiplayer with you guys).

[Xessive]

I'm single and lonely, games fill the void

[Cobra951]

Games fill the void for me too, but I've learned to get them cheap.  I haven't bought one at full price for a couple of years at least.  It helps to have a big backlog.  I'm also exploring the convenience of the download form of some games, and those I will never spend more than $30 on.

[K-man]

The key is trying not to get caught up in the release frenzy.  It does suck when everyone else is done with the game by the time you're ready to talk about it though.

[Xessive]

The key is trying not to get caught up in the release frenzy.  It does suck when everyone else is done with the game by the time you're ready to talk about it though.

Haha "Oh man, I just played Half-Life 2! What a trip!"

The "release frenzy," as you so eloquently put it, is a factor for some games. The biggest factor for me is usually peer pressure; if enough friends buy a game I'll cave and grab it just to join them online. Although that hasn't happened frequently, if anything it's me buying the 4-packs and making people come online!

[idolminds]

The nice thing about missing the release window and frenzy is you get to wait for bugs to be found and patched so you don't have to deal with them, and after the frenzy dies down the actual truth comes out about a game. Its only after a couple months will people look back and say "Well, they really could have done <X> better." Otherwise you get caught up in the hype and after spending $60 you will convince yourself that its the best game ever. I don't know if thats a good thing or not (if lying to yourself convinces you you're having more fun or liking something more than you would under other circumstances, is that a bad thing?).

Look at Spore. I thought it was going to be awesome, the early reviews were telling people it was awesome...turns out thats not really the case. Good thing I didn't rush out and buy it day 1.

[sirean_syan]

I'm probably about half-half on the games I play these days. If something is really interesting to me, I'll grab it up early and I've been good about playing it quick enough to sort of justify the expense. Lately, that was Dead Space 2 and Pokemon. I sort of like to get them and get them out of my system more than anything else. Most of these I've generally been interested in for months and am ready to give it a shot even if there are problems. I've gotten good enough at picking stuff out that it only really bites me in the ass once in a long while. The last game to do that was Metroid... and that was so beyond a colossal fuckup that no one could have predicted it.

Most everything else, I'll just wait for a good enough sale or if it's cheap enough to get me interested. Then I don't feel so bad about building up a backlog which I play at my leisure. The same sorta goes for cheaper downloadable games.

[Pugnate]

Bioware still, but after DA2 and DA:Awakening not sure anymore.

[TheOtherBelmont]

I get a good amount of games on release date, but there's some I hold off on, especially huge publisher AAA titles (EA, Ubisoft, etc) that I know will be easy to find in several months and will have a ton of copies printed.  If its a game that looks interesting to me but not enough to make me pay full price and I know it will be super easy to find later, I hold off, unless its something I really, really want (recent examples include Dead Space 2 and Bulletstorm).  There's also certain titles and developers that I always pick up on day one, like Atlus, Nippon Ichi, Vanillaware, Tri-Ace, and any Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid, or Castlevania game.  Like K-Man, I have Atlus syndrome and I always pick up their games on release date or within a few days after and a good chunk of my backlog consists of their games.

[sirean_syan]

Yeah. I forget the Atlus thing too and I've fallen into the trap. Usually it makes sense too, although the last game to do that was Demon's Souls and that really wasn't a super typical Atlus game.

[K-man]

I'm glad I didn't wait on Radiant Historia.  I've got a feeling that game will get very hard to find.

[MysterD]

VERY VERY VERY rarely pay full price.

Games prices on the PC fluctuate TOO much. And often, the only game I'll even really look at for spending $40-60 on is likely a RPG.

When games have planned DLC and the inevitable Ultimate Editions also often cause me to wait for price-drops, as well.

Often, Bethesda games cause me to spend more money than I'd normally spend - i.e. buying Fallout 3: CE day of release for $70.

I also troll Cheapassgamer.com and lots of digital stores (Steam, Amazon, Impulse, D2D, EA Store, etc), always looking for a bargain.