Buying a brand new PC game

The Game Room
1

I realise now that I haven’t done this for a very very long time. Steam, plus game backlog of playing means that I rarely spend that full price for a game, and it’s often A LOT when you include the DLC which seems mandatory with a lot of these games nowadays, for instance £75 for the Hitman 3 with the DLC.

So I sit and wait for the sales, stick on steam or epic wishlist, wait a few years, grab them cheap.

However, I realise that this isn’t actually supporting games that I like, and some of my favourite games are deemed commercial failures (some of the Dishonoreds, Prey) and thus there’s no more sequels or the genre has failed. I understand my small part in this.

So I’m sitting considering breaking that habit. Maybe not for every game. Perhaps one or two. To make sure they get the full money they deserve, I do struggle sometime to work out if I’m buying the full game, or are due for another 15 (Rage 2) to 25 pounds (AC: Odyssey) to get the rest of it. I’d get annoyed if I did that for the full price, less bothered by the sale. Is there anywhere which deals with “am I going to get all the DLC” questions?

I must admit it’s been a long long time since I’ve bought a game in the first week, apart from the Wow expansions (shook off that game now), and I remember the empty box, the thin manual and clunk of the cd/dvd case inside the new game as I stood in the queue for Game (UK gaming shop).

Games considering I’ll pay full price for:

Subnautica: Below Zero (indeed, I may wait until a sale is over before buying to get full price)
Timeloop (need some Arcane goodness)
Psychonauts 2
New Saints Row

Ones I will probably wait till cheap

Hitman 3 (when I bought 1+2 already, seems to be a lot of same game over)
Assassins Creed Valhalla (only got into them, but franchise seems to be doing fine)
Watch Dogs: Legion (2 seemed very short, I might need to go and find DLC)

Anyone else already do this?

(I go out of my way to pay bands which I see directly, I don’t rely on Spotify to show my appreciation, and buy a lot of the merch even if I barely use it).

2

Maybe for smaller developers, but nobody at EA or Ubisoft is starving.

3

I’ve been . . . sympathetic with the fact that pretty much any purchase outside of the first few months doesn’t contribute to a game’s success, but the current industry practices have very carefully smothered that sentiment. IMHO, other than price, the two biggest killers have been platform exclusivity and games being sold in pre-pre release quality.

In reverse order, the fact that games are increasingly being sold with Day 0 patches in multi-gigs shows that pre-orders are being used as beta-testers, as the game is often unplayable or full of game breaking bugs. Sorry, not going to pay a premium to fix the publisher’s problems when they (or most likely, their corporate overlords) picked an arbitrary release-by date and screw those that are paying (large sums at that!) to then, you know, play the game they purchased. Nope.

The second in some ways is worse: I was willing to pre-order The Outer Worlds because I loved F:NV and really wanted to make the publisher shine, but then it was an Epic Store PC exclusive? I had to wait a year to buy it on Steam? F-that, I’ll wait until it’s on Steam and on Sale. And that’s leaving out that the core game was pretty short, with obviously unfinished sections, which was party addressed in the paid DLC.

So no, maybe if I was playing little indie games, but the industry does not endear themselves sufficiently to pay a premium on initial release. Maybe, maybe, I’ll consider getting a TOW2 or a new non-multiplayer Fallout game (which I already have a love/hate/hate relationship with especially after '76) one month in rather than waiting for the first GotY or Gold edition - but I seriously doubt it.

4

I’ve bought two new games the last year, something I never do:

  • Mass Effect Legendary Edition <–I’d never played these and this was a great chance to do so

  • Psychonauts 2 <—I waited 15+ years for the sequel and let me tell you, it’s AMAZING!

I’ve had good luck, then, but I agree I wait. I never played Witcher 3 until it was $15 and included all DLC. Most games I pick up very cheap.

5

For AAA developers, I’ll buy a game at release if I’m super excited to play it. It does happen from time to time. I did it for the Mass Effect remaster and can’t think of any other recent examples off the top of my head. I think I may have paid full price for Ghost of Tsushima, but I didn’t buy it at release.

I’m more inclined to make early purchases from small developers because:

  • I want to directly support them (10% of my motivation).
  • Prices tend to be much more reasonable (90% of my motivation).
6

Last AAA game I bought Day One (albeit at a small discount) was The Division 2. Mainly because my friends and I played the heck out of the first game and played in the Div2 beta so we knew what we were getting. Small indie games are even trickier since so many promising games turn out to be duds and you’d have the whole thing where six weeks later, it winds up in some indie bundle for a fraction of the price. That happens less these days since there’s less indie bundles of note but it’s been a long, long while since I felt the urge to jump on a new largely unknown title.

As noted, no Epic exclusive needs my “support” as they already got their check from Epic. I’ll potentially pick it up down the line when it gets cheap enough. I could make the same general statement about Microsoft Game Pass “day one” titles except, if it’s on Game Pass, then I don’t have to pay to play it anyway so I might as well play ASAP. In fact, Game Pass has saved me on a few titles that I might have bought at launch and, instead, played on Game Pass and realized I didn’t especially care for them.

I can’t feel too bad about not buying a game early on and waiting for a sale since that’s been the gaming market for the past ten years or more. If developers/publishers haven’t caught on and adjusted for that by now, my little bit of charity isn’t going to help.

7

I think the OP should pay the price they want to pay, and only because they want to pay it. If you pay full price to maximise the proceeds to the developers, you are masking the fact that you would’ve preferred to get it at the sale price. If games have very high sales at sales prices and very low sales at the initial price then I think that sends an important message, “your game is not attractive enough to pay full price for”. Publishers need to know that. It could be the price is too high, the marketing failed, the game was poor, or whatever. Obviously one person isn’t going to matter at all, but if everyone bought at full price just to support the developers, that would not be a good thing.

Edit: For me, I will buy a game at full price if I’m really keen to play it, that happens very rarely. Normally I don’t get around to buying a game until later when they happen to be on sale anyway. I also have the Xbox Game Pass so have access to a reasonable number of games through the subscription.

The Division 2 is a great game, much better than 1, I would’ve paid full price at launch if I’d know what it would be like. The Division 1 had put me off.

8

I used to buy all the lego franchise games on day one or earlier. Then they released the Lego Movie 2 game with no way to change the keyboard configuration, making it unplayable for people who don’t like controllers. Since then, I feel I have no choice but to wait at least until there are reviews and other information about the actual game before buying it. I still expect to buy the Lego Skywalker Saga for full price plus whatever combo deals they offer, but I won’t be preordering it, and when I do buy it it will be impatience rather than any specific desire to pay full price to support the developers.

Aside from that I buy relatively few games, and mostly on deep sale, because frankly I have tons of still unplayed games in my backlog so to compel me to buy another game now they have to almost be giving it away - if I want to buy it at full price I can do that anytime, like when I get through the games I already have in two hundred years. So for a game to entice me to buy it on its own merits independent of price, I have to be really, really, really interested.

9

Yeah, I forgot to add the catch “check reviews, perhaps not the first day”, I’m not by default buying any rockstar games early, that’s for sure., and other games producers who have a perchance of crapping on the PC port of the game. I waited a year before I picked up RDR2 evening rewatching the South Parks which did have valid hints in it (I’d worked out Fast Travel already by then).

I also don’t equate “It’s EA or Ubisoft, they can afford it”. With the likes of Arcane studios the franchise disappears if it doesn’t sell ok, I never touch the normal EA fodder of sports franchises anyway. I know it makes little difference, but at least I know that my cheapness hasn’t killed a genre (immersive sims seems to not be the most marketable genre no matter how many they do).

I think I’ll pick up a couple at full price, Timeloop and Subnautica: Below Zero (ok, that’s not new, but only just played Subnautica and would like more). Then back to seeing if they become cheap enough to buy the full DLC version for the normal price.

10

ive been buying pc games since the 80s and the “wait for the discount” has been baked in since the VGA/486 revolutions because back in the day you knew it would end up on the discount racks for 9.99 because there be an upgraded edition (civ 2 had 3 separate editions if I remember ) or it didn’t sell or that years graphics/sound card wouldn’t play it …or in some cases the new os didn’t support it …

11

I haven’t bought one for a while, but I have pre-ordered “B4B”, “Back for Blood”, and already played the closed and open Beta releases. It is a graphically revved up version of the classic game, “L4D2”, Left 4 Dead 2".

Oh, as an added note, I think “L4D2” is the greatest video game I’ve ever played. It has evolved over time because of all the campaign contributions made by independent gamers.

12

How do you like it? I saw some middling reviews and haven’t tried it myself.

13

It has a lot of promise, but it is far from a finished product. I believe it will evolve and improve with use over time just like L4D2 did. Only time will tell. The graphics are rocking, though, much more worthy of my G-Force video power than L4D2.

14

Ironically, that’s on Game Pass (well, it will be on release) so despite having enjoyed the beta sessions, I won’t actually be directly buying it.

Rather than dying, I assume most genres that aren’t selling a bajillion copies (i.e. multiplayer shooters and sports games) will just take on more modest roles as A or B tier games from smaller or indie studios. I think the real problem with some of these is when MegaPublisher doesn’t get an immediate return on their $50mil development investment and I don’t think throwing more money at them is the solution. People generally liked Prey and opinions on it actually warmed up after release as more people discovered it so it’s reasonable for a studio to think “This is a genre we could make a sustainable profit in… maybe not drop $30-50 mil in development costs though.”

15

Also, Ubisoft is known for putting games on sale pretty quickly. Even if I really want to play it, I don’t think I’ll ever pay full price for a Ubi game. It’ll be 20% off a month after launch.

16

Oh, good! I also have Game Pass - and so do my core gaming friends. I’m looking forward to giving it a go.

And not to invite a hijack, but I guess I should give L4D2 a look? I haven’t played it in years and didn’t know it had a super active modding community. Is it just lots of new maps and stuff to keep the experience fresh, or are there quality mods that also significantly change gameplay for the better?

17

Last year, I bought Fenyx Rising only a few weeks after release and it was $37 along with a credit to lower that down even a bit more. I remember thinking, “Wait. Some people paid $60 for this less than a month ago.”

Fun game, too. Not perfect, but really solid.

18

Hitman 3 is just more of 1 & 2.

The advantage to Hitman 3 is you can blend the games into one, seamless product (assuming you have 1 & 2 which you say you do). It also buffs graphics in #2 (I think…not sure about #1).

I love the Hitman games but I am not keen on replaying levels over and over and over again to find all the possible ways it can be done which Hitman really wants you to do (and the completionist is me is annoyed I may be missing something).

But you certainly do not have to. You can playthrough once and be done. It has a re-visit value since other ways of getting through are possible (super possible…lots of ways to go about it).

19

I hardly have ever bought a PC game at full retail. I can think of a few that I did recently though: Loop Hero and RimWorld, and I think I picked up Fall Guys when it first released.

For me it’s having so much backlog, and lack of time to play that really disincentives me from buying any games. (Not helped by a Humble Bundle subscription that feels less and less worth it that keeps adding games)
I don’t think if the money really matters that a company/publisher puts a game on discount. RimWorld seems to not go on sale often, and only a small percentage even then.
But for many, once the initial wave of sales comes, the price can drop to get every dollar of profit they can from consumers. And I don’t mind being less of a profit.

20

I think the idea of specifically changing your strategy to pay more for a product just to support the people who made it is a bit… I don’t know if there’s anything wrong with it, really, but a bit weird. I could see it being true if you were supporting some independent artist, or something, versus making sure you give the full $60 to EA instead of waiting for $20.

Here’s the thing: I pretty much spend as much money on gaming right now that I’m willing to spend on gaming. So if I started buying up $60 games, that means I’d buy fewer random bundles and $5-10 games here and there. My contribution to the gaming world as a whole would remain the same, but it would actually probably be more stacked in favor of big name publishers who may need the money the least. I’m comfortable with lots of different entities getting a little bit of my gaming dollar vs giving more dollars to fewer games, and overall the way I spend probably gives more support on average to smaller developers than typical game buyers would.