"I'll pick it up when it's cheap"

[DrunkOnEstus]

The recent release of The Order has brought about this phrase again, and it's one that I see often whenever a mediocre game is being reviewed. I figured this is a perfect way to figure out why people feel this way and ask about what they end up doing.

Basically, I don't understand this line of thinking too much, and it tells me that there might be a lot of people who want to eventually own/play every game they can as long as it isn't broken or complete shit. If (for example) The Order doesn't seem enjoyable enough to drop $60 on (or whatever ungodly Australian amount it is), why would it be worth your time at $20? Or even $5?

Time is arguably an even more precious commodity than money, and a lot of people have very little free time to play even the best games. If I had a chance to buy the order for $10 right now, I wouldn't take it because it's still a mediocre game and there's a giant backlog I haven't finished.

I learned a lot about this from PS+. Plus is something I would buy anyway, so the games offered each month are essentially free to me, but I rarely make it more than 10 minutes into most of them. The time I could be spending on a better game is worth more than a gaming experience that's even $0.

The counterargument I see here is that of limited income, and I get that. I'm pretty fuckin' poor. But I see this attitude brought up without that context, and although I don't have direct quotes, something like "shame, thought it would be a lot better than this, still might be worth a tenner down the line" doesn't say much about really wanting to play it but not being able to actually afford it.

So after all that rambling, my general questions are:

Do you often read a review/see a video for a game, find it to be "meh" but follow its price and watch for sales so that you can pick it up for a heavy discount down the line despite that assessment?

Would you consider a mediocre AAA/AA game at a discounted rate to be a better buy than a great indie title at the same price point?

All that said, The Order has made me glad that the master plan to destroy renting and borrowing got foiled. Sometimes 5 hours of tuning out and actually seeing the credits for once is a nice change of pace.

 

[Catfood220]

To be fair with games for the PS3 coming to a trickle last year and probably stopping altogether this year and my refusal to upgrade to a PS4 until there is something that I want to play badly enough to buy one. I have spent the last year taking advantage of GAME's 3 for 2 offer on pre owned games and just been buying up games that have gotten bad or meh reviews to see if I can get any enjoyment out of them.

Not much it must be said and I had to trade in a massive pile of games back to them, but you never know, there might be some hidden gem in the games I have yet to play.

 

[Zhukov]

Perhaps I'm picky, but personally I have trouble finding enough games that I want to play.

If a game is in my "backlog", it's because I don't really want to play it. Otherwise, well... I'd be playing it.

So when something competent but mediocre comes along, I'm sometimes interested enough to give it a go, but not enough to cough up $70 AUD for the damn thing.

The Order 1886 is a pretty good example of that.

Do you often read a review/see a video for a game, find it to be "meh" but follow its price and watch for sales so that you can pick it up for a heavy discount down the line despite that assessment?

Yup.

Would you consider a mediocre AAA/AA game at a discounted rate to be a better buy than a great indie title at the same price point?

Than a great indie game?

No, of course not.

I'll take a mediocre AAA over a mediocre indie though, since those tend to at least be polished and functional.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

That's pretty much my mantra for every game.

Unless it's Dawn of War III, there's no way I'm paying more than £25 for a game, and even at that price it's pretty unlikely, £15-£20 is about the maximum I'll pay.

Regarding meh reviews I'll probably wait until it's under the £10 mark. But I'd really have to be very specifically interested in it, which doesn't happen very often.

Most games come in at £0 though, I'm particularly picky, probably wouldn't bother playing it if it was free, even if it's a "10/10"type game.

 

[veloper]

I find the TS' ramblings more interesting than the questions following it.

The key factor here is whether the game recommendation is coming from someone with little money and a lot of time to kill, or somebody with a lot of money and little spare time, or from a professional reviewer who simply has to play the game.
A lot of mediocrity for very little money, may appeal more to the first type of gamer. Kids.

When/if length doesn't factor in at all, the discounted AAA game I would be willing to buy for $15 I expect to get roughly equal enjoyment from it as I got from the $15 indie game I also bought and thought was worth the price.

But length does factor in sometimes, even though time is worth more money.
If the game is just average, I may play it for while, figure out the game mechanics and challenges and then quit when I feel the game has few or no more tricks to teach me, which is often before the end credits roll. I do get some enjoyment out of the game, but I won't value the other 100 levels tacked on.
If the game is great and I keep coming back to it, all that time spent will still feel like being worth something. Maybe the price went down from $1.00 per hour to $0.10 per hour of above average quality entertainment. Now it's a bargain.

The price point at which I would want to buy the game, is the ultimate score. The score of $15 roughly translates to 7/10 "interesting at first, but the experience gets boring 10 hours in" or "an excellent way to spend a couple hours".
Of course I will happily buy at a lower price point too and I can wait when I'm not a fan.

 

[Bad Jim]

The counterargument I see here is that of limited income, and I get that. I'm pretty fuckin' poor. But I see this attitude brought up without that context

Not all of us are as poor as you, but we all have limits on what we can spend. Someone who spends ten times more on games than you do will still have to decide what games are worth buying, and may decide that a game which is half the normal length and otherwise unremarkable is best purchased at half price, when the value for money is similar to other games.

 

[Albino Boo]

I'll pick it up when it's cheap. Hmm has to be Sarah Palin.

 

[josemlopes]

By that logic I would only play my favorite game forever. Sometimes I want something different then what I already have and if there is some fun to be had it it the I will have it. A 1$ game, even if flawed, can be fun to play even if it never gets to be as fun as the best game you currently own. Of course that in the end it has to be worth your time but like I said, if you are enjoying it, even if not as much, then it is. Your favorite game ends up getting stale in the end.

 

[sanquin]

For me, I weigh price versus expected enjoyment. Most games these days aren't worth my 50~60 euro's considering the amount of enjoyment I would probably get out of them. So I'd rather wait when they're cheaper, and do consider them to be worth the price.

 

[Lilani]

-snip-

Nothing is black and white. There is a point where I'm willing to gamble a bit of money to give something a try, just to say I tried it. I'm not willing to give The Order a try for $60 but I might for $10 or $15. The reviews haven't been horrible for the most part, just meh. It might even have some redeeming qualities. Given what it is, $10 or $15 is what I'm willing to spend on that game I might find meh or might not enjoy very much--and I only say this because I don't buy games that often anyway (I'm subscribed to an MMO). Or at that rate I might just rent it.

I also don't compare deals against each other when I buy. I've gotten great deals on great Indie games--I got Bastion in the Humble Bundle so I got it and like 10 other games for like $8--that's less than $1 per game. But then I also got a 10% discount on Portal 2 when it came out because I preordered it, which I thought was a great deal since I planned on owning it on day 1 anyway.

It's really a case-by-case basis thing. With bargain shopping there really is no hard line.

 

[joest01]

There is more to the decision than that. Some games you know you will spend 200hours in, try and get every trophy, outfit etc. And maybe you want to be part of the online community from day 1. In that case most people will happily spend 60 bucks.

Now if somebody said they were going to spend the same kind of time and energy on a shitty game when its cheap then that would indeed be less than rational.

But, some games may just be very intriguing to spend some time with. Or see the story through on easy. Or something like that. And in that case it surely isn't worth full price.

But I get your point. My time is certainly worth more than the few bucks saved. To spend it playing mediocre games. Now expand that argument to PS+

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I do this every time with every game. Launch prices where I live are insane. So I never buy at launch, let alone pre-order.

 

[Korenith]

Mediocre games I probably wouldn't buy at all. But a game which sounds interesting but flawed? Yeah I'd pick it up on the cheap rather than pay full whack when I'm not sure if the interesting parts will outweigh the flaws. XCOM is my perfect example. I have no idea if I'll enjoy it but it sounds like something a bit different from what I usually play so I bought it cheap and it'll be there waiting for me once I beat what I'm playing now.

I'm not the best person to ask though as I never pay launch prices anyway

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

For me, I weigh price versus expected enjoyment. Most games these days aren't worth my 50~60 euro's considering the amount of enjoyment I would probably get out of them. So I'd rather wait when they're cheaper, and do consider them to be worth the price.

I wish it was easier for me to gauge that expected enjoyment. Example, I bought Binding of Isaac + DLC on a whim for $5 because I liked the aesthetic, and I've put over 200 hours into it, more than 4 times the amount of hours spent on any $40-60 game in my library. Also to consider is the combined 100+ hours on Dota and TF2 for $0. Such a funny hobby.

Since I posted this topic, I also found a contradiction against my argument. I picked up Dragon Age 2 for 5 bucks in a recent sale knowing it was mediocre, so that I could have the whole trilogy (though I don't find the 3 titles together to be very cohesive, that's another discussion). I've put about 15 hours into it, recognizing the many failures and cut corners but enjoying it as a relaxing "baby's first WRPG" kind of calm, taking in the good story that's to be found. I hadn't been following it's price and never intended on buying it, so at the very least it makes a good anecdote for the argument that a random sale can bring in a lot of sales avoided by refusing to ever lower the MSRP.

*Though I'm enjoying my $5 DA2 investment, I get the impression that the value of the DLCs must be astronomically worse in comparison (Legacy is almost twice what I paid for the whole game). I'll always feel like I don't have the complete experience, something the publishers must know when they decide to discount the "base game" (ugh) and not the DLC.

 

[Randoman01]

I do this with some games like if they are bad and I might be interested in playing them.

 

[Schadrach]

In my case, I have enough of a backlog that "I'll pick it up when it's cheap" is largely used to keep myself from having an even longer backlog (it wouldn't be so long, but MMOs and Minecraft are both a hell of a drug.

 

[wetfart]

Picking it up when it's on sale or after the price drops is my modus operandi. Here's the thing, even if a game is only "okay" I'm willing to overlook a lot more when I've only paid $10 or $20 for a game and I tend to enjoy it more.

Also, between a mortgage, car payment, food, bills, and everything that the kids need I can stretch the entertainment budget farther if I buy things when they're cheaper.

 

[kasperbbs]

Thats my policy for most games unless it's something that i have been looking forward to for a while, next few full price purchases will be gta V and The witcher 3, everything else i'll get eventually or just forget it existed unless some game turns out to be really good.

 

[Dizchu]

I don't even buy games that I actually want to play until a couple of years down the line when they're on sale. £40 for a new release might be cheap compared to how costly games were in the past, but to be honest I mostly play older games anyway.

The best purchase I have made in the last few years was Rayman Legends which was £20 I believe. On the other hand I would have never bought Far Cry 3, Tomb Raider or Dishonored at their launch prices, even if they are great games.

I'm just shit at being a consumer I guess.