DrunkOnEstus said:
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.
Well, yeah.
I play games because I want to experience the worlds and stories they've crafted.
Now, I'm a weird one because I don't really subscribe to a metric of "X money spent = Y hours played" like I've seen a lot of other people say they love to do, but I'm heavily interested in making a career as a writer. It behooves me to expose myself to as many different things--good, bad, or merely adequate--as I can, because it all helps me discover ways I can tackle world-building and storytelling or things I should avoid.
I won't always actually play something myself in order to experience it; it does need to have something that hooks me in. But a "mediocre" game is just as likely to have that hook as a "great" game. The first examples that come to mind are
Lollipop Chainsaw and
The Last of Us.
Lollipop Chainsaw was a short, dumb, comical zombie romp with a fun if simplistic action-combat system.
The Last of Us was a long, grim, serious and emotional zombie game about survival with stealth and shooter elements. I didn't finish
The Last of Us, and I only played a copy my friend had bought because my previous experiences with Naughty Dog games combined with my general thoughts on post-apocalyptic settings and zombie themes meant that I was reasonably comfortable in the assumption that I wouldn't particularly enjoy it.
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?
That depends? If I see a game and my response to it is "Meh", then the chances are I'm not interested in it. There are plenty of games I'll see and think, "Oh, this looks cool, but I wonder if it has any big problems?" and then I'll read further into it. But I buy very few games at non-discounted prices these days in the first place, regardless of how much I believe I'll like them.
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?
Well now, everyone has their own definitions of what they would consider to be a "mediocre" or "great" game, don't they?
Braid's got a pretty nice cult following, but I found it boring and the piecemeal, convoluted way the story was doled out did nothing to capture my interest. Personally, I don't put much weight behind the distinctions between AAA, lower-budget, or indie titles when informing my purchasing decisions.