Poll: When do you purchase your game?

Veldel

Mitth'raw'nuruodo
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Apr 28, 2010
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Lost in my mind
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Honestly it depends on the game the only thing that's typically constant is I buy my games new.

I have bought a few Alpha games before like Minecraft before it even hit 5k sales. Dont regret it

Got Space Engineers as well and I dont regret it.

If the game is one I know il like I will pre order on amazon as no money has to be put down but I can pay stuff off with gift balance allowing me to keep a constant flow without paying large sums.


If its something im uncertain I will wait a while or watch some gameplay.
 

visiblenoise

New member
Jul 2, 2014
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The last time I bought a game anywhere near its release date was Bioshock Infinite. These days, I generally wait for more user reviews and patches before even considering buying a game, unless the name behind the game is reliable (like Ken Levine, or Hideo Kojima).
 

Pyrian

Hat Man
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Jul 8, 2011
1,399
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San Diego, CA
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US
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The vast majority of the time, I wait for a good Steam sale. Same game, more bugfixes, lower price. Just have to wait a bit. Hard to argue with that math, especially since it's not like I'm going to run out of stuff to do.

Occasionally, I pre-order/kickstart, generally only if the series and developer have a good track record. For example, I've kickstarted Shadowrun Returns: Hong Kong because the system is decent and Dragonfall was really good.
 

Johnny Novgorod

Bebop Man
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Feb 9, 2012
18,465
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When it's on sale. Bonus points if it's a GOTY edition.
Never pre-ordered or bought full-price, let alone at launch.
 

Tiger King

Senior Member
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Oct 23, 2010
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It depends on the game, if I am excited about it then I will buy it a few months after release day when some second hand copies are on sale.

I have been tempted by some games on steam that are in alpha stage development, but from a past experience these games never seem to get finished which is so disappointing.
 

Mikeybb

Nunc est Durandum
Aug 19, 2014
862
0
0
Varies greatly dependent on the game itself.

Grimrock, for example, I've pre-ordered every release.

FTL I kickstartered as the idea looked (and proved) to be wonderful.

Bought Elite Dangerous full price, but after release day.

Have bought other games when the price was right.

In short, the decision driving the purchase is as dependent on the game itself as the details of the transaction.
 

LaoJim

New member
Aug 24, 2013
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Almost inevitably I wait for a sale. The only game I bought on the day of release last year was Geometry Wars 3 for the princely sum of £12 pounds. I bought only brought my console about four and a half years ago, so I've always been playing catch up with the previous generations games, as a result my backlog is such that there is very rarely a reason to buy a £30-40 new game when there is stuff that is just as good for £5-10 pounds on sale. I'm also very much of the 'buy 'em cheap, stack 'em high' mentality. The games that attract me are not always the ones that get the best reviews, and I tend to enjoy playing the first 5-10 hours of a lot of different games more than sinking 100+ hours into a behemoth like Skyrim.
 

CrimsonBlaze

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Aug 29, 2011
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If it is a game that I'm looking forward to or have faith that it will be good, then I typically buy it at launch.

Otherwise, I wait for a review to decide whether or not to purchase it at a latter time.

I would also wait for deals and sales (bundles or price reductions) to get a nice batch of titles.
 

OpticalJunction

Senior Member
Jul 1, 2011
599
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23
I never pre order a game because it's a risk, i have occasionally bought launch day games, mostly i buy during sales.
 

Username Redacted

New member
Dec 29, 2010
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Fighting games get purchased at launch everything else gets purchased when the price point and completion (i.e. GoTY) converge. It would take an actual gun pointing at my head to get me to pre-order anything these days as my faith in developers releasing something that I want to actually want to play on their first try is ~0. Like I've enjoyed the hell out of Skyrim recently. Thing is I bought the "Legendary" edition when it was on sale last fall (~3 years after release) and looking at the Wiki pages for the game (which list known bugs) I can't even being to imagine how shit the game was at launch. Plus there wouldn't have been any mods for it when it first came out.
 

Madame_Lawliet

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Jul 16, 2013
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I usually wait for it to come down in price or until I can find a used copy, I veeeeeeery rarely play PC games anymore (my laptop's not so beefy and I was never very into PC gaming in the first place) so I mostly ignore the steam sales, unless there's some indie game on sale that I want to play or something like that.
Usually this takes about a year anyways, so GotY editions tend to be a common purchase of mine as well (since, y'know, I can get the game bug tested and finished that way).
There are exceptions to this rule mind you, I do intend to buy Bloodborne at launch for example, but they're few and far between.

And I never pre-order video games anymore.
Ever.
The last game I pre-ordered was Pokemon Emerald on the Gameboy Advanced in 2004, dead serious.
I actually still have the little green tin with the Rayquaza sticker they gave me for pre-orderimg, I wish companies still did stuff like that instead of just giving you a code for some chunk of DLC or something.
 

Sleepy Sol

New member
Feb 15, 2011
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The Steam sales. All of the Steam sales. I don't think I've ever bought an early access game, however. Concept's a bit on the shaky side for me. I do actually tend to buy a lot of handheld games at full price though, and that's if I don't choose to preorder them. RPG and visual novel central.
 

Yopaz

Sarcastic overlord
Jun 3, 2009
6,092
0
0
When I want it.

I have a huge game library due to sales and humble bundles, I have a great deal of games for both PC and consoles bought for full price either as pre-order r recently launched. There's no common denominator for when I decide to buy a game except for "Whenever I want to".

Some of the games I want I am not sure about so I hold off getting them until I either have time to play or until it goes on sale while others that belong to a series that I like I will buy at launch regardless. I am not rich, but I get by just fine. I would rather enjoy myself than save money and if a game can make me enjoy myself it's well worth the money. Considering how long most games last I don't even consider them expensive.
 

Vendor-Lazarus

Censored by Mods. PM for Taboos
Mar 1, 2009
1,201
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Solaire of Astora said:
The Steam sales. All of the Steam sales.
Heh, thank you for making me laugh. ^^

(and in that vein..)
It seems to vary quite a lot, both depending on specific game and person, but the overall feel right now is that sales is a big Big Business.
I wont infer that most or even some people might have a grudge against the current prices but I'll take it as granted that almost no one would say no to getting more for less..Shocker, I know.

Thanks for all the input so far!
 

Maximum Bert

New member
Feb 3, 2013
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If its a game I really want then at launch although I think the only games I bought at launch last year were fighters (had to import a lot of them).

A few cheap MP games I will buy if a few friends are free and we meet up round the house although that happens rarely now. As for the rest I just buy them when I think I will play them or if they are going really cheap. I have so many games on backlog and so many more I want to get and so little time to play them now that new games rarely have the pull they used to and even sale ones dont hold much appeal to me a lot of the time. Think I have only bought 3 games in the steam sales the last few years, had a few more on GOG and in shop sales but its still not much.
 

Scarim Coral

Jumped the ship
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Oct 29, 2010
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UK
Depend how much I want that game badly like e.g. I bought Borderlands: The PreSequel on launch day but I am waiting Tales from the Borderlands on Steam sale despite I know how much acclaim TellTales have with their story driven games.
 

white_wolf

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Aug 23, 2013
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I grew up buying them onsale but lately I have more pre-orders outdoing my on sale purchases,lately its been preorder, post launch but barley on discount, and sale
 

Scars Unseen

^ ^ v v < > < > B A
May 7, 2009
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Depends on the game. Mostly I wait for sales, but some I get at launch if I'm really excited about them(e.g. Way of the Samurai 4 PC port will likely be a day one purchase for me because I never thought I'd see it happen). Not really a lot of middle ground.
 

Dalisclock

Making lemons combustible again
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Feb 9, 2008
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A Barrel In the Marketplace
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Scarim Coral said:
Depend how much I want that game badly like e.g. I bought Borderlands: The PreSequel on launch day but I am waiting Tales from the Borderlands on Steam sale despite I know how much acclaim TellTales have with their story driven games.
I'm in the same boat here. I'm sure I'll grab TftBL but I'm waiting because only the first episode has been released(out of 5?) and I both want to make sure it the quality will hold up(not that I'm terribly worried about that) but also waiting until at least half the episodes are out. Considering episode 2 is still not out yet....
 

Mimic

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Jul 22, 2014
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I usually wait a year after a game's come out when the price has fallen below £20. I've made a couple of exceptions for games that I thought would sell out quickly such as Demons's Souls Black Phantom Edition which I preordered, and it hardly matters at all with Nintendo games as they never seem to fall in price.