I wait about a year after release before buying a game on my wish list. There are just too many buggy games these days. Why should I pay a premium price for an unfinished product? I also have a backlog of games in my library.
PC gamers already often have to wait for games to come to PC, so it’s no big thing to wait a little longer to get those games for cheaper. We’re already not getting it day one a lot of the time, so there’s no FOMO.
I want to play FF16, but since I’ve already gotta wait a year to get it, I’m fine waiting until it’s on sale. Same with Horizon Forbidden West. I’ve waited this long to be able to play the DLC (I have the game on PS4, but the dlc was PS5 only), I don’t mind waiting longer.
Buggy unoptimized releases has also trained more people to wait, and enough people have been burned by supposed publishers that can be trusted.
Yeah that’s huge, why pay full price for a buggy game when i can buy the patched/optimized version of the game for half price a year later??
Often even when its on sale i have already lost interest.
I think most PC games are just PC games. The ones that are ported from consoles are a minority. Even though they are high profile because there’s a lot of marketing behind them.
OTOH, there’s now PC games getting poorly ported to consoles, which I think is only fair.
I almost never buy games at full price, but that doesn’t mean they’re pricing them incorrectly, from the viewpoint of the company that made the game. It’s a deliberate marketing strategy that works. It’s sometimes called the “skimming” strategy of pricing. (It has nothing to do with embezzlement.) It just means charging the highest price the market will bear at a certain time and ratcheting it down, and at each notch, finding a new market.
If 20% of your market will buy the game at $50, and 80% will buy the game a $25, you probably still want to charge 50 first and then bring it down to 25 gradually, as this will maximize your revenue.
I’m no capitalist, but maximizing a value function is just math.
It´s not only about the price. I also prefer to buy games after initial bugs and other issues have been patched.
Exactly. If games were released in a polished state, I’m sure more people would buy them at full price.
I’m a patient gamer. I wish list interesting games, when there’s a sale, I pick up anything under $5. I have a huge back log.
I wish list interesting games
And that’s how I got to 400-something wishlisted games
I initially was waiting for Star Field to be less than $70 after launch, instead I lucked out and no longer have any desire to get it for anything higher than free
Thanks for reminding me I gotta get the free games on epic for this week.
Real talk: how many of those choose the high seas?
I have like hundreds of untouched games in my library. Really couldn’t bother.
About the only time I actually pirate a game nowadays is if it’s not available for me to download day one on Steam. Then if I did like the game, I usually end up picking it up when it makes its way to steam, after it goes on sale.
For as much difficulty as there is finding good copies without issues that don’t come bundled with undesirable extras or restrictions to online play it’s better to just wait until it’s legit on sale. If someone is so cash strapped that buying isn’t really an option (but then how does one afford a gaming PC), then you gotta do what need to.
much difficulty as there is finding good copies without issues that don’t come bundled with undesirable extras or restrictions to online play…
For clarity, this simply isn’t as “difficult” as you make it sound, especially since the subculture that supports such is both welcoming and quite helpful in its self-policing. With very little effort at all, one can be assured of quality results, and oftentimes even better than “official” releases (see: buggy AF Denuvo “protected” titles, etc).
When you look at number of sales they seem to happen the most years down the line. It’s more revenue talks when people talk about games making most of their games at launch, since full price is worth multiple copies. But, majority of those who end up purchasing the game during its lifetime seem to be price sensitive.
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