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[Sethbacca]

I buy about 4 brand new day one games a year, the rest are all sales usually. I feel like that's the average amongst my friend group.

 

[R3TRO]

Maybe I have a problem...

I buy min 4 a month.

 

[Kenneth Haight]

Filthy casuals

 

[ecosse_011172]

I buy about 4 brand new day one games a year, the rest are all sales usually. I feel like that's the average amongst my friend group.

Full price I'm probably that too, most purchases are PSN/EShop sales.

 

[Felessan]

The issue is that normies and casual gamers who rarely buy games don't need and don't care for Gamepass. If all you want to do is to play GTA5, FIFA/FC and a bunch of F2P GAAS games, why would you subscribe to Gamepass?

I am not talking about f2p (and they are not casuals/normies), I excluded that pillar

Gamepass is of most interest to the hardest of hardcore Xbox gamers who buy and play LOTS OF GAMES. GP was hemorrhaging money because it was too much of a good deal for the people who spent the most on games and now could save money.

Actually, no
Gamepass had a value for ~36% of consumers pre-rise, and it's actually quite good number, given that 33% are fully f2p - more than half of paying customers are in target range.
And now GP is a value for 14% of consumers (21% of paying), a big drop in coverage.

 

[analog_future]

Surely a sign of a healthy, thriving industry

 

[ByWatterson]

Isn't any entertainment industry mostly propped up by enthusiasts? Is this news?

 

[Duchess]

Doesn't make sense to me to buy a game at release these days. They're never finished, and so waiting a few months means you get all the bug fixes, quality of life improvements, and sometimes even a few extras, all at a lower price.

 

[Topher]

This, should be limited to console gamers (PC gamers should be ignored as they distort the figures by buying every turd on the sun as long as it appears in a steam sale).

Buying games distort game buying statistics? That's a new one

 

[ecosse_011172]

Buying games distort game buying statistics? That's a new one

 

[StereoVsn]

• Economy is kind of shit, except for the top 1%.
• Game hardware prices just keep increasing (see number of people still on PS4 or Steam surveys).
• Game prices are high compared to consumer purchasing power.
• Various sub options exist in addition to game renting.
• F2P gaming is bigger than ever.

A lot of folks play F2P MP stuff. And I am not surprised that majority of the public barely purchases new titles. Wait a year and cost drops at least by half and not much is lost.

 

[StereoVsn]

I buy about 4 brand new day one games a year, the rest are all sales usually. I feel like that's the average amongst my friend group.

Yeah, I might get 2-3 full priced titles a year if that. The rest would be Console or PC sales, whether physical or digital.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Hopefully he doesn't act surprised and worried and don't blame F2P games,because even i knew that without any marker research

 

[methane47]

buying 1 game a month?!?! who has the time for that? I am more around the range of 2-3 games per year MAX. Just got KCD2 2 weeks ago and I think i'm good for the rest of 2025.

 

[Zacfoldor]

There's no games worth buying so it's a perfect time to complete the backlog

 

[Kacho]

Isn't any entertainment industry mostly propped up by enthusiasts? Is this news?

When it comes to buying games, yep. If you grow the market with f2p games and mobile slop it's going to skew the stats.

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

Maybe I have a problem...

I buy min 4 a month.

Good for you. But for most people the barrier isn't cash but time. There are a lot of very cheap games out there that are good, not to mention those that are free. But when ever I have some free time I tend to choose napping above all other options.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

I mean it's true...and i keep repeating that.

And the sad part is even the most enthusiastic side of gaming keeps wishing for games to flop because there's a woman as the main character, or an actor said something they don't agree with, or the game released on the wrong platform so let's trash it, etc lol

Single players ARE doing worse overall and it will keep getting worse.

Games have gotten worse and more expensive, so people buy less. Drop the gaslighting. There's no sadness in turds like Veilguard flopping. It's well deserved and well celebrated. Good games will sell, they don't need any shilling.

 

[Deerock71]

I must be a hyper enthusiast. Either I abuse Amazon...or vice versa.

 

[poodaddy]

I never buy games new as it just seems kind of stupid to me. You get an inferior product riddled with bugs and performance issues, and you get the dubious honor of paying more for it.....just doesn't add up.

Wait around three months, get the patched experience at half price, I mean it's a win win.

And yes, I'm aware that this isn't good for the industry in general, but that's not my problem. I'm the consumer, so I'm going to make the smartest decisions I can for me and mine, the impedus for changing that lies with the one publishers and developers, not me.

Maybe most gamers have finally woken up to that realization :/.

 

[Bernardougf]

I dont buy day one games since companies decided early adopters should be the new beta testers for the first months/year of their games.

Once they comeback to offering the whole package 100% optimized for day 1 .. then we can discuss.

 

[adamsapple]

I must be a hyper enthusiast. Either I abuse Amazon...or vice versa.

Or Amazon abuses you?

 

[Sanepar]

This guy was always a Xbox fanboy boy. It is so weird us videogame media and analyst with so many being Xbox fanboys and trying to induce consumers.

 

[StereoVsn]

buying 1 game a month?!?! who has the time for that? I am more around the range of 2-3 games per year MAX. Just got KCD2 2 weeks ago and I think i'm good for the rest of 2025.

Yep. Also, KCD2 is awesome and will take a good 100 hours if you enjoy and take in the scenery plus the new DLC is pretty good.

 

[ecosse_011172]

Games have gotten worse and more expensive, so people buy less. Drop the gaslighting. There's no sadness in turds like Veilguard flopping. It's well deserved and well celebrated. Good games will sell, they don't need any shilling.

Yep, as the likes of Ghost of Yotei demonstrate.

 

[Fbh]

Even as someone who sees gaming as their main hobby I buy less than 1 game a month.
Between a full time job, other hobbies, spending time with family/friends, some multiplayer gaming, etc a lot of these modern 30+ hours games take me more than a month to beat anyway. Then you add the ocasional good Ps+ and/or Epic giveaway (likes Lies of P and Alan Wake 2 recently) and there's even less of a reason to constantly buy new games.

And when I do buy a new game it's rarely day 1. I'm usually so behind on new releases that I want to play that there's basically always something on sale on my wishlist. The only day 1 games I've gotten this year were Expedition 33 and Silksong (neither of them being $70 also helped).

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

I'm part of the problem, just bought Fires of Rubicon for $20 and it feels great.

 

[Baemono]

Financial literacy can only go so far when basic costs raise at levels far outpacing what incomes/raises provide.

Yeah but I don't think all of 40% of Americans basic coste outpace their incomes

 

[olninty]

I never buy games on release nowadays. I do buy about 15 new physical games a month though.

Over 10 years ago I was buying new games on release and by the time I got round to playing them the prices were reduced to nearly half what I originally paid. This practice was brought in by companies like Ubisoft in order to suppress the second hand market (CEX etc.).

All they have achieved is lower, slower sales, yielding less profit. I for one have greatly reduced the amount of money I'm spending. They did it all to themselves, no wonder they want us all to be digital consumers now.

 

[icecold1983]

Mostly bad developers releasing mostly bad games. Math maths.

 

[DenchDeckard]

My hobby feels very sustainable and healthy.

 

[mayham2199]

I buy about 4 brand new day one games a year, the rest are all sales usually. I feel like that's the average amongst my friend group.

This has been an off year for me but generally this is my pattern as well usually less honestly.

 

[Bernardougf]

I mean it's true...and i keep repeating that.

And the sad part is even the most enthusiastic side of gaming keeps wishing for games to flop because there's a woman as the main character, or an actor said something they don't agree with, or the game released on the wrong platform so let's trash it, etc lol

Single players ARE doing worse overall and it will keep getting worse.

Irs pretty simple fam ... if you want to ignore years of a well established gamer demographic in pursuit of some mythical "modern audience" and when you fail you double/tripple down in the name of your "ideals" and your "art" then its not our fault gaming is failing. You want to buy any dogshit they throw at you, go for it, dont ask any of us to have the same low standards

 

[Lorianus]

I only buy 1 maybe 2 games per quarter in one of the four seasonal steam sales, or cheap steamkey's on thirdparty sites for 5-10€.

 

[Hawk The Slayer]

With so many games out now, the chances for bad games would also be higher so people choose their next game more wisely. Last game I bought this year was Warcraft Reforged and World of Warcraft Midnight as nothing else interest me until Resident Evil 9, Tides of Annihilation, and GTA VI next year and maybe Routine later this year.

Most kids are probably on Roblox and Fortnite. And older folks just choose what to buy carefully instead of having our parents buy it for us monthly like how it was during the SNES to PS2 days.

 

[Krafter]

I buy exactly one game per month, it's a self-imposed rule. It's practically a game in itself for me anymore. I will research Steam, Playstation and Switch sales, and narrow it down to just one. I will take in account genre, developer and even nationality in the purchase. At this rate, I can die with 500 games in the backlog rather than 1,000.

 

[Ma-Yuan]

I have had the feeling that the heavy lifting of full price games or launch bought games is done by a low margin of people and those people like me also like their games in physical form. If these stop to exist why would i buy a fucking console? Then i can buy pc and play xbox and ps games. I would probably by also 90 percent less games based on my backlog

 

[ByWatterson]

When it comes to buying games, yep. If you grow the market with f2p games and mobile slop it's going to skew the stats.

But even that is the same thing - it's the whales propping up those games, not the masses that help the publishers sell in-game ads.

 

[Kacho]

But even that is the same thing - it's the whales propping up those games, not the masses that help the publishers sell in-game ads.

Sure, but it's hard to take any of this seriously when my mom is considered a "US gamer" just because she plays Words with Friends daily.

 

[ByWatterson]

Sure, but it's hard to take any of this seriously when my mom is considered a "US gamer" just because she plays Words with Friends daily.

Ah, I see. Yeah, definitely.

Asking if someone is a gamer is a bit like asking if they're a student. If you frame it a certain way, it includes anyone and everyone.

 

[Minari]

im from EU. my day1 buys this year: Labyrinth of the Demon King(indie), Exp 33,Cronos last month and Ghost of Yotei this month and im very likely to get bloodlines 2. This is nowhere near what i bought monthly back then during ps4 generation.

still im always buying games on sale like constantly. i have a rule: if i dont buy it day1 i buy it for ATLEAST half off.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

Yeah but I don't think all of 40% of Americans basic coste outpace their incomes

I don't know man I do worry sometimes that a lot of Yankees don't have a pension fund. And the GOP seems to hate Social Care.

 

[MatrixReloaded101]

The quality and experience of most AAA games have declined, that's why people are not buying a lot of new games anymore.

There is no benefit in buying a AAA game day one for like $75 just to have to wait months for patches and updates.

 

[DarkShadowXI]

Proudly in the 4%!

 

[lughnasadh123]

Horrible numbers underlining the problem of too many games competing for a rather small number of people.

 

[Bonfires Down]

I, who just this month bought on discs - Hell is Us, Cronos The New Dawn, Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter, Lost Soul Aside, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, Ghost of Yotei, Silent Hill f, Final Fantasy Tactics.
Everyone, don't panic, I'm doing everything in my power to ensure that this rotting industry doesn't collapse.

How many did you play for more than an hour?

 

[Clear]

The quality and experience of most AAA games have declined, that's why people are not buying a lot of new games anymore.

There is no benefit in buying a AAA game day one for like $75 just to have to wait months for patches and updates.

Bullshit.

The premise is that in most cases a good game will give weeks, months even years worth of entertainment, because most users don't have that many hours in the day to devote to gaming.

If you like longer games, you generally don't need to buy that many in a year because ultimately there's no time if you have a life.

Most people don't have the mentality that they need to burn through their games as fast as possible in order to be ready for the next one, its why the whole "this gaming doesn't respect my time" argument has always struck me as deeply fishy.

I'm sorry, but am I the one taking the crazy pills because if I find a game I like and is retaining my interest, I want to keep playing it until I'm done with it ? And the longer that takes, the better the value of that purchase ?

 

[Mayar]

How many did you play for more than an hour?

At the moment, beat:
Hell is Us (According to my PSN profile, it took me 31 hours.)
Lost Soul Aside (25 hours)

Here I decided to take a short break and get nostalgic, having completed all the Mass Effects on Insanity in Legendary Edition:
Total time spent for all three games: 114 hours.

I'm currently going through Cronos, after that, Yotei and Silent Hill f are most likely next in line. I bought Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater and Final Fantasy Tactics because they were some of my favorite games from my childhood, and I bought them mostly for the collection. I don't feel any urgency to play them. I'll play them when I'm in special mood.

 

[MatrixReloaded101]

Bullshit.

The premise is that in most cases a good game will give weeks, months even years worth of entertainment, because most users don't have that many hours in the day to devote to gaming.

If you like longer games, you generally don't need to buy that many in a year because ultimately there's no time if you have a life.

Most people don't have the mentality that they need to burn through their games as fast as possible in order to be ready for the next one, its why the whole "this gaming doesn't respect my time" argument has always struck me as deeply fishy.

I'm sorry, but am I the one taking the crazy pills because if I find a game I like and is retaining my interest, I want to keep playing it until I'm done with it ? And the longer that takes, the better the value of that purchase ?

You're making my point, if you got a game you like and plan to put totals of hours into it. Why rush to buy a new game at full price, when you already own a game that's holding your attention?

In order for more games to sell day one they need to provide a lot of value upfront because they got to be good enough to take people's attention away from the games they are currently playing and imo only a few games are able to do that on day one.

 

[Sethbacca]

At the moment, beat:
Hell is Us (According to my PSN profile, it took me 31 hours.)
Lost Soul Aside (25 hours)

Here I decided to take a short break and get nostalgic, having completed all the Mass Effects on Insanity in Legendary Edition:
Total time spent for all three games: 114 hours.

I'm currently going through Cronos, after that, Yotei and Silent Hill f are most likely next in line. I bought Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater and Final Fantasy Tactics because they were some of my favorite games from my childhood, and I bought them mostly for the collection. I don't feel any urgency to play them. I'll play them when I'm in special mood.

Where the hell do you find the time? I'm gonna assume no kids or relationships?