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Has the recent global cost of living crisis/recession/trade restrictions affected your gaming habits/purchases?

Everyday items are getting more expensive for the majority of the non-elites around the world, right?

Curious how it's affected members here
 
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Magic Carpet

Gold Member
Shrinkflation will be the new gaming cut backs. Less game for same price.
Like the bag tube of Pringles I got today. That tube was half filled with chips.
 
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jburdick7

Neo Member
Nope. If anything I’m buying more games than I had before due to my Steam Deck. Gaming’s relatively cheap compared to other hobbies.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
No. I just cut down on hookers and strippers and am still able to buy $60 games every few weeks.

In all seriousness, I think my savings have definitely taken a hit. Things are just more expensive. I still eat out a lot so maybe i should cut that down. I think games are still $50-60 on PC so i only see that $10 increase to $70 maybe once a year when i buy something on PS5. The real increase ive seen is in resturants and especially fast food. Used to spend $5-7 a decade ago. now thats $10-15 for lunch. i could justify it back in the day when it would just be $200 a month but now at $400 a month, i could probably buy 7 games with the amount of cash i waste on lunch and breakfast.

P.S the subscriptions help too. paid just $17 to play dragon age. another $17 to play star wars. And $10 to play hellblade 2. $44 for three AAA games on day one is not bad tbh.
 

TheCed

Member
Very much so...

I used to buy all the games I was interested in even if I didn't have enough time to play them all.

Now ? I'm waiting for discounts unless the games are REALLY special to me.
 

JORMBO

Darkness no more
No. I make good money and mostly don't spend much. Gaming is my most expensive hobby. Most of the other things I do are cheap or don't cost anything.
 

reinking

Gold Member
talking liane cartman GIF by South Park
 
Yeah, somewhat. I'm definitely more selective in what I buy and I have a massive backlog, plus I like to replay my favorite games. So it's not like I am lacking for entertainment.
 
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Robb

Gold Member
Outside of the Ps5 Pro being priced ridiculously I haven’t noticed much of a difference. Prices for games and electronics seem pretty stable.

I always put money away for hobby stuff, so the increase in prices on groceries etc. haven’t been very noticeable in relation to that specifically.
 
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BigBeauford

Member
Somewhat, but then again I've been against buying $60 games for a while. Aside from Helldivers and Mario Party Jamboree, I haven't spent over $35 for a game this year. Even then, Witchfire was the only exception in that league.
 
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RSLAEV

Member
Not really. I still have more games than I have time to play, and the only games I've bought this year have been Dragon's Dogma 2, Shadow of the Erdtree and Dawntrail (ugh). The only game I might buy new in the next year is Monster Hunter Wilds and I'm considering waiting on that because I'm still having fun with Sunbreak.
 

Rival

Gold Member
No I make way more than I have to spend each month. In fact I’ve never had more money in my life. I buy what I want when I want as far as gaming is concerned.
 

Hookshot

Member
Not for gaming, food shopping is the only thing I've changed my habits on, now I eat around the offers in the supermarket as you can easily save a fair bit of money per shop.
 

Trogdor1123

Member
No, I make more money than I ever have and eliminated a bunch of debt. So I’m very comfortable that way. I will say this though, the silly policies of some of these companies drives me nuts and makes me buy way less.
 
Hmm nothing new, i buy games around 30 bucks, play what i can on GP, have a sub until 7/26, after that i will probably only sub for a few months at a time when there's enough good games i like since they increased GPU price, not bad i think.
 
It's not really the recession affecting me it's the nonstop issues I keep getting hit with this year out of nowhere. I swear like every other month I'm getting hit with some new $1,000+ bill out of nowhere. I've probably spent close to $20k on random incidents coming up in my life it's kind of crazy. The only thing that keeps me in a good mood is I'm not poor and just happy that I at least have the money to survive this. 10 years ago this would have forced me to move back in with my parents.
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
I've picked up more games this year than I have in the last 5 years. They're not all AAA, but AAA really isn't all that appealing to me right now.
 

RickMasters

Member
Nah. I’d say having less free time in the past years is the big one for me. My backlog just keeps piling up…….


I been playing smaller games so I can actually finish something, I’m playing in a reasonable time frame. Really wanna get stuck into stalker 2, cyber punk and maybe start horizon but they just seem like they would take forever to finish.
 
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Alan Wake

Member
Actually no. I don't feel it has. Gaming continues to be my most important hobby. Obviously, if it came to that I would buy fewer games and that would be fine.
 

Banjo64

cumsessed
It was more of a choice I made 2 years ago when I realised that I don’t really have the desire or time to sit down at my desk to play console hardware any longer when there’s only 2 or 3 exceptional AAA games per generation (your Elden Ring, Witcher III, Skyrim). I’d much rather play a £10-£15 game like Hades, Hollow Knight, Balatro with a few amazing games like TOTK thrown in. I’ve spent about 10 hours playing Pokemon TGC Pocket this week. My habits have just completely changed.

So I no longer juggle all 3 consoles. I just have a Switch and Deck. Online fees are nominal for me now, I no longer feel obliged to buy Sony’s first party just to do the 30 hour tick list for the platinum. Nor Xbox’s just because I liked Halo 3 and Gears of War 15 years ago.

So without even trying, and in the aftermath of the pandemic, my spend is way down as there’s a million cheap world class games on the Switch and Deck, that are actually worth my time.
 

Hunter 99

Member
Im so picky with what I buy now (my gaming tastes have changed a lot the past 5-10 years) that it doesn't really cost much for me.
This year I brought FF7,Stellar blade,SH 2 and I got black myth physical on order for Dec 12th.
So no it hasn't affected me personally.
 
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MLSabre

Member
I've been a bit more picky as of late but that's not saying much since I haven't bought any games at launch ever since the advent of Day 1 patches and just wait for discounts.

The main reason I basically don't buy launch games anymore is that games now cost literally twice as much as they did 10 years ago
Cost twice as much and yet still need a few to several patches to be at an acceptable state. Paying for launch games are for peeps who wants to beta test, whether they know it or not

No. Gaming is very cheap (if you're not a moron who pre-orders trash DEI-games at full price).
That's a lot of morons.

Season 9 Lol GIF by The Office
 
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TransTrender

Gold Member
Console gaming: No change. Physical media still gets very cheap very quickly.
PC Gaming: I'm not sure which knob caused this but insane component prices over the last 4/5 years has killed my interest in the platform.
 

Fbh

Member
Cost twice as much and yet still need a few to several patches to be at an acceptable state. Paying for launch games are for peeps who wants to beta test, whether they know it or not

Yup. Though with the current prices I even find it hard to justify buying games that don't launch with any major issues.
Imagine the price of games in the US or EU had gone from 60 USD/EUR to 120 this gen, I think most people here wouldn't be buying stuff day 1 either.
 
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TintoConCasera

I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
All is fine for now, but as a frontend dev I'm afraid I might get replaced soon by an AI.
 
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Needlecrash

Member
Not really. I spend my money wisely on what I want to play and obtain. However, if I wanted to get a GPU/CPU, this is the time to get it as next year ain't looking to hot honestly.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
For me money is not the issue but rather time, especially this year lot of great JRPGs came out back to back and most of them takes time beat.
 
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Klosshufvud

Member
A little bit, knowing that the value of a dollar/Euro/Krona/etc can be drastically lowered from one day to the next, it has made me more keen on saving up more per month so there is proper buffer in case I lose my job or get sick. I think gaming is still cheap for me with an income, but I don't envy the kids who have to convince their parents to spend 80 Euro on a single video game. I realized drinking out is extremely expensive around here so I stopped doing that and it has saved me a lot of money. Not that it ever was that much fun. Pubs and clubs are dying around here because they're so expensive and joyless. Serves them sorta right IMO.
 
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Crayon

Member
One thing, yah. There was a story going around earlier in the year that gpus might be not excluded and heavily affected by tariffs soon. I had been window shopping gpus, not fully intending to buy one. But I figured I'd hedge and get a 6800 for $350. Seemed like a pretty good bet whether the rumor came to pass or not. Nothing fancy, but I'm happy with it. 16gb insurance and enough headroom over a ps5 to clean up games that struggle on console.
 

El Muerto

Member
Not really. Gonna try and get a new GPU before the tariffs start up again because who knows how long they'll last this time. Bought a RX6600 a couple years ago when the China tariffs ended.
 
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