Support NeoGAF

[Nydius]

Myself, and almost everyone I know personally, has significantly reduced their entertainment spending. Fewer streaming services, fewer games, fewer trips to the movie theater. A game has to really stand out for me to want to buy it at launch for full price. This year I've only bought FF7 Rebirth, Stellar Blade, and Astro Bot at launch. I'm getting the Diablo 4 expansion day one but that's only a $40 (and, to be fair, I didn't pay for it because I got reward points from my health insurance that I turned into PSN gift cards).

Part of the reason I still prefer physical games is because I can buy a game, finish it, then resell it for half or two thirds what I paid for it.

I don't really have a GaaS game I fall back on and play exclusively and haven't, really, since year 3 of Destiny 2, so that doesn't factor into it. Price, quality, and rapid sales are the biggest reason why I'm not buying as many at launch anymore. When my cats' food and supplies costs have nearly doubled in the last 24 months, other discretionary spending inevitably gets slashed.

 

[peronmls]

New IPs seem to be good 20 years later. Then remakes happen.

 

[Shadowstar39]

People are more cautious about entertainment dollars now. lower price tags people were more open to giving a new game a try and taking a chance.

People don't want to admit it but $70 is a big ask. Hell even 60 was, but 50 was the sweet spot. Now at 70 I wait. I am more discerning with my limited funds. Silent hill 2,and dragons dogma are the only $70 releases I got this year, as I love the series. I bough unicorn overlord at 60 and will buy ys x in 2 weeks for 60 as well. Everything else I got on deep sales.

 

[LRKD]

Yeah why would I want to spend $100+tip for a woke cinematic generic 3rd person action open world game with light rpg elements? I didn't even like these games when they were new 15 years ago, and back then they were only $59.99+tip.

Seriously the 69.99 price tag is too much, every game being sold with deluxe and ultra editions is too much. Game devs have spent the last decade asking for more and more, and delivering less and less. This is the nature end point. Consumers are now just going to play Fortnite, and wait for sales.

 

[existensmaximum]

I'm happy to pay the full asking price for new games if they are released on disc/cartridge, really catch my interest and seem like a truly amazing game. That happens less and less often unfortunately; now I probably buy less than five newly released games a year or something. During the PS3 and PS4 generations I bought a load of new games all the time - and then I had a significantly lower income than I have today.

But why on earth would I buy a new game digitally, at full price, if it can't be refunded or resold second-hand? To me that's just unthinkable. Sure, games can be refunded within a few hours of playtime on Steam and that's awesome but there are never any new games that I would choose to play on PC over console and pay full price for instead of getting them on a physical media anyway.

I don't know, less and less new games appeal to me nowadays and the changing industry and business model sure don't either, and I've been playing video games happily for 30 years.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

I do

 

[MacReady13]

Recently purchased Astro Bot, Zelda and Black Myth. Just pre ordered Silent Hill 2 but not much else. Cost of living is killing me. I try to choose games I know I definitely want day 1. If not, I'm happy to wait for sales. Plenty on my backlog.

 

[N30RYU]

Welll everything is a remaster nowadays

 

[gtabro]

“NoBoDy”

Don’t you love sensationalist articles? Titles like that make me skip the whole threads/article most of the time tbh.

 

[Bonfires Down]

Playtime is not the best way to measure this. The bulk of that 4.5% new games market is single player. You buy it, you play for 5-30 hours. You’re satisfied. Then you go back to your GaaS game of choice and play 300 hours over a year.

 

[Efren is G.O.A.T.]

I do for games I am hyped for.

 

[SantaBanana]

Stats are skewed heavily by GaaS shite like Fortnite etc.

Fortnite isnt GaaS shite. Fortnite is THE shit other developers wish they could ever develop but never will.

But AAA games have much much higher conversion of playtime to money - Spiderman2 brings 50 times more money per hour spend in-game than Fortnite.

*laughs in vbucks*

 

[Boss Mog]

Well most new games are garbage so it doesn't surprise me. Aside from a few Japanese games (FF7 Rebirth, Astro), It's been a while since I bought a new game. I have a huge backlog so I can still game for a while even if new games continue to be garbage.

 

[ThatPolishGuy]

I'm doing my part.gif

GOG sale here we go.

I recently bought Dishonored series on sale without DRM, so I want to replay those.

Same with Deus Ex.

I haven't played Prey yet, so I bought it too on sale.

And a bunch of other titles, older and newer.

I Dragon Age: Origins was on sale also, so I bought it instead of Fail Guard, will play it with HDMODs.

I suspect more player will do this instead, if games are lower and lower quality, political and stuff.

The best usage of AI are for an older games for HDMODs and whatnot. ESRGAN mods are amazing.

 

[namenotfound]

Games are aging really well and the pre-PS4 console games are regularly getting re-releases on Steam with perfect gamepad support. Since 2018, I've purchased maybe 2 games in the first year they were released

 

[Goalus]

With a few exceptions, I never spend more than €25 on a game, usual price point where I buy is between €15 and €20. I will change that behavior as soon as every game company in the market adopts Nintendo's pricing policy.

 

[PeteBull]

Sales are real! Make those games 80 dollars and see what's gonna happen.

Personally i wouldnt even mind 99$, might actually happen next gen already so in 4 years , that way it would be clear divide aka reward and punishment for good and bad products

 

[Goalus]

Spiderman2 brings 50 times more money per hour spend in-game than Fortnite.

Which means for the player it is 50 times less value per money unit than Fortnite.

 

[Felessan]

Which means for the player it is 50 times less value per money unit than Fortnite.

Vice versa
People (11M) perceives SM2 play hour as 50 times more valuable compared to Fortnite play hour and they are ready to pay for it.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

I buy more games than I have time for. I have a couple of Switch games I've yet to start, I also have a couple I bought at launch and decided to wait for patches to play. I bought Dead Rising yesterday and then played Call of Duty with friends in the evening. Never going to get through the backlog.

 

[SmokedMeat]

People are finally smartening up. I’ve been doing this since switching to PC, and I’m drowning in games I still need to get around to.
Hanging back and just playing the older stuff means that even though I’ve got a massive backlog, I’m spending a tiny fraction of what those who only play new games spend.

 

[Ojeteespacial]

Life is expensive, games are expensive and new games come out with bugs and problems. And they want to keep raising It.

 

[ThatPolishGuy]

People are finally smartening up. I’ve been doing this since switching to PC, and I’m drowning in games I still need to get around to.
Hanging back and just playing the older stuff means that even though I’ve got a massive backlog, I’m spending a tiny fraction of what those who only play new games spend.

I'm doing the same thing. I decided to go with PC instead of PS5 Pro. Buying games mostly on sales on GOG without DRMs or Steam. I can replay older titles with much better resolution and framerates I've been itching to replay Dishonored 2 since launch version on PS4 I did play at launch had aweful input lag. And I did play Dishonored 1 back in the day on PC with 60fps. When I saw they did drop whole series on GOG on sale without DRMs I finally double dipped.

I have fond memories of Jade Empire although I remember basically nothing storywise of it. Saw a sale on gog for a ridiculous low price added this one also. I will have to see though if someone did any HD MOD for it.

I also add any games I didn't play at all. PC is probably gonna end up a better buy than Pro, even without the AI upscaler tech.

 

[xrnzaaas]

The game needs to be worthy of a purchase. My backlog is still as huge as ever, BUT if a great game comes out I'll make room for it.

 

[Hookshot]

Bought more games this summer than I have in years, but most have been short or not worth it. If I played something like Fortnite I’d have not exactly missed out by staying put with it.