Well, replay value is definitely a factor and differs based on each person, so you're not actually disagreeing with me. You just find more value than the average person in many genres and types of games.
I don't mean to be rude here, and please feel free to tell me to fuck off if I'm out of line. But I'm curious. You ever been poor? Like, in which buying a game is an extravagant expense? And you can only get say...2 a year? Or how bout, if that's too personal, when you were a kid, how many games could you get? I got 4 a year. I saved up for 2 and got one for christmas and birthday. I remember buying some games and blowing through them in a single afternoon and being disappointed as all fucking god damn hell. Gerstman talks about spending 80 dollars on Strider and beating it in like 3 hours and how he had to save for months for it. Because that perspective is one that doesn't really value money.
Never. I've been a university student with 1000 dollars for the year, but that's the worst it's ever gotten.
I generally try to conserve money by basically only buying pre-owned and on sales, even though I know the pre owned market is a blight on the game industry, unless its one of the like 5 games on the level of xenoblade x, smash, zelda, peronsa, or whatever that I feel I need to buy day 1. It's all about priorities for me.
But like sjay, the only things I ever buy that aren't games are the very rare artbook and the less rare ost, and I constantly stay up to date on the games that are coming out so I can plan the exact amounts of money I can spend the rest of the year.
My only big thing is that I refuse to ever pirate a game. As someone looking to get into the industry, I kinda feel it's the least I can do.