Making a game purchase

A single dollar holds a lot of intrinsic value.

Before I head into the local retailer to make a purchase, I usually think up of several factors to my purchase:

• Have I loved the previous entry the same development team has put out?
• Have I enjoyed the demo or limited-time offering (ex. Game Pass, beta, renting, playing at a friend’s house)?
• How positive or negative were the online discussions surrounding this game?
• Do I trust the marketing footage?
• Has this game been released before? Is this a port or a localization?
• Is this a Fall-Holiday release?
• Are there any red flags during marketing?
  • Example: CD Projekt Red restricting reviewers from using console footage of Cyberpunk 2077 before the game’s release. This is due to the game being an unfinished, laggy mess on PS4 and Xbox One.
  • Example two: Developer(s) awkwardly tip-toeing around an important question(s) in interviews.

I stopped pre-ordering games that I know I won’t get a lot of return investment upon. Otherwise, pre-ordering is like taking a shot in the dark and hope it doesn’t fire back.

I used to have a need to pre-order games so I can “keep up with the Joneses”; a way for having something to talk about online and in my group of friends. Or simply to do it if I want to avoid spoilers through some sections of the internet. Pre-ordering also paired well with my now-discontinued Best Buy membership that discounted any game by 20% off.

I have gotten lucky with most of my pre-orders resulting in games I thoroughly enjoyed despite some launch day bugs and issues.

There is never a guarantee that the same development team would make a constant hit after hit.

Since the days of Gearbox’s Aliens: Colonial Marines, where the gameplay and preview footage weren’t fully representative of the final product, it created a ripple when it came to pre-ordering games based on pre-release marketing footage. The game’s release and subsequent controversy surrounding it became a black stain on Gearbox studios, previously best known for the likes of Brothers in Arms and Borderlands. Still, despite that game, my dumb ass went out to pre-order Borderlands 3, and while buggy and I could barely bring myself to play its DLCs, found it fun enough to justify my purchase.

When Days Gone director told people that if they wanted to support a game’s potential as a franchise, buy it full price. Now, I have played the game on launch; even pre-ordered the collector’s edition too. Beforehand, I have tried out a demo at an official event. While the demo was fun, the final release had a lot of technical issues. The framerate to texture pop-ins were all too much that hampered my experience, to the point where it made me wish that I bought the game later, potentially at a cheaper price. The story was nothing to write home about, and it felt that the final release suffered by the publisher’s intention to not let it compete against The Last of Us 2, the latter of which ended up being delayed anyway.

I also distrust most games that release in September to December, as it may be buggy or lack enough content; with discount sales coming in 1-4 weeks after first appearing on store shelves. From what I’ve noticed, Ubisoft games released in September to November would go on sale quicker when Black Friday or the post-Christmas sale roll around.

Most games usually have a high sales mark in the first month of release and then slowly drip feeds its numbers thereafter. With a title being released close to the Holidays, it can potentially maintain the momentum since consumer demand for new products would be higher.

A lot of issues with Holiday releases lie with the overt reliance for pumping out the title for higher sales. In some situations, like with buggy or problematic titles like Days Gone and Watch_Dogs being released in Spring, there are a whole mess of issues that may have arisen during development, but alas has to be out in that time for a variety of reasons.

Beyond the bugginess of launch day games, I may also find myself to be unlucky with cheaper purchases for titles that came out years ago.

Even though some games are meant to be played forever or at least experience its campaign and side-contents, I find myself looking up its length and how long can my enjoyment of it will last. Some games provide a lot of filler and end up overbloating the content, as is the case with The Witcher 3 and most Assassin’s Creed games. Since I am a completionist, I would aim to 100% the map if it is feasible.

But that sort of content also brings up another issue with that power of a dollar. Compared a game like Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey where it can be played for 100+ hours if I aim to finish everything (including DLC) to Resident Evil: Village, which can be done in roughly 10 hours for the first run and nearly 40 hours if I want to finish everything. I learned when I played almost every high-profiled open-world game that came out in the past five years is that it largely depends upon my enjoyment. I would gladly put a full $60 down on a game that is incredibly different from every other title, such as the case with the Yakuza series.

However that is from my experience, as I am someone who plays a ton of games. For those who hardly do, it could be more appealing to spring for a single game that can provide some intrinsic rewards every 1-2 hours of playtime (or shorter) and slowly having its campaign beaten in several months.

It all boils down to either quality over quantity. With triple-A open-worlds preferring to be in the latter, I eventually got more selective with my choices.

Most games nowadays don’t quite click with me, no matter how positive its reception was among the gaming community. A game that would sweep gaming awards, get a 80-100 review score average, and/or just looks fun from its footage may very well end up being a waste of money for me!

There is the saying, “staring in a fully stocked fridge but there is nothing to eat.” I get that with my video game library, where it is seemingly vast with hundreds of titles I own or could play through Game Pass or as a F2P, but I find myself playing a single game for weeks to months.

Discovering that single game is partially a risk in itself, as I would feel that I wasted my money on a title I wouldn’t dare to touch again after a couple minutes of playtime.

Renting games is unfortunately a thing of the past as Blockbuster no longer exists (I’m not going to drive hundreds of miles to the last Blockbuster, come on) and Redbox has stopped supporting game rentals; latter of which may resulted from too many people stealing games and these titles having longer-lasting power (ex. live-service games), it would be more sensible to just simply buy rather than rent.

Fortunately, the likes of game subscription services like Xbox Game Pass, EA Play, and Ubisoft+ have helped to mitigate potential wasteful purchases. In a way, it is a slightly better system for renting games. That is, depending how good your internet download speed is.

This year, I slowed down purchasing games, though I have spent some money into some titles I am currently still playing, like Apex Legends and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War.

The last title I pre-ordered was Monster Hunter Rise, which was a risky purchase in hindsight. Since I enjoyed Monster Hunter World a lot and Capcom was known for their polished launch day games, I jumped in my car to put down a deposit for the deluxe edition at Best Buy.

I am still going to continue to being reluctant to purchase some games, especially if it involves a larger investment.

Future titles, like Lost Judgement, may get me to open up my wallet again, but I know for sure I would keep it locked when the Fall season comes around.