11/18/2011

To buy or not to buy at launch....

Gaming has always been a expensive hobby, but with more and more quality titles coming out virtually every year around the same time with fancy collector's editions (and bugs to boot), it does beg the question, why do we all buy games at launch? If we wait, we can get the bugs fixed, the price dropped and hell eventually usually some game of the year edition with most if not all of the bugs fixed and all the dlc included for probably half the price it was when it originally came out. So why? Well it may be irrational, but me personally, if I don't get a game right when it's launched, I usually don't end up getting it. Wait a few months and there's something else vying for and usually worthy of my attention over some game that clearly wasn't important enough for me to buy when it came out so it can wait longer, probably forever. Also, even with a wife and a job I'm a pretty regular gamer so my backlog usually isn't very big so usually I don't have a ton of different games to play at any given time. Also, I rarely pay full price for a game, usually I'm trading something in and trade-in values can decrease rapidly.

But also a game is treated very much like an opening weekend for a movie or a premiere night for a TV show. If it doesn't hit right out of the gate, it's pretty much considered a failure. Now there are games that build a steady audience over time and succeed that way, but that is the exception, not the rule. So if you want the games you like to continue to appear on shelves, you should probably buy them as soon as you re financially able.

This really isn't a pro-buying games at launch argument, times are tight and gaming is a luxury some of us are lucky to be able to afford at all. Just keep in mind if everyone waited til games were bargain bin prices, bargain bin games might be all we get.

That's all I have for today, I hopefully should get another post up this weekend. Until then, here's your TRAILER OF THE WEEK: Hunger Games

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