Does games live up to their value

If there is one thing that most gamers have a problem with, its the fact that money is tight. Hell, anyone living in South Africa has this problem. With rising prices in food and electricity and petrol and other commodities, it is becoming more and more difficult to finance our gaming addictions.

Most retail AAA games these days retail for anything between R400 - R800 on the various platforms, and some of us have difficulty rationalizing that expense each month. Luckily there is are multiple game sales or all the various platforms, which means that it is possible to get games we may have missed for cheaper. The only problem with that is that you will have to wait and hope that the game becomes available on sale sometime in the future

I've missed quite a few games in my life because I either didn't have the money to buy it at launch, or I couldn't justify the cost to myself. Even now, when I buy a game at launch for full retail price, I always glance back at my backlog of games and I start getting some buyers remorse, thinking to myself that I should rather play those through before actually buying a new game.

I remember that I didn't buy the first series of Batman games because I just couldn't afford to get them. After waiting for a few months, or even years, I got the games on PC on a Steam sale for a steal, but after installing and playing them for a few hours, I stopped. Not because I didn't enjoy them, just because there were other games I wanted to play. On the flip side, some games I bought at launch I've spent more hours than I know I would've just to justify my purchase price of the game at full retail.

So here is the question though, do the games that you buy justify the almost R600 you pay them? Have you even bought a game that you enjoyed, but felt that you didn't enjoy R600 worth? Have you ever wanted to buy a game before, but the price scared you off to only get it later?

Nope. Most of the time it's better to just wait for a price drop. I think patient gamers are the biggest winners when it comes to value. Very rarely do I think a game is worth full price, and I won't buy a new game unless I can get a super great deal on it.

One game in particular that I feel I actually paid too little for was Metro: Last Light. I paid $5 for it on the last Steam sale, but I felt I owed it its original worth. A great game most definitely worth a second playthrough.

Do do do do do do

*gauges out eyes*

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Originally Posted by MetalSoup

Nope. Most of the time it's better to just wait for a price drop. I think patient gamers are the biggest winners when it comes to value. Very rarely do I think a game is worth full price, and I won't buy a new game unless I can get a super great deal on it.

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I'm not sure I totally agree. If you take a game with a multiplayer aspect eg Call of Duty or Battlefield franchises, and you look at the number of hours many pour in, you definitely get great value from the day you login.

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Originally Posted by Fivel

I'm not sure I totally agree. If you take a game with a multiplayer aspect eg Call of Duty or Battlefield franchises, and you look at the number of hours many pour in, you definitely get great value from the day you login.

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The problem with multiplayer focused games like Call Of Duty is that I really don't enjoy the multiplayer aspect. I'm almost a single player only gamer. But there is no denying that people do get a lot of value from multiplayer with all the hours they put into the game.

This begs the question, how many hours does one have to put into a game before you start getting value from the full retail price? Something like RPGs have hours and hours of gameplay to get into which warrants their asking price. But what about a shorter game? Something like Call Of Duty for me doesn't justify the price as I'm only going to get about 5 hours of gameplay out of it.

I almost never buy games at launch. The last time I did was Diablo III but luckily I've got over 300 hours played in it.

I do miss out on all the hype though. I mean I'll play Dragon Age Inquisition when everyone has already finished it and they'll be playing and chatting about Witcher 3. So I miss out on that but I pay half or even less per game and still enjoy them.
[MENTION=4071]BeoTeK[/MENTION] gave me a different view on it all though. He doesn't watch tv, so no dstv and he plays games where many other people would watch tv or sports or something. To play the latest and greatest games probably gives him better value for money than watching tv and he can justify buying games at launch.

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Originally Posted by Solitude

[MENTION=4071]BeoTeK[/MENTION] gave me a different view on it all though. He doesn't watch tv, so no dstv and he plays games where many other people would watch tv or sports or something. To play the latest and greatest games probably gives him better value for money than watching tv and he can justify buying games at launch.

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I'm exactly the same though, but I can rarely justify it, considering my backlog.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the amount of disposable income a person has will have a big effect on their perception of value.

I used to buy my games on release, but these days I cannot afford it. I feel with MMO's with subs I don't get my money's worth anymore. So I have stopped them completely. Then GW2 is releasing their expansion and they are selling it and the original game for the same price of the expansion = which I refuse to pay. I now buy all my games during steam sales since I have such a backlog that I dont need or want the latest games just yet. But weirdly enough I am finding more and more I get more satisfaction from games such as Hero Siege and D3 that was not to expensive and if I take the fact that I have over 500 hours in D3 the value for money was awesome. Then there is Wildstar that costed me a shyte load of money and i played maybe 3 months.

Great topic and one that is avidly talked about between gamers. I've actually had this discussion a few times with friends.

Personally for me, as [MENTION=20]Solitude[/MENTION] says. I don't have TV, I don't go clubbing, drinking, partying, etc. This is my form of entertainment as some times yes, I buy a game and barely put 10 hours into it. I feel bad about when it's a PS4 game as those are R800 a pop. But I look at games or purchasing them like this:
If a game costs R800 what would justify the cost of getting the game. Sure I might be looking forward to it but how much time am I going to invest in the game? If I spend 10 hours in the game and be done with it, that's a cost of R80 per hour. I would have spent that and more for movie or a night out, therefor to me that's kinda value for money in terms of entertainment. If you spend anything over 10 hours in a title, everything from there is a bonus, and the value of the purchase becomes better and better.

I kinda justify my purchases based on cost x time and weigh it out to my hourly wage. Also I have made a conscious decision to only now buy games with spare money (ie. overtime, tax returns etc.).

One game in particular is Destiny. I bought the title on release and the Collectors Edition which set me back around R1200 and only played around 20 hours. I felt kinda miffed but two weeks ago I popped the disc back in and fired it up. Now to date I've clocked close on 100 hours now. That is value!
[MENTION=54]Fivel[/MENTION] makes a good point as well, the massive muliplayer titles can be geat value as well, though they tend to lure you into their Premium R1000+ packages to have everything. But like BF4 I was really disappointed and only sunk around 30 hours into it, thankfully never went Premium.

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Originally Posted by MetalSoup

Nope. Most of the time it's better to just wait for a price drop. I think patient gamers are the biggest winners when it comes to value. Very rarely do I think a game is worth full price, and I won't buy a new game unless I can get a super great deal on it.

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Dunno if you chose the phrasing on purpose, but there is a subreddit dedicated to the idea: https://www.reddit.com/r/patientgamers

I don't spend as much time gaming these days. I'm married, and I've got a long commute, so when I'm at home the wife takes priority, then chores, then gaming. I do get in a dota game or two every other week, though.

The upside of this is that I'm still busy enjoying GTA V that I got for my birthday just before release. I've only spent about R500 on games this past year, all on Steam sales, so my backlog is still growing! I've completely turned into a patient gamer. So I'll be playing Witcher 3 and Batman in about a year's time, when I've got a newer pc, and I'm very, very okay with that.

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Originally Posted by Wyvern

I used to buy my games on release, but these days I cannot afford it. I feel with MMO's with subs I don't get my money's worth anymore. So I have stopped them completely. Then GW2 is releasing their expansion and they are selling it and the original game for the same price of the expansion = which I refuse to pay. I now buy all my games during steam sales since I have such a backlog that I dont need or want the latest games just yet. But weirdly enough I am finding more and more I get more satisfaction from games such as Hero Siege and D3 that was not to expensive and if I take the fact that I have over 500 hours in D3 the value for money was awesome. Then there is Wildstar that costed me a shyte load of money and i played maybe 3 months.

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Blizzard game are the only one they days that i will buy at lunch full knowing i will probably still play them in few years. Like far cry 4 i want to get it but alas my backlog is so big. I have few other games i want to finish before getting far cry 4 like that batmans i have and bioshocks and even maybe borderlands 2.

I think the one thing you need to avoid when assessing a games value is to automatically assume hours of play directly translates into value. I have found some shorter games to be incredibly valuable because of the experience they provided versus just giving me hours of padding.

More on topic, I tend to follow Soup's principle. These days I never buy a game at release and rather pick it up on sale at a later stage. The thinking is why pay top price for earleir access when I've got more than enough games already to keep me busy for the next year or two until the price is heavily discounted. It helps that I'm no longer into the whole annual release multiplayer franchises.

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Originally Posted by DarthMol

It helps that I'm no longer into the whole annual release multiplayer franchises.

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This is one thing that gets to me... I enjoy a good game if Fifa every now and then... But do i seriously have to fork out another 7-800 bucks every year for the new one?

I agree pretty much with what Beo said, if i get 10 hours + out of a game im extremely happy... R80.00 per hour of entertainment is really not a lot to ask for... And if i look at a game like The Last of Us, (nearly finished), Iv gotten an incredible amount of value out of it...

i think games with replayability lives up to their value eg. sports, fighting games, dance/music & racing games etc. (they're the type of games you can never really finish)

story driven titles in my opinion only get played once or twice by most gamers (apart from a chosen few)

I never buy games at launch anymore, there's always a lot of older games that I haven't played yet that are way cheaper, and that can keep me busy until the price drops on the new games as they become a little older. And it's often just a case of waiting a few months

It depends there are ways to lessen the blows like pre ordering or finishing your new game and trading it in on the newest release.Once I platt Batman its going on the chopping block towards Mgs5 phantom pain.I just dont feel the need to hang on to my games anymore except driving games I play them for years.

Also ps+ has actually created a backlog for me and I really enjoy those type of "indie" games.

Yes because generally stick with long rpgs with lots of replay value or with mmorpgs. Each of them easily meets or exceeds their retail value. I tend to stay clear of the short games/genre.