Can I ask a serious question and hope you won’t take this as snide because it is meant in earnest: what is the difference between paying $60 and $40 for the game, if you’re going to spend all that time playing it? Is it just adhering to an arbitrary hierarchy of game cost so you feel you never “overpay?” Because if I’m going to sit down with something for ten hours, I don’t care if it cost $60 or $40 or $20. It cost me ten hours so it had better be freaking good.
Because you have more money than time. Some people have the reverse.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is pretty hyped, well marketed, and I’m guessing will be well reviewed. Let’s see how those numbers look. Its the very definition of a mostly single player AAA title.
Of course it will probably have an online component.
Is it? Because Rockstar and Take 2 seem to have turned GTAV into a perpetual money machine based on GTA Online.
I see, thanks.
Well I’ve played Agents of Mayhem about 1 hour because I found it quite boring. That’s $60 for a single hour of gameplay. Thanks @tomchick! (Seriously, why did Tom think this was so good?)
Getting back on topic, a “free to play” game that I play for one hour costs me $0. If I like it and become a whale that can balloon into hundreds of dollars of course, but man the free to play thing REALLY protects you in the case where you pay $60 for a game to find out you just don’t care for it at all, even if reviews led you astray…
Hmm, I think twelve of the reasons are delineated here:
Yeah I think we can safely say he was wrong about at least 10 of those 12 reasons. I loved Saint’s Row so I was willing to give it a shot, but man. It’s at best mediocre.
So file me under “this is another reason why $60 gaming is dying”.
Yes, it is basically just perceived value of the game vs other games due to not wanting to overpay. If the average game i play gets a 9 on the murbella 1-10 scale, i don’t want to pay $60 for a game that i would give a 6. If the game never drops to a price where it is worth it to me, i just won’t buy it.
I also try my best not to buy games where i think of the time spent playing them as a cost. If that is the case i’d rather just drop the game and play something else, money paid be damned. Backlog does enter here a bit in that i play games i think i’ll enjoy more first obviously, but i still buy them generally.
This is what has put me off of most FTP games. Knowing that the point of the product is to shape my experience in such a way that I would want to pay more money than a retail game costs so I can have the pleasure of running on their hamster-wheel more efficiently.
I think there are absolutely shitty games/studios out there like that, but it’s certainly not an accurate across the industry. It’s hard to point to Path of Exile and accuse them of being greedy gnomes out to extract as much currency out of you as they can.
Annually, I waste far more money on $60 mediocrity/dreck than I do F2P games, despite spending more time with the latter. Admittedly this is strictly PC, I don’t touch the mobile F2P scene.
For the F2P games that I’m fond of, I see it more as an a la carte alternative to the monthly subscriptions of yore or an alternative to buying expansion packs. If a game has a major content expansion that pulls me back into the game, I’ll often drop $20 or $30 into the pot to “buy the expansion” and that tends to provide me more gems/credits/foozles/whatever than I know what to do with.
Perception is powerful, though. I get exactly what you’re saying, but I’m with @Wumpus on this one. I’d rather “whale” (I’m maybe more like a moderately sized tuna) on a game I’ve already found I really enjoy than throw $60 down on an unknown title that disappoints me… which is most of the $60 titles I buy these days, sadly. Fucking Dawn of War 3.
oh please, you’re an adult Wumpus! You could have watched some youtube/twitch videos and other reviewers take on the game! Leave Tom Alone!
And Agents of Mayhem is a good game. I played 40+ hours of it, and enjoyed it alot. Not my fault if you guys have terrible taste in games. :-p
You’re right, they are an exception to my statement (that I have actually played, shame on me for overlooking them), and mobile stuff has definitely colored my perception of F2P games.
Yeah, I loved Agents of Mayhem.
I just got immediately bored after the intro tutorial such that I haven’t bothered going back. I guess I could try again but man, boring.
Damn… I mean if that didn’t get you hooked, you are in for some painful game time ahead.
I didn’t like the tutorial at all, in fact it kind of irritated me. I kind of thought I was going to hate the game, but I stuck with it a bit and really started liking the characters, etc.
It’s not the best game of the year, but I enjoyed my time with it.
AAAA (yes that’s four As) games like GTA or Skyrim will always sell for $60 or more, just because.
I hope everyone else will start lowering their prices however. I personally will never pay $60 for a game, unless the mods are really, really great.
Or at least bigger and better. If they were like Witcher or even Dragon Age/Skyrim it wouldn’t be an issue imo.
TWW2 is mostly a single player game and I’ll end up into it for $120 or more most likely, but it’s worth every penny because I get a ton of value for that money.
Compared to something like DOOM, which was great and all, well, Doom doesn’t come out looking great for $60 for a 10 hour game. Probably still worth it, but I got it as a gift, I doubt I ever would have bought it myself. I’d rather spend that $60 on 3-4 indie games these days. Odds are I’ll get more than 10 hours out of them and I’ll also have 3-4 games which improves my chances of avoiding a blanket disappointment by several factors.
You should work in the financial services industry. I think you’ve made some wise choices by spreading out your gaming portfolio.