[General Discussion] Are you a day one purchaser or do you wait a week and pay half price?

With the proliferation of online games retailers making it easier and easier to find the cheapest price for a particular game forcing retailers to cut their prices by more and sooner than they once would, it's rare these days for a game to cost much more than half the launch price after only a month or so of being in shops and even after just a week, you can often save a lot buying second hand (UK pro-tip, GAME stores will sell their opened, store copy second hand within a week of launch, often the day after and there are weird people who will buy a game, get the easy achievements then trade it in after a couple of days, rather than renting it).

As such, for the frugally minded gamer, a touch of patience can allow you to save a ton of cash on your purchases. This does of course mean that you can't join your wealthier mates in multiplayer games for the first week and in terms of role play games, those of you with an inability to not read things on the internet might have the game spoiled for you. On top of that, companies are increasingly offering some form of plastic tat or in-game content as an incentive for pre-ordering your game and therefore paying the full asking price so waiting might mean you miss out on that, although I've noticed that on Amazon at least, a few months down the line the limited edition version of games is often cheaper than the normal one due to the way they set prices in part due to sales figures.

So are you willing to pay top dollar for the joy of playing right off the bat, or do you save your cash and wait for the price to drop?

Personally, it's rare for me to buy games at release these days. In terms of pre-order bonuses, there's little enough spare space in our house without pointless figurines and shit cluttering the place up and in game stuff is rarely anything other than cosmetic so I'm not upset about missing it. I have a fucking huge backlog of games so it makes little sense to me to buy something the day it's released only to not play it for months. I'll probably buy Halo Reach on day one so I can play it online with people here, knowing full well how short most of your attention spans are when it comes to online gaming and that after two weeks you'll have moved on to playing something else.

I have no problem buying second hand games so I'll always take the cheapest option available.

And before anyone gets pedantic in here, yes, I'm aware games don't actually cost half price after a week, the thread title is artistic license.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

If it's a pretty big game that I've been looking forward to for a while, I try to buy it on release day if I can afford it. It also depends on the type of game. Like with Demon's Souls, ever since I saw the thread about it here in the months before it came stateside, I knew that was a game I must have. But I knew as soon as it came out, someone would buy it, get the shit kicked out of them and bring it back because it was "too hard." So I waited for a used copy to come in.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I'm all about Day 1. I'm not really as big on gaming as I used to be, I'm far more picky about my choices and usually only get games I really, really know I'm going to like/and or play a lot so I don't mind getting stuff right away. Same goes for PSN/XBLA/VC titles since they're considerably cheaper.

Going through my BL I've purchased all of seven games this year so far, one of which was just an XBLA title. Last year it was 18 titles in total. Only seven were full price day one titles, six were day one PSN/XBLA/VC, and five were used games I got long after release.

I'd probably wait for shit more if there were more titles I wanted to play, but I don't really have a reason to hold out since I don't really get more than two or three games a month at most.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Tails

I'm not really as big on gaming as I used to be, I'm far more picky about my choices and usually only get games I really, really know I'm going to like/and or play a lot...

...I don't really get more than two or three games a month at most.

Shit man, I buy like one every couple of months these days. How many were you buying before you cut back?

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

We buy a lot of stuff on amazon these days that the deals there are pretty decent enough to not worry about second hand anymore. I mean like $20 off on Mario Galaxy 2? Shit yeah. ORDER CONFIRMED.

And anytime we do want to pick up second hand, we often have plenty of credit (from our trade ins) on our EDGE card to brave ourselves into Gamestop for these.

And our rental mail service just took care of the rest.

Most amazing jew boots

If you think I'm buying a lot you should see Skills' and Omagnus' lists. Also I dunno, probably close to 1/2 times that or double.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

If it is something that I really want, then I buy it day one. Unlike before where I buy major releases every month, now I just rent the most of them to see if I end up liking them.

There's like 3 games I am looking forward to this summer, but if I can end up renting them, that's also good.

FELIPE NO

A day one person? Never.

I'm a cheapskate. With exceptions.

When I was in China, games were not as cheap as in the States. It was a supply and demand thing. However, you could bargain, which I did often. I think the best deal was getting the first CastleVania for NDS for about 25 bucks. I looked at it, looked away, looked ready to leave, and the guy dropped the price of the game from 280 to 200 RMB instantly.

Of course, some games I paid full price for even months after they were released. Whatever CastleVania came out after the first one was roughly 40 bucks. The New Super Mario Bros was also forty.

Since returning tot he States though...the most expensive game I have "bought" was devil survivor. I add the quotes because honestly it was the free game that came with Gamestop's buy two, get one free. The two I got were gifts.

Aside from that, I try to keep games under twenty, and furthermore around the ten dollar mark. My feeling is I have such a backlog of games that I can keep going for a long until that game I really want drops down to a price I'm willing to pay. And the game wouldn't have changed...still the same game, and still the same experience i would have got if I bought the game at the start.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

It used to be that I would buy any game that seemed like fun when I had a snes and genesis. Now I only buy games that really peak my interest or are immensely popular enough to get my attention (Heavy Rain).
I buy day one because I get impatient and I mostly do all my buying on amazon now. I have a prime membership so release date delivery is great and I don't have to pay the outrages taxes that gamestop or other online retailers ask for. Not only that but amazon gives 5-10 dollar credit towards the next video game purchase and it's hard not to pass that up.
That's the only reason why I have super street fighter 4, it cost me 15 dollars. Not only that but buying ssf4 gave me another extra 10 dollar credit. And since the video game season pretty much is slowing down I may as well try a game I've bee holding off in. (Mirrors Edge for 10 dollars.)
I promise myself that I wouldn't buy a games until a month or so after it's release because of the exact reasons you gave, but truth is I get impatient. Not including the past 6 months, I usually only get a game around every 3 months or so. I guess the game credit still saves me on some of that cash though.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Well, I am not a day one purchaser typically. I like to wait and get the gently used games from the Game Spot. Otherwise I just shop random garage sales or online to get good games for next to nothing.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I buy cheap with the exception of games that have good enough preorder bonuses in my opinion. Usually, this falls to Atlus/NIS games nowadays because most of the games I would want aren't all that impressive with respect to pre-order bonuses. And with that, NIS is slowly slipping from the category of good pre-order bonuses to "Meh". I don't buy games as often as I used to, so that may also be why.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I'm a bit of a cheapskate when it comes to buying games too and I buy a LOT of shit on eBay usually at half their original price, if not less. However, I usually don't end up buying new games until months after they've been on the shelves unless it's something that I KNOW we're gonna be pounding at for ages. Just this week I bought SSFIV the day it came out and I didn't open it until two nights later, so... yeah... I mean, it's only $40 anyway, so it was totally worth it, I guess.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I'll buy a game day one if I'm reasonably sure I'm going to love the bejesus out of it, and so far the only game that's really backfired on me for is Battlefield, at least in recent memory.

My "broke student" status over the past couple of years has taught me the wonderful virtue of patience, since with GameFly I not only get to return a game if I hate it, but I also get to ask people about games to avoid the really crappy stuff.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I definitely haven't bought as many games recently as I used to, but it depends on the game whether or not I wanna buy them on day one.

If it's a game I particularly care about, like the most recent one was Final Fantasy XIII, I'll reserve it and get it on Day One. It's my whole lousy mentality that I don't want to be missing out when everyone else is getting it too.

Otherwise, if it's not as important to me, I'll wait until I could pay less for it. If I wasn't in a rush to get it on Day One, then I could definitely wait for a price drop.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I'm still trying to play through my backlog of PS2 games before I think about buying a 360 or PS3, so that should say something about how willing I am to wait on games before playing them. About ten hours into Radiata Stories right now and enjoying it quite a bit, actually.

Steam has changed things a bit for me, though, since I always check out what deals they have going on. I bought the Rockstar bundle this week for $43, but considering how much stuff I got for the price, I figure it's a heck of a deal. Occasionally I'll preorder a game if I feel I'll love it; that happened with Bad Company 2 (though the beta ran like shit on my computer, so I canceled it. Luckily the EA store had a great deal a few weeks later so I got it for $20 instead of $50). I'll try to get PC multiplayer games when they're relatively new since the community can disappear quickly, but other than that I don't mind waiting for the price to drop down to $10.

FELIPE NO

My lack of time these days prevents me from getting crazy with games. I've got a huge backlog of games to play through. Also, the lack of time means I generally am not around when others are to play multiplayer online, which means getting a game on release is not an issue since I'll be more than likely playing it single player.

How ya doing, buddy?