Do you still buy games as much as you used to?

[dr. b 486]

Just kinda curious where we're all at vs. "the good old days" or even just a year or two ago.

 

Do you buy as many new (or new-to-you) games as you used to? More? Less?

 

Do you play games as much as you used to?

 

Do you now buy more digital compared to in the past when it was more or all physical? Do you stream games? (Did Google Stadia ever become a thing? I'm out of the loop )

 

Share any observations you have about how you consume and play games vs. before.

 

I will wait for a few replies before I start going on and on

[Vic Boss 610]

>Do you buy as many new (or new-to-you) games as you used to? More? Less?

 

I buy more games than I used to, but far less new games since I learned my lesson in 2010 with No More Heroes 2 on Wii. Bought that new, beat it by the next day, looked at No More Heroes 1, which I got out of the bargain bin for $20, and recognized which was better value. Mostly the only games I buy for full price are Nintendo's mainline games, because those never drop in price or it takes until the console's dying to get Selects out

 

>Do you play games as much as you used to?

 

Off and on.

 

>Do you now buy more digital compared to in the past when it was more or all physical?

 

Way more digital than I used to because the sales are better. I used to worry about servers shutting down and leaving me without the ability to redownload games I bought, but a) except for Nintendo we seem to be functioning okay with that and b) every game these days has some kind of Day 1 patch or download that goes along with it so buying physical doesn't guard against that anymore. I'll go out of my way to buy physical for games that there's enjoyment in owning, but otherwise the Wal-Mart bargain bin and digital sales are whoever-gets-to-me-first, and more of the digital sales are getting to me first these days

 

>Do you stream games? (Did Google Stadia ever become a thing? I'm out of the loop )

 

No, and I worry about the world going this way, because our data caps in Canada won't be able to handle it. I have to specifically plan when to get patches and digital downloads, unless data compression gets significantly better and/or data caps raise (it has happened before, but they're gonna do it kicking and screaming), I'm out if games go full streaming

[webhead 518]

Do you buy as many new (or new-to-you) games as you used to? More? Less?

Definitely less for a multitude of reasons.  I am cheap so I only want to get them on sale (and Best Buy stopped doing GCU so that discount is gone and I have no real reason to buy anything at launch especially now).  On top of that I now have a rule for myself that I won't buy sequels to games I already bought and haven't played yet.  And then...

 

Do you play games as much as you used to?

Nope.  I've been trying to read comics more now because I have a fucking absurd collection now and I have a kid so...yeah not as much anymore.

 

Do you now buy more digital compared to in the past when it was more or all physical? Do you stream games?

I used to be all about physical until Best Buy stopped doing GCU and I realized that trading in games was pointless because the 8 bucks I'd get back is fucking worthless.   I used to be against digital on consoles but now I'm a little less.  I just go where the sales are and consoles have actually been having decent sales on digital games this generation.

 

Game streaming sounds terrible.  No.  I occasionally stream from my desktop to the living room though using GeForce or Steam In Home streaming.  That's pretty cool.

[dr. b 486]

I was probably at the height of my game buying around 2015-2017 when I was all-digital on Vita and 3DS (aside from a few 3DS games that I happened to buy physical copies of while in Canada). Games were always more expensive in Vietnam and never went on sale, so digital made more sense. And the PS Store had good sales quite regularly. When we got a Switch last year, I thought I'd go back to buying physical games because some I wanted to keep forever, and some I would trade back towards new games when I was done with them. Changing carts seems like such a nuisance though after being used to everything being digital Lately I have been not buy games at all in favour of borrowing them from the library (seriously) whenever possible. Our library system has around 50 Switch titles, multiple copies of each, and I go online, put one on hold, and when it's ready for me at my local branch I get an email that's there for me on the hold shelf. You get the game for 7 days and can renew as long as there aren't other holds on it. All free as long as you return things on time. It's great. Like, why would I buy a game like New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe (80 CAD new, 65 CAD used, sometimes closer to 50 CAD when on sale on eShop) when I could borrow it from the library for free? I will probably only beat it once and then not touch it again anyways. Things that aren't available through the library, I will mainly buy digital when there's a sale.

 

I of course don't play games nearly as much as I used to. I have a wife and two kids and a full time job, and all of the other time-eating bullshit that goes along with all of those things. Free time is at a premium and lately it all goes towards playing my basses, though I have still found time to play Smash a couple times a week lately and I did manage to beat both Pokemon Sword and Shield not long ago. And since all the sports got shutdown, I grabbed NBA 2K20 on sale on the eShop and created a team to follow while the Raptors are not playing. (I got dicked over by the drafter order and my team is shit But I'll tank a couple seasons if I have to and then turn it around) Whenever the new RBI baseball game gets a sale I will probably grab that too. I was actually feeling quite optimistic about the Jays this season and was looking forward to watching them.

 

I also think the notion of streaming games is just ridiculous. Maybe it won't seem so crazy when 5G is a thing everywhere. But I dunno. Everything I heard/read about Stadia from announcement to the lead up of their trial period just sounded so bad.

[webhead 518]

5G won't have better latency than a wired connection so that's not going to do anything for steaming games.  Latency is still a killer.  Hell I couldn't even deal with the latency of wireless inside my own house lol.

[Mera'din 306]

Do you buy as many new (or new-to-you) games as you used to? More? Less?

More for sure. More than I honestly need to considering some of my backlog.

 

Do you play games as much as you used to?

Roughly equal? I think? Hard to say with kids and work, but because I work overnights, my sleep schedule saves me here a bit vs. some people. On my days off I typically have a 5-6 hour free time after everyone goes to bed that I can use purely for gaming (though I go to the fitness center to work out for about an hour or so a lot of the time) and that's what I typically use it for. I get MAYBE an hour on days I do work if I'm lucky. On rare occasion I'll get 2.

 

Do you now buy more digital compared to in the past when it was more or all physical? Do you stream games?

Slightly more digital now. I still buy a lot of games new and can typically find them cheaper physical that way (Amazon will put pre-order games on "sale" randomly and I'll order them then if it's something I know I'll play. Have a number of games set at $50 when they release if I chose to get them). If there's no discount on physical I'll consider digital or if there's a better sale price digitally. It flip flops a lot on what I can get cheaper. If there's no difference one way or the other I've started getting things digital more purely out of convenience. If there's a solid collector's edition I'll make an exception otherwise.

 

No streaming really. Done some in-home from PS4 to computer a few years ago that actually worked pretty well but typically don't need to do that. Stadia is a fucking joke. From what I've heard, Nvidia's option was pretty solid, but now that it's out of beta, some of the publishers are being weird about it.

[webhead 518]

Some of the publishers are being completely greedy fuckhats about it, you mean.  Somehow they believe they are owed money to stream games people already paid to own.  Rent seeking at it's finest.

[dr. b 486]

18 hours ago, webhead said:

5G won't have better latency than a wired connection so that's not going to do anything for steaming games.  Latency is still a killer.  Hell I couldn't even deal with the latency of wireless inside my own house lol.

 

Yeah, I dunno, I hear 5G talked about enough without really knowing much about it that I kinda just assumed it would solve all the problems  

 

13 hours ago, Mera'din said:

Do you buy as many new (or new-to-you) games as you used to? More? Less?

More for sure. More than I honestly need to considering some of my backlog.

 

I have the means to buy more games that I used to, and for a while I kept buying games during sales because I figured I'd play them _someday_. But at some point I realized I was mainly just collecting and not actually playing most of them, so I cut back a lot on the buying of games.

[webhead 518]

5 hours ago, little birdy said:

I have the means to buy more games that I used to, and for a while I kept buying games during sales because I figured I'd play them _someday_. But at some point I realized I was mainly just collecting and not actually playing most of them, so I cut back a lot on the buying of games.

Samsies.

[dr. b 486]

Seems silly to curate a collection of games for no reason, right? Especially in my case when it was primarily digital titles that have no trade/resale value that will disappear someday!

[Mera'din 306]

I don't feel as if my buying is TOO ridiculous (now that I've started avoiding Steam sales at least. XD ). I get a decent amount of build up, but when I hit dead periods like the past 3 months where I don't want anything that is coming out, I'm able to clear through a good number of titles. There's only a couple times in the past few years I felt like there are times when I shouldn't have bothered buying something.