Videogames: Value vs. Time

The other day I went to a gamestop and came across a nice selection of ds games for 3 dollars and under. So naturally I bought like 40 of them.

Many of them were 90 cents with poweruprewards. this then begs the eternal question, whats more important to you as a gamer when buying a game, the price or if its worth your time?

For example, getting say, dawn of discovery for90 cents, is it worth it even if the game is average since its less than a buck? or is the fact that it will take time away from your gaming life when it could have been used forsay a 20 dollar game thats reallygood?>

point being if a gameis cheap,could it still be not worth it?

Both.  Given how many freaking games there are, and how big my backlog is, I'm generally not going to pick something up just because it's cheap if I don't think I'll have fun with it.   I've done that in the past, those games tend to be traded / sold quick and serve to be a waste of money.  I'd rather spend a little extra and get something I'll enjoy.

But I'm also not going to pick up an expensive game just because it's supposed to be fun since I'll just wait for a price drop.  There are exceptions, especially if the game has good reviews I trust, but my general rule is to wait.

With that said, I might pick up a game for a couple of bucks if I just wanted to try it out.  I won't complete it if I don't like it, but I'll give it a shot if it seems interesting enough.  I do the same thing with cheap DVDs.  I see it as a cheap long term rental.  But it's gotta be like dirt cheap

Time. There's too many good games and not enough time, especially if you're a JRPG fan like me. I'm typically happy paying full price for a game if it's good enough and/or I really like the developer and/or franchise. Case in point: my favorite game that I played last year was The Beginner's Guide, which I got on release and is less than two hours long.

I like Steam Sales, etc. as much as any other CAG, and definitely wait on picking up many interesting-looking games. However, nowadays I take my backlog into consideration a lot more often. If I can't make the time for a discounted game, then chances are I'll delay my purchase until a future sale.

Definitely a time issue for me... there are games that I will not buy, no matter how cheap, because I know that I will not play them. The reasoning is threefold: I'm a very clutter-free person, I have so many unplayed PC games that I feel like a glutton, and I'm just not as interested in gaming as I used to be. With a comfortable job, even the idea of "buy-to-flip" seems like a waste of time, unless there is a significant time/value benefit.

I see this as good and bad: on one hand, I'm no longer a slave to the "I'll buy this now and eventually play it(even though I really won't)" CAG mentality, and I'm doing much more productive things instead of playing games. On the flip side, I definitely feel like a shade of my former gamer self; I have a very narrow idea of what I want in a game, and the adventurous days of "I guess I'll try Valkyrie Profile" are long gone.

Value for me if I pay full retail, the game better be worth my money. 

I don't usually play games that score less than 70% on Gamerankings, unless it is so bad that it turns out to be good.  An example would be "Army Men: Sarge's War."

Time would be second priority to value.  As I just add the cheap games to the backlog. 

Interesting topic.

Personally, I am not a multiplayer gamer. I tend to play story driven games. I don't mind a short but action packed game over a 100 hour rpg. Lately I've been really into the telltale games and most recently Life is Strange (which was amazing). Overall my time for gaming is limited enough that I won't be picking games up to sit in my backlog.

I've done the whole "buy this only because it's cheap" thing a bunch of times. Never played any of them because I just don't have time, but it makes my collection look nice and full, so I guess that's worth it for me

iamsmart said:

Definitely a time issue for me... there are games that I will not buy, no matter how cheap, because I know that I will not play them. The reasoning is threefold: I'm a very clutter-free person, I have so many unplayed PC games that I feel like a glutton, and I'm just not as interested in gaming as I used to be. With a comfortable job, even the idea of "buy-to-flip" seems like a waste of time, unless there is a significant time/value benefit.

I see this as good and bad: on one hand, I'm no longer a slave to the "I'll buy this now and eventually play it(even though I really won't)" CAG mentality, and I'm doing much more productive things instead of playing games. On the flip side, I definitely feel like a shade of my former gamer self; I have a very narrow idea of what I want in a game, and the adventurous days of "I guess I'll try Valkyrie Profile" are long gone.

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Very relatable perspective. I think most of us can say that gaming felt more adventurous in our younger days. Aside from our over-all bigger imaginations when we're younger, I think part of the reason is simply technology. As much as I love our internet, all the information so readily available on video games via gaming sites, Youtube videos and Let's Plays has the unfortunate side-effect of removing the mystery and killing the sense of wonder we felt in our younger days when we'd put in a new cartridge into the console for the first time.

As far as being a backlog slave, for me personally I feel that as long as the backlog consists of games I am actually really interested in trying, and keep it within a reasonable budget (granted it's not an easy thing to do) then it's not too bad. It may be that I won't ever get to play them all but it still feels good to know the option is there when a free moment does come around.

It's a good thing you're being more productive of course, but as with anything in life it's all a matter of balance; spend some time with gaming, spend some time pursuing other goals.

Maybe it's just me getting older but I value my time a lot more now so I'm very choosy when it comes to the games I play. There's also so many highly rated games that come out now that there's no way I could play all of them. 

That said, the games I tend to play nowadays are on the long side (Persona, Dark Souls, Binding of Isaac).

Think this is almost definitely a question of age (at least for me). If you would have asked me this when I was 14, probably would have bought almost anything cheap because I would have had much more time to explore them. Now nothing drives me crazier than seeing several games I know I may never play, and then knowing I'll have to get rid of them at some point when I do cleaning/upgrade, etc.

I also now prefer more challenging games than I did then, and being able to earn my own money helps support value a LOT. For instance, I gladly paid $35 for Dark Souls 3 - and was considering paying more had it not gone on sale - but a game like Tales of Symphonia (which I have played before and know is pretty good) I was not even interested in until it went on sale on PSN for like $5. Then I still don't even know if I'll have time to really play it, but being a digital copy, at least I'm not looking at a game case collect dust.

On that note, I have been building a digital backlog of games that have been on sale,  which I'm just kind of keeping as a sort of "rainy day" reserve. But I'd still say they're quality games.

Time is important. If I pay like say $1.10 for 9 games and play 0....well I'm a backlog hoarder, and I am....trying to curb it. I really am trying to put games in both my console game library and PC game library that I want to play someday which is why I give away +1s from bundles all the time. For full price games I really hope to play it and will give precedence to them over some game I got for a few cents, unless I really want to play that one.

I just finished playing through Persona 4 Golden for the first time. I originally paid $20 for the copy of that game that I eventually started playing on my Vita. I played that game for 123 hours. That's a LOT of hours. I have a day job, and an extended family that wants me to spend time with them. Nephews to babysit, parents to watch movies with, siblings to visit in other states. I had to scrounge an hour or two a day, and maybe a slightly larger block on the weekends to play Persona 4. It took me the better part of a month to put together those 123 hours. And all that for a game that cost me just $20.

Perona 4 is one game in my increasingly large collection. At this point, the money I spend on games seems almost immaterial compared to the time I have to spend on them. Given the sheer volume of my backlog, time is far more important at this juncture. This is doubly true when you consider the dwindling cost of purchasing most modern games. The average Steam sale puts enough games in my hands to last a year, and it does so for less than $100. This is a long way from the price of games in my youth, where $40 would net you one cartridge, that could be beaten in a week or less.

The older I get, the more important time becomes compared to money.

Time is my biggest bottleneck in gaming right now. I'd rather spend full price on a game that'll keep me entertained for 15 hours than spend a few dollars on a boring game that'll waste my time.

Jackinit said:

Think this is almost definitely a question of age (at least for me). If you would have asked me this when I was 14, probably would have bought almost anything cheap because I would have had much more time to explore them. Now nothing drives me crazier than seeing several games I know I may never play, and then knowing I'll have to get rid of them at some point when I do cleaning/upgrade, etc.

I also now prefer more challenging games than I did then, and being able to earn my own money helps support value a LOT. For instance, I gladly paid $35 for Dark Souls 3 - and was considering paying more had it not gone on sale - but a game like Tales of Symphonia (which I have played before and know is pretty good) I was not even interested in until it went on sale on PSN for like $5. Then I still don't even know if I'll have time to really play it, but being a digital copy, at least I'm not looking at a game case collect dust.

On that note, I have been building a digital backlog of games that have been on sale, which I'm just kind of keeping as a sort of "rainy day" reserve. But I'd still say they're quality games.

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Now that's interesting. You'd think that as we grow older and our free time dwindles, that we should prefer games that are slightly less punishing so that we can experience as much of a game as possible with the limited time we have available, instead of spending precious minutes trying a level/boss over and over.

I know I certainly have far less patience for challenging games today than I did as a kid. In my much younger days I completed some fairly difficult games like Mega Man 6, Golgo 13, Street Fighter 2010, to name a few. But lately these days if I find myself having to retry a segment of a game way too many times, I just think "screw it" and move along.

Squeegor said:

Now that's interesting. You'd think that as we grow older and our free time dwindles, that we should prefer games that are slightly less punishing so that we can experience as much of a game as possible with the limited time we have available, instead of spending precious minutes trying a level/boss over and over.

I know I certainly have far less patience for challenging games today than I did as a kid. In my much younger days I completed some fairly difficult games like Mega Man 6, Golgo 13, Street Fighter 2010, to name a few. But lately these days if I find myself having to retry a segment of a game way too many times, I just think "screw it" and move along.

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Yeah, I can definitely see what you're saying. Think it's probably appropriate then to include life stages in that. Age might affect the level of challenge sought, but life stage will almost definitely determine ultimate interest vested. It only makes sense that a bachelor (or bachelorette) might have a lot more time to dedicate to a challenging game, versus a busy parent, or a person with a sporadic work schedule. Not to say the parent wouldn't enjoy the game, but they may not simply have adequate time to enjoy it like they would want to. I guess age just stood out more to me since I'm not a parent, and am at a pretty stable life stage. But then I suppose we do have 40 year old hardcore gamers who are still at a much younger life stage, so I guess age isn't really a rule of thumb.

Very interesting question.  For me, it's definitely both.  I admit I'm more of a collector than player, but I also only pick up games I'm at least interested in playing.  My backlog at this point is rather outrageous.  In some ways, I've treated my older systems as ones I've tried to "complete" collections on, meaning I'll sink a little money to make sure I have everything I could ever want to play on those systems (these include ps2, psx, dreamcast, xbox, xbox 360, ps3, wii).  

When it comes to the newer systems (wii u, ps4), interestingly, I am now treating them more in-line with what I WANT to play now.  I'm no longer interested in buying games strictly because they are scoring highly - too many games, too little time.  For instance, last-gen, I picked up MGS4.  This gen, I'm not at all interested in MGS5, no matter how cheap it is because it's just not a game I'd ever play.

Again, I've treated the older systems differently in part because they are essentially closed eco-systems, and I felt I'd spent the time building them so I might as well see them through.  With the new gen, I think the reality is my interest in games is just waning, and as I get older and just have no time, I see games as a slight diversion, but little more than that.

I can actually see an end in terms of my days buying a lot of games.  It's already started to happen.  This time next year I could honestly see me buying close to nothing.  I'm definitely NOT interested in a digital-only world, and I will actually wait until a game goes GOTY on-disc to make sure I have the content without needing DLC.   I also won't buy a game unless it comes out on-disc (was very disappointed when Nintendo passed on publishing Fatal Frame 5, for example).  As the gaming world moves to a digital one, I will be one of those gamers who leave the market entirely. 

The disc thing is a pet peeve of mine.  I am no fan of a digital only world.