Buying Games

I just thought about it, and the current system for buying games has a lot of things about it that are both good and bad:

Good: Steam. So easy! Buy the game, download, good to go. Sales and Humble bundles- cheap! Easy! System Requirements: You can know if you can run a game before you buy it! Amazing! Saves with steam: You buy a game, you can put it anywhere: just log onto steam and you're good! Discussions! Forums! Support teams! So good.

Undecided: Emulators and RO Ms. Ehh...

Bad: Sales. Basically any game you could want will go on sale at some point, so it's the dilemma of waiting for a sale or just buying the thing. Oversaturation: So much crap. Seriously, like 70-80% crap. Sturgeon's law prevails. Lack of demos mean you have to kind of buy blind. Early Access, Alphas: While not completely bad, I'm very weary of paying 30$ for a game that may not pan out in the long run, and I'm sure others are with me. Clones: Any media, honestly. Just look at all the minecraft clones and I am sure people will understand.

Thanks for reading. Please discuss if you like.

edited 10th Dec '15 8:37:40 AM by Kyotor

Good: Automatic patching, aggregated user-made content

Bad: No paper manuals, no feelies

Actually, I'm mixed on the end of paper manuals. Do you know how many of those things I've lost over the years? Hundreds. Part of me appreciates the fact that there are now many games where I will never lose the manual.

That said, I love Feelies, and yeah, a good manual can count for that.

Oh man, I forgot about manuals. I miss cracking open a new case and reading the manual cover-to-cover. Now it's just a single piece of paper like "check out these other games!"

Honestly, the thing I miss most is "new game smell." Those of us around for cartridge-based gaming know it - cracking open that box and smelling that fresh plastic scent. Felt like oncoming good times. The last time I remember smelling it was the Game Boy Advance era... and even then, the cartridges were so small that you pretty much had to put your nose next to the box when you opened it to smell it for half a second.

And yes, I did that, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

That still exists and it is awesome.

Good: DLC, Season Passes, Patches, Splitscreen and Character Creations.

Bad: Online only games, Being forced to pay for Xbox Gold/PSN in order to access features.

Good: DLC, true midnight releases, no lines, the distributor being cut out of the picture making games cost less overall

Bad: DLC, business of brick-and-mortar video game stores are threatened

IMO, Read the Freaking Manual exists as a trope for a good reason. Who uses the manuals anyway? I don't really consider the lack of paper manual nowadays a huge loss. It saves money, saves paper, saves trees.

edited 11th Dec '15 12:57:50 AM by Malco

Consoles

Good: Overall quality of games in the console market is generally high: little chance of getting burned by a genuinely crappy game or buggy mess. No installation or system requirement issues either. And personally, I prefer playing with controllers, not keyboards.

Bad: Exceptions such as Aliens: Colonial Marines and Battlefield 4 (during its initial release) exist. High costs, especially when factoring in DLC and preorder bonuses. And while controllers are generally good in most situations, they aren't as good at controlling RTS or FPS games vs a keyboard.

Good: I can watch You Tube and the internet to justify buying an game instead of watching propaganda about it. Game Stop has an wide selection of titles to choose from.

Bad: The selection of games at my local Wal Mart and Target is shit. I hate anything based off the Bayformers. There's hardly anything interesting out for 3DS this Christmas. Covers have an habit of lying. The Black Friday idiocy is real.

edited 11th Dec '15 11:15:27 AM by RabidTanker

@6 Wait, where are you getting "new game smell"? I've never gotten it from a disc-based game, and I honestly have never had any luck getting it from a DS or 3DS game card. Should I be smelling my amiibo a little more closely?

Geez, this sounds a bit skeevy even in-context.