Just saying, if you wait to play a game, the cheaper it will be to buy. For example, by waiting, you can basically buy 5 older games for the price of 3 new release games. Its almost like buying one game, getting one free. Sure, some games are great to play on day one. But the rest are worth the savings in money by waiting a little bit for the price to come down. In the long run, youll actually save a lot of money!
I challenge everyone to think about how many games you have which you bought at/near release and never got around to playing until after there were already prices drops. For me, that was the majority of games.
Totally agree. Pitfall for me are flash sales. When steam, gog, or psn have a flash sale, it's really hard to resist buying games when they are only a few bucks each. Now I have a pile of games that I might never get around to playing. Despite, this I have never ever paid full retail price for a game, even when bought on release day. Very few games are ever worth full retail price of $60, IMHO. A prudent shopper can always find good deals. Here are a couple of tips if you live in US and want to save on new releases:
Dell.com often have games deals where they offer a $25 gift card. I bought:
Sunset overdrive for $40 + $25 gift card. I just rolled that $25 gift card into pre-order of Bloodborne, so paid $60-$25=$35 for it PLUS that game comes with another $25 gift card, which I will roll into the next game.
Another popular program is Best Buy Gamer Club Unlocked (GCU for short). The cost for a 2 year membership has just dropped permanently to $30 (from $99). You get 20% off any game, plus other perks for trade-ins, etc. They sometimes have a $10 credit on pre-orders. I ordered Witcher 3, got the game for $48 (20% off) AND it includes a $10 credit towards a future purchase, which I can roll over to the next game. The cost of the program pays itself off after buying 2-3 games.
If you beat a game in a month or two and trade-in/re-sell, you can almost re-coup the entire purchase. Heck, I made money on Sunset Overdrive, effectively only paid $15 for it and sold it after I beat it for $25.
These tips are only if you must play a game on release day. Otherwise, games prices usually drop within 2 months of release, in which case, it might be better to wait if you don't think you will have time to play the game.
In general, however, I don't recommend and rarely ever pre-order games. Industry trend has been to release bugged and broken games (AC:Unity, Halo:MCC, Battefield 4, list goes on), patch later, and have game review embargo so you don't know if a game is good or not. I've made an exception for Bloodborne and Witcher 3, because my confidence level in From Software and CD Projekt is high to deliver an excellent game.
Great game and pretty nuts with how open world it is and how many zombies there are!
