How often do you buy video games in a year?

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King_V

Illustrious
Ambassador
Not to as an extreme of a degree, as I buy far fewer games, and have "almost embargoed" myself from buying any new games until I play the ones I've never touched yet.

But, shortly after I got my Founders Edition GTX 1080 (for MSRP, which was a miracle back during the crypto-craze), I played for a while.

Then I kind of stopped. Joint custody with only one child, but somehow, life kept getting in the way, and I found myself with little time to sit down and play a game.

The few times I did, the only games I played (in order from least amount of time to most) were:
  • Don't Starve
  • Pinball Arcade
  • Heroes of Might and Magic 3
NONE of which, despite the 3840x1600 monitor I have, required much work on the part of my GPU. Hell, I've played both Don't Starve and HoMM3 very easily on my Micro Machine (see sig) . . the former directly off Steam, and the latter via PlayOnLinux.

I just haven't found the time. Until very recently, and even then, I started on Don't Starve again just to test the stability of my son's new PC.
 
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Nov 26, 2019
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I set myself a budget of $10 per week for buying games. In a given month, I'll either have several new little games or I'll buy a AAA game and sit on it a while. My Steam library has really been slacking lately. I only have 400 titles on Steam. :p
 
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woot

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once a year i get a bunch of games when steam, epic, origin and other stores have their winter holiday sale, very rarely do i buy games at "release" prices, say no to pirating.
 
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bioject

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As a gamer, are you the type that likes to buy lots of games per year or are you the more conservative one who is dedicated to only a few games and only moves to newer titles once you've exhausted all resources out of your old games? Or are you in-between?

I probably average a new game every 3 months. It really depends on what’s out. Typically I won’t buy another game until the game I’ve bought is finished. Because I have so little time as an adult rarely will I buy a game I hate. And usually I’ll wait for the game to go on sale on steam before buying it.

I don’t understand why people buy collectors editions. It’s just junk that collects on a shelf somewhere which also costs more than the initial game. Also don’t understand people who take off work to play a game.

however games like cyberpunk and resident evil 3 I intend to purchase as soon as the games are available. Rarely do I buy games on release but cyberpunk is worth a release date purchase. I’m not even going to look at reviews. Waiting for 50% for red dead redemption 2. Currently playing The new call of duty but that’s for multiplayer and will play that off and on for awhile.

Still also working on the Witcher 3 dlc content.
 
I tend to buy a few games a year (5-10) and think, unrealistically, that I'll actually have time to play them only to realise very shortly after installing the games that my 3 kids stop me from actually playing the games for any length of time.

This leaves me with the position of having a couple of hundred AAA games that only have a few hours racked up on each of them. It's near soul destroying knowing that they're on my hard drive just waiting to be played.

Anyone else in this position?

LOL, i know the felling. With a steam library just shy of 700 games (696) i have around 50-60 games with more then 1 hour of time on them, the rest i haven't even played. That also doesnt include Orign, EA, blizzard, and any of my older cd/dvd games i ripped to ISO's and have installed.

I literally have 2 6TB drives filled with nothing but games :( Some days it actually hard to play a game, with so many i think i spend more time switching between games only to come full circle and end up playing the first one i started playing.

Anyway, last week i ended up buying 4 games to finish off the company of heroes & company of heroes 2 collection.
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
I haven't played any in about 3 years... been too busy. Prior to that the average varied as I had a PS3 (and still have a PS4 somewhere although I fear it doesn't work now) and used to buy all the cheaper games you got through Playstation plus. and I have owned several other consoles.

Honestly, I don't buy games to finish them quickly and get the next. I knew people in a Playstation clan I was in that did that, play game to death and hate it by end, but need to get all the trophies. I much prefer to get a game and play it as long as I can. I like ARPG and many of those let you play same character as long as you like. Some of those games I played for years.

I watch games now, much easier. Always said I looking for a game to play next but as time passes, the chances of me playing something else dwindles. Games are changing in ways I don't like. Too many treat you as an endless credit card. I am old, I liked how it was.
 
Mar 27, 2020
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I rarely purchase new games or pre-order. The only games I pre-ordered were crowdfunding indie projects. Usually I play free-to-play games.
 
May 4, 2020
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Not that often as of late. I tend to buy games when some friends decide to buy them as well so we could play together. But usually I wait for good sales to buy anything. I never pre-purchase anything, I like to wait a couple of weeks for reviews and impressions from other people. But on average I'd say maybe 10-20 games per year, I tend to stick with games for longer if I really like them.
 

LyncIOO

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Mar 17, 2020
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I buy games i find worth playing and very worth the price. I only buy when theres Steam Sales or when Epic release something for free. I rarely buy games, Roblox is enough of a handful for me :D
 
May 13, 2020
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I spend about 3 hours everyday gaming right before bed which is probably a bad idea cause it stimulates my brain so i should probably game before work instead
 

Co BIY

Splendid
Haven't bought a new game in years but I am excited about the upcoming release of Microsoft Flight 2020.

Watching the trailers my reaction was "Take my money!"

I'd like to see some more coverage of Flight on Tom's especially since flight simulation can have some serious hardware requirements and it sounds like the engine will make good use of many cores.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYqJALPVn0Y&list=PLHHNa7e7hf9O2x8Fa6R7jVSfvoH90CeA4&index=2


Minimum SpecRecommended SpecIdeal Spec
CPUAMD Ryzen 3 1200
Intel i5-4460
Ryzen 5 1500X
Intel i5-8400
AMD Ryzen 7 Pro 2700X
Intel i7-9800X
GPURadeon RX 570
Nvidia GTX 700
Radeon RX 590
Nvidia GTX 970
Radeon VII
Nvidia RTX 2080
VRAM2GB4GB8GB
RAM8GB16GB32GB

Interesting pick for Intel Ideal spec - HEDT i7-9800X.
 
Jul 6, 2020
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As a gamer, are you the type that likes to buy lots of games per year or are you the more conservative one who is dedicated to only a few games and only moves to newer titles once you've exhausted all resources out of your old games? Or are you in-between?
i would like to play video games every day and i used to play but now i have lots of work to do for earnings so now i stopped playing games
 

bioject

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Oct 2, 2016
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I have around 8-9 games a year. Typically I will wait for a steam sale unless it's a game I really want to play. And sometimes if there are no AAA games out but I am in the mood to play a game I might either go back to an oldie or find a fun indie game to play. My biggest issue is time. It took me 6 months to beat Red Dead Redemption 2.

Right now I have the following games to finish so I'm not really interested in getting more. I typically won't buy a new game until the ones I own are finished.
Games that I still need to finish:
Control (finishing up the last bit of AWE DLC) - probably finish this week
Witcher 3 DLC
Doom Eternal
Ghostrunner - assuming the game doesn't keep on crashing would like to finish this soon too
Cyberpunk 2077 (Probably wait for more patches though)
Death Stranding
Halo Reach
 

bioject

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Oct 2, 2016
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I used to buy a lot (20-30 a year 5-6 years ago) but lately it's dropped to maybe 2-3, as I feel like each "new game" is a cheap rehash of an old game.

I constantly keep hearing about how gaming story/plot is advancing beyond movies/books, but I just don't see it myself. While I seriously crave something new and exciting, I feel like the last 5 years have been gamings lowest point.

I've heard some people say the opposite, so I could be entirely biased but personally my purchases have gone way down, even though I have the resources to buy more.

I seriously hope things turn around, I CRAVE something great, but so far I rarely, very rarely see it.

You should dig through the Steam store and find some decent indie games.

Don't know if you've played these but I recommend them: (many of them are puzzle or platformer games. I of course play games like Red Dead Redemption 2, Doom Eternal, etc. but figured you might not be aware of some of these)
Lightmatter
Ori and the Blind Forest
Celeste
Ghost of a Tale
A Hat in Time
Cuphead
The Turing Test
Subnautica
The Witness
Among the Sleep
Inside
SOMA
Psychonauts
Antichamber
Superhot: Mind Control Delete
The Talos Principle
Dust: An Elysian Tail
Green Hell
Deliver Us the Moon