Are you an impulse buyer when it comes to videogames? (Gaming Q of the Day 10-3-10)

i would say maybe. i have a lot of games that i haven't beat. i just bought dead rising 2. the last game from that was mod nation racers. i barely played mod nation racers.

it really just depends on the price of the game, if it is on sale for under 5 dollars and it is kind of interesting I will probably get

No, not for console games, I only buy games with a purpose. However for steam sales, those really big sales, I sort of can't help it.

Pretty much.

Sometimes. Mostly when games are cheap (roughly $20 and below), and Steam Sales. Though I think I got it mostly out of my system with the last few huge Steam Sales.

I bought Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock just because the new guitar looks awesome... now i have 3...

yes. I blame steam. ooooh, that game is on sale! I mean, I [won't ever play it/already have it on disk] but when else am I going to get a chance to get it on steam for so cheap?

Fuck you, Steam! 
 
Yes.

I was, now I'm not.  
 
I don't have a large budget for games, nor have I the will to impulse buy them. 

"

Cheap games, hell yes, I'm a impulse buyer on those - I buy almost anything that cost less than $3 that looks even remotely interesting.

I almost never buy any games that cost more than $20 though, not even those that feed the hungry and cure cancer.

"

" Oh god yes. I had two fairly solid impulse purchases in the past 2 months. The first was when I broke my Dualshock controller, so I went into Best Buy looking to buy another one. Deterred by the $54.99 price tag, I complained and started to walk out until I saw DJ Hero & the turntable for $50. Bought it immediately. 
 Second was when I went to Target to buy some Mac & Cheese, ended up walking out with the Bioshock 2 Collector's Edition with the Vinyl soundtrack, artbook, posters & game for $35. I already own the game on the PC, mind you. "

I just bought TF2 on steam because it was on sale :/

Not at all, I do lots of research before hand. The only impulse buy I've done was brutal legend and I learned my lesson with that.

Not really.  Sometimes I buy off an impulse, but I VERY rarely do.

Though I do get a little impulsive sometimes when I see low prices, I don't generally consider myself an impulse buyer.

" No. I don't have a lot of money so I'm very careful about what I purchase, although if there's one threat to peoples' rational purchasing it's Steam. "

Not with games but if we talk movies, then hell yes I'm an impulse buyer.

Not videogames, DLC however..

I normally know beforehand what I would like to buy when I walk into a game store. However, if I find a game on sale I would most probably be tempted to buy. Examples include Mass Effect, Fallout Collection and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion GOTY Edition.

I dont even buy games anymore >:(

I only buy one video game every few months... so no. 

I can be. I spend as much time reading about video games as I do actually playing them, so I generally have a pretty good idea of what's coming out and what I'm going to get.
But if I"m there and see something I didn't expect to be there whether that be a new release I somehow overlooked or something in the bargain bin I missed the first time around, well if it looks good chances are I'll be getting that instead.
Or as well, if I can afford it.

I tend to read about my games alot, so I know what I'm in for in general. I'am guilty of impulse buying Alpha Protocol because my friend was all jazzed up about it. I'm glad I played it, but I'm not glad I did it. Know what I'm sayin'? ;)

Occasionally I'll go on a video game shopping spree and then totally regret most of my purchases. Damn those crazy sales, I'll go in for one game and come out with 3 or 4. 

" I spent $140 at Bookman's yesterday . . . . I went in there for a GameCube memory card. Nuff said. "

Yeah, but only when I see games that are on sale. Like recently I saw Dead Space for 10 euros and didn't think twice before purchasing it. With newer games I tend to do a little bit research before buying it. If it's a title I've been waiting for, I usually get on the net first to compare retail prices.

Nope. Money is limited and impulse buying a product that is $60 is quite a silly thing to do in my mind.

Not anymore.  I used to be one but then I found myself collecting games I never got around to playing.  Hell, there were (are) some still in the cellophane wrapper.  At one point, I flipped around though and now I scrutinize every game purchase over and over, asking myself will I actually play this.  What helps is I tend to buy games months after their release these days, so if a game is still on my mind by then, I know it's something I really want.  My one weakness to all this deliberation is Steam Sales.  Come on, for $2-$5 for a game normally costing $20, how can I refuse?

There are some games I wait in anticipation for, so with those no. But during gaming dry spots aye, I've been known to wander into game and buy games I probably won't play much.

Steam sale.

Most definitely yes, I waste so much money on games.  Well, it's not really waste since games are my primary source of entertainment - I could be spending my money on a lot worse.  I wish sometimes I would spend my money on... better games, I definitely have some regrets.

I don't impulse buy regularly, but I do have over 260 games on Steam, it's easy to get that many when they sell publisher deals like the iD pack at Xmas. They were selling about 14 games for less than £40 at that point. Consider that you don't have to fuss around making dosbox work properly for a given game and it starts to sound like good value for money. Also count in the Telltale games, which they seem to be able to deliver on time (I hope you're making notes Valve) which add approx 5 games for each series.  So far I've only found one crap game that wouldn't work on Windows 7, Ducati Racing. I haven't tried it on XP and I couldn't care less if it doesn't work now. It was part of a deal so pfft whatever.

i rarely buy games, but if i cant get the one i want, i tend to go on impulse to get one.

Not at all, unless the game is like 5 bucks than yeah, what the hell.

No, I do buy probably too many games but I have been more specific on what I buy as in I will buy games I think I will get good value for money from. I also go in stages where I will buy a game each week for a couple of weeks then maybe go without any for a month depending on prices, whats out etc. This fall/winter is going to be interesting to see if I can hold onto what my original idea of buying only games I play for a long time. Borderlands GOTY is out in a couple of weeks time, and, along with Dead Rising 2 it is tempting me to buy it even though I told myself I would get only Call of Duty Black Ops between now and the end of the year...

Yes. I bought all 3 editions of a recent release (which shall not be named) on 3 separate occasions from 3 separate locations for because I thought the boxes all looked cool. I haven't played this particular game for over a week now.
 
Also, a lot of times I would actually forget that I had already bought a game and buy it again.
 
Then there're the few times when I fall in love with a game and then make a point to buy for every single platform it's on. It's the most worthless and ridiculous form of completionist-ism, and I guess that's not really an impulsion but rather a compulsion. But... it still happens without much thought. 
 
Analyst-therapists call it the OC disorder.

I'm not an impulse buyer, but I tend to want to give most new releases a good try even if they aren't in my list of most anticipated titles. For instance, this january I would have never thought i would cave into buying civ 5 and SC2 because i've not played the previous games much at all. but i did buy them. Right now I'm scheming a way to play enslaved and assassins creed brotherhood. since blockbuster went bust i can't rent games anymore :(

I have the big games I pre-order and plan for, but otherwise I often end up buying on impulse.  I've gone from completely uninterested to buying a game based on some random forum chatter several times. 
 
Other than that I'm quasi-impulse with my long list of games on my Amazon list that I have been interested in at some point - if they go below $20, I buy them real easy, even if I don't have nearly enough time to play them.

I used to be when I had a job. Since I always had a nice amount of cash on hand due to getting tips, I would randomly walk into stores and spend about 40 dollars a week on random games. 
 
I quit though, but I still have the bad habit of going in and randomly buying stuff without thinking twice about it :(

sometimes but i try not to be.  last real impulse buy was a day one of Army of Two.  I traded it in 3 days later...