How does the reduced game release schedule affect you in the summer?

I have roughy 90 or so games in my Steam library I have never even gotten around to installing and I have a pretty hefty stack of 360 games I haven't beaten. I'm doing just fine.

All those options and nothing for "I work full time and can't keep up with every big release anyway so it's just fine with me."

cuzz that's where I'm at.

Coming up on the end of The Last of Us finally. Man... that game's pretty good.

It doesn't feel that slow for me. I just finished The Last of Us, Shin Megami Tensei 4 is coming up soon, and there are a few other titles over the next several months as well. Maybe there's not a new major title every week, but it's not like I could afford to buy a game every week anyway.

Not much. I still have plenty of games to play, after all.

No football(soccer), no basketball and no game releases. Summer is a great time for back catalogue and going outside.

To me it means Brave New World (new Civilization 5 expansion) is going to dominate my summer gaming time.

@bluefish: Damn it! Damn it damn it damn it. You know I *do* try to think every scenario. But your kinda in the backlog crew, right?

@banefirelord: Yeah you basically just described my life, only sans 360. The scary part is I know I *will* buy a 360 and all the games I missed the last 6 years one day.

@zeik: I'm dieing to play TLOU. My PS3 broke the week before :(

@video_game_king: Ditto. Hey, by the way... totally random... you ever play Soul Blazer?

There should be another option: "90% of my games are bought during Steam sales, particularly at the end of the year and the middle of the summer."

The reason my steam catalogue is massive is that I buy almost all my games at like 75% off.

With literally every digital distribution outlet having HUGE Summer sales right now (or in the very near future), I think summer has become the perfect time to catch up on anything you were on-the-fence about and work through any backlog on the cheap. I just grabbed 4 new games for $30 total plus the WoT 360 Edition Beta...my summer is looking pretty good.

To many choices

@mrt: There's a choice for that.

"I enjoy long polls" is the option that most fits who I am.

I have some PS2 and PS1 games on my backlog to play plus SMT4 when it comes out so I'm not to heart broken over the lack of big releases. it gives me some time to earn money for my PS4.

I started playing The Witcher, I think I'm set for the summer :D. Also Rogue Legacy.

edit: I pressed the TL; DR option, cause i don't like long polls, they scare me because of too many choices. I CAN'T DECIDE!

@geraltitude:

It's going to be in one of my blogs.

perfect time to load up on old games I never got a chance to play when they released!

Steam sales and Gog.com have eliminated this summer release problem completely.

@video_game_king: Oh awesome. Perchance I will begin it soon so I can offer some responses..

@slag, @belegorm, @oginor: It's admittedly pretty shocking I didn't mention Steam or GOG in the poll responses, lol, but yeah, that's the reason I have enough games to play the next ten summers, much less this one.

@pop: 1 or 2? Either way I'm super pumped for you. I can't understand how there isn't more love for that series.

I still got other things to do, and I have plenty of porn to watch. So I'll be all good for the time being.

I kinda don't care. I like getting games when they are new, but that's very expensive and I'm not a rich person, so summers and their sales are fine with me. Also,

Fery few

Couldn't help but notice this.

EDIT: Also, one of the few games that I cared to pre-order is coming out soon - SMTIV.

I would prefer they spread it out more evenly. I am consistently befuddled that publishers will try for the fall/holiday window instead of taking one of the many weeks during summer where they could easily release totally unopposed by any competing games. Summer of Arcade was initially a great marketing success because there was fuck all else to play at the time.

Also, the key demographic most publishers are targeting are on break from school/university during those months as well, which means they are more than willing to hop on board with anything remotely entertaining during summer game drought.

There's always plenty of cool stuff on GOG and Steam. Like TONS.

They've got all the Gabriel Knight games for dirt cheap and run like a dream on a modern system. No tinkering, screwing with setting or general computer voodoo needed. GK2 is arguably the best FMV game ever made and still holds up plot wise.

It was hot out today. Gonna be hot out tomorrow.

It give me time to platinum the games I've been wanting to get to. I can't win against the A.I. playing fanorana and morris in ACIII. Uhf.

@believer258: oh man that's hilarious. Fery funny! Too bad you can't edit polls..

I'm either studying (not for school or anything, it's just what I do) or visiting gaming websites when not playing games. Not playing much recently.

If the whether wasn't shitty and my friends weren't away, I wouldn't even be playing video games. In a couple of weeks though, it'll be the season of the three B's - Beach, Beer, Barbecuing!!! Until then, it'll just be me trying to catch up with gaming, practically didn't play games in April, May and a half of June and watching the Tour De France.

I started Witcher 1 and gonna go into witcher 2 after, I don't know what it is about that game, it's really janky at spots but I just enjoy playing it.

I don't really feel that summer is that much slower than any other time of year except mid-August to early-December, but maybe that's just because I don't work and am not in education, so it's not like the amount of time I have to play games goes up dramatically during the summer.

It's usually a good time to catch up on backlog, or to spend a lot of time playing one game that has a lot of playability and depth i.e. Civ 5, Crusader Kings II, the Total War games etc. Also despite the number of games than I play, the amount of games that I actually buy on release is relatively small - I've only bought two full-priced games at launch so far this year (BioShock Infinite and The Last of Us). I'm patient enough with most games to wait until Steam sales or until they're at retail for a low price, and I've got a deep enough backlog that there is always something new to play.

I really like your polls for some reason. Its like taking a quiz but more fun.

Currently I'm mostly blasting through old games so it doesnt bother me much. I'm playing through The Witcher 2 right now, i bought it yesterday on the XBL sale for 10 bucks, good deal i think. LOVING it so far. i know i'm gonna do a second play through to take the other branch in the story. already looking forward to my second playthrough.

Agreed.

You a thread innovator. Keep up the good work.

Having not very many games come out in the summer is a good thing for me. That way, I can catch up on the games that I've been wanting to play.

@cale: If you're not too busy swatting bothersome flies... what are you studying? Curious since it's just what you do, which sounds pretty suspicious lol.

@pop: The Witcher 1 is a little janky. It has a combat system pretty reminiscent of Summoner, actually, don't know if you ever played that. I loved that you have the 3 different combat styles. Big fan of combat styles in games (Jedi Knight, etc). What's crazy and super awesome for you is that CD Projekt just patched the combat in Witcher 2 (and it's a massive, massive patch). One of the things they added to the game is combat stances! Super excited to see what those look like. Again, you have an amazing adventure ahead of you. Witcher 1 can feel like a slog early on but it's definitely worth powering through that first town - also some mods you may want to check out at nexus..

@atlas: Yeah you know what I think Infinite was the only full priced 60 dollar game I bought this year too. I would have bought TLOU had the PS3 not exploded. It's just so rare that I want something bad enough to pay full price, especially when I have so many games I can play still. If I love Civ, but am bad at it, could I enjoy Crusader Kings? I really want to try it..

@clonedzero: Thanks duder! That's kind of the idea. Don't know if you ever did these in elementary school, but we always got these little personality/work quizzes and often they put you in situations like "Someone calls me stupid. I feel X, Y or Z". Always enjoyed those quizzes for some reason... Super sweet we have two Young Witchers in this thread. Witcher 2 is honestly the best RPG I've played in..so...so long. I know it's not a big open one like Skyrim and it's not really about customization so much as it is Geralt's story, but holy smokes is it awesome. They do a great job letting you create a character within a predefined one.

@flstyle, @immortalsaiyan: y'all gonna make me blush..

Not at all, becuase it's the summer and I can play real football and real baseball outside.

@geraltitude said:

I'm currently working through this book. Hopefully not tooooo suspicious.

@cale: Oh that's cool - are you going to do some game translations? Or did you have something else in mind?

This year has been bare so I don't think it "affects" me so much as just extends an already long year with not many games coming out that I want to play.

That's ok, though, as I have a ton of other games to play that I haven't yet.

@geraltitude

No concrete plan in mind really, it's just an area of interest for me.

The only games I care about this year are getting released in 'Summer'. Winter is dead.

@alexw00d: Which ones duder?

No, you got it wrong, it's "Winter is coming."