Vote With Your Wallet

"Vote with you wallet" was a phrase that was bandied about in the dark times of shitty DLC, pay-to-win and whatever the fuck "freemium" was supposed to be.

Happily, those days are behind us because we all joined hands and refused to pay for any of that shit. We should all be proud of ourselves.

That said, we didn't really vote with our wallets. We abstained from voting with our wallets. Voting is a much more proactive thing than just denying support from something you don't agree with. If you want to draw parallels to the democratic process, you need to vote for something to vote against something.

When was the last time you voted for something with your wallet? Have you ever bought a game purely because you wanted to support the developer?

(If you gave money to a Kickstarter project, you're a patron - that is not part of the democratic process)

I guess I "voted" for the ps4 rather than the xone, that what you are looking for?

I buy games quite often just because I want to support the developer. I tend to not believe in the democratic process at all when it comes to video game development either. I just want developers to make their game and then sell it to me. Involving the community in the development of a game rarely if ever seems like a good idea to me.

I bought Dark Souls 3 times PC Ps3 and 360,same with Dark Souls 2 because I like what From were doing and wanted to support them. Also it would appear that I have more money than brains when it comes to my purchasing habits.

I vote for Giant Bomb every year

Eh, maybe. A bit. Not quite.

This is more along the lines of what I thought the response might be. Something more in support of developers, rather than platforms or publishers.

I buy lots of DLC. I am the problem. You're welcome.

To be clear, there is a metric tonne of great DLC out there that you can proactively vote for with your wallet and buy it with a clear conscience.

Unless it's Mass Effect 3 DLC. All of which I recently purchased for my grand Mass Effect play-through.

I'm not here to judge anybody.

I did buy all the SMT games they put on PSN just to support that decision, despite already owning half of them. Still haven't touched the Raidou games or DDS.

I also buy every Platinum game even if I don't actually have a console to play them on. I bought Bayonetta before I got my 360 and I have copies of Wonderful 101 and Bayonetta 2 but no Wii U (I have played them on a friend's though). The only one I don't have a copy of is Anarchy Reigns because it's kind of terrible and multiplayer has never been my thing.

@bribo: But that was me voting with my wallet. I had the opportunity to only buy one, and I went with the PS4 after weighing my options.

Wallets aint got that right. *spits*

LoU remaster and injustice for PA4 to support making great games available to the latest generatonas well as supporting superhero video games, i guess. We really don't get enough superheroes in good video games IMO.

Yep. I never signed up with the mindset that I'm paying in exchange for specific content, or some sort of website-as-a-product. I'm paying to do my part to keep the GB crew's hilarious, earnest, and insightful voices heard.

That's like voting nationally, rather than locally.

Easy mistake.

I love Platinum, and I've bought everything they ever made - except for that Cartoon Network, faux anime bullshit thing they recently shat out.

I have bought a ton of games multiple times, usually on a console then via a Steam deal. And then there are the mass of games I bought and will never play, some of which are PS2 games

I vote for cheeseburgers quite often.

@bribo: I actually kinda liked The Legend of Korra game, but I'm a big fan of that series. It's janky and quite short but the combat is pretty good and nails Korra's practical style of bending.

I keep buying DLC for DOA5. I regret nothing. Well, actually, I regret that more companies don't follow in their footsteps. Fighting games or not, just give me the option to buy a ton of shamelessly fun, dumb costumes and I'll buy them. To be fair, some others games do do it from time to time, but they all tend to be rather...shall we say...conservative.

@babychoochoo: I wish they had more normal costumes. I would totally pay 2 bucks for a suit for Christie but I wouldn't do the same on the 50 different bikini/bondage costumes they have.

I buy Mass Effect 3 DLC on multiple accounts to compensate for people who don't like Mass Effect 3.

That's good to know. I didn't buy that game in the passive, abstaining from voting stance that I mentioned in my original post.

Again, I'm not here to judge anybody.

turboman said:

No you don't. Cheeseburgers are like air. They cannot be regulated by any governing body.

That's not to say you should be complacent about cheeseburgers. You should regularly write to your Member of Parliament (or Congressman) and remind them that you will vote them out of office if they try fuck your cheeseburger.

I'd buy pretty much any new game from Frictional Games, Frozenbyte, Sigma Team, Ace Team, and Ice-Pick Lodge, regardless of if I actually cared to play the game.

I might be more likely to buy a game if I like the developer, but I've never bought a game just because I liked a developer.

That's like murdering a bunch of people and then stealing their ballots so you can vote for Hitler.

I jest of course. I'm about to kick off my replay of Mass Effect 3 with all of the DLC, just as Hitler intended.

This complicates the whole democratic process analogy to a degree. One voter want's a say in what his candidate wears while they are in office, while the other votes for the reintroduction of the gold standard.

Nothing to write-off voting with your wallet as a valid way to steer video games on to further greatness, though.

I bought Dark Souls 1 twice and Dark Souls 2 3 times. I also buy good PC ports like valkyria chronicles to encourage more developers to release their games on PC.

The consumer experience is not very similar to the constituent experience. "Vote with your wallet" is poor shorthand for "don't allow nice periphery to distract you from a bad core." Capital One doesn't really want to know about the condoms you keep in your wallet, either. They're both just condensable.

I bought Remember Me simply because it was doing something different and Capcom had taken a huge risk on it. Even though the reviews were mostly middling they tended to indicate that there was promise there and a refined sequel would be great. I bought it simply in the hopes that that sequel would get made. Not only did I buy it at full price, I bought it straight from the Capcom website, so they were also the retailer. I still haven't actually played Remember Me.

I try to vote against EA and Origin by avoiding their games like the plague, although fat lot of good that's doing. Really not looking forward to Star Wars Battlefront comes out requiring Origin. Also I support GOG, Humble Bundle, and small team devs now more then ever. Honestly I don't like where games are going with freemium and play to win, as well as subscription based support. The idea that you are really only renting a game or software license does not benefit the end user in any way. Choice is the most important part of voting, and if big software companies had their way we would not have any choice.

oh i am. earlier this year i bought call of duty advanced warfare and dragon age: inquistion, both for pc, at my local gamestop :D and also i bought a bunch of mass effect dlc from origin. yeah!!!

You realize all that stuff still happens right....?

Voting is a much more proactive thing than just denying support from something you don't agree with. If you want to draw parallels to the democratic process, you need to votefor something to vote against something.

When you are voting against something, you know that it is implied you are voting for something else, that, in your view, oposes that first something. And so voting with one's wallet is apt term.

When I made a petition not to buy the Star Wars: Sith Edition, with the exclusive last DLC for the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, and urged people not to buy the the game all over again, I also stated that we should do it, so to take a stand against shady pratices, demanding respect for the supporters of the game, like me, for honest practices and demanding for it to be made available to the owners of the vanilla version, like the first part of that story DLC.

I've never paid into a kick starter, but back in the day when Square Soft was doing great I did buy just about anything with their name on it. Though I haven't done anything like that in years.

Every occasion Ice Pick Lodge has looked for any kind of money at all, I have stuffed giant wads of cash it into my modem so that it makes it to them. Knock Knock wasn't really my thing (for one, it scares the shit out of me) but those mad Russians do such cool shit that I just gave them the money for it immediately. My reward? They're making Pathologic again, which is all I've ever wanted.

i buy just about every PC port fighting game to try to support the notion of more fighters on PC, even if I have copies on other systems.

The problem is games that don't sell lead to studios closing down, not the companies wondering if they went overboard on bullshit

Most of the times. But I find it better than supporting what we see potential in but we don't like as is, in hopes that someday the developers will listen, and change.

I buy a game because its an interesting product. I like developers when they have a track record of putting out games I'm interested in. Let's not get silly

Yup. Voted with my wallet alright.

I bought Prison Architect in Early Access to support the developers. I haven't spent much time with it because I'm just waiting for the full product.

I buy what i feel like buying. I bought he Gears 3 weapon skin pack when it came out as well as the season pass.

I don't get offended by anything in the game industry, i don't think anything game companies do is disgusting or gross either.

I do it all the time. I think it's important and fairly vital to the industry to put your money behind what you like and want to see succeed. If I'm a big fan of a series/studio, I'll always buy a game at full price rather than waiting for discounts, and often will throw some extra bones towards fairly pointless collector's editions like the Ultimate Edition of Forza Horizon 2. Not that Microsoft needed my money or that I cared that much about what actually came with the Ultimate Edition, I just want them to know that I think FH2 is the shit. Another recent example was the Kinect. I wanted to support an ambitious idea. It didn't quite pan out in full, but I wouldn't have done it any differently. A reality of the business side of gaming is that the people who decide what games to make or continue making base that decision on sales above all else. So I typically do my part to try and send a positive monetary message.

I'm not trying to pat myself on the back here, because I'm often guilty of waiting on some sales myself. That's bad for gaming on the whole, and while I'm not proud of it, I've been known to play my part there as well. Still, it's one thing to be value-conscious, and another to just be plain cheap. There's little worse than someone who refuses to support something they like and then whines when it fails. As mentioned, it's really easy to NOT spend money on things you don't care for, but not so easy to throw down more than you probably have to on stuff you favor. Kudos to the OP for acknowledging the difference. It seems like a bunch of people proudly fancy themselves a wonderful market force when they don't buy questionable shit like day-one DLC, yet when it comes to the flipside of that coin in paying full-price or more for great games that deserve it, suddenly these same people aren't so concerned with putting their money where their mouth is. That's fucking weak.

Yep, I buy games several times if I really enjoy them.
I bought all the Mass Effect games and all the DLC on PC, 360 and PS3.
More recently I bought Wolfenstein:THe New Order on PC, Xbox One and PS4.

I have no idea what you're talking about and that makes this sentence sound weird.

Part of the reason I bought Valkyria Chronicles was to support the idea of popular (relative to the genre, anyway) JRPG's getting PC versions. 'Course, along that line of thought, I should have also bought FF13 and FF13-2 again. And Trails in the Sky. And The Last Remnant on one of the umpteen sales that Square has put it on. And Final Fantasy III. And IV. And VIII. But I did buy VII, so there's that.

@believer258: Korra doesn't fuck around. She usually just punches at people with elements instead of anything fancy like Katara or Aang.

I purchased an accelerator for wwe 2k15.

Im part of the problem.

sorry for ruining games for some of you :/

but seriously most of the "gross" dlc some people constly compain about have little to no effect on their enjoyment of the game. people have difffernt needs. people like different things.

I dont want to spend hours unlocking stuff. I dont have the time. I dont mind giving a company a dollar to not do it. maybe some do. but I dont. Let me be able to do that. thanks

I purchaed doa5 3 times. no regrets either time.

Given my backlog it sure seems like I do. XD