The Steam Summer Sale is rounding the corner, coming to a close. Having started with a $50 budget, there is still $30 left on the account...and the question is this: why is it so hard to pull the trigger on these prices?

For those unaware, the first Steam purchase on my account (that wasn't a free-to-play game like Super Monday Night Combat) was Titan Quest Gold at the beginning of the Steam sale. Yes, I had never played the game. It's been quite enjoyable so far. Yesterday, I picked up Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes, a game I had purchase on XBLA and just never really got around to playing much of. That game is also rather pleasant (to the point that it led me to playing way too long last night and going to bed way too late).

Games like The Binding of Isaac, Torchlight, and many others are sitting there with price tags under $5, and yet every time the mouse hovers over that "Add To Cart" button, it finds a way of going back to the Store button and surfing some more. Part of it could be because it's the end of the Steam Sale and I feel like I've missed out on some good stuff. The other part could be my qualms with Steam as a whole. I'm not a fan of DRM, and if these games were available on GOG, I would pick them up there instead. Torchlight is now on that service, but for $12 more than what it is on Steam. I'm actually having a debate about getting BOTH versions of it.

There's also a part of me that wonders just how much I'll play any of these games. In the past, my hobbies became something where I collected and collected, buying without much care for what I was spending the money on. I HAD to have that 3-disc Criterion Collection copy of Brazil or that hard-to-find copy of Flesh-Eating Mothers on DVD. If you gave me this same $50 in a used CD store when I was a teenager, it would've taken me two hours to walk out with over 30 albums, but the whole $50 would be gone.

Maybe it's just that I've become more fiscally responsible in my age (I turned 30 in May). At the same time, I just spent over $100 on Heroclix last week! Is that what the problem is? I don't want to spend money on something that isn't going to gain any value? I mean, of the Heroclix I bought last week, they are worth more than what I paid for them out of the box.

So I sit here...with a browser window open...staring at these prices and constantly asking myself "why can't I just buy it?" Even with games that I know are good and I've enjoyed immensely (*cough* GRANDTHEFTAUTO3 *cough*), I ask myself "I played it once already, would I play it again?".

It's all impulse buying, and I think I've become immune to it.

Is this a common problem? I listened to @Brad on the latest Bombcast, and he talked about how he can't understand why someone would ask if a game is worth $3. It kind of made me feel not only fickle, but like a bit more of an asshole than I usually am. However, I want to get the most for every penny that I spend. Will I play Binding of Isaac enough to actually warrant having purchased it in the first place? Moreover, I'm working within $50, not whatever crazy amount the crew can throw at Steam.

In a time where people feel the need to throw money around everywhere for whatever they please, I'm trying to stretch those dollars as much as possible. Right now, I just switched over and Dead Island is $10. I've played some of it on Xbox 360, and I know I love it...but is it worth getting on PC? Are the bugs still there? Would I sink significant amounts of time into the game, or would it merely hold my interest for a day or two before I switch to something else? Could I just spend this money on Heroclix pieces, which I play significantly more?

Anyways, #firstworldproblems and all, right?

Until next time, piece...and hope your Steam Summer Sale picks have been fruitful.

Sucks getting old and responsible, huh? 
 
Anyway, be glad that you have self-control when it comes to these sales. There are too many people out there that spend loads of money on games they have no time to play. I look at some of the people here and brag about the 30 games they bought for a mere $100 and wonder if they even have the time or interest in trying them. You're better off saving your cash for something you'll actually use than on some game you'll ignore because it's less than a McDonald's value meal. 
 
If you don't think you'll ever play it, don't buy it. I'm starting to learn how to do that myself.

Dalai, you made a serious post.

I'm assuming that your account has been hacked.

Nonetheless, this is all spare money, so it's not like it would have a purpose one way or another. I budget every penny I spend, and then I usually have this other-leftover money (there's my leftover emergency fund...and then there is THIS, which is all hobby funds). My brother and I just moved into a new house, and we finally...after all these years...have built our own PC that can handle most of the games out there now. We've never been modern when it comes to PCs (and even this is built from about one-year-old components or so). Therefore, we're wanting some stuff to play on the PC, and so we decided that instead of blowing the hobby money on Heroclix this week (since we splurged hard last week), we'd get some games on Steam from the sale. Luckily, my boss paid me early because he's going out on vacation over the weekend and wouldn't be back for payday on Monday. Therefore, I'm getting to actually pick up some stuff for cheap.

I just bought Torchlight and Bastion. I own both on XBLA, but I'll be more likely to actually play more on the PC since I can mod it for multiplayer support.

I'm trying to decide on whether to pull the trigger on Dead Island for $10...or to hold out on the Flash Deal and see if L.A. Noire will end up going on sale. It'll be one or the other, though...and I honestly think I'll spend more time on Dead Island. However, I loved L.A. Noire and never got to play through all the DLC, and if it goes on sale, it means the Complete Edition should be around $10.

I've only bought stuff over the last two days because I wasn't able to get access to my money in time for the first batch of deals. I was looking forward to picking up the GTA pack, Dear Esther and a bunch of others, and am really (mildly) annoyed that I missed out on them. I figured they'd do a "best of" sale for the last day (could have sworn they did in past sales) but no such luck, unless there's a surprise final final day of the sales tomorrow. I actually favour having all my stuff on Steam now. I already own GTA IV on disc somewhere, but it's too much of a hassle to dig it out and install.

I recognize some of this in my own hesistance of buying games this sale.
 
I looked at what I still have in my library and on my xbox and I decided I have enough games to last me to the winter sale, maybe then I can pick up the ones I didn't get this sale.

I've got a few games that I still need to make my way through as well. Hell, I'm about seven hours in on Titan Quest: Immortal Throne so far, put about three hours into Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes last night, and I've still barely gotten in Amnesia: The Dark Descent (which I bought directly from Frictional because it's DRM-free and I like the developer getting all my money). I need a pair of headphones before I can delve back into Amnesia.

So has Dead Island been decently patched to not be buggy as fuck on PC?

@jakob187: I bought it on sale but haven't installed it yet. However, when I got my hands on it last year (pre-patches, Y key to noclip), I encountered zero game breaking bugs, so I can only assume the latest version is just as good. The only two things were: item dupe glitch, and the aforementioned noclip glitch (developer build remnant if I'm not mistaken).

Titan Quest was a good choice.

I think I've probably played something like 50% of the games on my Steam library. A lot of the unplayed ones might only have been <£5 each, but together you're probably talking about a few hundreds £s worth of untouched games. Shit adds up.

@Jimbo: Yeah, my friend had basically verbally-berated me for having not played Titan Quest before. When I saw that Gold was $13, I figured "alright". Then again, he also claims that it takes forever to hit max level, so I feel the need to prove him wrong on that as well. I've really enjoyed it so far. It itches all the scratches that Diablo III couldn't get to. I think Torchlight will take care of the rest of them.

@Binman88: Hrmmm... I played to about level 10 on 360, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. How are the analog controls on the PC version? Do you need to have a controller to use them?

  If you don't think you'll ever play it, don't buy it. I'm starting to learn how to do that myself.

I didn't actually buy anything myself until the last few days of the Steam sale. Bastion, Morrowind, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and Torchlight. Impulse, all of them. Damn it.

However, I have played all of them and plan on playing them some more. Shamefully enough, I had to buy Morrowind because I had at one time pirated it and still had a save from that, so even if I don't play it now I've already gotten my money's worth.

@BaneFireLord: The thing is that I KNOW I would play Binding of Isaac, solely because I'm a masochist and need my ass kicked on a regular basis by video games. The only problem with buying it is I also know how much I played Super Meat Boy...and how much I haven't played it since then because I got tired of getting my ass kicked.

Binding of issac and the dlc are amazing don't be surprised if you think you'll only play 20min an ending up with dozens of hours. Watch northernlion let's play to see how deep this game really is, it's a gem

@Rave said:

Binding of issac and the dlc are amazing don't be surprised if you think you'll only play 20min an ending up with dozens of hours. Watch northernlion let's play to see how deep this game really is, it's a gem

I know that I would easily spend 20 hours playing the game and get sucked into it. However, I've come to this point in my life where I can't just splurge without my own full justification behind the purchase. What that means is I have to look at it and say "I'd spend 20 hours on it...but if I put some more money on top of that, I could get Risen and spend at least 60 hours on that...or I could put a little extra on top of that and pick up Fallout: New Vegas which I KNOW I'll put at least 120 hours into that game..."

...and it just keeps on this vicious cycle until I hit the $20 mark, which is about what I've got left on the budget at the moment. I then end up back at the bottom and keep doing the same shit over and over.

It's like I have a fucking disease or something! lol

@jakob187: It sounds like we're two sides of the same self-justifying coin.

@jakob187: If I'm remembering correctly, the default controls are just aim for the location on the body and click, which I stuck with. You can be accurate and do pretty much what you intended, i.e. chopping off an arm, or slicing at the neck. I don't know if that was any different to the default console controls, and I'm not sure if there's an option yet for analog controls on the PC. A google search did turn up a thread on GB from last September with information on how to enable it through config files, but the last post suggests that might require a controller.

@Rave said:

Binding of issac and the dlc are amazing don't be surprised if you think you'll only play 20min an ending up with dozens of hours. Watch northernlion let's play to see how deep this game really is, it's a gem

I know that I would easily spend 20 hours playing the game and get sucked into it. However, I've come to this point in my life where I can't just splurge without my own full justification behind the purchase. What that means is I have to look at it and say "I'd spend 20 hours on it...but if I put some more money on top of that, I could get Risen and spend at least 60 hours on that...or I could put a little extra on top of that and pick up Fallout: New Vegas which I KNOW I'll put at least 120 hours into that game..."

...and it just keeps on this vicious cycle until I hit the $20 mark, which is about what I've got left on the budget at the moment. I then end up back at the bottom and keep doing the same shit over and over.

It's like I have a fucking disease or something! lol

@Rave: Well, I don't have to worry about it now. I had forgotten that a friend asked if I could gift her Limbo since she didn't have any money on her card at the time for it, so she just gifted me Binding of Isaac Collection in return. SCORE!

@Binman88: Yeah, I was afraid it was going to require a controller. Honestly, after playing the game with analog controls, I just don't understand how people can play with the old-style Elder Scrolls "just swing and hit" method. There's just something so damn strategic and free-feeling about the analog controls that makes that game incredible to play.

ZOMG New Vegas is up for vote! EVERYONE VOTE FOR IT! I needz it.