Do you ever play a game well after release and feel guilty about not supporting it at release?

No. Games aren't worth $60 to me.

Hm, sometimes; although, it's more of feeling guilty for paying $2 during a Steam sale than feeling guilty for not paying $50+

No, no really. I know what you mean though, it sucks when a neat new idea like Mirror's Edge doesn't sell well enough to get another chance.

But I only have so much time and money. It's not worth feeling guilty about. I can't save/play them all anyway. Whatever I do I will always miss some great game and won't discover them until later.

I actually have bought 5 new releases in the past year, which is a lot for me.

Do you feel guilty when you buy antiques? Seriously, the fact that this industry has actually convinced people to feel bad for not giving them money is all kinds of absurd.

My responsibility is to my time and my financial well-being. Not your company's.

No, never. I'm not going to feel sorry someone's product didn't get me hooked straight away.

No!

@branthog said:

I should have bought Sleeping Dogs at full price. I can afford it and the game was worth it. Max Payne 3 is a different scenario, I did buy that at launch, then I let the negative attitude of the Giant Bomb guys dissuade me from actually playing the game until this christmas. Turns out it was an awesome game.

No, my budget is what it is.

Right now, I'm trying to get away from the PLAY EVERYTHING AT RELEASE-mentality, because it's been hurting my passion for games terribly. I've worked at GameStop for the past 5 years and just found harder and harder to not get swept up by the hype train. Now that I've quit that job, I can hopefully distance myself from all that crap a lot easier and avoid buying crap like Hitman: Absolution and Tomb Raider, at least at full price.

Of course, it's also hard to not feel guilty for holding off on buying games when studios get shut down left and right because of low preorders and bad day one sales nowadays.

I would have bought TWO copies of Mirror's Edge at release, along with a limited edition.

Damn, I want one of those bags so bad.

Binary Domain, Asura's Wrath, Spec Ops The Line

ALL from last year, but when you get married and can't consume games like you used to you can't get everything right away. Still feel bad though

On the contrary, I love playing old-ish games gives me something to do when there's not a ton of exciting new stuff to play with.

I did for Syndicate since I knew how poorly it sold when it came out and bought it in the summer last year for like $20 or $30.

I tend to play old games for the last couple of years. I've bought a few new that I felt I couldn't live without, but everything else is used by default. If there was a way I could've bought King's Field from the developer, I would have. This is why I'm stoked about what I'm hoping to see in the new distribution models: developers are either able to self publish, or games are constantly sold as new at reduced prices through DD.

I'd like to vote my dollars in the industry, but my backlog intensive personal preference and the reality of mostly very cheap used games means that I'm typically just transacting with someone on eBay.

I try to get most of the games that I'm dying to get upon release, but there are also those games that look interesting, but because of my limited budget I have to wait for them to fall into the bargain bin. If the game turns out to be amazing, then yeah I feel bad that I didn't bite the bullet and pay for it on release day, but most of the time its just good enough to warrant the discounted price I paid.

I feel bad sometimes. It depends on how the studio is doing and how much I like the game.

No, I have very limited amount of time and budget for games nowadays, so if they haven't sold me on it at release, I usually will pick it up later for cheap and when I have more free time or there is a dry-spell in game releases (aka. summer).

I was ashamed last when I picked up Max Payne 3 almost 2 years after release, and realized that it's my favorite 3rd Person Shooter to date, and that I should have known it all along and made it known day and date, with a transaction of my good faith to Rockstars in-good-faith account.

It's like voting. If I buy a game during its release window, I'm voting with my dollars - hence I feel a sting of guilt, when I don't cast my vote of confidence and good faith in games that I want more of in the future, and developers whom have earned my trust.

lol

i almost can't handle this truth.

Nope, as others have said, I can't and don't care to buy games new for full price. I would rather wait if I really want to play something.

To some extent, although in my three years or so of using CAG and Steam it's never been completely transparent as to who's losing out. Also, we're beginning to see a lot of creative accounting on games that clearly sold well (Tomb Raider being an obvious example) which make me wonder how much my prompt purchase really mattered.

I tend to feel a little more guilt about supporting some games day one that either didn't deserve the money or were rather ephemeral and to some extent forgettable experiences. For example, I certainly had enough fun playing Halo 4 at the time, but I could have bought four indie games for that money and probably had a better experience.

I've also supported things out of principle that were kind of pointless. I bought the DS version of Broken Sword in the interest of seeing more games like it on the platform, but admittedly paying £30 for an inferior version of a PC game I'd gotten for £10 in 1999 was really stupid.

All this said, the guilt trip stuff is something I'd typically associate with mid-tier releases which unfortunately don't seem to exist anymore. Sure, maybe I should have bought Syndicate when it came out, but ultimately it was released with unrealistic expectations.

@sathingtonwaltz said:

In a roundabout way, we are patrons of various artists (the developers). Yeah, there's a whole heck of a lot of business between us (game players) and those artists, but video games are a creativity-based work, and what we financially support (en masse) does affect what other projects those artists can feasibly make. Kickstarter being the most direct example of this.

So sure, spend your money wisely and it's stupid to buy a bad game purely because you think the dev deserves the money or something, but I'm sorta surprised how many people are just one hundred percent against this notion of regretting not buying a game closer to release (when that game is one it turns out you enjoyed and wished there was some way you could've supported more fully).

I only feel guilty if I was interested at the time and could afford it. If it looks good, I'll usually pick up the sequel brand new.

Some examples are Uncharted 3, Arkham City, Mass Effect 2. I bought these brand new because they looked good and I didn't support their predacesor's.

Not really, no.

Also, I think a lot of these cases are reflections on what you paid for them. For example, Binary Domain could have very easily been "man, this story is kinda dumb and the voice recognition clearly doesn't work", as opposed to "I can't believe this surprisingly good Gears-esque shooter only cost me £6!".

I doubt that's a unique sentiment.

I found a copy of The Saboteur for 15 bucks a while after Pandemic was shut down and absolutely loved it.

That was a bummer but to be fair there was zero marketing for it and the press were not kind. I just bought it on a whim.

i just picked up dark souls for 20 bucks on games on demand. well worth it, i was intimidated by all the "its so hard" talk, but its just a really damn fun game. sure frustrating at times when a boss is 20 times harder than he should be simply do to frame rate dips but whatever!

Nope, because when I buy a game a year after release, that money is still going to the devs (I don't buy used). So it doesn't make too much of a difference to me.

No, I buy the games I really want to play day one anyway. The rest get put in the wait for a sale since I like to save money and yet still support the developer as well.

No. I absolutely cannot afford to pay full price. I use boomerang to rent 1 game a month. I usually buy something cheap. Up to £15. If I find it on special deal somewhere. I'm not in any way poor. I'm just in the squeezed middle. I have a mortgage and a kid and food costs a fortune these days.

I have no idea how I'm gonna afford one of the new consoles this Xmas. You kids spare a thought for your parents if you get one come Xmas day. Cos I bet they can't afford it and have had to go without to ensure you are happy. I've even not eaten a couple of nights so I could afford baby milk without going into the overdraft, but those were dark times and should be behind us now..... Tangent much

I felt like that after completing Binary Domain just three weeks ago....and borrowed from a friend.

I play alot of games, a good amount ARE day one released and there is sometimes buyers remorse. Yet Binary Domain satisfied me and made me feel bad for not picking it up earlier to show my full support.

Max Payne 3 I baught day one and feel glad I did my best to show support even bought the season pass as stupid as that was. I feel bad for the rep it gets and how its so quickly dropped to £3.49 on steam AND Xbox at times. :(

I felt that when I was playing through Nier. I wish I had known about it when it was new.

I buy games and never play them. They should feel guilty for taking my money.

Not really. If I waited for the game to go down in price there was a reason for that. There are games I wish I never payed so much for. Square did not deserve my money for the last remnant.

This, with an exception of Battlefield games.

Yeah I felt that way about both Syndicate and Sleepy Dogs last year. Got em at a lower price but really thought they were both easily worth paying full price. I wanted both of those studios to have more of my money. 999 made me feel that way too.

Sometimes...its just I'm still in school, my wife is still in school, and we have two kids. Not trying to justify it but its nice to get a deal long afterwards...and at least pay something. If not for sales I wouldn't have ever picked it up. So I feel fine contributing something even if it really doesn't help their at launch numbers. It also a shame game companies work that way, doesn't allow for word of mouth purchases that happen after others have finished it and started recommending to friends.

I wish I bought Psychonauts when it came out, I'm sorry Tim Schafer!!

Actually when i bought Zeno Clash for $0.99 on steam, and at the time i believed that the price was like me robbing the company, but now i know that there is a number two coming out it is time to redeem myself.

Nope. If the developer closes because not enough people purchased a single game within the first month of release then I say "fuck em." Their managers were the ones who messed up and stretched out their finances too thin, and if there was no other choice then to spend that kind of money to execute their vision then maybe they should have changed their vision.

No? I suppose if I had a mountain of cash sitting there I'd actively support more games; but at that point I'd be disgusted with myself for having a large amount of personal wealth and would likely distribute it to various charities as penance. For Vagrant Story 2 and Dark Souls 2 I shall shell out the full barrage of resources; but until then waiting out for the swift decline in prices is the wisest move.

@sathingtonwaltz said:

Have you ever wanted a sequel to an antique table, but the manufacturer decided not to produce it because no one bought the first table? Clearly a direct comparison.

DAMMIT! I meant to choose "Yes" but I chose "No" instead.

But mostly for titles that don't sell well like Mirrors Edge, Enslaved, Rayman, etc. But then it's hard to justify $65 for those games. I like what SONY is doing. They put out Sly 4 for $40 and are doing the same for The Puppeteer so it's easier on my wallet and actually a much better deal since they just aren't $65 titles to me. More companies should follow suit.

There are some games that I've played and thought "Man, I wish I played this when it came out," but the developers finances aren't ever the reason why.