Do you ''Value'' a game less if you didn't pay for it?

What's good duders?

I was thinking about this today with how fast I burn out on games on Game Pass.

When I don't pay full price for a game, my tolerance is almost zero. The slightest issue I have with a game and I almost completely drop it. I can't really explain it. I've just found that the more I play games nowadays, I don't really value their time if I didn't pay for it.

I think in part, some of it might be 'Well I paid 70 quid for this so I'm GOING to get my moneys worth out of it' (I hate that new games cost seventy quid in the UK right now), and it tends to be kind of a sunk cost fallacy. I tend to think that I've paid for a game, so if I don't get the full way through the game, I'm going to regret spending money on it.

On the other hand, things like Game Pass have ruined how I approach most games. I bought the Series S thinking that I'd play so many games on Game Pass, and dive into my Microsoft back catalogue, and really get my money's worth, but I don't think, in two years that I've even got twenty hours into probably forty plus games I've now tried on game pass.

Does anyone else have this issue? Where subscription services have ruined how you play games, cause when you don't pay for them, what's the point in grinding away?

I don't do subscriptions but i've always thought that if i was paying for game pass i'd be trying to get through games as fast as possible to get the best value, which is absolutely not how i play games anymore, it takes me months to finish 1 these days so paying monthly is the worst way to go.

A couple months ago i tried to play Shadow Man but found out it was going to be a struggle i wasn't interested in having, so i gave up on it, i think if i was also paying a subscription there would be a clock in my head urging me to give up and move on faster.

I think so, yeah. Game pass has made me try a ton of games…for 10 minutes. Same thing with PS Plus, both the free monthly games and he back catalogue. Too many times I don’t even get through the tutorial and even those that I do, I usually give up to play something I have paid for. I also feel more obligation to finish games I’ve payed for.

I’m sure there are some gems I’ve played and quit on. A recent one that comes to mind is Wo Long, a game that I actually really liked, and had no real complaints about, but only played maybe 3 hours and then dropped despite having a good time.

To be fair, I do this a lot, I’ve always been someone that plays as many games as possible but rarely gets too focused in on one, with a small exception during my summer of WoW or my Destiny 2 unemployment tour. I actually don’t finish a ton of games, but I quit even sooner in games I get through subscriptions.

I'm not a Gamepass or PS+ subscriber, but I have experienced this phenomenon. However - it's only with games I received for free/heavily discounted that I would never have paid full price for. Example - I had a code gifted to me for that Mad Max game on PS3 back when it was maybe a month old. I was mildly interested in it and put a couple of hours in, but was ultimately distracted by other games and never went back to it. That's not a game I was ever going to buy for even $30, maybe for $10. So is it that I got it for free or was it that I was never "valuing" the game in the first place? Hard to say.

This can also apply to games bought on heavy, heavy steam sale/humble bundle discount.

I have very little patience for free EGS games -- they either make their case quickly or get dropped, unless I'm desperate and there's nothing else competing for my time.

I have both Game Pass and PS Plus Premium, and the only issue I have is that its so many games with so little time to play all of them. So I pick and choose carefully what games I'm going to invest my time in. As far as under appreciating them because I'm not paying for one game directly, I don't see it that way. I value both my subscription access and games I personally buy the same, because I'm ultimately paying money to have access to them both. It might feel different if someone else was paying the yearly subscription fees for me. I feel the same way with discount games, because I have an idea what games I wanted to wait for the price to drop to buy, so I was looking forward to playing that game anyway.

The only thing that makes me drop a game is if it doesn't connect with me the way I thought it would, not the price of the game itself.

You are paying for those games though with Game Pass, $10 - $15 a month or $120 - $180 a year. As someone who only plays a few big titles a year I find it to be a bad value. I rather just buy the game, on sale if I can, and actually own it versus paying to rent.

Not really. If I drop something on Game Pass, it's probably because it wasn't something I was going to like and buy anyway. The only thing that's changed is that I can try these games first. Whereas before, I was just pretty good at knowing what I was going to like before buying something. I don't remember the last time I bought a game I regretted paying money for, and I probably wouldn't keep playing it if I felt it wasn't worth the time just because I spent money on it.

Not really, maybe that's because I have a tendency to drop (or not even try) many games that I buy too (typically from sales). When I play a game on Game Pass I'm more likely to finish it, maybe even get all the achievements, because I may not have access to it at a later date, either because the game has been pulled from GP or I've ended my subscription.

What annoys me a little bit, I meant to play Guardians of the Galaxy on Game Pass before it got pulled, and not it feels like I'd be losing money if I buy it.

hmm. probably not? i'm very selective about what i play though.

that said i was collecting the EGS free games religiously until i realized i hadn't played a single one.

*shrug* so maybe that means something? i do pay the full $70 for the games i'm passionate about, though.

The biggest problem with Game Pass lately is the quality of games. For the most part it isn't there. Redfall was another dud. XBOX needs Starfield to hit big. I wonder if Game Pass is having a negative impact on development of games? Why invest so much into one title of very high quality when you can just toss in a bunch of ok games? This is the reason why big releases from Sony and Nintendo are still so popular, the quality is there.

The thing everyone needs to remember is that Game Pass isn't free lol. It's $120 - $180 a year and you will never own the games.

I am less inclined to stick with a game if I've not paid a lot for it, but I am still likely to play it for a while. Generally speaking, I'm not dipping in and out of games a lot. Unless a game is really derivative, I'm usually interested to see where it goes, to see what tricks it has up its sleeve. If it really doesn't have anything new to offer, that's probably something I've clocked before I picked it up, and I'm not playing it. The thing that usually motivates me to play games is that I enjoy them. If I enjoy something, I want more of it. I'm also not buying new £70 games though. There's plenty I could play that I'll have a great time with that doesn't involve putting down that huge sum of money. If the title is that good, I'll play it later and it'll still be the same game but without the huge price tag.

That's traditionally how I play most games; before recently it was very rare for me to put more than a few hours into any game, whether I'd paid for it or not. But I usually intend to go back to them at some point, and often do, which makes buying cheaper than renting for me.

Game Pass and PS+ have had a weird effect on how I play and buy games. I used to buy way more games than I do now. I only pay for maybe one or two full price games a year (this year will be the new Zelda. Last year it was Horizon and Splatoon 3) as is and typically wait for sales for everything else. With Game Pass and PS+ though I'm now more inclined to wait and see if a game I'm kind of interested in will show up on those services rather than buying it on sale. Only games I am truly interested in and know I will play through end up being purchased. I used to buy a lot of games partly because they were a good deal on sale with the intention of playing them later on, but now that never happens because Game Pass covers that exact use case well.

That said, I also only subscribe to Game Pass for a month at a time unless they have the three month deal on. Now that those deals are starting to disappear, I'm probably going to be much more selective about when I subscribe. I never leave the subscription on. I already played most of the back-catalog so my interest in Game Pass is now down to whatever new things they add. So far this year they haven't added anything that has made me want to resubscribe. Most of the indie games that show up on Game Pass are cheap enough that if I want to play them I just buy them on Steam instead of paying for a month of Game Pass.

i wouldn't say i value them less so much as i'm more ok with dropping it if i'm not having fun. i'm more likely to push through if i paid for it , that said if i'm within a refund window still i'll just refund said game instead too . at least if i didn't pay for something its only a loss of time. theres tons of games i've gotten free that i valued playing it cause it was a great exp

I don't think I value them less. I don't tend to add everything to my library so I genuinely pick up the games I'm interested in playing.

I wouldnt say i value them less, but if i know i want to have a game, ill just buy it day 1. SO the things on gamepass are mostly just distractions until the next game i choose to buy. So yes ill quit them if im not enjoying myself, but thats only because i already bought the ones i knew i would enjoy. Gamepass has been great for finding things id never spend money on but are good games for my wife to play or us to play together

Certainly value a movie less if I'm not paying.

Today's incredible reviews of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom are a lesson in quality over quantity. I'll gladly pay $70 for a game like this. I'm just not a fan of Game Pass, for nearly $200 a year I rather just buy 3-4 high quality games and actually own them.

@sombre:I think I have the opposite issue. I tend to put off buying games because of all of the games on Game Pass. I have played through a lot of them, many that I probably would not have touched otherwise. I think that's been healthy though, because now I buy a game if I really want it or it's on deep discount. I also feel like I'm harsher in reviewing games the more money I spent on it. If I dropped $70 on a day one release, it's because I have high expectations and it better meet those expectations. If I pick up a game for $20-$30, then it has less to do to satisfy me. If I play a game on Game Pass, the need is even less. Some good examples:

* Star Wars Jedi: Survivor - I LOVED Fallen Order and was really looking forward to this. Bought it Day 1 and it's been kind of meh.

* The Callisto Protocol - Got this for like $35 and I thought it was great! Though it seemed like a lot of people didn't like it because it wasn't Dead Space

* Ravenlok - "Free" on Game Pass - Got 1000/1000 achievements on it, but definitely would not have played it otherwise.

A couple games that I really ended up loving on Game Pass were Boyfriend Dungeon & Kraken Academy!!. I do wonder if I would have played them otherwise.