Do you "vote with your dollar" and refuse to give your money to some digital or retail stores? (Steam, Origin, Gamestop, etc.)

I would never want my PC games to only be available through one seller. That would be awful. There are so many PC sellers that they slash prices so they can move stock. It only benefits me.

As far as EA is evil and all that shit. I don't care. If there is something I wish to buy, then I will buy it. If I don't wish to buy it, then I won't.

I do. I don't buy any games digitally because I like to have something physical to show ownership. In fact, I don't buy any media digitally unless I already own a physical copy. I suppose I'm just old fashioned. I also use money to support things as well; I bought a copy of Deadly Premonition despite not owning an Xbox because quirky games like that are awesome.

I don't know whether "voting with your dollar" is effective or not, but I'll make the consumer choices that are best for me. The businesses that provide what I'm looking for will get my money, and the ones that don't, won't.

I hate what big companies are doing to us customers. I'm having problems with EA (lately Origin doesn't let me play my games when no internet connection is available). I'll open a thread about it.

I just buy what I like, really, and usually from the cheapest online store which in my tiny part of the world is usually Steam.

5 years.

Sometimes. I'm not going to buy a David Cage game cuz he seems like an asshole, but his games also look like they're terribly written, so it's not that hard of a decision.

I avoid GameStop, as it’s always such a fucking hassle to get in, make a purchase and leave. I can’t fault the underpaid employees for doing what they need to as to keep their jobs, but I can’t stand being treated that way as a customer.

When I can, I'm that guy who buys everything local. That would include video games. But that's dependent on things like time, money, etc. and honestly that only happens when I buy boxed copies of games, which is rare. Digitally, I only buy my PC games through GOG and Steam and as far as I know they don't have any bad practices...right? We don't have much choice with consoles.

Not stores, I just don't buy some publishers games.

I will never own another Bethesda game, which is not much of a loss given how crappy they work. Nevertheless, I will not buy anything they publish.
I will never own another Gearbox Software game, which is not much of a loss either - they're charlatans and thieves.

I don't understand people who want Steam to have a monopoly, or why a game having a different launcher matters. Almost every Steam game I purchase now is from a third party store, I can cut out Valve and it's usually cheaper there anyway. I don't boycott EA (it's not like they're worse than any other large publisher) but they almost never release games that I want to play.

I'll never give any of my money to GameStop ever again. Or pay for any physical media ever again, for that matter. Whether my behavior as an individual affects GameStop's behavior - I don't really give a shit. I do know that the writing's on the wall for GameStop - they're the Blockbuster/Radio Shack of the 21st century.

@vorsic: The only problem I see with having multiple launchers is that if there too many storefronts with too little differentiation between catalogs, some will start to go under - then who knows where all those games you bought will go. Anyone remember Triton from 10+ years ago? One of their exclusive digital titles was the original Prey? Well they're dead. How about GameGate (no, not GamerGate)? The only place you could digitally buy Bionic Commando: Rearmed when it was first released? Well I'll never be able to play that again, because they're gone too. At the end of the day it's going the landscape is going to be like everything else - several giant companies control the vast majority of the market share (Steam, Microsoft, Origin) with a few indie/curated digital storefronts (i.e. GOG) tossed in for good measure.

I actually think having games 'under one roof' is an extremely dangerous mindset to have in a Capitalist society...but I won't delve deeper than that. I also have doubts about the effectiveness of boycotts in general, so no.

Quite a necro here, although it's still fairly relevant I guess.

I'll buy my games from pretty much any legitimate seller. G2A? Not buying from there. Amazon? Steam? GOG? Will buy there. Boycotting a specific store for some philosophical reason isn't really in my character.

I haven't been inside my local Gamestop in a year - it might actually be two years. I remember the last time I was in there, they had more merch than games, though they did have some sweet boxed copies of a few PC indie games for $5 that I wish I would have bought for novelty. I remember they had a copy of Axiom Verge sitting there that I would have liked to have on my shelf. I don't go in there anymore because they just don't fit my shopping habits. I tend to buy my games new whenever possible these days, even if I have to pay a premium to get it. I don't buy many games anymore, so if I'm buying one I might as well pay for the new copy. When I do want a physical copy, there's a Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Target about ten minutes from my house, so I always go to one of those. Failing them, I'll get it off of Amazon.

And that's even if I'm getting a physical copy - if we're talking about a PC game, it's either going to be purchased through Steam, GOG, UPlay, or Origin. I've never personally had a major problem with any of these launchers, either practically or philosophically. It sucks to have to keep up with multiple friends lists, but Discord sort of just does that for me so it's not really a problem anymore.

As far as used games go, there's a local chain of used games stores around here, they have three or four locations. One of their locations wasn't so great, it smelled funny and somebody had some really shitty heavy metal playing off of the speakers last time I was in there. That one closed down - the rest are all very nice-looking, they always have a really good selection of stuff, and their staff tends to be helpful and knowledgeable. There have been a few times where I've had them put me on a waiting list for something and they'll text or call me as soon as they get a copy of it. I don't trade in my old games anymore - I replay old games way too often for that - but if I want a game that isn't available new, I'll check in one of their locations first.

On PC I only buy on GOG or directly from the developer if it's available and it's not a steam key. On console I only buy indie games that are on both Xbox and PS4. Lately there's an annoying trend where indie devs will only release their game on PS4 and PC, ignoring Xbox and I don't want to encourage it.

I decided a while ago to not buy from GOG anymore, I even closed my account with them. At first it was all about buying older games I couldn't find elsewhere, but after a while I started to feel as if I was supporting a political movement, one that hasn't decided if it's far-right or far-left. I also don't like the attitude of the people who run GOG, they come off as arrogant and obnoxious. Just look at this article from GamesIndustry (GOG: Streaming is another layer of DRM) where GOG Head of global Communication, Lukasz Kukawski, only considers those who buy DRM-free games to be 'hardcore or more advanced gamers' (underlining my own), other gamers are simply casuals who are uncivilized, uneducated or primitive by implication. It is this childish and close-minded attitude that has partly turned me off from buying games from GOG, as it is also reflected in how they market their store and products.

Instead I will buy directly from the developer or publisher, Steam being the alternative option. If a game is available on console as well, I'll prioritize that version, since I play more on consoles these days anyway.

I do whatever I want and give zero f*cks about the politics behind it. In 2007, Steam was the coolest thing ever and everyone loved it. Now it's hated because it's successful, therefore uncool.

I look at a thing and think, 'Will I enjoy that thing?'. That's my only metric.

EA is obviously a money-grabbing corporation, but I've still enjoyed hundreds of hours in its money-grabbing games over the last couple of years.

Every single person who ever lived is completely out for their own gain, from the millionaires at the top of these development companies, right down the the people like me. They want to grab money, and I want to enjoy a thing. I don't care where my money goes after I've spent it. I don't care how many people are annoyed because some woman got sacked for being misunderstood on Twitter.

If a game has too many micro-transactions and it ruins the game, that will be pointed out in a number of reviews, so just read the review and stop pre-ordering games.

Can't say that I'm a big fan of EA these days so I won't support their shitty practices. I don't see the point in buying anything other than first-party titles from the Microsoft store. I'm also not the biggest GameStop fan these days. And G2A along with most other grey markets, no thanks; I rather not gamble for a key. Other than that, I can't say that I hold grudges with other developers, publishers, platforms or storefronts.

I would not say that I was, "voting with my dollar. I stopped buying games at GameStop because I found the employees being more annoying at checkout. Aside from the up-selling crap I did not need. I have not read Game Informer in a while or visited their website. The pre-order bonuses were not worthwhile for me anymore.

I end up buying physical copies of games at Target. I'll use my employee discount and my Red Card to get 5% off. The Cartwheel function on their app has games, console and accessories on sale periodically. Pre-order games from Target will come with a $5 gift card. Target will put games on clearance and have a value section of older games for twenty dollars.

Any games I can't find at Target. I will buy them off Amazon. I will buy digital games on PSN during their winter and spring sales. Only if it is cheaper than Amazon.

As far as publishers. The first one is Konami. After MGSV and Kojima's depature. I swore I will never buy another game from them. If Konami released a better HD collection of the Silent Hill games, I might reconsider. The second one is Bethesda. Lately their business practices of selling their games is getting gross. I don't like that they are using YouTube influencers to circumvent the games press to avoid negative reviews. The most infuriating part as the more that publisher has grown. They seem content on putting out buggy games. Finishing all Fallout 4 has burned me out and I not interested in playing Fallout 76.

Bethesda.net, GOG, Origin, Steam, UPlay - it doesn't matter to me. They're all just shortcuts on my desktop. I think actively trying to encourage a monopoly by buying from a single service so all of your games are "under one roof" is not the best of ideas. You want the competition between multiple services. It's to your benefit to have multiple services competing for your business.

I don't buy physical games anymore. I guess I'm voting with my dollar for the advancement of digital distribution.

Gamegate is still around, just went to their website a few moments ago. Also I would look at your library just in case. Gamersgate used to host most of their games and they still host some of their titles but while looking through my library I noticed way after I've already downloaded a particular game from their site that the library now has keys to a corresponding site that was not there before. A few little known rpgs that I've downloaded directly from GG now have steam keys attached to them so I can use them on steam.

I'm increasingly sensitive to how terrible Steam moderation is, and their open-door policy on hate groups, harassment, bigotry and general shitty behavior. Their mod team is at best invisible and at their worst, glacially slow. I don't particularly want to throw money at a company that's happy to let that kind of behavior slide; I'm in the fortunate position of not being completely dependent on sales to play the games that I want and, to be honest, I have more old games sitting uninstalled in my library than I could ever possibly play, so Steam Sales no longer dazzle me like they did when I was a broke student. Enough games still depend on steam that I can't remove it from my life completely, but I'm happy to buy game codes elsewhere and then activate them rather than buy them directly through the Steam store.

I'd really like an alternative that was minimal and easy. Origin, battlenet, etc, are all janky and bloated and I don't blame anyone for not wanting to use them.

I wouldn't be at all surprised however if discord were to open a game store in the near future, and I'd be completely happy to start buying my games through that service instead of steam.

I try to use Steam exclusively, mainly because Valve saved PC gaming, they created a viable market for indies and publishers of all sizes on a platform that was in serious trouble, they're responsible for most of the great experiences i've had over the last near decade and a half, but also because it's where all my friends are... if we're playing an Origin game or something else, we're probably meeting up on Steam first.
It's also where i make the occasional game review, post in game discussions and forever extend my screenshot library.

If I do it is for political reasons and not so much business reasons. Businesses are ruthless and shitty.. If I was going to boycott businesses for bad practices, I would never get to play games ever again.. The people who make the AAA games usually are underpaid, overworked and are being kept as anonymous as possible.

There are certain publishers/devs I mostly shy away from though. Rockstar seems skeevy as fuck and I'm going to feel somewhat bad about supporting them by buying RDR2, but I'll get over it. Just gonna weather the doubt like everyone else and then wait for the tell-all books to feel really bad about the money I spent supporting whatever's going on in there.

Also, to the people who say it doesn't matter: It does. If you boycott something for being shitty, that's because your concience is going "this is shitty." Other people aren't _THAT_ different from me, so I can trust that others will also go "well that's not cool. I'm gonna buy an indie game instead" the same way I do. I'm not alone in being pissed off at idiots, and I'm not alone in feeling bad about throwing money at idiots who piss me off.

You don't need to organize a campaign, it's already silently rolling. Gamergate happened because publishers finally realized that girls play games, and they like to play games with girls as the main character or at the very least can select a female character. The shift happened before gamergate, before there was a really loud debate. Publishers looked at the stats and figured it out from sales numbers.

No reason to think we need to organize to get change. Vote with your dollars, it's literally the only power you have other than doxxing and deplatforming etc. You are so unlikely to rally troops to march on the EA building.. Vote with your money. Reddit and forums will gave endless tales of why people decided to skip it. If there's a dip in sales compared to expectations there are literally dozens of people staring at stats trying to figure out why, people scouring forums looking for reasons and so on. Your gripes and reasoning behind not giving them money IS being noticed.

Anyways, I'm too rambly. If you feel bad about giving someone money, there is always someone far more deserving.