- Kelly
This is another valid point, and one that several readers brought up. Yes, this gives you the opportunity to play some games later, at a discount price, after the holiday season is done and the world has gorged itself on games. Still, the problem is that all too often, because of the deluge, you never really hear about some games that may not be the absolute cream of the crop, but are nonetheless worth checking out.
Finding diamonds in the rough is one of the great joys of gaming, but it becomes infinitely more difficult when those diamonds are so buried that one isn't motivated to look for them to begin with.
I don't usually purchase any game when it comes out because I know that as soon as I make my purchase the game will go down in price. Fifty dollars is a ridiculous amount to spend just for the novelty of having the newest games. If the game is as good as they say it is it'll still be around for awhile giving likeminded people a chance to buy them after the hype has subsided. I didn't purchase "1942" until a year and a half after its release and there are still lots of people playing and plenty of mods to keep you busy for awhile. About the only game I'll try to get sometime around its release will be "GT4" which even though it hasn't been released yet, I've waited long enough.
- Carl
- Deus Ex
I don't have much of an issue with paying fifty bucks for a new game, provided the game gives me more than ten hours of enjoyment. A movie, after all, costs about ten bucks these days and usually provides roughly two hours. That's five bucks an hour. Ten hours of video game entertainment, at that same price, means fifty dollars. Best of all, when you buy the video game, you're probably going to play through it a couple of times, and if it's very good (like, say, Deus Ex), it may become one of those titles you play every year. At that point, the cost becomes completely justified.
With some games, buying them late works out perfectly. BF1942 is a good example of this, as its community is still going strong. There are other titles, however, that enjoy a relatively short lifespan, particularly in the area of multiplayer. Grab them too late, and you're going to end up disappointed.
It's a balancing act, and in my opinion an unnecessary one. Good titles can and do sell at times other than the holiday season. The key here is not to release substandard titles during the mad buying frenzy that occurs at the end of the year. The key is to not release substandard titles.
But that's a lot more difficult than it sounds.
[Christopher Buecheler is a freelance web developer/designer and a graphic artist. His work can be found across the World Wide Web, and in the Unreal Tournament series of games. He also writes a lot of fiction, which you can find at his website: CerebralDebris!]
