Are gamers cheapskates in your opinion?

Like most forms of entertainment, people can pay someone from $10 to hundreds of dollars just to be entertained for a few hours. Your average game can give you somewhere between 10 to 100 hours or more. Given the cost of development of games, is $70 for hours and hours of entertainment that big of a deal. After all, it's a hobby. Whether it's ATV riding, playing baseball, or going to a bar, going to the beach, everything has a cost to it. So what say you, SW? Are gamers cheapskates in your opinion?

> Complains how a game costs $10

> Proceeds to spend hundreds if not thousands on in game items/skins

No, they're idiots.

I think most people are cheap nowadays,you have to be in today’s world,don’t think they have to be gamers?

:P

I get Netflix for free and if I didn't it would be $15 a month for hundreds upon hundreds of hours of content. Why would I be willing to spend $70 for 10 hours?🤔

Cause you're willing to spend $3500 on a PC 😄

I would say they're more entitled than anything but that can be applied to most these days. I've seen gamers shell out lots of money for what they enjoy so it really depends on the content... what game or series it is.

Each person is different. Some people stick to a few games and may not mind paying full price for them as they are not spending that much overall. However, if you play a lot of games, then you start looking for deals and avoid paying full price because it adds up quickly. $70x10 games is $700. Pay less per game and then maybe you can play 15-20 games for that same $700.

This is of course talking about AAA full priced games. The reality is you could buy a whole lot more games for $700 with all the different pricing tiers. Anyway, don't be so quick to judge and label people as cheapskates just because they don't like to pay full price. They may spend more overall than people who pay full price because they consume way more games.

Everyone is different, I'll shell out 2K on a PC and wait over a year for a game to go on sale before I buy it, because I can. I will say that I see a lot of entitlement from gamers now but that could just be a younger, more vocal minority that just wants something they can't get immediately, not necessarily the entire gaming community.

I will say though, that compared to other hobbies I've tried of have friends that are into it, Gaming is one of the CHEAPEST hobbies you can have. Skiing/Snowboarding, guns, cars, golfing, scuba diving, hockey, paintball, and motorsports are all way more expensive with well over a 1K (sometimes thousands) for just equipment alone, and then fees every time you want to actually do the activity. last I checked for snowboarding in Colorado you where looking at $1,300 for clothes and equipment and another $800.00 - $1000.00 for a season pass at a ski resort if you where serious about it, and that was just one year.

Gaming is probably the cheapest of my hobbies.

However, that doesn't mean gamers shouldn't complain about the sleazy price increase to $70, especially considering it was arbitrary and no more value was added. It's just big fucking corps squeezing their customers because they can.

That's one hell of a productivity workstation for that much. Pretty awesome that it can also be used for gaming, right? And it's a business expense. Section 179, baybeee! Deduct the full amount the same year you buy it.

Much smarter than buying a console which is a computer you can't really do much with.

@SolidGame_basic: Only you will equate the two despite not being related but it is obvious that my comments stings you. 😎

Back in the day I wanted to play every new game that came out. Nowadays there's so many games that I don't care waiting months to years to play some games, if I haven't forgotten about them before then. For this reason I tend to buy a game advertised to me during a sale or recommended by a friend.

Back in the olden times before LED light bulbs, light bulb manufacturers made a pact to decrease lifetime of a bulb down to around 1000 hours so that people would need to go out and buy new ones and keep them in business, apple did the same with their ipods and shit, they probably still do. Videogames nowadays do the opposite, they bank on adding a multiplayer where they can sell you microtransactions for ten years and make money off the same game and when that game starts to reduce in popularity they churn another one out using the same assets, same engine, same multiplayer, same microtransaction tactics and people buy it because its "new". The games that cant do this as well are single player games so they pack them full of side quests and DLC, turning a £40-£60 new game into £100+ game and then saying "games are too cheap".

In the UK we call people who buy tickets and go to football matches supporters whereas people who sit and watch the matches on their tv packages fans.

In the same way people who buy a game at full price are supporters and the ones who look for the bargains are merely fans.

What is disturbing is how people who would have previously happily paid full price for a game is now looking for the cheapest option. Regardless of deals there will be a few games that I will happily pay full price for as I want to be a supporter of the game.

I would say it is whether you want to be a supporter or a mere fan.

I will add a caveat that some people have no choice to wait for deals because of their personal financial position but people who can afford a first day price but who doesn't - for a game they would have paid full price for before - makes me shake my head in a bit of sadness.

What about someone that buys it at full price and then sells it on ebay once they're done, what would you call them?

@gym_lion: The language I would use in that response would get me banned from this site ;-)

But seriously, that is a genuinely tough question. The software company would get the full price from the first sale but would miss out from the second sale. There is a tough rational decision you would have to make on that one. I would prefer a mechanism where the software company would get part of the second hand sale.

As someone who has never sold a physical game or bought a second hand one this is out of my area of expertise. Does it really help the software companies or not? Are there any studies?

No. Most gamers very likely only have so much that they can afford to spend on gaming and value for that entertainment is going to vary wildly from person to person.

When it comes to games I'm very cheap and proud of it. Most of the companies in the industry can suck an egg.

I mean, it's your money. Spend it however you like, I don't judge people how/why you spend on a game or PC components.

What most people (including TC) is that you can turn that $3,500 PC into a workstation meaning you can make money on the side of that PC Pedro has for example. Streaming games, uploading games onto YouTube making it your own business generates money and this is what we called investment returns. I rather spend a grand of a PC that will make me money on the side and I doubt current-gen consoles can make me money. That said, PC is still the master of multitasking and despite my current setup, I also use it to make money on the side of things.

Everyday I'm hustling.

Edit: I just want to say that SolidGame's GPU 980Ti is still a great hell of a card. That GPU is still legendary but the 970 just gets more likes than its bigger brother.

It is serving me well especially when it comes to build times (16 cores). 😎 And you are correct, it is a productivity workstation but TC believes that every PC is used for gaming. 😂

Nope. Microsoft just has the better deal right now. And like most normal people, when you see the deal you usually take it instead of saying "No way! It's worth more than this, I'm going to pay full price."

I mean, Scottish. By default, cheap.

But, Publishers are predatory, led by sociopath CEOs who do fake smiles and hand gestures to make bleeding the pig dry seem like a fun slide flume ride.

Whenever hear "gamers are entitled" or some such, take 2 seconds looking a big publishers and their intention. And realize, dey da bad guyz.

Gotta love when someone posts how much they think a game should be... and it is only $10 or $20 cheaper than the asking price.

I'm not a nintendo basher but they're a perfect example. They still charge $70 for super smash bros and mario kart, games that came out 4 years ago and made them maybe 10 times, or even 100 times the original investment. Regardless of how many hours someone may have gotten out of a game, is it ok for nintendo to just continually make profits without end and if so gamers should be willing to pay that $70 price tag without complaints?

No. Many publishers are too greedy though.

Should I happily buy DK: Tropical Freeze (2014) on Switch for $60? Or get insert fighting game with season pass 1, 2, 3, 4, +cosmetic pack 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.... 22, 23 for $800?

No, I should not.

@SecretPolice said:

:P

teach a man to fish use gamepass and he eats for a month, teach him to buy games outright and he eats for a lifetime ;)

Depends on what we are talking about. I won't support $70 games as most those I only have a moderate interest in and I don't want to support that slippery slop. I can wait for price drops or just not get no problem. There are plenty of cheaper games available I have more interest in so makes sense I will gravitate toward a cheaper game that interests me more.

Life Is Strange is one where I don't feel like paying even $60 for and I liked previous games, but I played those for like $20 or they were on Game Pass, not going to pay $60 for a drama. I'll wait for a sale, that's me though, not going to criticize the game for releasing for that much, though I will criticize them having more expensive editions including ones where they add an extra chapter now that is some bullshit. Generally I hate these special editions where they hide content behind the pricier ultimate editions that are locked out to anybody who gets base game and season pass.

No. Publishers are getting more greedy and my priorities have changed. I have a mortgage, a daughter, animals, a wife and many other things that take precedent over a video game. So when I see a publisher charging $10 more for the exact same game simply because it is on a next gen console, I have trouble supporting that. Sony is doing this because they know their fans will just fall in line and pay the extra money. To me, I see a publisher being greedy when they are making record profits. I understand development costs go up, but I would prefer they sell the games on more platforms like pc to offset the extra cost as opposed to raising the prices on games across the board. I am more inclined to buy a game later when they are on sale than I ever was before.

Yes... but they've been forced/conditioned to be that way.

The subscription based world we live in fosters this more than anything. Short of a few exceptions, why would anyone buy a piece of entertainment when it can be accessed at will within the service they're already paying for? And I'm sure it's all by design. Why would they want you to buy a game, sell it, and then never see anymore revenue from said copy? When instead they can either charge you indefinitely for a game you might not even play, or sell you a digital copy that you can't sell? Either way, you've sold your freedom and control for a discount and convenience.

The other aspect would be the lack of demos or dedicated rental options, we used to have. Demos are/were once a decent way to test out a game before buying. They still exist today, but are far less frequent. Rental was also a great way to test out games without a purchase, but those stores have been gone for years. Redbox and Gamefly were options, but I don't know if they even exist anymore.

Then you have something I don't remember at all from the past, where a game drops 20%-50% within a month or two. Savy gamers know this, and just wait a little longer for sales or these massive discounts.

Whatever gamers are, they weren't born... they were created.

Yes, because companies like EA are robbing bastards.

TC -> Gamers are cheapstakes because they are criticizing Sony (including all the publishers) for overcharging.

Also TC -> I play on consoles because I can resell my games and consoles are cheap.

You literally can't make this up even if you tried.

"The average game can give you somewhere between 10-100hrs" 😂 way to focus down that statistic.

Gamers are only cheapskates when they feel like they're entitled to something without wanting to pay the price for it. There's nothing wrong with not liking games priced at $70 (or $60 when they went up to $60), but it's not the obligation of a company to lower the price because you aren't willing to pay the price of admission.

It's your decision (and responsibility) to either wait for a price drop or pony up the cash; there's nothing that entitles a person to get exactly what they want, exactly when they want, for exactly the price they want.

I have a PS5 and an Xbox Series X. I don't buy games for Xbox because there's enough provided on game pass, and that's what the service provides for the cost of admission. I buy games for $70 on PS5 because that's what the cost of admission is for those games. I don't enjoy one or the other any more or less because of the cost, and I don't make a decision on whether to play a game based on either of those parameters. I play the games that interest me, and if I have to pay for them individually, I do that if I want to play them. If they're provided on a service I pay for, then I play them through that because that's why I pay for the service.

I find it a waste of energy to worry about any of it. Before "git gud" was the mantra, it was "put up or shut up." Pay or don't play. That's all there is to it because nobody here is in the position to make decisions, so they're not your decisions to make.

Everything is just too expensive and I wouldn't want video games to follow that trend as well.

only lems are poor, that is why they are okay paying to rent mediocre games through game pass. As for PC gamers, PS and Nintendo gamers, they seem to have money to buy quality games.

Anything but. One of the biggest whaling market is video games.

They sure are. I use the two words (gamer, cheapskates) together in a sentence as often as possible.

Yes gamers are entitled brats and cheapskates. Sorry not sorry but when gamers %^&$ and complain about free 2 play games and game which are less than $40 with more content than $60 games, you don't have the privilege to complain cause all you're doing is crying over nothing.

Yea there's times EA, Activision and many other publishers/devs try and nickle and dime you but they are not as common that people try to cry about.

No. Most people who complain about the prices of a certain game on a certain console have violated their own temporary standards with DLC in another game or something similar. Some people tend to just hop on hype trains.

On the flip side, basically every publisher is greedy.

I don't think we can complain about the price of games since it's gamers that gave greedy publishers the green light to riddle their games with microtransactions because gamers sucked them up instantly no matter the price. That basically told the big publishers that yes, gamers are really, really stupid.

I don't think this $70 thing is that accurate though, it doesn't take long for prices to drop on big games. And like others have said, if you don't want to pay, you can just wait till its a price you're happy with. I'm mildly interested in Returnal as an i.e. but $70? lol, maybe 20 I might take a look at it.

Also like others have said we set our own value on things so it's all about how much you want something and therefore how much you're willing to pay. I'll pay full price for Elden Ring without hesitation because I really want the game but the vast majority of games I buy I never pay full price for.

I honestly think most people don't buy games full price at launch anyway. And that price is not typical, we're really talking about a few Sony exclusives and a truck load of regurgitated shit from Nintendo.

One thing to keep in mind here though is the waiting game only really works if you're buying physical not least because you can sell them on if you don't want them anymore. Digital titles, specially big name ones take an age to go down in price on PSN, they take even longer on the MS site (Microsoft's digital 'sales' are often a great source of hilarity with titles for a short time being the same price as they were everywhere else at launch and that somehow constitutes a sale).

This is why I recommend people buy the disc version if they want a PS5. Sony have much better sales than MS but not for newer titles. MS can now offset their awful sales offerings with the fact they have Gamepass so if money is that big an issue an Xbox console would be a better idea anyway.

Regardless, unless you somehow feel the need to buy every new AAA title released, this shouldn't really affect you. Paying 60 to 70 at launch for the rare game you just have to have straight away is not that big a deal. IMO of course.

Not really. I think every person works hard for their money therefore they make decisions of what gets spent on what. I don't really care about price that much when it's an upcoming game that's seriously on my radar. There may be only like 5-6 of those games per year. Anything else I'm interested in that's not a necessity I'll just get it when I get it. Always wanted to get into the Yakuza series but wasn't gonna pay top dollar because I didn't know what I was getting myself into. Just picked up 0 for $3.99, Kiwami for $5.99, and Kiwami 2 for like $7.99. That means I got a nice chunk of the series for less than $20 and now I know I want them all. They don't take too long to beat so at the rate I'm going I'll be at Like A Dragon in a month or 2.

980TI still rocks. Got my PC for just $1300 back in Feb, 2016.

As for your response - if Pedro is making mucho money off of his PC, then he should have no problem paying full price for games 😎

I bet, without even reading the thread first, there are posters here projecting their own preferences on others, while pretending other people's are illegitimate.

amirite?

Seems like they were thinking of you when they say "A fool and his money are soon parted" 😎

@Pedro: $7/hr. I can think of a lot of hobbies/activities that cost A LOT more than that.

Plus, no game if I have ever wanted lasted less than 10 hours, so its more like $3.5/hr on the upper end and more likely <$2/hr.

that is dirt fucking cheap.

I'm a videophile so I don't watch movies on Netflix. a 4K blu-ray costs $25 here and lasts 2 hours. that's $12/hr so about 5-6 times more expensive than gaming is, on average.

Yes, gamers are cheapskates. They complain about paying $70 for something that could entertain them for 50 hours.

And then you have PC mustard race people who have cheap mice, cheap keyboard, cheap/shitty headset, cheap/shitty monitor, cheap/shitty speakers, cheap/shitty gaming chair etc and then some how claim they care about quality. obviously they do not.

Gamers cry about a PS5 costing $500 (which will last for 7 years so $70/yr) meanwhile the rest of society buys $1000 phones every 2 years and don't complain ($500/yr, so 7x more expensive than a PS5)

Ratchet is 14/hr, that's expensive.

It's the benefit of Game Pass, being able to play a game and decide on buying it or not once it leaves the service. Obviously not all games end up on the service but it helps make the decision of purchasing the game or not.

Us PC gamers are real cheap bastards, we pirate everything, so I've been told.

Gaming is one of the most cost efficient hobbies that exists. People complaining about prices are either entitled or just parroting the narrative of others. Sure, not everyone can afford every new game that releases, but if you really want a game and are looking forward to it most people can find a way to purchase it especially if they know about it well in advance.

I would rather pay the asking price for the things that I enjoy in order to ensure the continued success and future products from the people that release the things I'm looking for.

Movies and music are cheaper. Stop acting as if there are not cheaper hobbies and gaming is somehow an anomaly.