Do you tend to buy big games or small games more?

I'll take what Pedro said a long time ago. A game is a game. Indie, AA, AAA, whatever. If it's a game that catches my fancy, I'll buy it. In other words, don't think of AAA or Indie, just play the damn game you think it's worth your money & time.

I don't pay attention to what's big or small. If i like what i see, i get it. Thing is, many "small" games are just some unfinished kickstarter garbage, so its real hard to get excited for that. Yes, many AAA launch unfinished as well, but i ignore those (other than bf2042 lul).

My tastes definitely skew very heavily towards the AAA games. I’ll purchase the odd smaller game here and there with stuff like Minecraft but that’s very rare for me.

I only buy a couple of AAA games a year, most of the time i'm buying smaller games or games on sale.

Shamefully, I have to admit I'm buying and playing AAA games more.

Though in reality, I tend to play whatever game is a style and a genre I like:

Big blockbuster AAA live service open world grind = avoid

Small indie first person shooter = sign me up

I don’t buy small games at all. Matter of fact, I dislike small games.

I don't buy many AAA games any more either. Most of my purchases lately are interesting looking indie games on Steam.

80% $5-20

20% Nintendo 1st party

I hardly buy games new any more. I just got a series X and got metro Exodus and Valhalla for like $30.

Went to a second hand thrift game store and loaded up on a bunch of older Xbox and 360 games this week.

Darkness 1&2 360

Fallout 3 360

Brutal legend 360

Splinter cell DA 360

Splinter Cell DA og Xbox (never played this version )

Sonic generations 360

Combined $43 dollars

Same thing on PC, instead of buying a game for $50-$60 bucks I'll just load up on sales.

BC on series X is nice

I don't limit myself on what i purchase as a rule or anything. If a game interests me then i will get it.

Looking at my more recent purchases though i tend to be buying more AA and low end AAA games (in terms of production values) rather than Indies or higher end AAAs. They also tend to be more from Japan at the moment but i don't have any sort of inherent preference for Japanese games over western games. I think its because I am trying to make a vertical slice of a game like Xenoblade so I am note taking (Progress is very slow).

Monster hunter Rise, X4 expansion, F1 2020, Warhammer 3 total war, Neo: The world ends with you (nice gem that one) have been my recent-ish purchases.

On the horizon i am looking forward to getting Xenoblade 3, MH:R Sunbreak and CP2077 (ok that is a full blown AAA. new PC first though).

I am not counting, but typically small games go for cheap when big sales happen and I can end up getting a few at a time cheaper than say big AAA games.

I buy what I like! Simple.

AAA for sure most indie games just dont look interesting to me not to say there are not some I like. Kena is really good, fist is fantastic are the 2 I think of in the last year or so.

Smaller games by a wide margin. AAA-level games rarely hook me into finishing them, so I feel much better about spending only $10 on something I'll tap out of playing early. Plus: the mechanics and storytelling is usually much more interesting.

I buy games that I think I will enjoy. Doesn't matter if it is AAA or small indie. I want to enjoy all kinds of games.

AAA when they are in 5-20 range, lol. But I have way money indie games anyway, mostly from Humble bundles.

I buy whatever looks interesting to me. Fairly simple. If a big budget game catches my eye, I'll buy it. If a smaller indie game catches my eye, I'll buy it.

90% of what I play is through Game Pass nowadays. I buy stuff I want to keep on my physical collection and I usually buy used or discounted. I did buy Elden Ring day 1 because I "had" to. Game Pass was a big change for me, I used to buy most shitty big releases day one just to have something to keep playing but I always kept and eye on good indie stuff too.

Usually by the end of the year my top games are a mix of big and small games.

90% of what I play is through Game Pass nowadays. I buy stuff I want to keep on my physical collection and I usually buy used or discounted. I did buy Elden Ring day 1 because I "had" to. Game Pass was a big change for me, I used to buy most shitty big releases day one just to have something to keep playing but I always kept and eye on good indie stuff too.

Usually by the end of the year my top games are a mix of big and small games.

My average price now is about 30£, and there's a gap in the voting options.

i'm a bargain hunter gamer. i work to the general idea that on console i wont pay more than £55 and on pc no more than £30, which usually means waiting for price drops / sales. i would like to buy more aaa games, i want to play games with high production values, but for the last several years i've been drifting away from the mainstream big budget as more and more of those games have adopted trends and characteristics and generally moved in a direction that's not for me

Small. You can get like 10 indie games for the price of one AAA game. And most AAA games are crap. If the indie game you bought was crap, no biggie, it was only 10 bucks anyway.

:-P

Me too. :-)

AAA for sure

Games are very expensive where I live $120 for AAA on release. (On console that is). I try and wait a bit for discount.

AAA but never for $70 on day 1.

GamePass has me covered from AAAAA to ZZZZZ. lol :P

Not a single Rare game in 4 years though :'(

Yeah but they've been delivery almost non stop yuuuuge DLC for Sea of mofo Thieves over those years. :P

Anyway, Dav brought up in the thread about the MS/Beth show in June, the possibility of seeing or hearing about Everwild. Now that would be so cool but I have my doubts. Look to have so much promise but since it's reveal, not so much. Hope Rare can deliver some magic in the end, fingers crossed.

Heard Rare didn't know what they wanted the game to be. :P

I like their imagination and creatitvity, but sometimes it can get in the way of development it seems..

Yes indeed, seems so weird they would get so far as to show what looked to be shaping up as a very cool game only to some time later say, well, we're not sure where we're going with this? How this happens these days with a major MS dev with hundreds of employees is a bit problematic.

I have never in my life bought a £70 game, it should be a crime to pay that amount if it's the basic/standard edition. I tend to buy games when they're on sale... typically below £20.

It's true, I wasn't convinced by the concept of Sea of Thieves eiter. But in the end I'm happy it became such a huge success for them.

It really seems to be a live service game done right, and a dev making the game they wanted to make.

I have all but given up on major franchises and AAA gaming in general. I Just don't like the marketing, the business ethics and practices, and the "all eggs in one basket" approach to development. All flash, little substance.

Small-scale development (whether independent or not) is where all the risk-taking, innovation, and emphasis on gameplay comes from these days. I've had more fun a handful of 10-30 dollar games recently than I have with years of 60+ dollar games.

Most of the games I try on Game Pass are from smaller studios. Not blockbusters or anything.

With that said, there are still some games from major publishers I will play because I know I like them. Games like Assassin's Creed, or Warcraft or Diablo, and....well, that's about it, actually. I can't remember the last time I bought an EA game.

I think you need non-creatives in certain management positions when developing games in order for a game to be finished. People that will say "no, we already have 30 enemy types, we don't need to spend three months developing two more" or something like that, idunno.

Star Citizen would be a brilliant game that redefines not just the niche genre of space sims, but also gaming as a whole, if it ever was released; but it is currently being managed by a creative perfectionist who won't release it until it's finished. I think the best thing that could happen to Star Citizen at this point is for the company to go bankrupt and for some angel investor with experience in management but a passion for games to buy them out and make them finish the game. Honestly if I was Chris Roberts, I think I might actually try to find someone to run my company for me. Dude needs to leave.

But if you keep adding stuff to a game and don't actually have a tangible goal as where to say "OK it is done"....the game will never be finished.

yeah feature creep can be a terrible thing.

Like you summarized so well: I'd rather get a game that gets to a 1.0 version in the end, over a game that is insanely creative, has a million enemy types, vehicles and weapons, but never gets finished.

This sums up my feelings pretty well.

"Big" games take themselves way too seriously these days, and all I really want is to have some fun.

It's sad to think this has to be explained to people, that there are actually people out there that associate video games with some kind of caste system.

Really just depends on what's dropping in a given release window. Though lately yeah it's mostly been smaller games.

A lot of the full priced stuff, kinda routine in what I'll grab and what I'll avoid. Mostly settled on which companies/teams will likely deliver on something I enjoy. Rarely a surprise, can safely ignore the majority.

Smaller games can be more exciting in that regard, hear about a game for the first time, scoop it that day and be completely absorbed.

I prefer the smaller, niche titles mostly. My reasoning is if I end up enjoying the game, there's even more satisfaction by the end of it and the case may be that you've discovered some kind of a hidden gem. It's a novelty, in other words. I can't count the amount of times I've stumbled upon an Indie title on the Eshop for cheap and have just fallen in love with it.

smaller.

More of them made these days+indie games have like soul, good gameplay, are willing to explore unique fucking ideas in established genres instead of the same mechanics everyone has.

For al the "hur dur indie games are the same"...........pls find me another platformer that plays like Celeste so I can play it.

It's a mix. I love roguelites and play a bunch of those but I also like the big AAA games as well. Including TLoU2 which I thought was amazing.

But in the last two years, I've found myself falling in love with some fantastic indies. Hades, Dead Cells, Slay the Spire, Void Bastards, ect. One of my favorite games I've played this year is Vampire Survivors which cost me a whopping $3.

I wouldn't want to give up the bigger games though. I won't necessarily dump $50-70 on them so much anymore, but I value those experiences as well. I just try to use the smaller games to bridge the gap until prices drop.

Definitely a mix.

@Jendeh: Check out Rogue Legacy 2 bruh. It's good.

I buy both pretty frequently, but most commonly on the higher side.

I just buy games that look interesting without giving the games budget much thought. If I do buy AAA games, I tend to wait for them to drop to indie game prices.

With gamepass i try games first. If I really like it then I buy it.

I buy all sorts but usually for budget prices. Elden ring was my one full price purchase this year. Everything else I'll use patience on. Works every time.