Tobold's Blog
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
 
Impulse buys

I was cranky and tired last night, and in a less than rational mood ended up pre-ordering Omerta - City of Gangsters. Rationally that is pretty bad bet, as the game is from Kalypso, and they have a long list of games with mediocre Metacritic scores around 60, not to mention one of their most recent games Legend of Pegasus which got a 35 score for being basically unplayable. So usually I don't pre-order Kalypso games. But I find that sometimes when I am not very fit, I make irrational impulse buys. Sometimes it's a game, sometimes it is something from the item shop of some Free2Play game.

Well, maybe I get lucky and Omerta turns out to be not so bad. It looks nice on paper: Boardwalk Empire setting, city-building game combined with XCOM-style turn-based combat. Pushes all the right buttons of my preferences. But usually the devil is in the details, and a badly executed version of your favorite genre is more likely to anger you than to please you.

Fortunately my impulse buying tendency doesn't apply to big ticket items. When I recently ordered a new car, the decision was months in the making, with several visits to the dealership, and extensive online research. But a game on Steam or a digital item in a game are relatively cheap compared to my disposable income, and increasingly easy to impulse buy. No longer do you have to actually go out to a shop to buy a game, you can do that instantly from your computer. The technology favors impulse buys. Events like Steam sales are especially dangerous in that respect.

How about you? Do you buy computer games impulsively, or do you carefully plan what you buy?

Comments:
My entertainment dollars will always be spent impulsively...that's part of the fun.
 
I have a bad habit of buying sequels/remakes of AAA games, TV series or ebooks that I have enjoyed in the past without allocating time to enjoy them.

Curiously enough, I'm more careful about buying cheap games or movie tickets. I'm more vary of wasting a few euros on something I might not enjoy, but not that careful in using a couple dozen euros on something I know I'll enjoy.. if I get around to doing so in indeterminate future. Sometimes I don't even get around to installing the damn thing. The sequel might be total garbage and I would be none the wiser.
 
I buy rarely these days as I'm only playing MMOs and they tend to last a long time. That said the buy before F2P benefits for Vanguard SoH got me even though I've since stopped playing again. I also just bought Tera to give that a try as part of the F2P conversion.
 
I plan incredably carefully then have sudden crazy moments and overrule everything I have decided and purchase anyway, normally late at night. Then I have to immediately download and play so I end up getting 2 hours sleep before work the next day. Steam has ruined my life (lack of self-discipline has nothing to do with it).
 
I've bought some pretty far out things when I somehow end up on Amazon late at night, the last of which was a box of packs of haribo gummy bears...
 
Haribo does have a web shop, which is where I buy that sort of thing. :)
 
I buy impulsively all the time... from GOG. I almost never play them either.

I just love the 90s games! Some day I'm gonna catch up on the ones I didn't play.
 
Oh, Omerta could be fun. Looking forward to your playtest. :-)
 
I used to buy games impulsively. Then I took a tally on the money I was spending vs the time I actually played those games and found that I needed to plan my purchases much better. I now only buy a game if I am 100% sure I am going to get a significant amount of play time out of it. Also, even if a game is good, but I am still playing other games, I will wait an let it go on sale. Especially if it is a single player game.
 
My impulse purchases are usually food. Sometimes games. Tycho at Penny Arcade implanted the seed in my brain for buying 10,000,000. When I saw it was less than I spent on popcorn at the movie last night (which has left a lasting salt-scar impression on my tongue even at this late hour in the subsequent day), it was pretty much an instant sale.

Was up another four hours past bedtime playing the damn thing. If you wanna talk about value... But that title taps into my specific addiction to match-3 puzzle games that tie in some meta-gaming stat progression, like puzzle quest/kingdoms.
 
I try out a game (demo, beta, pirate). Then I buy the game and play exactly the same part as I did before, and furthermore don't enjoy the game. I have no idea if you can call this impulse buy but I had this with various MMOs and other games. Its bothering me, and I don't have an explanation for it.
 
Not in years. The gaming market has evolved outside of my tastes. Most games are junk. Most of the good ones are usually FPS which I am not interested in.
 
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