We all want to get a game as soon as it comes out, whether you’ve been on the hype train since announcement or you just pick it up because you’ve got nothing better to play. Although is it better to wait a while before buying, there are many benefits to waiting if you can just fight those urges to play, how many games have you bought years ago and still haven’t got around to playing?
Now days when a game comes out it costs around £60 which is a price that seems to keep rising, I remember when £30 was a lot of money for a game who knows in 5 years £60 might seem cheap. Now the best value tends to be the pre-owned games, but not everyone wants to have second hand games and some have online passes that are redundant if the game is preowned. Still if you wait a month most games do drop prices of up to £10, which might not seem much but still if you have hardly played the game and see it £10 cheaper you’re likely to be a little peeved. Now if you can wait this extra time, which may feel like a year rather than a month, you can already make a small saving, but some places to offer deals on release which can often be a similar price to this.
Complete collection editions are a kick in the teeth for people who bought the game on release and then the subsequent dlc packs. Any edition of a game that comes out later that comes with all the add-ons that were released for the same price the game on its own cost on release, is annoying to those who bought the game straight away. Take Destiny, it’s not got a vast amount of expansion packs with there being two so far and the third set of ‘massive’ content coming out on September 15th. If you picked up the first two packs it cost around £40 in total, which is a ridiculous price for they amount the added. The Taken King will cost £40 but you can buy the legendary edition for £46 which comes with the game and the three expansion packs. This is good for people like me who didn’t buy the extra content or haven’t bought the game before, but those loyal fans who have bought everything are being a little hard done by. Surely if someone buys a game on release they are clearly a fan, or were one depending on how good the game actually was, so why penalise them by having them spending double or even triple on a game and its dlc than someone who waits a year. Why not have dlc free or even half price for those who bought the game in the first 6 months of release.
Dlc as a whole works better in the height of the games popularity. If you finished the game two months ago you are surely less likely to go back to the game for an expansion unless it is something major. Especially with the PS4 and Xbox One installing all the games making hard drive space highly fought after, chances are when you finished it is got deleted and is a skin pack really enough to warrant the re-installation? If you’re in the middle of playing it, then you are clearly hooked and have a high chance of picking up the expansion. Now this is really only in the best interests of the developers as they would want to get more sales, as you’re going to be spending more moneys, and obviously dlc can’t be released at the same time as the game release as there would be a revolt in the streets of why it’s not added into the main game. When it is free either the developers are really nice people or its nothing special. Nonetheless if you are playing the game at the time you are likely to use it, so if it’s a skin it could be a nice break from the standard outfit, but it’s hardly going to draw you back to the game. So if you wait to buy the game you will get to take advantage of the freebies you are offered, or even more inclined to buy the dlc which you may be grateful of buying. For example the Batman games love offering skins, some free others not, they are fun if you are playing the campaign, but if you’ve already completed it twice, its hardly going to have you rushing back to it. After you have left playing the game sometimes you forget how much fun you had playing it so aren’t bothered buying it, or lack the motivation to get back into the game, you may not even be as in love with the game anymore.
Day one updates are becoming far too frequent, but they don’t solve the problem with there always being a steady stream of patches. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve read what the so many gigabyte updates fixed and realised I haven’t ever experienced any of the problems. It makes me wonder if either there are just really unlucky people, or developers get bored and just make up bugs to make it look like they’re doing stuff. At the moment it seems they fix one problem but that just highlights two more glitches and so on. It’s not too much to ask that when a game is released that the majority of major bugs are resolved and all that is left is the occasional floating AI. It is understandable you can’t find everything wrong with the game before the release, especially when they have such strict deadlines to meet. Assassin’s Creed Unity was abysmal only because if all the glitches there were, the game was very fun but if they had spent more time polishing the game, it would have been received much better. So if you decide to wait before you purchase the game, there is a high probability the majority of the glitches are fixed and you can enjoy the game without having people’s faces disappearing or falling through the floor.
There are obviously advantages to buying the game on release, not having to wait for an extra year to just save some money or to play a bug free game, but also deals on release mean on some games you can make savings straight away. Although if you are debating buying a game, the best thing is to just wait a bit to see what offers or see if there are any major problems that need fixing first.
