Do you buy new games, used games, or rent?

Personally, I buy most of my games. I read up on what’s good, and buy one or two really good games a month. However, sometimes while renting movies, I just get the urge to rent that really cool game that I missed a few months back, that I can probably beat in a few days.

I don’t see what all the fuss is about; I bought a used car, and my money goes to the dealership, and the credit union, or maybe I’ll go knock together a Haloween costume from Value Village (secondhand clothes store) and the only people to make money from it are the store, not the company who made the clothes.

I do see their problem though. No one cares if we buy used movies because the movie has already been in the theatres, and probably made millions of dollars. It goes to DVD, and tens of thousand of people buy copies. But with video games, an A-list game might cost millions to make, and there’s no theatre release. You buy them for $40-$60, and that’s it.

The millions in production cost though aren’t necessary, people still appreciate good gameplay. Just look at what happened to Introversion with the release of Defcon, sure they won’t make the same money the Multi Million Dollar projects of this world make, but it also didn’t cost them multi million dollars to make.

I buy quite a few new games, I dont mind paying $70-100 Australian for a good game, im more into the strategy or open ended games, like managerial Sims or Sport Sims where the longevity is good.

I do like to rent it first or play a demo though, just to make sure its not crap, but if i like it ill buy it, recently games ive purchased in the last year include Football Manager 2007,2006, X3 Re-union, Oblivion, Civilization, Sims expansions packs, EA tiger woods - ice hockey etc, I dont regret buying them for full price, i actually think they deserve the money, Ive also spent about $1000 to $2000 Aus aswell on IRE games, the majority on Achaea which i also dont regret.

Eventually i think they make you download the game and you’ll get a licence thats easilly trackable to try and limit piracy and swapping, this way they cut down on costs of manufacturing and will increase profits.

I agree some games aren’t worth fullprice, so you might by them secondhand but there’s still the entertainment value of the product to consider and maybe the manufacturers should get something.

I personally thinks its a bit hard and unfair to compare buying a used car to buying a used game. they are different products with different uses, people dont mind shelling out $100 dollars to go to live band play for 4 hours but complain when they have to shell out $60 for a game that lasts 10 times as long. I guess its all just a matter of perspective

I buy some new games, and some used. It does depend, if the game turns up second hand within a few days I’ll grab it there (I rarely go for first-day hype)

But, any company which has especially annoyed me in the last few years (like, oh, canceling a B5 game) means I won’t buy their games new. And for reference, I won’t buy *ANY* major label-affiliated music new.

Books? I buy a lot of Baen ebooks. Physical books, I tend to go second hand, and have, well, a mildly impressive scifi collection.

I buy platinum editions (cheaper editions at half the price) of most games that interest/have interested me at any moment or another. I am against paying 60€ for a game that will be costing 15€ as soon as a couple months have passed. Most computer games I like are oldies and even abandonware.

World of Warcraft, PS2 (Guitar Hero, Sims2, Kingdom hearts) and text muds covered my entertainment needs for the past year (WoW expansion probably will cover next 6 months as well). So I am not a great consumer either.

Boo-hoo, I’m so sad that game companies can’t rip money out of my wallet like they used to. So sad for them that I’m not putting up with $60 games in return for something that takes 15 hours to beat.

Hey, if Netflix and GameFly didn’t have awesome selection and service, and if they didn’t save their customers a lot of money, then the game makers would be doing just fine. But feeling sympathy for an outmoded business strategy is like feeling sympathy for the dinosaurs: it’s either adapt or perish. If they want, they can start making games that are so awesome that people want to buy them (for half the price they are now) so they can play them over and over again. But until quality gets that good and price gets that low, I’ll be updating my GameQ and saving myself some money in the process.

I bought GTA: San Andreas and GTA: Liberty City Stories for PS2 new. But I got all the rest from the EB Games cheap used games wall.
I get all my PC games new though, since there’s no where that I know of that buys and sells used PC games.

This was just something I was thinking about recently. I’ve been seeing some movie ads on the tube while trying to see if Detroit Tigers just might win the series (which look hopeless after tonight’s’ loss). It has been a good long while since I last seen a movie in the theaters, I think it was Lord of the Rings III, that was my last. It not that I don’t enjoy movies, quite the opposite, it just that buying a DVD is a greater value than going to the theater these days. I have also got a sweet computer speaker system hooked up through my Xbox 360, which I use to play my DVD movies.

Then there is the issue of buying games, and how do we buy them. I tend to always buy mine new, in those shinny boxes or the newer plastic cases (which I like much more). I am in college to study game programming, as it is an industry I wish to join here soon, so I feel that I should support them. Moreover, support them I do, as I buy about 4 – 6 games a month, since I have pretty much do not play MMO’s right now. Nothing out there worth the time, effort, or money, nothing is fun like other genres. I really don’t mind people who get their games used or just rent them. Heck, with the way the industry is moving, renting them just might be the less risk venture in finding games that are actually fun to play again.

Seems like the second golden age of video gaming might be coming to an end. As product after product is coming out and just feels ‘blah’, Unlike the late 80’s and the early part of this century.

Hey if anyone wants to give gamefly a shot, here’s a leaked promo code that I found on a gamer message board. The code is BOO30, and you can use it at http://www.gamefly.com/promo/. I think it gives you a 30 day free trial, but it expires Nov. 1, so if you want it you have to use it before then. I think you’ll see for yourself what I meant when I said above that gamefly makes the game makers look like dinosaurs.