now adjusted for inflation at the most ominous URL ever: https://fineleatherjackets.net/monkeyinflation
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You have a good point. It makes me wonder, though, what else we can do to support games besides buying them?
It’s bothered me for a couple years that, with games, it only really feels like I can interact with them as a consumer. The principles here are good, especially 5 (6 I will break for a deal) but it’s still all about purchasing. Even the biggest games fandoms still feel like they’re more about how you spend that almighty dollar on merch than discussion of what goes on in play (thinking of Zelda and Overwatch here (double sidenote: this is why I love Waypoint)).
I guess I’m just wondering, how do we support games?
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I think giving back to them through user created content, streaming and custom runs. XCom was made better by people getting a chance to mod it into The Long War. Speed runs and custom runs of Pokemon have definitely been supporting the games popularity and probably getting people excited for new iterations. And streaming and sharing your ideas on a games story, like the endless evaluation of Undertale that happened a few years ago, supported the game and didn’t force people to buy loot boxes to help the developers.
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I do something similar, but am perhaps not as strict… or stricter depending on how you look at it:
Q1. Do I already have something to play?
- Likely yes, because I spent a ton of money a few years back buying absolutely everything I thought I’d like.
Q2. Even if I do, do I want this game bad enough that I would start playing it immediately, and play it all the way through, if I bought it?
- Usually no. Very rarely though do I get an itch for a very specific kind of experience. (Which is why I’m currently running around the countryside in Witcher 3 and “wasting” time even though there’s plenty of variety in my “backlog”.)
If a game passes those two criteria, I don’t really mind if the game is $20, $40 or hell, even $60, and I’ll pick it up. It still means I’ve only bought 4 games this year, and spent about $70 in doing so. The last time I felt like I really needed a game at release was Dark Souls 3, and there’s nothing in the pipeline that looks like it will make me do so again. I prefer to wait and see what everybody’s opinion is of a game once all the hype has died down.
As you said: A great game stays great.
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These are some interesting points. Somehow I hadn’t thought of the obvious “streaming shares your love of a game with others”. Modding has always seemed intimidating due to knowledge required, though.
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I wish Atlus and Nintendo shared this opinion and were less draconian about their streaming policies. I think Persona 5 could have been even more successful if they let their fans stream it without weird restrictions.
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Right? When I wrote my comment, I was thinking of how with books, I can petition libraries to carry them, or try to set up a reading, or share quotes, or make a book club, etc. So many tools for sharing the story outside of just purchasing.
But come to games and suddenly you have people hobbling fan expression to, honestly, try and force a consumer relationship with potential buyers.
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If you’re talking about supporting developers in terms of their work then payment is pretty much the only way, be it through buying the game or buying merchandise. That’s true of all art really, people tend to forget that even classic masterpieces were done for money. Museums are lined with artwork paid for by patrons, not for the sheer joy of painting and expression. Talking about games, discussing games, these are all well and good but they don’t support the people who made them.
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Recommendations and gifting is also a good ways to help too. When I love a game, I share how awesome it is with my friends on discord and talk about it when I hang out and sometimes gift it to them over steam. Just watching my friends list fill up with everyone playing the same things drives me to jump in a little earlier than I would have originally.
While this may sound like a some marketing person’s dream, I think by playing a game we enjoyed and having a sharing that status on a friends list on steam, xbox live, psn or discord, we’re sorta encouraging our friends to also get in on it too.
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Recommendations and gifts are great, but they all lead to the same outcome which is payment for the game itself.
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All of the things you are mentioning support the artist directly by paying for their stuff. Libraries purchase copies of books for lending, book club members purchase the book, a reading is normally set up for the author to be there and sell copies of the book to attendees so the location will purchase copies of the book in advance. The fundamental starting point for all of these is purchase of the art.
Supporting art is important, and artists need to eat just as much as the rest of us, so there’s no shame at all in your primary or only involvement with an artist being buying their work. It’s why artists at conventions don’t want you just taking pictures and moving on, they’re displaying their art so someone will pay for it and they can make a living.
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I agree that we should support artists by buying their stuff. If I like something, I want the person who made it to be able to make more of that thing, (assuming they aren’t a garbage person like Orson Scott Card or Kevin Spacey). But I don’t think that needs to be the final interaction with that art.
I feel that once you buy something, you own it, and you can do what you want with it. Write about it, talk about it, and use it as inspiration to make something new. As long as that subsequent work attributes back to the original, I don’t see the foul. I think proper attribution, good discovery tools, and some passion will drive the artist to be supported by more people who want a piece of the original.
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I’m in general agreement with a lot of folks here. I generally look to go full price on Indies and wait for a sale for AAA, unless it’s a game I am particularly excited for. I do have a couple little quirks:
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I will often go with a physical version of a game first, then pick up a digital copy when it’s on sale.
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If I’m enjoying a game that I’ve rented, I’ll buy the DLC, as long as it’s not exploitative.
I use a simple question for game buying:
Am I, in the next 3 months, likely to get 1 hour of entertainment for every $1 this will cost me?
If the answer is yes, I’ll buy. If not, I won’t. Most of the time anyway. Sometimes the price is too good, or my hype levels are too high, and I break from this, but usually I stick to it. It’s why I almost never pay more than $20 for a game (since I do not enjoy multiplayer games).
Oh absolutely, I agree with all of that, but I think I might just be splitting hairs with the definition of interacting versus supporting. I think that those other things are meaningful and enjoyable, but I think they only support the creator in the vaguest of senses. Me talking for a couple of hours about why I really disliked Fallout 4 with people who have bought and played Fallout 4 doesn’t support Bethesda but it does allow me to interact with the game outside of playing it.
I think the only sure way to support a creator and try to ensure more of what you like gets made is to buy it. That doesn’t make your support or interaction shallow and you shouldn’t look down on it is all I’m trying to say.Paying for a game and enjoying it isn’t somehow less supportive than proselytizing about it wherever you go.
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It’s a shame that in the AAA space we’re choosing how many yachts an executive, who has probably never in their life considered the guts of how to make art in the gaming sphere, owns. Not really doing much for the person who created something we love but after 3 years of 60+ hour weeks they got burned out and had to leave, which means (for a lot of projects) that their name isn’t even listed on the credits. But they made that little detail you so love about this AAA world.
I’d definitely spend longer talking about those details you love in AAA worlds (maybe, just maybe, the person who fought to include it will hear you) than thinking you can move a needle via individual commercial consumption or even that that actually makes any difference to the machine that sucks all the money out of making games and breaks the developers who actually create the value.
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Apologies if I seemed like I was shaming; I’m well aware that artists gotta eat and money pays for food haha. There’s the old joke that art critics talk about art, while artists talk about where to find cheap turpentine.
I was thinking, rightly or wrongly, of some of the activities I mentioned supporting the artist in more of a social/environment way than just monetarily–things that show publishers and other companies that, even if sales weren’t great (and every game is a gamble) there is still enough interest around the creator to justify giving them another chance. Of course, all those things deal with money too.
I dunno though; I still think that, like with other arts, there’s more to games creation and culture than just economics. Sometimes (a lot of times) a game gets made because marketing says it will make a bunch of bucks; sometimes a game gets made to satisfy a developer’s interest in an unusual old mechanic they saw someone else talking about (roguelikes, anyone?). Neither is less art than the other (and rarely is a game purely one or the other) but the support that led to them takes different forms.
Or maybe I’m using a bad definition of support? Not gonna pretend that my knowledge of games dev goes beyond podcasts and aborted single attempts of my own
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That’s a very good set of guidelines you have there! I especially like #1. I used to have a 3 game account with gamefly just so I could keep up with the new releases but now I’ve streamlined it to just 1 game. Definitely no need to rush just to be part of the conversation. 
I’ve also been guilty of #5 and have bought games on discounted prices only to have them stockpile in my backlog (so sorry SOMA and Journey). 
Great list!
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I pre-order in a few cases:
- Games that are likely going to have limited print-runs (XSeed and Atlus titles, for example and naturally Limited Run Games) - I like having physical releases because I spent a bunch of time in libraries as a kid, and after the whole P.T. situation, I don’t trust that digital copies of games will remain available for download.
- Layaway By Any Other Name - If I pre-order through GameStop (which, I am aware, has a whole bunch of issues), then rather than taking one big hit when I purchase the game, I can instead spread out the damage it deals to my finances over the course of several months. Or, to put it another way, 50-60 bucks at one whack is considerably more damage than tanking 5-6 payments of $10 (or even 2-3 of $20). So, if it’s a title in a series I’m a big fan of (Persona, Etrian Odyssey, Final Fantasy, etc.), I’ll Pre-Order it, as I’ll want to play it anyway, and I don’t know when it’ll end up on sale (if ever).
I’ll absolutely pick up a digital title on sale, and wait on titles for series I’m not too heavily into, but there are circumstances where I’ll pre-order.
I also admit that I have a massive pile-of-shame, but I also have a variety of games that I’m in the mood for at different times, so I’ll bounce between a few titles.
Man, this is a pretty big thread on buying principles.
Here a few rules I use myself
- Preorder games that you really want and know they will sell out quick
- Limited editions only on games that are good (Good part can be subjective)
- Full price with solid titles from good early reviews, good word of mouth or positive responsive from devs
- Get games on sale for ones you missed or games you didn’t want to spend full price
- Cut down on physical unless it the first 2
