What Justifies a $60 Purchase?

[finalark]

The title is the question. Video games are expensive and spending $60 on something can be hard to justify. What makes paying full price for a game worth it to you?

Personally, I need to get a minimum of thirty hours of entertainment out of a game (this includes thirty hours over the course of several play throughs) before I can really consider it worth $60.

 

[windlessusher]

What I value the most in any video game is replay value. I would happily pay $60 for Sonic Generations, the main quest may be 5 hours or less, but I currently have 60+ hours on it cause I enjoy going back to it just doing stages here and there, seems pretty worth it to me.

That also extends to really long games too. If it's a case like Fire Emblem Awakening where I beat it once and don't want to go back to? Then yes, I start feeling some remorse, but games like Final Fantasy 7 where I always look forward to going through the quest all over again? Yes, much worth it, even if I don't ever actually go back to it, cause, y'know, backlogs and there's only soo much time one has to himself...

 

[Kurri ★]

I dunno, I don't think I have a metric aside from, was it fun?
Played Mirrors Edge for 7 hours and I'll tell you it's a must play game
Played Borderlands 2 for 30+ and I'll tell you it's not a must play, but it's fun

If a $60 game could give me the greatest hour of my life, I'd say it was worth.

 

[Minato]

Yeah, for me I'd say fun factor. I missed out on a lot of Nintendo games around the Wii era just because I didn't want to spend 50 on what might be short titles. With the Wii U, I felt like all my purchases were worth it due to the sheer amount of fun I had. I guess with the Wii U's small output of games, it's helping me go back into this habit which is nice.

 

[SphericalCrusher]

I don't think too hard on it. If it's a game that I want to get, I'll buy it for $60. Usually when I'm looking forward to a game, I buy it at launch. I don't like to wait until price drops on games I want. I play a lot of games... so my wallet gets a nice workout.

 

[Heroine of Winds]

For me, if the game is actually worth playing due to how fun it is. I hate paying for games that aren't all that fun due to frustrating controls or gameplay.

 

[Nixon Corral]

For me, it's all about how badly I want it at launch. If I know I can stand to wait on a game's price to go down, I will. If I absolutely want to be in on launch hype and discussion, I'll buy at launch.

Length doesn't really matter. I recently bought the $80 collector's edition of Persona 4: Dancing All Night because I knew it would be really fun, and I knew I'd get my money's worth for what I wanted. It was like a 10-12 hour game, and I don't regret it one bit.

To that point, my backlog is so huge that I can usually wait on games that aren't from my absolute favorite series. The only $60 games I've bought at launch in recent memory include Super Mario Maker and Metal Gear Solid V. Before that, it's been quite some time, possibly back to Smash 4. Next game I plan on spending $60 on is Persona 5, which doesn't come out for several months.

I love games, and I buy them frequently, but at this point in my life, I still find it pretty easy to outpace my ability to beat games by the rate I buy them, and that's without getting every new game at launch. It's definitely not necessary. I can fill my slate of games to play with relative ease without breaking the bank. It helps to play both old and new games, as many classics can be had for quite cheap to fill the space between new releases.

 

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

You can easily spend 60 dollars on a lot of stuff. Dishing it out for pretty much a 1-time buy and using it forever to me is a not a terrible investment. Plus, you can be selective about your purchases as well in game and have it hold its value so to speak. There are general trends in the market such as common FPS are like good for the first year, then plummet in sales ending up to be like <5 dollars. So many people buy it for that one time play, but then get rid of it. Those sort of things you wait on to play while other games such as say rare RPG gems are worth getting first time around.

Otherwise, I see the investment or the price go down the more time I use it. You can spend like 10 bucks for 2-3 hours movie. $60 for a game with probalby a one time play-through is like 20-30 hours usually for the games I pick. That is 2 per hour. Then, I might spend that 10-20 hours later in life to replay it.

 

[Khamel_IVA]

I usually think about the time how much I spend playing it and how much fun it is.
Also in some cases I think about how well it holds its value.
For example Kirby and Mario games usually never go below the 30€ limit not even as used.

 

[moist teabag]

£40 worth of content, otherwise you got ripped off.

 

[Kurri ★]

£40 worth of content, otherwise you got ripped off.

And what exactly does £40 worth of content pertain to?

 

[Reila]

I rarely pay $60 for a game, it is hard to justify putting this amount of money in a game. That's precisely one of the reasons I build a gaming PC, actually, since games are cheaper on Steam, GOG, etc.

I guess the fact I don't bother with most "big"/"AAA" releases help (nowadays low budget and indie games are far more creative and unique, so yeah). The AAA games I usually buy on release are long lasting multiplayer games, like Smash, Splatoon, Mario Kart 8, Mortal Kombat X (but I paid far less than $60 for this one), etc. For single player games, I will just wait until the price drops significantly. I still haven't bought Tropical Freeze, for example, even though I am big DK fan. Sorry Nintendo, but money doesn't grow on trees.

 

[moist teabag]

And what exactly does £40 worth of content pertain to?

Content I would be willing to pay 40 quid for I guess. Stuff like lengthy or replayable (and good) campaign and/or same with multiplayer. Dark Souls as an example of singleplayer, and Smash Bros., cs:go as examples of multiplayer.

 

[Ryu Shimazu]

Lots of replay value, honestly. Or a really good time for my money.

 

[Plunder]

At this point in my life $60 is almost irrelevant to me, it might as well be free. Of course that wasn't always the case, but it's an unavoidable bias now. Maybe I'm not ideal for this discussion however I think my opinion can still apply to most.

My bottom line is this - Was it a waste of time or not? Was it enjoyable, and would I recommend it to others?

Doesn't matter the length or re-playability or cost, I just ask simply for the game to have some impact on me and to not leave me feeling like "Welp, that was crap, I just lost X amount of hours" It just has to be enjoyable and feel like it was time well spent.

As an example I get free movie and game rentals from redbox fairly often. Even getting it for free, sometimes I will be left feeling the movie or game was a complete waste of my time. What's even worse is when it's mediocre, because then it leads you on and gives the impression it will get better but it never does.