Is there any point to buying on release any more?

In all honesty I've only ever pre ordered two games and been playing on the PC since 2001 so I never fully trusted any hype or previews. Nowadays I'm inclined to buy on release even less so.
 
Play the demos and then decide, is it a game you like and/or is the game a complete buggy mess and the dev not worthy of your money.
 
kration said:
But are there even still demos?
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Bought plenty of games on release/Pre release and had relatively few issues. Some exaggerating going on. :)

Not expensive either, generally loads of deals Pre release.
 
Last game I recall buying on release without issue was Elder Scrolls Oblivion and the rest of the Bethesda RPG games really.
Certainly are a lot more "broken" games released now than I ever remember.

Perhaps QA was generally better pre-download days?
 
lokiss said:
Unfortunately marketing is such these days, it has little or nothing to do with availability.

Publishers know their audience, highly subjective to all manner of meaningless tat, bonuses, head starts, extra exclusives ect...

They industry creates the monster, and exploits it all the more.
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Susceptible.
 
I tend to wait a bit longer to see if the developer is going to mess it up with pay to win dlcs, odds are that by waiting you'll get a few for free when its eventually bought.
 
Hiijinx said:
Perhaps QA was generally better pre-download days?
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Well of course it was, you couldn't just patch it after the fact when nobody had access to the internet, stuff actually had to work out of the box. Doesn't mean that bugs weren't an issue but they were certainly a lot less prevalent. Though the flip side was that if bugs were found they didn't get fixed :/

I see no reason other than to play it 'now' that buying on release is ever a good thing, wait a few months and you'll get a cheaper patched experience, far better all round :) Excepting online competitive stuff that is...
 
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Dano said:
Well of course it was, you couldn't just patch it after the fact when nobody had access to the internet, stuff actually had to work out of the box. Doesn't mean that bugs weren't an issue but they were certainly a lot less prevalent. Though the flip side was that if bugs were found they didn't get fixed :/
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Bugs are a minor issue compared to the new tactic of building a game, then carving half off it out to sell later on as "DLC".

I remember when buying a game meant you bought the whole game. :(
 
That too, though I'm not overly sure that isn't somewhat justified (Gods, I feel dirty just thinking it let alone admitting it...) by the fact that games really haven't changed in price for years.
 
Never understood why anyone pre-orders digiitall content.

You blame the publishers.....but its the consumers that do stupid stuff like pre-ordering that drive the industry.
 
Hiijinx said:
Last game I recall buying on release without issue was Elder Scrolls Oblivion and the rest of the Bethesda RPG games really.
Certainly are a lot more "broken" games released now than I ever remember.

Perhaps QA was generally better pre-download days?
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To be fair, games are a lot more complex than the old days, so there's a lot more to break.

Doesn't excuse the very broken state that a lot of games are released in these days, where they're beholden to the release date the publisher has told its shareholders, with the mantra that they can just fix anything after release.
 
Well its fine to pre-order from Steam now. If you dont like a game you can get a refund so in a sense you can use the steam platform as a 2 hour demo for every game available on steam. Plus when you get a refund you are also hurting the Devs as you get all your money back but Steam keep their share so the Devs end up paying for that. This should hopefully force devs to make sure their future games dont suck.
 
Pre-ordering is no longer fun. 10% off and some pointless DLC is pants.

Waiting for your £9.99 Spectrum game to arrive in the post after sending your Cheque and just hoping for the nest, that was fun. Remember when delivery times were 28 days.

Remember going into town on release Friday to see what was what?

Those days are long gone.

The era of sponsored reviews is declining owing to too many independent review sources now.
 
Edrof said:
I've been harping on about this for years now. Never, ever, ever, ever pre-order! [/I]
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To be honest, I post here a lot less than I used to, because it's like listening to a broken record, people pre-ordering and then complaining because the preformance is crap, or the game's not what they thought, or...whatever.

And then doing the same thing three weeks later with the next big hype. It's like standing in a room full of idiots who keep poking themselves in the eye, over and over, and wondering why it hurts :(
 
Drizmod said:
Plus when you get a refund you are also hurting the Devs as you get all your money back but Steam keep their share so the Devs end up paying for that.
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I heard this too but not sure how much truth there is in it, not actually checked the Steam T&C's to be honest. Though if it is the case then the greed shown by Steam is inadvertently a good thing as the devs will have to sort their **** out before release. Doesn't really help with UBI and EA as they will just use uPlay and Origin.

I've bought a few things on pre-release but Batman was the last straw for me, admittedly it was only £18 on G2A on the PayPal promo but WB, Rocksteady and Nvidia should be ashamed of themselves for releasing a Ubisoft standard product to the world.

Like most have said, wait a few hours as word spreads fast or just wait for the steam sale or go to a key website and get for a fraction of the cost.
 
Skeeter said:
Bugs are a minor issue compared to the new tactic of building a game, then carving half off it out to sell later on as "DLC".

I remember when buying a game meant you bought the whole game. :(
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Got to agree with this although when the bugs are as bad as Batman AK is suffering with right now then maybe both are huge issues for gamers. I don't buy any games on release anymore, it is just not worth it, wait for sales or atleast a few months until proper reviews are out.

Microtransactions and DLC seem more important to developers than actually releasing a good game nowadays and it is only getting worse. There are exceptions of course but as a whole, that is the way it all seems to be going.
 
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