People Aren't Buying New Games, So Valve Changed Steam.

expensive and not that good for the money they ask for.

Games are way too expensive lmao

This is basically how I treat AAA release titles. In 6 months they'll be 50% off, more performant and the major bugs will be fixed.

What keeps me from buying most games is a fear it will be a dud or not work well on my pc. And yes I know of steam refunds but I try not to abuse it.

Same, I'm not even sure I want some of the games on my list. They just caught my attention enough that I wanted to keep track of them in case I wanted them later.

That’s how I am with 99% of games. I made an exception for only 3 games so far.

Same. I have 122, though about 1/3 of them aren't released yet. I use my wishlist to keep track of games I'm interested in for the two times a year that I buy games (the Summer and Winter sales).

My rule is that if I don't buy the game after 4 sales I remove it

​​@asddasasdfulThis is literally how dev studios die

I have 37, 27 of those 37 aren't even released yet. The others are just sitting there as a book marker for sales or when I caught up on my backlog of games that I still have to play.

This is literally how dev studios die

​@xXdaemascusXxThis is literally how most dev studios die

Yet a lot of them are still too expensive even on sales.

They've almost always been this expensive though. Most titles aren't even $70 yet, they're still $60.

A third of the games on my wishlist arent even existing.
Another third is too expensive.
The last third is in early access and not worth it yet (or maybe ever) im not buying unfinished games anymore.

@michaelquintana2590 I mean, there's a big difference though in terms of games in those price brackets. I bought SC2 on launch for that price back in 2009... but it's also only one of like 3 games I bought in high school and the only game I bought that year. That's different than the modern market which seems to expect players to always by the latest game and they're all $60 standard rather than the $20-$25 standard with $60 for truly AAA.

Players and probably some of the AAA companies would benefit from a number of AAA companies offloading corporate overhead and bloat and focus on AA with a lower price point and development costs.

For everyone with a Steam backlog, paying full price for a game you probably won't play immediately makes no sense. The wishlist is just a proto-backlog before you put in any money.

The issue is there are no new games that are really ground breaking. Most people will buy a game new if it's promsing something exciting and fresh but innovation has stalled, and doing more of the same isn't going to get people excited

There is a game on my wishlist that regularly sells for under $10. It’s retail price after years is still $60

Same here, especially on the mobile app

@UberMegustador i just realized I got like 772 wishlisted games and I spend between 20-50 euros every month, meaning 1 to 3 games depending on price

Based-Consumers Unite!

@redblade0there’s lots of innovation it just gets put in the back with all the slop

Exactly how I do it. 🎉

100% what I use my wishlist for since... ever tbh. Cripple A releases killed my hype toward any release ages ago and there is only a few exceptions I would even consider to buy within the first months anyway after their technical state is known. (BG3, KCD2, HK:SS, ER to name all of them from the last 4 years or so)

Yeah, games spend too much time in Early Access, like does anyone remember Death Must Die? Peaked at almost 16k concurrent players. Well, it's been almost 3 years since it released into E.A., and now 1 year and a half since the last actual update... by the time it releases, nobody's gonna care about it anymore...

Same! I've been burned too many times to want to take the risk again. *Cough cough Heartbound*

Rich people have no idea what its like to be us

Based on my experience, in most cases, you pay $20-30 more for more pixels and worse performance. If realistic graphics are important to you, it might be worth it at some point.

For me, many indie games manage to scratch that particular itch at a much lower price.

@Silvermink87 That's my main point of contention. Games shouldn't sit at full price for years, and some even stay the same price after the sequel or follow up game is released.
EDIT: For example. Just look at The Forza series. Forza Horizon 6 is $69 and Forza Horizon 5 is at $59, the exact price it launched at. It does go on sale occasionally, but there should really be a price reduction for a 5 year old game, especially one with a replacement in the series.

Pretty much, I just wait for big sales even if it means I'm waiting years. Nothing like buying a game a few years out of date with all DLC for like $10-$30. Plus lately I've been way more into friend slop games more than anything else and they're usually all cheap anyway. Hardly ever play SP games anymore, unless it's something on the level of say DOS2, BG3, or a good roguelike like Risk of Rain 2 where I can turn off my brain and watch numbers go brr.

Idk, I don't mind paying full price for a game at all. Doesn't hurt my wallet. I wishlist games that simply look interesting for updates. But then again my steam account is over 22 years old with over 5,000 games owned.

same

I also use it to save unreleased games so that I can remember them and check back in after they're released to see if they live up to the trailer/promises made

Even if you have the money, time is still a problem: unless someone really cares about a developer, a game is really just a, "I'll get around to it eventually" sort of thing, and that time is usually gonna be when you remember it exists from a sale.

​@MadMattHand knowing that it's going to EOL soon

There are 70€ games that have been on my Wishlist for years, going on sale for as low as ~3€ countless of times.. and I still haven't bought them. I just don't have the time to play all of these games; and my aging PC can't properly play most of the "new" releases anyway. And I don't have the time to spent on gaming anymore to justify buying a new PC, considering how much component prices have skyrocketed.
Gaming used to be my world, but increasingly it's just not feasible anymore - outside of fun indies that don't demand massive new PC investments, huge game prices, and don't want to eat all your time and money with live service models.

same, but I'm a horder. I remove from wishlist and put in a notepad

@bubbasbigblast8563 true but currently I have a lot of time to play games. After work I play 5-8 hours a day. Don't have other responsibilities...or a life

This. My wishlist is for games I MIGHT buy. Not games I'm definitely going to buy.

*Or more. I have a £20 maximum for any game, and I have not spent that much on a game for 10/12 years.
So I just buy stuff that's three years old or more.🤷‍♂

Not to mention AAA companies not optimizing their games. Borderlands 4 struggles my 5070 TI And then hiney bitchford tells me to get a better computer or use the stupid AI frame rate thing. No bro I'll just buy a better made game

Ditto

exactly. I have patience, I can wait years for a 80% sale.

China also has a high cost of living inside any of the major metropolitan areas. Their rents are quite high relative to their income as I understand it. The US and Japan are also experiencing economic slowdown, the two are kind of coupled in that high cost of living means less money is available for non-essentials, which results in less money moving through the economy.

been waiting for the latter to go on sale, how is daemon x machina?

@MegaMawileTheNommer Randy seriously won with that game. Everybody stopped talking about how shit it was because no one was playing it. That allows for the diehard fans to give the 10/10 reviews they were always going to give it anyway.

​@SkigBigglerthere are no "rents" in China. 90% of Chinese people own their home

Also all AAA games being a mess at release and only after 1 year the updates fix most of the stuff, if in 1 year they didnt fix it, its not worth buying eitherway. Most are not even playing for free too, so theres also that

shh, you might spook an elephant in the room.

I occasionally sort through mine. Even with 800+ titles in it, going through it occasionally I move stuff that seems especially interesting up in the list. So when I'm actually looking to buy something I generally take stuff off the top, or at least out of the top dozen to to top hundred, based on sales and what's interesting in the moment.

If anything I wish other stores had systems as good as the steam one has been.

@iceman5117 The number is closer to 75% in urban areas, and you can replace rent with mortgage payments. I can’t find solid stats on the percentage of people still paying mortgages. China has also had plenty of their own issues with exploitative property markets. Numbers are also going to depend on where you’re looking. There are a lot of cheap properties in smaller cities (there’s also a decent number of failed city developments that have extremely cheap property but nobody living in them), but the closer you want to live to major centres the more expensive it gets. Things are also complicated by China’s housing register system, which as I understand acts as a sort of internal immigration system to control migration from rural to urban areas.

yeah my wishlist is used to keep track of games i'm interested in and then decide later on if i want it. most of the time i remove them from my list without purchasing them

@Nepgearaf it’s not a BAD game, but it’s optimization is a fucking nightmare. Open world UE5 is just not it

Same, and sometimes I might actually buy a wishlisted game that shows up at 80% off on sale.

Why remove stuff? You can manually sort it. I've over 800 games in mine, and occasionally scrool through it and push interesting stuff closer to the top. When I want to buy something I usually pick off the top, or out of the top dozen to top hundred, based on sales and momentary interest. Just with sorting I don't see a reason to remove unless something turns out to gave been total trash in the meantime so I know I'll never buy it.

How do you keep track of upcoming games then?

I've never NOT used it that way, to be honest. My wishlist has almost 2,000 items on it. I will NEVER buy even a fraction of them. They're on there to keep track of. Then, when a Humble Bundle/Choice comes around I can check whether I was somehow interested in a game in the first place, check it out, then usually promptly uninstall it, because it's garbage (there's like 1 or 2 really good items per month maybe, the rest is either the umpteenth Yakuza game, and I've only finished 0 so far!!! ... or just some indie crap, but it's still more than worth it, even just to try out some stuff).

That's one reason. The other is simply that there are way too many games coming out to ever realistically play. Worse, the broader your interest is. If you're just playing CoD or Fifa, fine. If you're into Grand Strategy games, oh boy, you better find the right one, then you probably spend 10,000 hours on it (Total War, Civ, Stellaris, Crusader Kings). And if you're into RPGs, you're also just strapped for time so much with a typical cRPG taking 50 to 100 hours or more ... and ARPGs like Diablo being practically endless. And THEN there are all the OTHER games out there. From your Wartales to your Tycoons to some 3rd person and 1st person games. Or the good amount of Souls-Likes. The list goes on. Even if I wanted to buy them all, I wouldn't have time to play them. My library still has over 150 installed games in it. 2,000 on my wishlist, which I will likely never buy. I just bought Transport Fever 2, because it was at an historical low of 3.99! Will I ever really play it? I HOPE so ... but currently I'm just trying to get through Wasteland 2, and then I've got a dozen other RPGs on my list, including Baldur's Gate 3, Divinity Original Sin 2, Rogue Trader (and they already announced a different WH40k RPG), both Pathfinders, Pillars 2, and some other ones ... ain't nobody got time! Nor money! For all I care, the gaming industry could crash for 10 years and not produce a single game. And I'd still not be out of games to play that I already own.

Same.

same here, and sales are just happy conveniences if they come at a time where I am looking for the next thing to play

@HandsomeTez you are underestimating the importance. it can be misleading if not seen correctly yes but it can be utilised well and it does get utilised.

Yeah, that's me as well. But it's certainly not an indication of what I'm going to buy, most of the games I find interesting do not make the final cut.

This!

This has always been the case with games, that said there's more worth considering these days if you are an indie fan, but thanks to outright slop the hit ratios are off since there's like 100 vibe coded asset flips to every game it feels like

True af

Devs are using it wrong if they interpret stats as people actually intending to buy.

If Steam wants more useful stats from it then they need to add "news list", "discount list", "buy full price list".

Same.

People have money. But how many 100 hour games do they think people are going to consume a year? And why buy unknown new releases vs mature discounted games with an established mod ecosystem and reviews that they are worth the playtime?

I also use it for games I have on console that I don't wanna buy again.

The wishlist isn't a promise to buy and the devs should know that and plan accordingly. Frequently what they do is price their game like it's a scarcity product, when in reality it is nothing of the sort. That's their mismanagement.

@4675636B They really don't. All money I get goes to survival now and every single person I know with a steam account has mentioned tightening the coin purse with games within the last year. There's only one person I know (that's very well off) that regularly buys new games, especially AAA games. It's a money thing. I used to not have a wishlist because I just bought games I really wanted.

what about Indie games?

Same!!

Vicious! I like it

If we don't own it they should charge us less. Why pay a premium for substandard customer service? They can take away my game, I can refuse to buy it in the first place.

Agree; haven't seen a AAA from an established publisher that I've been interested in for years.

What's the record? I've got one that's been on my wishlist for nine years (Locus Solus) and I just leave it on there out of morbid curiosity to see if anything ever happens with it. XD

@MadMattH there is an easy way for a dev to get me to buy there game it's a 90% sale.

@isaracloress471 I remember playing the just cause 2 demo over and over same with infamous at the Sony store

💯

​@Qwertypdeb I mean majority of Indie games are under 50$ meanwhile pretty much all AAA games are 60$-80$+

Majority of my library is Indie and Indies don't require high tier expensive ass rigs to run most of them.

AAA relied heavily on people buying and upgrading their rigs. They killed optimization when it used to be a requirement to even be in game development. Since the beginning of games had limited capacity in pretty much everything you needed to ensure maximum optimization. Once everything got better and better and better AAA game companies threw alot of quality work out the window in order to maximize profits in the quickest time frame.

​@QwertypdebIndie stuff isn’t really my thing, so I’m not going to pretend I understand it. But according to the data in this video, if they’re under $10, they stand a really good chance.

Demos should be the standard

So much this. There are way fewer games I'll take a chance on since demos stopped being so much of a thing. I've gotten stung by enough well reviewed games i hated that I'm not willing to risk a bunch of money on something I'm really not sure about.

It’s not that I don’t have fun money, I don’t have fun time anymore😢 There’s games I’d like to play, but I don’t have the time to play them. So, I don’t buy them because I know I can’t play them. I still haven’t beaten bg3🫠

i went into a Publix grocery the other day (U.S. grocery chain) and a 23 oz box of Fruit Loops was $9 ... before tax. nearly $10 with tax. F*CKING FRUIT LOOPS.

One of my bigger issues is how poorly optimized many games are on release.

I think I may be way closer to 100%. With two caveats. (1) As you say, games may sit there to I get around to it - there are ten year old games on my list - but I do expect to buy them at some point still. (2) I add titles to the list that seem promising to me. If and when it becomes clear thats no longer the case; e.g. revealed by a crappy demo or Youtube let's play, I just delete them off the list again.

my oldest coming soon is from 2021
I also have a few (unavailable item) from as far back as 2015

half price is full price

Yeah I was gonna say, I guessed like 10% and thought he was about to drop some crazy small conversion rate like 0.05% or something as the big reveal.

I wishlist a lot of games, but often it'll be so I can track when they go on sale in a year or two... And then when a year or two comes, I decide I don't really care anymore. Or a friend will mention a game, and I'll wishlist it so I can look it up later, and then forget about it. There's just not a lot of time to play games, and lots of cool eye catching game concepts to wishlist!

​@duopolycon steam has a good no questions asked return policy that can help replace the need for demos in many cases.

I’m trying to use my wishlist as my “backlog”. Instead of buying a game that seems interesting, I put it on my wishlist.

I'd hazard to disagree. The more expensive everything is the less you want to spend on recreation, and I believe that video games are one of the most cost effective methods of entertainment time to cost. Recreation is a human need, not just a commodity.

My exact thoughts. I’ll ideally buy a game at 40-60% off but if I fall in love with it I’m happy to pay full price for DLC especially if I’ve already sunk a ton of hours already.

I hate to break it to you

This is Steams BEST year to date, since inception, this is Steams BEST year ever

@eggs__sgge Which is why older games are bought more. They're cheaper. So both of you are right.

@eggs__sgge yeah, and eating and paying the rent/mortgage is the priority. No one said recreation isn't a need, only that money is limited for the vast majority of people. And in those cases, even with Steam being a very good service, it still costs money. Piracy then comes to the table

"coming soon" in video game terms means "less than 10 years"

​@Ober1kenobiWell Sony screwed up, XBox also kicked the Balls with their GamePass increase and the Switch 2 still is only in speeding up so it is sadly no wonder. A huge portion of the market is driven to PC right now.

should be pinned comment. not to mention most newer games are not optimized and some have caused hardware failures because of that. also zero day security issues if you want to play multiplayer. or devs release the game and basically abandon the game to focus on the mobile version instead. new games are like buying a new model of car now, loses half the value as soon as it hits your library and critical unknown issues 6 months after release.

yeah i generally never buy games more than $26 and the fact that some triple a's sit at $60 years after release is baffling

What indie game released recently yiu thought was too high? For me 40$ for an 8ndie is too much unless its AAA quality

….And never getting completed in some cases.

@GreyMaria or some of us trying to make it so that games aren't £80 on launch like bro even people who can afford it ain't paying that much

@GreyMaria I'm trying to afford rent, not GTA VI. Sorry, Rockstar.

Affording games is one thing. The games being worth their price tag is another.

​@Bjorkboxit is crazy to me how they think, a game from 10 years ago should be priced the same or even higher just because they went digital

I was going to say I'm eating mostly beans and rice right now. The average cost for my meals is less than $4 and I only eat twice a day.

I'm not buying $100 slop from people who hate me.

I do not buy games on launch day any more. Prefer to wait till patches based on community feedback happen. Backlog is too big for me to want to play a new game anyway. Instead I watch youtube reviews and wishlist. And then when I have a long weekend or whatever, I'll check to see if anything I want to play is actually on sale.

That and there's SO many games out there. If I had the money to pay full price, I would happily- but why would I spend 40 dollars on one game when I can wait for sales and get 4 or 5 for the same amount, if not more?

I can absolutely afford games and I'm still not buying them. For one, I don't feel it's worth it vs playing one of my older games I haven't even started yet.

The devs absolutely hate that they can't monetize you being able to play old games you already own. Thats why every other platform is taking your libraries away.

For two, the reason I can afford games is I have a demanding high pay job. So, when am I going to have time to play games?

@kevinducharme7537 sammme!!! Super useful!

@Aerinndis they put AI tags on games that use it

That just isn’t true. They’re expensive asf, which is why they aren’t selling. There’s been plenty of great games this year.

​@melissablick779I have like 3 maybe 2 games coming up that I will pre-order and pick up at launch, they're the only games I buy at launch and have been 4 or 5 years in development. And what's more that's the last time I'm likely to do that thanks to Sony, I only ever bought new because there was something physical that came with that, 99% of my games have gamestop stickers, and my digital collection on Playstation alone are all ps1 titles that were on sale for a dollar, I'm not rich, and I'm sure as dhit not risking $70 on a digital license they have openly admitted they'll take away on a whim. Steam has the most games I've bought all were either free or on sale, I found most of them years after release, do yeah"laynch day sales" is a fantasy they're making worse.

A game should only be allowed to be on steam as coming soon 3 or 4 months before lunch, the situation now is ridiculous

Yeah fantastic new feature. I have found several great new Indy games thru it.

yeah i rarely buy a game at release. Onimusha is actually a title i guess i have to buy now :D

also used to be able to get current gen hardware for 500-800$ now even consoles are going 1000$+ simply cant play modern AAA games on older hardware need to stop with the forced ray tracing and 0 optimization

Paying for early access is Scam. Like we paid for the beta testing?

​@TheGunk-fk5hb
I am not here to start an argument, merely saying something.

For my perspective, I never really bought any new games. Maybe some old games but never new releases, I'm not an indie fan or some corporate glazer. Just a consumer who wants what is best for them.

So looking at the shop and events and sales, there isn't much for me to buy, it's mostly the same titles from well known studios or some veeery niche game that I'm personally not a fan of.

I actually bought like 4 games last month because of it

Yeah, Baldur's Gate sold really well.

I don't buy games in early access. Wait till the full release. It spoils the experience.

What about a pixel art game at 20 dollars?

Yeah, that's been a big help to me, I've seen some games I wouldn't normally consider because I haven't seen them before.

​@karlhans6678 Do you classify the worth of a game purely by the art style?

Nerd.

​@psychiartist122 It REALLY depends on the developer and the player. Some early access stuff is cool. Subnautica and Grounded spring immediately to mind, as well as pre microsoft minecraft which was in beta forever.

But yeah, a lot of devs use it to put out a trash game and then never finish it.

Ondunreal has the... Old unreal games on it free, go get some frags yo

​@diegof4p2All the more time to clear out the backlog

AI isn't going anywhere and we are winning that fight. Get used to it.

25% isn't enough. Has to be over 50% for the modern game to even be at a price point that is worth the game. I am not paying $80-$100 to watch an ignorant political statement, based on emotions and delusions with interactive moments.😂😂😂😂😂

@karlhans6678
Bought Silksong twice (on steam and on switch) at launch because of the price and value.

This is the real answer. By waiting you aren't just getting a discount, but it has also become the only way to get the full bug fixed experience. Publishers, particularly AAA ones are paying the price for their own greed in releasing one incomplete game after other.

​​@BeefBurrito97they are garbage. Garbage. I will pay $100 for a game I deem worth $100 Dragon Age Trans Awakening was just garbage. These games have systems less sophisticated and capable than games of 2015 or earlier etc. like 1 out 100 new games is good.😂😂😂

@theexaustedslimeI mean some devs don’t intend to put out a trash game, they just fail in an actual lack of experience and skill. And scope creep has killed more early access games than outright scams. Its a mixed bag for sure.

That's so real. I have almost entirely stopped buying early access games because it's really a coin flip on whether or not they ever get completed. Even games that supposedly release in a "complete" state often end up being buggy messes with performance, balance, and gameplay issues. And the fact that these AAA parasites have the gall to ask me for 100$ for some copy-paste sloppy unoptimized game is crazy. I've got a comfortable library at this point, I'm not wasting my money on some slop that's never gonna be fixed or finished when I can focus on the games that actually do have a fun and polished experience. All of that of course is ignoring the fact that most live service games die pretty quickly and it's a complete waste of time and money to even bother with them nine out of ten times.

@fyrestorme I dont think so, I think its folks like me that load up steam on the daily just to see slop games and too many mature adult games. The store has changed drastically in the last 10 years, I barely check it anymore, I just wait for wishlist notifications to pop up.

And in fact, they gave out some invites to people who applied (I got mine that way, I assume because of the amount of time I’m spending on Battlefield). So yeah, the math looks pretty accurate.

@james2042 actually it almost reached 250k players though for the last bit it was fully open but it was only open for less than a day
You are certainly right that most people pre ordered it to try it, though the devs do encourage to refund it if people don't like it which is pretty cool I suppose

Dragons dogma 2 got denuvo removed. It works now smooth and many performance upgrades where made and ingame items put in and imporvements. Only as tip. When you like that franchise.

@kevinducharme7537 me also, found especially indie games

Actually, better tools for tracking news on updates in general for games on your wishlist would be good. It'd be great to be able to easily track the development of games in Early Access.

DRM changes should be a higher priority for tracking, too, not just Denuvo. Denuvo is bad, Capcom retroactively adding Enigma to their games is worse.

Yup. That also applies to indie games sadly. There are a lot of simple but fun games, but I'm not paying the $20+ they released it or early accessed it at and will pay what it's worth to me: $5 or so. AAA and AA are so far in the clouds for their pricing that it's just not worth it most of the time. Even worse when they want to release 10-20 dlc and make me never want to pick up the game unless it's a complete bundle for a reasonable price. I have no point to pay what we used to pay for expansion passes ($20-30) when most of the dlc now days is minor additions with tons of cosmetics I couldn't care less about.

@ouroboros_defiance hot dog! thanks for mentioning that

Does Denuvo even work? It does nothing on Arc Raiders

And not buy any of them in the end, because most sales are 20-30% now, and those games need to be AT LEAST 50% OFF for me to buy them. I have some games in my wishlist from 2018... that are perpetually on sale, but their sale % is not enough for me to buy it lmao. Or I would have bought it when I found them.

life is getting expensive, not games, $20 being expensive is a sign we are fucked

Most people should stop buying games and films. There are more important things in the world where people cannot afford basic life.

Edit: Exactly why you don't believe comments just because they have more likes. Letting corporates steal your money for games and leisure are TWO DIFFERENT things.

You will be more miserable either way without your money by having temporary rental games. Do not pay these people when they've gone greedy.

The guy below misunderstood me. You can play games without giving your money to the corporates. "Leisure" and letting them manipulate you are two different things. Calling it a miserable life, your life while playing games isn't not miserable. You can play games without paying them. These people do not want you to do that.

People supporting the coporates are the exact type of people who will make you go broke. Do not listen to these manipulators. They want your money. Do not give in. Or be a clown go ahead.

@WinterDominus a well paid job means you don’t care about the price

Only true for AAA. Indie games are still amazing value.

@elrennot ya same for me, although I get some indies at times because their base price is quite low already and a 30-40% discount is good enough for me to get interested

Games like Crimson Desert or Clair Obscur Expedition 33 used AI and they were great.
Just avoid the clear shovelwares and that's it.

Wishlist :
On launch,
On sale,
Keep eye on,
In future,
For birthday,
When have time,
When master card stop ffs.

And many others reasons someone wishlist game.

Hopefully Wardogs can maintain min 15k of players playing at any given time and they will be golden for the long haul. It's a niche game and a lot of Battlenormies and Call of Donuts players will inevitably bounce from it as can be seen by their missguided feedback on Steam forums and Reddit 🥀

Love this comment 😂😂👏🏻

Exactly! You save them for when you DO want something new to play.

@MatthewDubin ik this is out of context, but I think it also plays a hand in this, people in 2026 are mostly not buying games to simply save for gta 6, percentage wise idk, could be high or even low

The fact they added an anticheat that wouldn't make the game run on Linux anymore is also disappointing.

@fyrestorme and among those there might be 1or2 game which deserved success but failed cause it couldn't attract enough attention.its sad but what can we do about that

Depends. If it's a cheap game under $7 I'll pay full price or small discount. For more expensive games I DEFINITELY need a bigger discount, unless I have a reason to buy it pretty new.
Plus, there's usually a bunch of DLC that'll be discounted or included later.

@BivalveOutlaw thats for later 🗿

Exactly. We don’t own anything these days. Just have access as long as they want to allow it.

@Frankoev real as hell, also, whatcha sellin :o

Dustfront RTS and starship simulator

Why buy a buggy pre-release that will probably become abandonware for £80, when I can wait five years for the game to maybe be playable, moddable, and £20?

Sometimes old, less publicized games give you a bonus payment for trying them out. I scroll around for these when I am low on funds.

@PetitTasdeBoue E33 does not use AI. They had a grand total of 1 placeholder asset made with AI and they already replaced it. Stop spreading misinfo

@missFrill my backlog is only older classics. I got like 60 games on it. Rarely add new ones and don't mix in games I kinda want to play. These are must-plays for real gamer fans, well taking genre preference into consideration. My backlog used to be a 100-200 games list with a bunch of crap on it. I am very patient with new releases. I can wait for all DLC and patches have released, and all hype is gone, to see if it's actually worth the 10 dollars it will be discounted at in the future. There are a few games like Gothic 1+2, Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines, Spec Ops: The Line, Deadly Premonition and PlaneScape Torment to name a few, are games that people realize over time were great games, but would just release with normal hype like the rest of the games releasing in a year. Dishonored had a little bit of that too, when Bioshock got all the praise. Sometimes, time is what we need to take a more informed purchasing decision.

@internettoon I'd like to know too!

Exactly! My wishlist is basically either waiting for super sale or waiting for me to buy a better PC! And yeah, there is not that many new games... I usually wait to see some gameplay or someone really playing it before putting money on it. Like you said... I don't have much time or money, so I'm not paying to play some AAA slop...

Exactly this ^

Yeah, basically waiting for the game to be finished. The way they should be on release. Wild.

That would eliminate most of new games with great visuals. Even graphic cards use AI to upscale fps. We cant avoid AI in games.

@espiongerbil Yeah, when you consider how games are chopped up into base + DLCs, optimization (if you ever get it) comes way after release, bugs that should've been caught by proper QA get caught by users, and so on, games are rarely released complete these days. Maybe not as bad as the Turd Standard, Cyberpunk 2077, which is fantastic *now*, but most, if not at least many, games release that way...broken and incomplete.

Same, except it's typically just waiting for early access to end. I'm done with early accesss.

@BeefBurrito97 name those great games please.

@patientzero-ig1zj its very telling that we consumers can't even expect this at launch anymore

@Goku-Kid this is an underrated comment. There are some games I’ll never pick up until they hit that price point

Ngl when I see a steam sale and only see a 50% discount (I’m looking at you former PlayStation exclusives) I just go „Only 50% off ? That’s a shit sale !” and either ignore it or look at online marketplaces that sell keys (that I trust ofc)

@alexcebollero even with those sales i wouldnt pick games that redirect me to other launchers like bugisoft still waiting for 5 months for them to fix my account....

@Kafka-Youtube RIP, that stinks. Gaming has gotten too expensive so I’ve limited how much money I invest in it now. Found new hobbies too

My games last hope for release 🥲

”You’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy” -Gabe Newell

​@Dhalucario this is why my gaming pc is still windows despite every other machine I own being Linux. As much as I hate windows, gaming is still forced on it by too many devs

/patientgamers. Not buying anything under 75% off / $20. I can wait, there's plenty of games and constant sales.

Still waiting for FS2017 DLC season to ever go on sale. Giants, do you want money or not?

Yep. My nephew bought Skyrim for almost $100. I got the Special edition years later for like $20. I was fine with waiting, I was still playing Morrowind.

Go on, if you're as good as Afallon, I could be interested...

Where is Sprocket 1.0? 😢

@TheMorriganAensland right it’s about total cost vs how long I expect to play the game. If it’s a small idle game, between 1 to 5 dollars seems reasonable. A complete collection of 5 games?, an average of 5 per game seems reasonable without a discount.

This is a valid concern, but no way to actually think about a solution. "Oh, the publisher will take it anyway, so it should go to Steam" hurts indies 100% of the time, while the opposite only has the potential to screw them over.

Steam is a quasi-monopoly, you cannot choose not to publish on Steam. And losing 30% right off the bat is nuts.

You conflated "power" with skill, because it's not skill that makes publishers get the bigger cut, it's the fact that they are invested/fund the developer and provide services like promotion etc.

​@portal_sentinel 30% is industry standard. In a LOT of industries.

@kindredbarkmaw2509 yes, and as literally stated in the video, it is also industry standard to adjust percentages to revenue (see the Apple example). Steam does do percentage cuts on super big titles, which shows that this cut is too big for literally everyone, but no one can do anything. Epic does 12% to try to compete, but people heavily prefer Steam, so that doesn't force their hand to reduce their margins.

I would rather Steam have my money.

Around that much for me too

@rhawkas2637 I just found ~10 titles from 2015-2018 that were STILL "early access"! xP

Couldn't agree more. Wishlisting an indie title means I want to be informed when it leaves EA. Wishlisting a AA studio's games means I want to know when when there are enough reviews to determine if they're good. Wishlisting a AAA studio's game means I want to be informed when it drops below $40. I spend MORE on indie games than I do on AAA games b/c the latter only wants to funnel my money to the C-suite while they devastate their devs' lives post-launch. I Wishlist grand/strat titles and DLC almost w/o looking into them further b/c that's my favorite genre; I put over 4k hours into Gladius: Relics of War (2018), but I didn't even touch Civ 7, b/c the reviews after the first week were AWFUL. I never Wishlist cRPGs b/c they're ALWAYS buggy on launch, but I put over 3k hours into BG3 (2023). I automatically Ignore all titles from Bethesda, but I auto-Wishlist Stardock games. The Wishlist DOES NOT MEAN what the industry has always ASSUMED it meant.

Goated game but 25 doesn't seem too bad! Bought it but haven't played yet

@Deevoz GGG is the rare few company I trust!

Same here, add a bunch of games to my wishlist when they seem vaguely interesting, then I see I have too many things on my wishlist so I go and do a purge.

For me is in the name... idk if is because im not native english speaker

That's exactly why I stopped buying games at launch. Wait a year, get it cheaper with all the bugs worked out. I'd gladly pay full price at launch if they could deliver the game we eventually get after months of patches.

There are no indie games that cost even half of that.

​@nidungr3496not the point at all

On top of this, I'd say that not all games are created equal. There's a LOT of slop out there, even AAA slop. And they expect you to buy it.

My backlog goes all the way back to PS2 and Wii, so I'm not in any sort of rush to buy new games at launch with these crazy prices.

@guntherpea man, the big clearance bins chocked with old and second hand games for previous gen consoles kept me eating good when I was a kid 😂

Black Ops 2 is honestly a better example. Without a sale, even after all these years, is still full price when it originally launched.

@fabiobaldan556 or $70 to try out a game is unreasonable

capitalism keeps tricking us into trying to solve the wrong problem.

@lavkian Sure blame capitalism and not the people who ruin every system they take charge of.

​@Green.n.Purplecapitalism is literally the system that gets and keeps these people in power, and is designed to screw everyone else over. They are blaming capitalism because capitalism is at fault. That is just a fact. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

I can't tell you how many times I've found a neat 10 year old indie JRPG through a youtube video or something, just to go to Steam and find it selling for $60 (which is often higher than it should've been on launch).

@patrickholzer6415 Now let's look at what happened with every other system.
Oh look, looks like those people got and kept the power there too until it all came crashing down violently.

I wait for heavy discounts, Which ends up being less than 10% of my wishlist. Some games never do 80% or more on sales. Even after years. Give it 10 more years, maybe 20 more years and the game is now irrelevant and now they lost my money completely because im no longer interested in it.

You should buy more indie games! $10-$20 for a game that's already finished and fun. You could genuinely buy 5-6 all-time indie classics for the same price as one terrible Ubisoft open-world action game.

Wishlists as bookmarks is pretty much how everyone uses it. The average wishlist on Steam for an average game will only convert to a sale 10-20% of the time within the first year, and any game will have thousands of wishlist deletions. Game developers know this and take that into account when they look at their wishlist numbers. My next game has about 15,000 wishlists now and will probably release with about 25,000. I doubt the game will get more than 2500 sales in the first couple weeks; it'd be an incredible success if it sold beyond that. If it sold 25,000 copies, I'd be set for literally years.

Unfinished product is debatable, but actually games have become considerably cheaper in the last few decades. That is because price increased less than inflation. 20 years ago a new triple A game cost 40-60$, which would be 60-90$ in todays money.

And what about indie games that is 9.99 euros or 19.99 euros? Why do people not buy those and wait for a sale like between 2 euros and 7 euros. But buying GTA6 is another story 🤦 if gta6 is 100 euros or more. There is no more financial issues

Thats why indiedevs cant make another new game because people would like to have it for free instead paying for a small price.. 😓 Its just sad...

its also weird imo. I understand that you wanna get people to buy your new games but hell, just wait for the new game to be a year in before the old one gets cheaper.
put an obvious hint in the description like "NO UPDATES PLANNED, COMPATIBILITY WITH WINDOWS > 10 NOT ENSURED" or whatever applies, so that buyers know its an old game and put it up for 50% of the original value permanently. whats the loss? you already got the money you expected, perhaps you get a little more with literally 10 minutes of effort instead of just throwing it into the digital bin.

@theexaustedslime Yes, it works well for sandbox and simulation style games, where the incomplete game can still be fully playable and enjoyable, and more content in later updates would only be an nice bonus.
But I would never buy a heavily story based game in early access (if like only 80% of the story is accessible and then they never finish it that would be infuriating), or if I was into multiplayer (which I'm not) I probably would not buy a multiplayer oriented game if the networking stuff was already very polished.

​@roxannafabiolastefaniuc3606because waiting is cheap and the obvious choice if it's not urgent? Furthermore value is pretty subjective and a lot of people don't value the games at their main selling price

@UnrealZmeu just pirate it, get all the DLC for free.

@roxannafabiolastefaniuc3606 I already have hundreds of games on my account, why would I be in a rush to buy another game that is likely riddled with bugs on release instead of getting the fixed version AND pay less?

this. also it's reason why some of 5$ indie games are exploding. much less risk of bad investment. AAA game industry did this to themselves

Yeah I guesed 5%

​@StAngerNo160-90 in your preferred currency IS what they ask now. Where's the cheaper?😂

@zakpearce7826 Exactly we arent in any rush. There is so many games, even from those I already own and can play.

Oh yeah, don't worry about that. I'll happily buy your old game, as long as it's good and fun to me. If I can find it ofc.

Focus on making and maintaining a fun game that places the player's enjoyment in terms of gameplay and usability first. Don't use any weasel tactics and you're good to go. The only way to lose me then is lack of appeal, but that's deeply personal so that's always going to be hit or miss anyway.

Definitely don't try to go middle of the road, keep a unique personal touch in theme and gameplay. It's what makes me buy indie games that try something "new". Though sometimes new is actually old but forgotten by modern studios. Just don't try to reinvent controls when what they control isn't unique to other games. All keybindings should ofc also be able to be rebound.

Also do always be honest with yourself and hire someone to spellcheck your writing/code.😊

@RBRT02 because some of your friends play it and talk about it? Or your preferable streamer plays a new game and having fun doing it?

Because you bought that many games and you won't stop.

if you have friends youre probably playing something new when they play something new
unless you only game alone

A lot of new games suck ass anyway

@MountainAmbush us old gamers gotta buy the games so young gamers like you can have anything to pirate at all

@MountainAmbush us old gamers gotta buy them so young gamers can get it at all

@HalkerVeil you don't know that though. you are the type of person who thinks they are the smartest in the room. kinda embarrassing

💯💥

@Deevoz yes dota is free

@CitizenMio I've never seen a game (collectors editions excluded) that cost 90 and only extremely rarely they cost 80. Most games nowadays are as the OP said 50-70$.

@CitizenMio this is an awfully long comment isnt it

G'day @runningwithflair yeah me too especially because for me $AUD is only worth $0.70USD & £0.50,
I am not paying $120-$150AUD for a new game that is generally BROKEN on release & takes years of updates to fix

Agreed. To add to this, if these games were optimized properly to play on PC we have, that'd make people buy too. I end up skipping too many games because the hardware requirements are so high and i can't afford to upgrade my PC. So i turn to older games or indie games

Yep, well said this is me 100%

There's a nuance here. Developers want to know that there is real interest in the product, just that price may not be ideal or competitive. But many wishlist games get added for different reasons, such as bookmarks like you said. Tracking the differences in those sorts of wishlist addition is useful information for developers. Because not everyone is actually looking by price. I have a ton of games I have added, and removed, because the development crapped out. There's no amount of price or sales that would make me buy it. Having the developers see a "40% of wishlists are skeptical of the development team" or "waiting for updates", would do a ton for maybe actually fixing development and community communication issues many devs have.

But it's absolutely not the consumers fault for using wishlists in this way and it's completely Valve's responsibility to change it to actually be more useful for everyone. Which they should. It's the right choice here to be making and is not telling consumers that what they are doing was wrong. Just that the platform was inadequate for what people were actually using it for.

EXACTLY! you have no idea WHY I bookmarked it stop pretending that you do. its a completely arbitrary collection

@vinodkumar19 Or a game they replayed like 50 times already, but might as well go for another playthrough

No one?

​@IanSavage-k4z The average person, maybe?

​@AdrianCeroniThe average person is probably gaming on there work PC.
So they are playing lot of low specs games. There is mebe a chance that they are also running bunch of emulators as well because emulation of something like
Gameboy Advance is really low spec.

@KaiserTom Yeah I didn't quite get how Valve's "changes" (did they actually change anything?) would affect anything. Sounds more like a random rant/reaction (to what?!) video. I might've missed the beginning I was doing something else. But I don't see why not (I thought they did) use/apply analytics to the success rate of wishlisting versus game sell success (taking into account value versus the original price at release), weighed (or is that "weighted") on factors that apply differently to individuals that influence their decision to buy. You'd think Valve of all gaming companies (they probably have access to the largest number of gamers) would be able to do things like that. And yeah, advise publishers based on those numbers on what they can expect their sells to be.

😚👌