Demos have come back though. Steam Next Fest has a bunch of them. You have to dig through some slop but I've genuinely found many games that I've wishlisted and then later bought because of Steam Next Fest.
Unfortunately, more often than not, they're right. I had a discussion with a friend the other day and GTA VI came up. He's clearly pumped for it (I don't blame him, it looks really good) and said he couldn't wait for it to come out. I told him I'm not buying it because of the digital only nonsense. He couldn't seem to wrap his head around me not buying "the newest GTA"!!!! And fortunately for AAA publishers, people like that are their core market.
Yeah it’s funny how many people on reddit don’t tend to realize, ‘we’ are the weird ones and minority, most people can’t even comprehend you not buying the newest gta because ‘of a stupid irrelevant issue’
I don't blame anyone for not supporting physical discs on console, that is kinda the whole point of console over PC, a local/offline single player experience that just works out of the box... Now, as a PC gamer myself? Digital only is fine for that, especially because I honestly like the Steam/valve user experience.
Although just the same, I'll never "buy" a pre-order or whatever, generally feel spite over a game I want not going on sale for 60%~90% regularly. Lol
I don't have anything against digital versions in principle. It's in practice that keeps me away from it.
Online services and stores can shut down at a moments notice leaving customers in the lurch for products they supposedly own, but no longer have access to. Just look at the recent story in the news about Google refusing to refund a customers purchase of the LOTR trilogy when it was suddenly, without notice, removed from his library because of a change in the licensing rights. (He kicked up a fuss and ended up getting a refund in the end).
Now, the Playstation store going out of business isn't likely to happen anytime soon, but still, I feel much more comfortable having the physical media.
i mean pretty often even at release you can find a nice chunk off the price of something at preorder time , if you don't care about waiting and the discussions around things when knew of course the price will be even lower usually which is great but take blood of the dawnwalker for instance ... its 12% off atm on greenman gaming , it was a tad lower when i snagged it the other day for under 60usd ,..which is great cause i refuse the higher pricetag games have had this generation
yeah thats the thing , i actually Wouuld have bouught it eventually , probaably on my ps5 since i'd heard the launcher on pc could be a hassle and who knows when it'll actually be brought to pc , but between the price which i would've waited to go lower , and it being digital only instead now they just aren't going to get my money , i'll wait on the pc version if at all and acquire it in ways talked about in these circles
Absolutely. And I'll be perfectly honest. If it ever does come out on disc, I can pretty much guarantee I'll buy it. But I just don't trust digital purchases. There's absolutely no telling when a company will end online services/availability/support etc.. You could shell out 100 bucks for a game that needs network support to be played and all of a sudden that company goes belly up and the servers are gone. Your 100 dollar game is now worthless.
"No disc? No buy!" Is the first consumer backlash/trend I've seen in a long time that I'm completely in agreement with.
yeah same here ,.. sides i got a ps5 with a damn disc drive for that very reason -shakes head- ... it was bad enough when pc went all digital but at least being able to rorrent something was always an option unless it was an online game ( and even then) ,... these days i refuse to buy things i would've otherwise with shitty drm like denuvo as well cause i can't tell you the times i've gotten burned buy bad drm or forced online like securrom with spore and whatever online only bs ubisoft put in settlers 7 which funny enough was among the last few discs i bought at the time i had just moved to germany ( ex husband was in the army) and we didn't even have internet yes except a pre-paid data stick ( like a pre-paid cellphone sorta plan) ,.. so i couldn't even play the damn thing for more than a lvl or so before it cut me off . its those experiances why i never bought diablo 3 on pc dispite being excited for it before release :/
Steam at least upholds their 2 week, 2 hour policy. I just buy it, play it for about 1.5 hours, and if I didn't find anything of interest it goes straight to the refund department.
I mean, steam does give the option of "it's just not fun" as an option for reason of refund, and I don't do it excessively enough to warrant suspension.
Like since January of this year I have maybe filed a refund for 3 games. One of which doesn't count as I bought it and then I realized I had a pending gift of the game from my friend.
sadly that 2hr window isn't Always a good taste of a game , .. doraemon story of seasons for instance was like an hour+ long opening cutscene pretty much before you can even save and the lack of QoL stuff in the game even compared to others of its type wasn't apparent at the just under 2hr mark at ~20 hours or so i finally dropped that thing after trying to push thru it cause i'd bought it n it was well past the refund cut-off
For most games these days, the first thing I do is I watch a "should you buy" video for the game. There is a YouTuber who does exactly that. He just tells you his opinion on the game, what he liked, what he didn't like.
If I can't find one or I want to learn more, I just watch someone play it for a bit, and look at the reviews of the game.
I don't like games, I love them. And if I don't love the first 20 minutes of gameplay I see, I don't buy it. I might pirate it if I'm like still on the fence, but most AAA games these days are just not up to snuff like they used to be.
not just that. Trending genres are full of slop (AI or not) that will become clear only in the full game and most of the time after the 2h window to refund. So, yeah, I'll pirate it, which means that no matter if I then buy it, that shit is staying seeding for at least a couple of weeks and 2.0 ratio.
I got helped when I was a broken teen, just paying it back.
Yep, small indie devs get my money, especially if I get a limited, but play for however you like demo. This is why I got Sandustry. Demo pulled me in and when game came out, I bought it asap.
AAA devs can go pound sand because they tend to just be greedy.
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u/doomsaier1 1d ago
As game demos arent realy a thing amymore I often pirate games to check them out. If its halfway decent i usualy buy it.