Hey guys! I have been playing iOS games for years now (since my ipod touch 1 ) but in the last few months I started to cut back on my "instabuy" reflex that I had for a long time: As soon as a game was really well recieved on TA or on some other platform (but mostly TA) I bought it (I look at you 5 star review games! and THIS GAME IS AWESEOM forum posts!). For this reason I have a pretty extensive back log of games right now (mostly premium or sale games) that I did not touch once since I bought them. Not only that but the real reason I am making this thread is, that I noticed a trend for games to drop prices VERY quickly. There were multiple games in the last few weeks that started somewhere around 2-5 and then dropped to 99 cents or something else DAYS or just a very few number of weeks after release. This has completely turned me of from insta-buying premium titles. I understand that there will be sales and thank god there are, cause they safe me a lot of money over the years, but the trend to "look for a few weeks/days" how it sales at a high price point and then drop it to 99cents or to have games with tons of freemium mechanics stay premium for a while before going freemium totally destroyed my trust in those premium games. Thing is: With the exception of a few companies I have saved tons of money! You can bet that most premium games that get praised here on TA get a price cut only a few weeks months after release. With the exception of hyperburner which I played extensively in beta and know what I was getting into and basically "continuing" my playing experience, I never instabought in a very long time and I am pretty happy about that. How is it going for you? Do you wait for sales? Do you have your instabuy publisher/devs? Are you an impulsive buyer? Let me know and thanks for reading! Cheers!
I have my favorite devs. and publishers so I know what's good and what's not, the devs. with the most talent are always coming through, one tip is when you see a new game look at the devs. history in the appstore and you see rather their games are good or rubbisch. I instabuy everything from Zeptolab and the Go series from Square Enix and Ustwo and several more.
Grumpyface, Radiangames and FDG are the only instabuys for me lately. The rest depends on who the devs/publishers are and what the game is about. And yeah, the GO series of SE has always been instabuys from me. DotEmu ports are instabuys IF the game was something i already liked.
If they are on sale yeah, Radiation Island, Transistor, Prune, Lili, Oceanhorn, Monument valley, Organ trail, badlands, sonic games....
It's when the premium game has a launch sale, that's what really gets me: Final Fantasy 9, Heroes of Loot 2, Warbits, White Day. I actually still haven't gotten around to firing up Warbits, but at least the other three are very good or better. Generally, I hold off on instabuying on launch, but the ones for which I've bucked that trend have been wholly worth it: Crashlands, Lost Socks and Super Phantom Cat were all superb, and the first two at least are genuine GOTY contenders. And I've just caved and bought Teeny Titans, despite my enormous backlog. However, I make up for my general prudence by instabuying when the sales hit. Poor impulse control...
From the perspective of minimising the occurrence of needlessly buying games upon release and then not even opening them for like a year, I can recommend that people use the "wish list" function in the App Store app. Try it out, it actually gives you at least a fraction of satisfaction in doing that because then it feels like you've taken action in same way. It's not quite buying but it's practically going right to the list of the same games you swear you'll get around to. I have games on my device that I've bought full price the minute of release, never even opened, and since then they've gone through like 3 sales. Now I only buy the ones that are absolutely epic to me, and I wishlist the ones that everyone here in the forums goes "zomg instabuy smashing the buy button instabuy instabuy" to. And I'm slowly chipping away at my games list, which is ironically, even though it's "slowly", it's more than I used to.
No. Why? Because of two reasons: A. (Personal one) I just don't play mobile much, I'm mostly on consoles, and not much on iOS or handhelds, though not for lack of good games. And B. Well, why? They'll just go on sale in a week or two so I may as well wait
More often than not, I do insta buy big premium games. Recent shenanigans in the App Store are making me rethink that, though. Too many broken/pulled games nowadays, shaking my confidence in the marketplace.
Nah. I have a folder with 49 games I've downloaded free and not or barely tried yet - and another with 39 games I've paid for and not or barely tried. It just doesn't make sense for me to instabuy games that will probably go on sale before I've reached them. That said I did instabuy Warbits and King Rabbit - no regrets with those two.
Some really sad comments in this thread. Not sad as in pathetic, but just...ugh, this is why F2P exists guys. As for the thread question? Of course I do. I buy what I want the moment it's released. I haven't gotten anything in sales or a single freebie in years. App Store pricing is ridiculous and I'd rather enjoy something I want to enjoy WHEN I want to enjoy it and not wait half a decade to save a dollar or two.
Yes, because waiting is a horrible thing to do and a few weeks is 'half a decade'. If they didn't go on sale so fast, I'd buy them close to launch.... But so so SO many games have sales a week, two, 3 after launch, sometimes as much as half off or more
I've bought so many games and never got around to playing them but only to delete them to Make room for more and repeat the cycle. One day I'll scroll back through my purchases and have time to play some hopefully
This is an interesting thread that aligns with my recent look at my mobile spending habits. At the risk of sounding like a rich snob, because I am neither, the drivers for purchasing my games aren't so much the price as it is the developer pedigree, the genre and the excitement preceding launch. I'm willing to experimentally instabuy games that typically aren't my cup o' tea if its reputation precedes it on this forum or if reviews, on Steam, are overwhelming (assuming it's a port). My interest in a particular game can be due to the entertainment value I'm currently getting and how much time I'm willing to invest into learning the ropes. Sometimes I'm in the mood to just jump right into an arcade game...other times, I'm in the mood for a drawn out tutorial, sample gameplay vids (for ports) on YouTube and reading lengthy manuals. My mileage may vary, but depending on my mood that week and the amount of space on my Air, I either keep the game on my device or delete it and make a mental note of its placement in my iOS queue purgatory, hopefully to revisit at a later, undetermined time (mwuahaha!)
Dramatic as usual... My list of games purchased is currently 200 deep right now.. I started buying games about 2 years ago.. I instabuy a few games here and there, usually 4 or 5 a month easily.. But a TON of my games have come from sale prices and free-drops.. As an example, I probably never would have purchased Mimpi Dreams for full price, but would have probably instabought it for a buck some time just for giggles, but it went free today, so it went into the collection. Oh and for the record, I have tried every game I have ever purchased, but have NEVER completed any game to date! Not one.. That does not keep me from collecting though..
Completely understand the sentiment, but I'll respond to say I have bought masses of games that I've not got around to playing, so unless I know I'm going to start playing something straight away, there's little point in me getting it on the day of release. It goes on the watch list. But yes, if it goes on sale before I'm ready for it, I'll get it then. Which only adds to the backlog, and makes it less likely that I'll buy the next game on release day - unless it's something I can't resist the buzz for, like Teeny Titans. Too many great games, too many sales.
Im in the thousands. LOL... But that's mostly back when i was just buying every single release that caught my attention. Back when we didnt have kids yet. Back when it didnt really sting much if only one or two of those purchases decided to go on sale a few days after release. Recently, i still instabuy a few select games or devs, but most of the time i just play the heck of whatever i get into and ignore the releases. Also times i just play games sitting on the backlog for quite some time.
