Comment on Steam winter sale is live. What patient games are you picking up?

• cron@feddit.org ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Why would you buy a game now that you have no hardware to play on?

  Maybe I‘m wrong, but there will probably be one or two more sales until you hold that shiny new hardware in your hands.

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  • bitjunkie@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I have an Index and will probably upgrade to a Frame when it’s released.

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  • SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Valid question.

    Honestly like not-Anal said, it usually doesn’t make a ton of sense. However, I’ve found that not all sales are created equal, and sometimes some sales are much better priced, even compared to later sales. You really have to pay attention, though.

    For example, if a dev is active or WILL be active (this is where the guesswork/gambling comes in), the price of the game could go UP. I see it all the time with early access games or games that get popular. Or even with real goods, like cars or other collectables where they become more popular and either resale goes up or the manufacturer realizes they can sell it for more, or outright increases the value of the product.

    Another example is when devs play fuck-fuck games with sales, trying to draw in more attention, and it works. This happens often with undiscovered games, which, in the VR space, does happen pretty often. A good place to pay attention to is the Humble Bundles, but I know this isn’t exactly relevant to the steam sales, themselves.

    And also just like in real life, and similar with devs playing fuck-fuck games with sales and not all sales being created equal, sometimes certain dates are meaningful to the game or the devs. Like if the dev has a case of brainrot and on June 7th they offer a particularly good sale, or the VR sale happens once a year, or Black Friday or something.

    Additionally, shopping for games can actually be a bit time consuming, so even if the prices don’t go down further, finding games ahead of time can actually be rewarding. Buying your first VR headset or a headset with new features and having no games and having to shop can be a real bummer. Imagine buying a brand new car and having no gas/power until later in the year, and then also having to get it one gallon/liter/watthour at a time. With VR games, some of them do just crash in price. But usually, almost all VR games find their equilibrium in price eventually, since the community is generally all enthusiasts who want to see the community and technology grow healthy, myself included.

    And that very last point sort of applies to the previous ones, and also applies across VR in general (minus a handful of devs and won’t last if the platform gets popular since it attracts money-ghouls).

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