Poll – How do you usually acquire video games?
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 at 3:45pm by DavidThings like rent, food, and Campbell’s Soup stocks cost money .. so where do video games fit into your budget? This week, we want to know:
How do you usually acquire video games?
Let us know why you voted the way you did in comments!
September 30th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
I would also add “borrow from a friend” as an option. My friends and I trade games all the time.
September 30th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
I’ll admit it, I pirate large portion of games that I play. I always buy when it comes to current consoles, but imo as soon as somethings out of print it’s fair game. I love my mid 90’s pc games.
September 30th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
I buy them the majority of the time, I occasionally borrow them from friends but usually buy them.
September 30th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
does emulating count as stealing?
September 30th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
I buy them, but almost always used or on sale (like Amazon’s gold deal sales). I hate to pay full price for a game, when I can just wait awhile and get it so much cheaper.
September 30th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
I purchase some PC games if they are either very good or have good online functionality. But when it comes to my Wii and my DS I have never bought a single game. I don’t even know what a DS game card looks like. That’s not to say I don’t have a large games collection on either one.
September 30th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
For certain games, it’s an immediate buy. Most Nintendo first party games are immediate buys because I know I will get a quality product from them. For others games that I’m not sure about, I have a GameFly account so I can test them out before buying. GameFly is really a bargain when it comes to weeding out the bad from the good games. I also buy a lot of used games from eBay.
September 30th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
I received a few of my games as gifts….
September 30th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
I buy them, and when I don’t like them I sell them on Craigslist (Just like I sold Madden 09 for the Wii for 40 last week).
September 30th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
To be truly useful, this poll should have included “buy them secondhand”… Doesn’t buying them used make a huge difference for publishers?
(I buy mine mostly used, with very few exceptions for when the game looks like it is going to have a limited release.)
September 30th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
I rarely rent anything, except for test a few titles. I buy 70% of the games second hand and only 30% new.
September 30th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
I do my reviewing/previewing early, then pre-order each one, and buy them brand new, first day.
September 30th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
I buy them. I usually wait till the game is a little old to get them at a discount. I also rent some games but I don’t like rentals because I like to finish most games I start. Unless the game is something I’m truly not sure of picking up.
But stealing, nah. Nothing’s worse than a thief and a liar.
September 30th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Wahahaha if you didn’t vote “steal them,” you are a loner, idiot, pussy or a fag.
All jokes aside, where are the options to vote for borrow, burn, trade, or make games? Who ever made this poll is loner, idiot, pussy or a fag.
September 30th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Yeah, there should be more options for the poll. Doesn’t “acquire” technically mean to “gain possession”? Perhaps “experience” would be the better word if we’re talking about renting.
September 30th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
I always use Gamefly myself. And if a game has really good multiplayer or good replayabilitly I’ll probably buy it.
September 30th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
I think it’s amazing that more people steal games than rent them. That’s actually hilarious.
Someone else mentioned it, but “borrow from a friend” would have been a pretty good option, too, even though I don’t.
Anyway, I don’t have all of the time and money in the world, so I carefully choose my games before I buy them. I don’t rent because that can get expensive (and a game rental is about a fourth of my gas tank, so I’d rather it go toward that), and I didn’t enjoy GameFly when I tried that out. And I don’t steal because that requires me to either mod my system – which I imagine I would be hopeless at – or feel guilty and dirty for the rest of my life. Plus, I like supporting the companies that make the games I like to play.
Unless I buy it used, then I give money directly to GameStop. That can make me feel as guilty and dirty as stealing them, really.
But anyway, yeah, I buy.
October 1st, 2008 at 12:08 am
I only rent a few games that I’m curious for but know I wouldn’t buy (Smash Brothers being the only game I rented 2 or 3 times before buying and still not getting bored).
For the most part I buy a few games so things like replayability or overall value are incredibly important to me, so if there’s a new game I’m unsure of, reviews help out quite a bit to see if I’ll go for a certain title.
Games are expensive here in Mexico (some not so much, other like a new console or Wii Fit are ludicrous), so I usually buy once a year when I go to the states.
October 1st, 2008 at 10:02 am
@ InvisibleMan
I consider “Steal Them” buying it second hand, because in all honesty that is what you are doing.
October 1st, 2008 at 11:44 am
@Will … that’s just dumb.
Here, read this : http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080929/0051052392.shtml
Video Game Execs Freak Out Over Used Game Sales
(from the try-learning-some-economics dept)
October 1st, 2008 at 11:46 am
Will says…
October 1st, 2008 at 10:02 am
@ InvisibleMan
I consider “Steal Them” buying it second hand, because in all honesty that is what you are doing.
===============================
That is quite possibly the most absurd comment I have ever seen on the internet.
October 1st, 2008 at 4:13 pm
If not paying for games is stealing, then technically borrowing them is stealing.
October 1st, 2008 at 4:37 pm
When I said “second hand”, I meant buying them used from a chain like GameStop, of course…
Why would that be considered “stealing”, Will?
I don’t know enough about the financials of used games, so I’m not sure if the publishers of a game get nothing when we buy their games that way.
October 1st, 2008 at 4:41 pm
(Maybe David is right: I should invest in Campbell Soup stocks. Maybe I’ll make some money so I can buy my games brand new…)
October 2nd, 2008 at 1:58 am
i gues downloading for my R4 is stealing since i’m not paying for anything and nintendo gets nothing for it… still i’m not the kind of person who has enough money to blow on lots of vedio games.
October 3rd, 2008 at 4:09 am
I was bummed that no option for importing was in place. That’s what I do, as all Wii-games are half price of norwegian games.
To make sure that everyone understands that USA is less expensive to live in then Norway I have listed all the economic differences between the two countries from my understanding:
The average income of norwegians are less then americans, we pay more taxes and food and other goods are more then that of americans. On the flipside, we don’t need to pay for health security, retirement homes and for retirement pension.
I’ll do this everytime I mention how cheap games are in USA as I’ve had to stand a lot of heat because for my statements.
October 30th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
I “steal” them (piracy) because here in Argentina they are way too expensive. For example, a PS3 cost the same as 1 standard salary (900-1000 us dollars) I can live a month (paying the rent, food, gas and even saving some) with that amount of money. So, why i would pay that much if i can have them for free? Each game cost around 150 – 200 dollars!.
Here is very famous the PS2 for example, because you can download, burn and play. I have a PC, DS and a Wii with only 1 original game (I got the Wii for free). The home brew cards (and piracy chips) have made very accessible those consoles to us.
If they had a reasonable price here, i will buy games, i prefer to buy a couple every month and really enjoy them, that download a lot and “eat them like candy”.