There’s no magazine on any instance that I see of such a community on the topic matter. To anyone not familiar, a patient gamer is someone who is immune to FOMO, doesn’t get caught up or tied up with current modern gaming. Someone who doesn’t care that they’ve beaten a game from 1996 and here it is 2024. Someone who doesn’t care that they’re still playing games 40, 20 or even 5 years ago on the present day.
I would personally say that I am. I don’t have a level of disposable income where I’m throwing down on buying games. I’ve spent 10 years between 2011 and 2021 wheeling and dealing on game sales. So much that I’ve piled on over 1,000+ games combined between GOG, Steam, Battle.net and Epic Games.
I do more often than not, play games from so long ago than I do modern games. I’m at a stage in my life where I am noticeably slowing down on gaming in general, I am also finding myself more comforted in what I play and I again can’t simply just keep buying newer games. I also don’t really care about buying newer games, the time of the present is rich with game sales all day, everyday.
There will always be a time later to buy a game that is ripened for a good sale. So I don’t have to worry at all.
for games that are single player , or games that i dont intend to play online, verry much yes.
with multi player games i struggle a bit more but i try.
I used to be very patientgamer, but my patience model changed after finding again and again that buying late meant devs had wholly moved on from a game by the time I got it, and would hardly ever do basic needed fixes, things that needed to have been talked about earlier in the project. I also noticed how some early access sales would take years for the price to go up and then back down again for what amounted to only a few dollars of savings. Savings that, as I watch games I’m interested in fail in obscurity over and over, I don’t feel quite right about strictly withholding from the few devs taking chances on such projects for me, on top of not being around to try and help the project deliver a better game to players.
So, now I do buy some games in early access or even newly released, where I can poke the dev while they are still around, and my patience includes waiting for games to get through those after-buying growing pains instead of just waiting for them to drop into the discount bins, mostly forgotten by their devs and players both.
I’m still generally more strictly price-patient on most anything larger scale, both by devs and by audience.
While I admire the ideas behind patient gamers and think it probably works out really well for some people, I personally also enjoy participating in the zeitgeist from time to time. Playing Elden Ring on launch was fantastic - you really felt like you were exploring the world alongside everyone else as you’re finding Ashes and weapons that don’t even have wiki entries yet.
The thing is you don’t actually have to look at wiki entries or any media surrounding game hype really. I have virtually no spoilers on Elden ring and I still haven’t played it.
Yeah but it’s not really the same thing years later when most people are long finished with the game. Was the same with playing BG3 around release last year, participating in conversations with friends and strangers alike about discoveries in the game as it’s happening and everyone is talking about it and playing it at the same time. I’m sure similar things happened this year with Black Myth Wukong and Silent Hill 2 Remake to some extent, though I didn’t play those.
It’s not about spoilers so much as participating in the buzz and culture and community that only really occurs around release.
@Coelacanth @ndondo yeah the games are lower priced later because their value actually does decrease. I find myself simply never playing or purchasing games that I was going to wait for a price drop on. It’s kind of like watching a championship game from years ago. Even if you personally don’t know the outcome something is lost from not being in the right moment for it. This varies more with games but I think people undersell it.
I see your perspective. I think the difference with me is that I don’t value the cultural moment very much and more so care if the game is good aside from hype. The main exception being multiplayer games. Those mostly are active when they’re new.
Yes and no. It depends on the games. Usually I wait for discounts now though. I don’t have time to play every game anyways so it saves me money to wait. Even during sales, I’ll stop and ask myself if I’ll play it soon. If I don’t think I will, I usually just wait
It feels like a natural consequence of playing a lot of indie games; there’s too many little gems you just don’t hear much about on release, or which you end up only learning about because they end up bundled with something else you were being patient about.
Though I’m not even sure how I’d apply this label to traditional roguelikes, given how many are free, and how many more seem to be in a permanent state of development/‘early access’ (Caves of Qud is hitting 1.0 in a month does break my go-to example there though).
There’s definitely an appeal with some of the better AA and ‘AAA’ games too beyond financial reasons though, given the tendency for bigger studios to launch titles full of bugs these days. (I loved Cyberpunk when I played it a couple of months after release – was lucky to not experience many bugs at all on PC – but it’s so much easier to widely recommend it since it hit 2.0.
The only video game I play is Team Fortress 2, anywhere from 10 to 20 hours a week. So I guess I’m a patient gamer since my favorite game is over 6,000 days old.
It’s easy to be patient when you have a backlog of games to go through. Paying full price for a game that still has Denuvo or other forms of DRM just isn’t worth it for me. That said, I’m very sad Fantasian will be released with Denuvo soon after years of languishing in Apple Arcade.
I just bought the F.E.A.R bundle from steam a week ago or so, and beat the first game in the series 20 years after release. And other than a fan made .dll patch, it was great. Lacked some depth more modern titles have, but I also noticed how much effort was put into some details that were surprising for its age.
I don’t buy a game solely because it’s the zeitgeist or whatever. A friend of mine routinely buys games that are “the new shiny” and then doesn’t finish them, or loses interest quickly. I usually wait for a sale, some patches, and/or the dlc to be bundled into a goty edition.
Some exceptions:
I bought elden ring near launch because I’m a big enjoyer of the genre, and my friend confirmed it was good. No regrets.
I bought bg3 shortly before it’s full access. I’d liked the other games larian did, and a friend told me it was good. No regrets.
Both of those were pretty light on DLC. No season pass or “goty” editions were likely.
I’m going to wait for the dragon age game to go on sale. I don’t really trust Bioware, and I don’t know if they plan to do a bunch of dlc that will get bundled up later.
I’ve been waiting for Lies of P to get cheap. The demo was just ok when I played it, but a friend tells me it’s phenomenal.
Right now I’m playing a MUD (aardwolf). It really distills some online RPG into the essence of “go kill some stuff to level up, get new skills, and kill bigger stuff”. It’s strangely satisfying.
I think it’s fair to say I’m more patient than I was. Having kids has slowed me down on playing games constantly, but I’ve also drifted towards more indie games and away from big tentpole $60-$70 releases. Some games will be a day one purchase based on enjoying their past work(s), like Tactical Breach Wizards and Steamworld Heist 2, and the cost barrier ends up lower. The last time I went for the big AAA game on or close to launch was Hogwarts Legacy, and that was mostly for the wife since she loves all things Harry Potter.
With the sheer amount of games being released and being able to find just about anything you could want, there’s not really a need to be in on the hotness. There are plenty of games to enjoy while those other ones get cheaper and cheaper. The launch day excitement/rush of discovery is always nice though and I do wish there was some kind of a “book club but for games” where a group could go in and have a fresh experience with a game that’s already released.
yes, for the most part. unless im REALLY interested in a game, i generally wait till i find it on 50%+ sale. the last game i bought on full price was hi-fi rush, and the last one before that would have been dmc5, if the rx580 i bought at the time didnt already have a code included
Huge steam library, RTX 3060, currently playing either 7D2D, or vanilla WOW over on Warmane (excited for the upcoming move to TBC which is around 17 years old or so).
I am just so underwhelmed by most games these days that I’ve stopped buying them. I didn’t play BG3 until someone bought it for me as a gift, and then I really enjoyed the shit out of it. It probably made it even more fun that I didn’t plan to play it and had very low expectations. So I guess that’s part of the fun for me now - waiting for a sale or free game and hoping that it’s better than I imagine it to be.
Excessively patient. I’ve noticed there’s basically a 50/50 chance of any game I find interesting showing up for free on Epic eventually, so I mean, fine, I’ll wait a couple of years to save $60. Why pay for something that’ll eventually be given to you, paid for by some vulture capitalist’s dragon horde?
I take some of their money, get a free game: win/win.
…at this point, I’m pretty sure my Epic games library is way bigger than my Steam library, simply from the 3-5 free games a month that Epic tosses at you, of which like 1/3rd are actually pretty good.
What’s getting annoying now is that they’ve been tossing in like packs for freemium games. Gross. That’s not a game, guys, that’s an attempt to get us to spend more money if we’re to like this EXP/Skin pack you’ve given away.
Yeah I’ve been noticing that. It’s probably a case of it being cheaper for them than games, but I’ve also noticed they’ve not yet done a cycle where it’s ONLY freemium stuff, at least.
Next week, for example, is an Apex skin and a game. If it was JUST the skin I’d probably be less gruntled, but as it is, I find it hard to get too upset that I’m only getting 1 free game instead of 2.
In terms of pve, I am not patient at all. I would have not made it through elden ring without bleed. If I have to go through a 15 hour long quest to increase my efficiency in something by 1.5%, sign me up.
