What kind of a game consumer am I? I am a whore. I am a dirty little consumer whore. I buy into all the big hype games, I wait in line for the new console systems, and worst of all, I spend way too much money buying games that I'll never play.

I've started to realize that I'm kind of like the analog of the female fashion addict stereotype; I spend money on clothes that I never wear, just to have it, just in case I ever need it. Instead I spend money on games that I tell myself I'll play one of these days. Everytime I go out and buy a game, I make a promise to myself. I promise myself that I'll be selfish enough someday to tell my friends that I won't hang out with them, to tell my family that I won't call them, to tell my work that I can't be bothered, and to tell my body that I can't take the time to properly feed it and exercise it. I promise that I'll veg out on the couch for as long as it takes to step through every damned quest or find every seashell or kill every Nazi and find every power up for this game. I'll never be able to keep all these promises.

How do I cope? I start off by sharing. I show off to all my gamer friends my list of games and ask them which ones I should attack first. I can't find that thread anymore. I also start rationalizing. Recently I've started to think of my hobby as two separate hobbies, the one in which I play games and the one in which I spend all kinds of time tracking down games at good prices or games at first release and buying them. There's playing, and then there's collecting.

Which brings us back to the topic of the thread. How do I decide to buy a game? If it's gotten above-average scores and seems to offer something new and innovative, something that I haven't seen yet in my gaming travels, then I will almost certainly pick the game up sooner or later. I just monitor sites like cheapassgamer.com until I see a game that I've been wanting. If it goes into the $20-$30 range then I'll usually snatch it up. If it's got lots of hype going for it and it seems that a lot of others will pick it up, then I'll get it at release time so I can join in on the fun.

I almost never pre-order anything. Crackdown is one recent exception, and all I can say is that the combination of the Halo 3 Beta offer and playing an hour of the demo have gotten me convinced. I'm honestly not all that interested in playing the beta for the sake of Halo 3; I'm just interested in joining the novelty of a separate game getting tied to a flagship sequel's beta. Does that make any sense at all? If not, then you can be pretty sure you're not a consumer whore.

I don't have much of an opinion on in-game advertising. So far I've only seen it in R6 Vegas, and it was an ad for Axe body spray, which meant that there was oogaba in a place where there normally wouldn't be any. So I appreciated it.

Digital distribution is a neat idea to me. I don't mind the thought of not possessing a physical medium of something in meatspace. All those boxes laying around just remind me of my broken promises. If all games became digitally distributed, I would feel no remorse for their purchases. Right now I know that I didn't get my money's worth out of a number of XBLA games, or out of some of Valve's Steam games like Defcon. But it doesn't seem to bother me as much as the console games. Oh, that must be because of the lower price mark.

So it comes down to: make a good game, and eventually I'll buy it. I won't even trade in my old games. I've never done that. It would hurt too much to get rid of a game that I'd played and enjoyed, and it would hurt too much to blatantly break the promise of a game that I bought and never was able to enjoy.

I'm sailing in the same boat as PXA. I've got my very own Torre di Pisa perched atop my desk. At this point the stack stares me down regularly, demanding I upgrade my computer to gaming rig status once more or be buried in a cardboard avalanche.

As to the original battery of questions, I've got similar views with the exception of indie games. Hmm, that said, I'm not sure that my definition of an indie game developer is the same as yours so it's possible that the core opinion there is the same too.

I preordered Halo 2. It was the first game I had ever preordered. I will never preorder another game. Lesson learned.

I'm still occasionally suckered in by a collector's edition if the bonus stuff sounds interesting to me.

I'm joe schmoe gamer. I don't end up with many Indie titles.

I've managed to avoid the tons'o'hype internet mill reasonably well. I do occasionally get excited about a game, but I'm at a point where I refuse to think something will be awesome until I've actually played it.

Advertising doesn't bother me in the least as long as it's done right.

And Digital Distribution has been good to me so far. I've had nothing but great experiences with Steam ever since the release of Half-Life 2.

Im a cutesy J-gaming whore. I wont buy EVERY JRPG out there, but I've been suckered into many a game because it's cute. I have many games for systems I dont even own..but hell it was on sale and cute! *sighs* Mostly WoW actually saves me money so it hasnt been as bad recently.. but I am looking forward to the Sims for the Wii and a bunch of other import cuteness.. I'm just biding my time for now.

I'm completely done with pre-ordering games. Whenever I would pre-order with EB, I had to go out of my way to place the deposit, then go out of my way again and wait in their hour long line of incompetence just to get said game. And their games usually run $10 more. Hell, I have a $30 on Burning Crusade that I still need to get back, because I found it at Best Buy.

And what do I see when I pre-order games? Full inventory that very day or the next day, lining the shelves of the big box stores. I could have just waltzed in and grabbed it, without dealing with EB Hell.

Systems on the other hand - yes. It's the one and only thing I continue to pre-order, and it's always worked out.

As for Collector's Editions, I'm done with those too. After the whole EB fiasco (oops, sorry, even though you pre-ordered 6 months in advance we don't have enough copies) I took another look at the whole CE thing. It's a complete waste of money for a neater case and maybe some dumb art book or complimentary "making of" special which should have been included on the DVD in the first place.

I used to be like yoyoson, and have a huge box of PC games to prove it. Most of them I never finished, I would just play for 5-10 hours then get bored and move to something else. I wasn't a whore so much as a junkie. I'd buy a new game just to play something new, to get that "new" smell. Most games, licensed titles especially (Star Trek Legacies?) can be fun for a few hours even if they are bad.

Now I'm much more picky, and tend to focus on games which are innovative, from independent studios, or highly polished gems of established genres. I do put money down on new things just to try them, unless it's horse armor or something obviously ridiculous. I love games like Gears of War, with a deep gameplay system that always reveals something new every time I play.

I was playing my Steam games during that whole thing.

*shrug*

You just put Steam in offline mode. It's not complicated.

Assuming you already have the content downloaded. I regularly have to juggle stuff around on my laptop due to hard disk limitations. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of good things about Steam. I just don't like having my paid content at the whims of whatever circumstances befall the host.

Average Joe.

Never preorder. I used to depend on reviews, but now demo's and word of mouth are more important. I'd find myself getting GT because of it's reviews, and I don't even care for the genre.

I used to love getting games the day they came out. Now I wait for a few weeks first before buying.

Pretty much.. seems almost a no brainer.

Actually my favorite thing about Steam isnt the whole not having to wait for something to be shipped to me or go out in the cold and buy from retail.. but the fact that each and every time I reload my PC.. all my Steam games are easily installed again.. no CD's to find again.. no keys to look for.. nothing.

If I could buy all my PC games through Steam I would in a second.

It's the only reason I've played some of those indie games released via Steam. Bored one afternoon, I downloaded the Ship and DEFCON. Otherwise, I'd have to trudge out to a mall or pay for shippping. Screw that.

oh look...another thread ending up in the "lets bash Steam" category.

WHEEEE!

Hell..go ahead.. do it.. why not.. lets have the exact same thread again.. we've done it like 50 times already.. wtf.

This is me as well.

I usually wait until it goes to the "greatest hits" price... and then try to buy THAT used. $20 or under is my sweet spot.