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- GOG launch their Preservation Program to make games live forever with a hundred classics being 're-released'
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Tldr;
I don't think I missed anything in 2021 and kinda feel the same about next year.
--
I suppose I should start by saying I started this "challenge" by accident. I had no goals or motive and certianly no inspiration.
Usually, perhaps for many of us, I'm an opportunistic game purchaser. I have a few wishlists of neat games I've seen here and when they go on sale (or I see the sale announcement), I snap up few of them at the best discount I can find. I almost never buy at full price and have massed a decent library.
So at beginning of the year, I decided I wanted to try to complete more games, especially the ones with a story.
This lead me to the obvious next step: "I'm playing X, why buy Y? I'm not going to play it right away anyway. It'll be on sale again later too, maybe for less"
By the middle of the year, I realized that I've not purchased a game this year. I hadn't really noticed up until then.
I decided to make it a thing. I'm just not going to buy games this year. I mean, I hadn't even noticed I want buying anything for almost 4-5 months, so I it didn't seem like a hard challenge to complete (low hanging fruit!! That's my style!!,lol)
So it's the end of the year, and I'm still purchase free. And I think I'm better off for it.
I must admit I've had some conflicting thoughts and opinions while doing it and I'd love to hear how I'm not a true Linux gamer or something😋
- I'm a better gamer for it. Since I've nothing new to distract me, I've completed alot more games and I've come to appreciate the ones I played a lot more.
- 2021 might have been a "bad" year for games. I don't think, without looking here, I could tell you one upcoming release, let alone one that's really exciting to me. I think part of that is our niche slot in gaming as linuxers, part is the early access model. There were a lot of interesting and cool games released... But must haves???
- I saved money. I don't have a "gaming budget", but even saving 20-30$ a month, adds up.
- I'm hurting or not supporting the devs! Maybe, so what? We don't owe each other anything. Besides, is buying a game at 50-90% off really even helping? If your putting it on sale, you likely already recouped your initial costs.
Also, am I really helping a dev by buying a game I'll barely play just to show support? No. Charity support is either too small to matter or misleads a dev about their actual fan base.
-I'm not a real gamer! Probably. I know of people who get super excited for the latest and greatest. The buzz. The hype. The rig upgrades!
I can't do that. I love building PC's, but it's expensive. So are the newest games. I can buy both a little later for cheaper and after the bugs are worked out. I don't really have any pressure to purchase a game right away. If it's good, does it matter if I get it on release day?
I figured I'd share my experience in case any of you feel the same way. I'm not advocating that we all stop buying games, bit I'm curious as to your buying habits.
What about 2022? I don't know.
I'm not convinced I'm missing anything and I still have plenty of games to play.
Last edited by denyasis on 27 November 2021 at 6:06 pm UTC
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Outside of mods to games I already own and a few freeware short games that get dropped by itch.io, nothing really calls to me in the the new gaming world. I picked up a bunch of free games as they were offered, throughout the years. I tried Steam and did not like it. Got rid of my account but kept the DRM Free titles I had on it. Tried GOG but the lack of transparency with Linux native releases and their move towards a launchers has put me off. Dump that account and kept the games.
So far only itch.io and Stadia have my eye. My kids have been gifting me a bunch of indiebox games which are great but many are short which is fine with me but having boxed games in the house once again is very sweet.
I was very fortunate that my kids grew up playing the stuff I already had and played F2P games which has helped saved us all a bunch of cash. My kids still play DOTA 2, TF2 and LoL. Some even play Stardew Valley that they got via this site when it was a giveaway awhile back on GOG.
I'm not looking forward to any gaming project whatsoever. I'm just checking stuff out here out of curiosity.
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Let me ask you this. Do you think it was a conscious decision or more along the lines of being bound by circumstance?
I do agree with all of you; I'm personally not seeing a lot that I'm interested in either. Maybe I'm no longer the target audience; I get tends and tastes change, or more likely, I have a better idea of what I like and don't want to deviate from that.
Probably a mix. I remember seeing some games here and there but passing on them because they were either Windows only or too expensive. After 2005, I stopped looking all together til 2013. By then I saw too much dlc, mxt, subscription stuff I tapped out once more.
I know I'm definitely not the target audience as I'm looking for online mp games that I can host and make mods for. This has me staying with older stuff.
Last edited by Mezron on 28 November 2021 at 12:12 am UTC
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Caveat: But if you count donating to FLOSS games as "buying a game" then I'm a fraud and please disregard the above.
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I have a huge backlog and still receiving free games from various sources. So many awesome worth playing games that I kept pushing back while keep acquiring new ones...and never get around to play them.
I've come to the realization that I'll maybe never have the time to play all of them. So I've made myself a "must play" list and I'm slowly going through it.
Other thing I realize was that most of them are rather old games, so no need for new hardware, especially now with the advent of FSR (and my new Freesync monitor). I think I'm set for now.
Years ago I used to get in a frenzy during the sales time (especially on Steam), in the last two though I haven't even once check the page. I stopped caring about that.
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Also, almost all AAA titles are dog poop in all this pandemic times. Bugs "livestock center", release unfinished game, full of FOMO microtransaction predatory, and out of optimized codes which may causing failure or worse destruction to our PC hardware.
In my opinion, do not buy anything based on what you want in these turbulence time; if you cannot afford it. Trying save your money even just 1 cent. Sure, we should support the developers for their contribution towards Linux gaming. But, not on the basis that we got nothing to eat for dinner.
So, just think it as expenditure "resistor" or "regulator".
What I have been trying to do is only buying things I am going to play immediately. Buying something on sale to play in the indeterminate future is what leads to spending money on stuff that will sit on my library. Though I'll also say I feel zero guilt for games I haven't finished, I'm not going to force myself to play something just to check up a list. I'm not going to play something I don't feel like just because I bought it.
A bit of a hot take here, but I'd recommend to everyone: give up on AAA. Straight up avoid them. They are not worth your time, your money, your computer power. Sure, they do a few cool things once in a while due to sheer amount of money, but they also suck in ways no one else could and are almost always uninspired and repetitive. When small studios are bought they start to suck after a few years, and it's no coincidence.
Don't buy an overpriced GPU to accommodate AAA requirements. Don't spend a ton of money to get stuff at release, to get special editions, to get the best possible version. Instead of learning to live with AAA bullshit - anticheat, DRM, lootboxes, toxicity, bugs, day-0 DLC, abused developers, money laundering, crypto scams, etc - learn how to live with the limitations of non-infinite budgets.
Sure, make exceptions once in a while for something you really care about, but don't normalize it. No need to go all into game jam stuff and obscure one-person dev teams, just accept that AAAs are not worth it and have never been. No, it's not just newer AAAs, it was always bad.
I stop paying attention to AAA releases when Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor launched back in early 2000 and was knocking out hard drives.
My current main rig is a Raspberry Pi 4 running Twister OS with my back up gaming/work device being a System76 Gazelle 17. Since my wife and I are still playing older titles we are probably going to stick to this setup for years to come. It's been a smoother gaming/work/family computing experience since we went this route.
If the upcoming kit I ordered for a Raspberry Pi laptop goes well, we may end up selling our gaming laptops since they are going for more than what we bought them for used.
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I have a big backlog like most of us here, and by no means do I have a massive collection compared to many. Yet I will never ever finish my ~500+ games in my lifetime. This realisation led me to buy way fewer games in the past two years, saving me quite a bit of money. Why buy games I will likely never play? What do I actually owe these creative content creators? It's not up to me to have them succeed and produce more quality games.
Weird, huh? I think so.
I do still contribute to PC gaming and can happily refer to myself as a PC gamer, known for prolific use of credit cards during store sales. I'm not sure how much of a gamer you can be if you stopped buying for years...but who decides what a 'gamer' is anyways? Not me. So do what makes you happy! Spend your money on other activities you value and want to contribute to. Then again if you like a game, even if its AAA, then I believe you should support them too.