There are certain guarantees in life. For me, one of them is that anytime a Humble Indie Bundle or a big Steam sale pops up, I’m going to spend some money. At this point it’s become a reflex; I may not have time to play whatever it is I’m going to buy, but when you can get quality games for so cheap I find it hard to say no. These events may only come a few times a year, though at any given time you can head over to Steam (or GamersGate, Impulse, et al) and find any number of games heavily discounted. Roughly two dozen games are on sale on Steam right this very second, including Arcania: Gothic 4 for $4.99 (75% off), the Cities in Motion Collection for $13.99 (65% off), and Sniper Elite for $2.50 (75% off). This is great news for gamers, right? Games can be picked up for a fraction of their regular prices, developers make some money, and everyone is surely better off. Or are they?
I’ve picked up on some buying behavior of mine that’s had me questioning that line of thinking in recent months. Having not played Braid in quite some time, I thought about buying the PC version and playing it when I’m stuck with only my laptop. A quick visit to Steam showed it costs $9.99, a price that it is more than fair for such a terrific game. Yet rather than go ahead and buy the game right away, as I ordinarily would be happy to with an indie game I already own on another platform, I decided to wait. “It might be on sale soon,” I told myself. Next time I logged into Steam I found out I already owned Braid (no doubt as a result of some previous Steam sale), rendering the decision to wait a moot point. Yet it isn’t the only time I’ve found myself interested in a game that I decided to wait on in the hopes of it eventually going on sale; since buying an iPad recently, I checked on the price of Civilization Revolution every day, only to be rewarded with a big price cut after a few days. A similar situation played out with Ticket to Ride where, after a week or two of waiting, it was made available free for a day.
