I’m a game lover, I just play ones that have a lot of replay value so I don’t have to buy so many LOL. I migrated from old C64 to Super Nintendo, Wii and XBOX, XBOX360 but moved to PC gaming and Linux PC gaming around 2017.

Holy shit what restaurant are you going to that charges C$185 for a meal

A meal? I have a family of three.

I genuinely don’t get the patience. You certainly didn’t spend the C64 era with five games on that thing. Nobody who had access to a double deck tape recorder did.

And these days if you like “replay value” to that degree there’s a ton of free to play grind treadmills. In eight years I’d expect you’d have at least tried a dozen of those. That’s less than one new game a year. If you play just two hours a week that’s both a bit of a stretch on “game lover” (more of a “very strict parents heavily monitoring their kid” range) and still hundreds of hours on each of those.

I’m not judging. Games are a thing where habits can be very different, it’s just… a bit of a extreme.

I’m curious, what games are those? What types of games do you find simultaneously engaging and all-consuming enough to spend a decade in just a handful? That’s not a challenge, I’m genuinely asking. Is it fighting games? MOBAs? Definitely not a linear narrative beginning-to-end thing, right? Are you full on speedrunning them at this point or getting really competitive?

Well, let’s take a look at the games I bought today:

• Ground Control Collection was $0.51. This includes Ground Control Anthology (Ground Control and Ground Control: Dark Conspiracy) as well as Ground Control II. That’s three games – which ends up being $0.17 each.
• Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death was $0.60.
• Anuchard was $0.67
• Men of War: Red Tide was $0.59
• Moonbase Commander was $0.44

Based on today’s hauls, that’s $0.40 per game.

I wouldn’t call these games shovelware. But they’re either old or they’re indie.

Occasionally, though, I do end up with a somewhat recent AAA title. Back in March, I got Far Cry 5 for 95% off – which ended up being $4.

I was fomoing a bit on the Ground Control series that cheap, but it turns out I do own those on GOG already

I remember being astounded when that came out at a 3D RTS where you could see the empty casings pouring out of the units’ guns. Good times.

Still, that shows up for five bucks, so no discount at all. Those key resellers are doing a lot of work in that process.

GOG has some crazy good deals. Right now, you can get Warhammer 40,000: Rites of War for free:

Another game that everyone should buy – because it’s incredible – is Blake Stone: Planet Strike. That’s selling for $0.57 right now.

I only buy what i like and played or play. But yeah, large list anyway.

Okay, but you know how many games became my favourite even though nobody talked about them—but I bought them because the price was right? A stunning amount.

You still spent less than buying two AAA at release

Then don’t just stare at them, play them you fool!

Don’t worry, I’m working on that.

sounds like you just buy them cause they are cheap. most of them are probably slop. i bought a ton of games below 1 dollar at kinguin, but those were actually in my whishlist, i was waiting for them to play.

your case is similar to a collector, than an actual user. collecting can be a hobby, and if you feel comfortable in your financial situation…then keep buying them mate. if you dont, then try to set goals and boarders, make a sub bank account just for games or something.

You’ll have to stop buying eventually to play through them all or you’re always gonna have some left in the backlog at that rate. Oo maybe you can hand down your library to your kids and they can continue on the effort

You’ve gotta shake off this weird myth that price equals quality. I picked up Quake 4 and Return to Castle Wolfenstein for $0.64 each. If that’s slop, hand me a spoon.

I don’t have to play through them all, though. I’m content with a few minutes.

Why should video games provide hours of entertainment?

When I grew up, that wasn’t the expectation. You played Donkey Kong for a moment, then you moved over to Galaga.

I guess it depends on the price point. I suppose even an hour or so I’d be content with if it cost me less than a dollar, you expect a lot more out of a pricier game though

Some of my favourite games cost me less than a £

Have you played those games yet?

How do you know whether or not they are fun?

Not sure why you got downvoted, it’s a legit question. C64 was double tape deck, and then QuikCopy on the diskette drive…so many games, that I spent too much time gaming.

But a few examples of now: WRC there are enough stages and cars and can try for better stage times / try to beat your ghost car etc.

MechWarrior 5 Mercenaries, which has a story arc but once you finish the story you can just keep traveling to look for new contracts, some with difficulty so high you lose a lot of equipment and almost become bankrupt / stranded, so there is always an element of risk. Also some generated worlds/scemery are just gorgeous for exploring. I have hit some game awards only 4% of players worldwide have.

But last few years my time is on MudRunners. (Shit sorry this got way to long)… If you havent tried it: Once you complete the tutorial tasks and a few main maps the game opens up into more freedom, and the tasks and terrain can be challenging. If you burn through that there is a mod community that has built so many more maps, vehicles and challenges.

If you have never played, the initial game is drab Russian vehicles and limited colour pallette scenes, where the goal is finding logs or picking up logs from key areas and delivering them to the saw mill across swampy and muddy maps. The physics are amazing for the terrain, as you drive over areas you are morphing the soft terrains and changing traction. Drive in same area too much or without 4wd engaged and you can easily bury your truck up to the axles, so you then have to hope there is a tree nearby that you can attach your winch to and try to pull yourself out. Sometimes you can’t so you have to drive out another vehicle and do a tow out.

The American truckers DLC adds more maps and vehicles and brightens up the scenery. Same game play, different challenges. More variety.

The time in game is sped up for day night cycle, but if you are able to load the logs into your truck or trailer you have to now drive them to the log station, either over hilly fireroads roads, or through forested areas, and cross rivers. There is no timewarp. Its precarious, with janky bridges, and deep water. Wheel placement, 4WD and posi traction locks on/off are needed to navigate out of areas. Managing a load down a grade where hillside camber wants to flip your truck means attaching the winch to side of truck on up hill tree to stop you rolling as you look for a down hilltree to lean truck body against to look for next anchor tree up hill. So it can take you hours to drive 1 mile. A tree breaks or you steer to hard and your truck is on its side and stalled, so you have to drive a rescue vehicle out to try to flip it back on its wheels.

You also have to manage fuel, 4wd and spinning in mud burns through it so fast, so getting a fuel tanker truck setup in a strategic spot so you make less long runs back to a fuel station is key.

Wow, I typed a lot. But seriously I can launch this at 11pm Friday night when wife has gone to bed, and get so engrossed that the sun will start rising Saturday.
And crossing a slanted plank bridge with a huge tank of a specialized russian logging vehicle can have my palms sweating on the controller and holding my breath. One wrong tire placement or miscalculation of how much the truck will slide and you are down in the river watching your logs float away and in fast water watching the truck be dragged down the river. Damage and abuse will degrade the truck, bringing a utility or garage trailer is often required to fix the truck in field. So the game has elements of planning, resource management, goals, understanding wheel placement of off roaring.

But sometimes its just the beauty of driving out of the forest and the mist clears and sun is coming up over the hill, because some mod ad one are gorgeous.

The grappler arm log loader is also fun to operate. And sometimes its marvelling at the effort the devs went to to get soft physics right. You can swap views and see front of truck or Jeeps wheels smushing the mud as you plow forward (and accumulating mud on tires which affects grip), not too much wheel spin or you sink too much, and find out the reason you did get stuck is there is a large rock buried under the mud and its not until you get in the right position that your tire catches the rock and actually rolls it slightly to clear the underbody that you can move on.

So if you have patience for it and free time this game can fill a lot of it. LOL