Why are people so frugal when it comes to video games?

If a gamer were to glance at their shelf, stacked with discs among discs of various games, they’d quickly acknowledge that the shelf is displaying quite a small fortune which you’ve spent in purchasing the games. It’s easy to get carried away when you play games and excitedly purchase the next one to occupy your time; but perhaps the gamer becomes oblivious to the fact that so much money could have been saved had the gamer refrained from purchasing the game and perhaps buy it at a later date when its value drops.

Now let’s compare the continuous stream of money someone would waste on console and PC games to other aspects in gaming. The developers from Stoic Studio were interviewed by Polygon, yet there was one particular line which developer John Watson had stated which really embedded itself into my mind:

They’ll [MOBILE GAMERS] spend $600 on an iPad, and $4 on a coffee, drop $20 on lunch, but when it comes to spending four or five dollars on a game, it’s this life-altering decision. I’m frustrated with that too.”

Putting things into that perspective, it’s ridiculous as to how frugal mobile users can be when resisting to purchasing games based on price. Had the game been priced at a mobile standard $0.99, there’d be less reluctancy in the purchase, but no matter how higher tier the quality of the game and how engaging the gameplay is, the price shouldn’t be any higher.

Let’s compare that $4 mobile version to the $24.99 steam version. There’s no logical reason for people to demand the game price to be reduced to such a low budget just based on the platform the game is on. If the game is worth purchasing, it should be purchased; there shouldn’t be this need for a $0.99 game to be the only mobile game worth purchasing. From that view alone, I’ve concluded that the gaming community is more frugal than we think it is.

Mobile gaming isn’t the only aspect of gaming which shows how restrictive we are towards payment in gaming. DLC in PC and console games is always a debatable topic. I agree to an extent as to why not to spend your money on DLC, if you had to spend anything extra on just extra maps/clothing or a few extra missions, it’s ridiculous. Developers who seek to make a profit from excluding certain parts of the game only to add it in DLC don’t deserve money for that DLC. At least with the mobile game argument with something like Banner Saga, you’re spending that little money on something worthwhile and which you can invest your time into. But a small extra content DLC? Just no. I believe a DLC is only justifiable when it adds completely new and time investing experiences into the game; simple examples can of course be The Last of Us: Left Behind, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, Mass Effect Citadel DLC, Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare and more which follow a similar style in what the DLC offers. When developers put effort into extra content such as these DLC’s, then of course they deserve to be repaid for their work. But then again, there are gamers who still argue that these DLC’s aren’t worth buying only due to the high price tags – which again is absolutely absurd! Most of these DLC’s which I’ve listed felt like brand new games and I could even argue them deserving at least $25, if not even a full retail price!

So my question for viewers today is, “Why are people so frugal when it comes to video games”? Why is it that we can waste our money on many things, but when it comes to mobile games, DLC’s and other stuff, we refrain from spending our money? What is the actual trigger in your mind to purchase something – the game quality or the price?