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[puke]

Maybe so, but I can easily play for 30 minutes at a time and then stop.  Not so with something like Baldurs Gate or Total War or whatever. 

Games like that tend to suck me in to an all night playing binge that makes me wonder afterwards why I play videogames at all.

[BigD145]

Uh, you play to pass some time in an engaging medium?

[n9103]

(rantish post ahead)

With my bundle habit (so hard to break!) I tend to end up well over 1$/hour of entertainment, as well as ending up with several long RPGs and such.
And then there's the nostalgia factor that plays into many of my purchases of games I already owned at some point, over half of my GOG collection has a matching CD in a binder on the shelf about 4 feet away from me. Few of them play well with Win7, and almost all of them are CD required to play variety, and I generally avoid NoCD hacks these days due to the shady nature of several I've used in the past.
GOG fixes both those problems for me, and has done deep discounts on most titles. So there are several games that I've not even fired up, and spent up to 2$ on. (Over 2$ requires a current interest beyond the nostalgia)
But I figure that a) these games will be playable at anytime that I feel like it (since I've got the installer file archived), bypassing the need to track down a CD, it's updates and patches, and finding a worthwhile NoCD hack if I expect to play it more than a couples times.
I've done the CD install route for games 20 years old. Even finding the bugpatches is quite a crapshoot. Compatibility patches for current OS, good luck. Games that still have a strong following are easier to get updated, and often have fan-made patches for modern OSes.
But older games that don't have a strong fanbase still are on the verge of being lost to time. Some already have been.

[puke]

It wasn't that hard to understand, BigD.  You know what I mean.

Lets talk about whats on sale, instead.  So we can increase our backlogs, you know.

You can get Talisman on Humble again for a buck, this time with the Frostmarch expansion.  Played with a friend yesterday, the game its self is stable at single player but a little crashy on multiplayer.  I never had a problem rejoining, though. 

I usually wouldn't play this one with strangers, but it looks like there is a good multiplayer community on Steam, specifically the guys that play in the Tourneys sound pretty reasonable.

Also LA Noire on Humble Store.  This is one that's been in my inventory forever, will have to play through it one of these days.

[starscream]

I find it interesting that so many people judge the value of a game by how many hours they'll play it.

i use a bang per buck ratio.  divide how much i paid for the game with how many hours i've played it. 

generally, if the result is around 1, the game is okay.
greater than 1, the game is kinda awful and gets more awful the higher the number
the closer it gets to zero, the more awesome the game.

a couple of examples:

skyrim = 0.06 == awesome
running with rifles = 0.375 == awesome (projected .188 -- will only get better because i'll probably put in 12 more hours)
dwarf fortress = 0.01  == and still going down!
starlight inc. = 12.32 == this game is crap
fight the dragon = 1 == breaks even.  might get a little better, but i doubt it.

[Tronak]

I find it interesting that so many people judge the value of a game by how many hours they'll play it.

i use a bang per buck ratio.  divide how much i paid for the game with how many hours i've played it. 

generally, if the result is around 1, the game is okay.
greater than 1, the game is kinda awful and gets more awful the higher the number
the closer it gets to zero, the more awesome the game.

a couple of examples:

skyrim = 0.06 == awesome
running with rifles = 0.375 == awesome (projected .188 -- will only get better because i'll probably put in 12 more hours)
dwarf fortress = 0.01  == and still going down!
starlight inc. = 12.32 == this game is crap
fight the dragon = 1 == breaks even.  might get a little better, but i doubt it.

I use the same system, just setting the treshold to 0.5 

x < 0.5 = would buy again.
1 < x < 0.5 = okayish, lacks something to me.
1 < x = if i'm not playing this more, I regret the buy.

I don't like the "Awesome per second" metric. It works for indie or small (and cheap) games, but for the rest of the industry it just encourages games only being fun or innovative for a couple of hours, wich I found unacceptable for a 60€ price tag.

[Delta Foxtrot]

I suppose that's one thing. But when I look at a steam/gog/gg game, I know it's going to be on sale. Often and for large discounts. I just have absolutely no drive to drop 60 on a game when I know it's going to be selling for 5-20 in a few years time. I'm young with a backlog, I can wait for a good sale. Bang per buck turns almost meaningless in that context.

Fitting considering the thread we're offtopicing in.

[aristabulus]

I've been a cheap bastard with game buying since before Steam was worth using; this has been more due to staying off the upgrade treadmill than anything.  Quick markdowns and gold/platinum sets were out there to be had at retail 15 years ago, if you were patient and diligent.

These days, I have a loose tiered system:

Under US$2.00-ish, the game only needs to be slightly intriguing.  That's the same price as a large not-fancy coffee, so it's cheap enough to take a stab in the dark.  Sometimes I get a stinker (Droplitz, Turba, Words For Evil), but many are decently fun for the price (Little Inferno, Chains, Fractal, Hexcells series, 10000000), and occasionally there's a title that is fantastic for the price paid (One Finger Death Punch, Waking Mars).

Up to US$5.00, the game needs to either be in my wheelhouse of genres (Titan Quest Gold, SupCom Gold), doing something fairly clever or special on its own (FTL), or has gathered a lot of critical praise (Bastion, To The Moon).  Maybe the occasional nostalgia buy, if it's something I didn't get around to when it was new.

Up to US$10.00 looks a lot like the previous bracket, but has more than one thing going for it.  Dungeon of the Endless was a clever mash-up of roguelike elements & tower defense, and well received critically.

Anything north of of US$10.00 must be something extraordinary indeed, or a hella good all-the-things bundle.  Civ 5 Complete has been the only thing I've bought in many many moons that clears this bar.

[Sappho]

BundleStars has got a Shadow of Mordor bundle for $30. It's the base game plus 18 DLC. Considering the base game alone is $50 full price, this sounds like an awesome deal.

I generally don't buy these big $$$ AAA games, on account of being a poor teacher and not having the time or the cash for such things. But I've heard massive amounts of praise for this game, including from Extra Credits, which means a lot to me since I agree with them on most things. The only negatives I've heard have been that there isn't "enough" content for the price - around 26 hours seems to be the norm to complete the game. But for me, that's actually a plus, because I don't have much time for games.

I'm trying not to spend a lot of money right now because I have to get myself re-established in Prague in a month and I'm sure to run into unexpected costs, but this seems like something I could afford if I'm sure it'll be worthwhile and enjoyable. So... Thoughts? Is it likely to get cheaper soon? Should I just wait a year and it'll be half the price? Or should I just go for it?

[nenjin]

Damn that's really tempting. SOM is one of those games I want to play but I didn't want to pay anywhere near full price.

[Oneir]

My impression of SoM is that it's a really cool open world fightan' game right up until the very end of the game. Then you have to deal with dead easy gimmick bosses and it's over. This is about the cheapest I've seen it not on a dirt-cheap-but-sketchy key-reseller, but honestly I've got no idea how much the season pass is worth. It sounds like the major DLC (Bright Lord and Lord of the Hunt) may not be great, for story or gameplay.

(Personally, I don't think the LoTR aspects were very strong, and some of the additions they made feel very strange, so I would have been happier if they'd tried to place it in their own world--but I admit there are definitely advertising advantages to placing it in a known, popular universe, and it probably saves them some exposition.)

[umiman]

Oh cool. That's a great deal. I highly recommend Shadow of Mordor. If you've never played it, you should give it a shot. The story is boring and kinda dumb but the gameplay is sublime.

I would say it's like Assassin's Creed meets Batman: Arkham Asylum. Except the nemesis system is truly, really great. Trust me on this. It sounds like a simple mechanic, where orc chiefs can become rivals to you and such, but it's just so much fun. The nemesis system alone turns what would normally be an average, okay game to a spectacular blockbuster. I was actually yelling out at my screen the name of my nemesis at one point like I was Capt. Kirk.

The biggest problem I had with it is that endgame stuff is kinda lame. Also after awhile you get so overpowered there's no challenge any more. But the dozen or so hours before that is great.

[Sappho]

Hm... I'm usually more interested in story than gameplay in games like this, so if it's not super challenging, I actually like that. But I have heard mixed reviews on the ending (please don't spoil!). What I like is so often very different from what other people like, it's hard to guess if this'll be worth purchasing or not... Hmmmm..... Well, there's like 18 days to decide still, so I'll keep thinking it over.

[nenjin]

Yeah, I know that the game is majorly about the nemesis system, and doing stuff with Orc War Chiefs in a sandbox environment. That sounds cool. Just not cool enough for me to buy now,  I think. I've played so many open world games at this point that babysitting Orcs isn't making me rush out to get it.

[forsaken1111]

Hm... I'm usually more interested in story than gameplay in games like this, so if it's not super challenging, I actually like that. But I have heard mixed reviews on the ending (please don't spoil!). What I like is so often very different from what other people like, it's hard to guess if this'll be worth purchasing or not... Hmmmm..... Well, there's like 18 days to decide still, so I'll keep thinking it over.

If you enjoy LOTR lore and details then you'll like the story elements enough to enjoy the game. If you're not really into LOTR/Middle Earth then it might not interest you much.