Comic for Wednesday 5/18 (Early High Res)
Because I have limited time and a million games I'd love to play, I often find myself engaged in a lot of devil's advocacy. Weighing the pros and the cons, attempting to quantify how many "entertainment hours" each of my dollars might buy me and whether that ratio qualifies a game to be a contender for my precious minutes, listing all of the reasons I shouldn't buy a new game, etc.
To a point, this sort of a screening process is valuable, because it helps pare down the games I most want to play (if I can talk myself out of it, I must not have really wanted it all that badly). But at the same time, too much of this thinking distorts my perception of "value" when it comes to video games. I try to remember that not every single one has to be the GOAT or needs to have a six-year roadmap and keep me entertained for 400 hours. It's great when a game exceeds all playtime expectations (example: I'm at 430 hours in Hunt for my $30 initial purchase), but they can't all be that.
I picked up the Evil Dead game because I love those movies, and it looked like a fun alternative to the Dead by Daylight vibe (which I understand is pretty popular but always looks janky as fuck to me). Is Evil Dead going to keep my attention for 100 hours? I'd be pretty surprised. But if I let myself worry too much about that, I'd miss out on the fun it's providing me right now, however long it lasts (and it is a pretty good time).
What about you? Are there any games where you've just said "fuck it," and picked it up because it looked fun, regardless of longevity, or reviews, or cost?
Comments (7)
Every game I pick up is because it looks fun. Reviews do play into whether it looks fun or not. I'm definitely on the "if I'm going to play it, I want to play it asap" especially for games that have potential community.
All the time!
I kickstarted Rimworld way back in the day, then promptly forgot it existed for like 3-4 years. Booted it up at one point on a lark. Now have like 2100 hours into it. On the flip side, I bought Outward based on reviews and such, played it for maybe ~10 hours, and decided that I would just rather be playing other games.
This is actually something I love about the GamePass model. I can download, and sometimes even try playing, a lot of things I would never risk buying
Cyberpunk 2077 and despite everyone dissing on it I really enjoyed it with 260 hours played.
First Stadia purchase. Haven't progressed from the first full chapter and I have that much hours in it. (I have all the side story missions completed. Been full rep forever.)
The Ash vs the Evil Dead tv show was great (season 1 was the best). I am glad we got 45 more hours of Evil Dead awesomeness. I'll probably pick up the game just for more of that.
