Buy games fresh or wait for them to ripen?

ALWAYS wait for games to ripen, especially with how the market is today. Although, considering that, there has to be a slice of the pie that gets taken fresh out of the oven(basically, there has to be some people that buy games fresh out of the market).

i will pre-order games at time for the bonus and/or to show support of a game, but i usually won't play it the moment it comes out. i'll wait till at least a few patches and stuff gets polished first.

1 - I don't want to pay $60 for a game, so I wait for it to go on sale
2 - I like getting complete versions and/or all the extras, so I wait for a bundle or GOTY version, or some such stuff

So, yeah, I let games get seasoned first.
Except for the one early-access game I bought last week. But, to be fair, I only bought it because it came with some older games I really wanted.

I tend to wait for them to ripen, exceptions are few especially if it's bigger titles.

Last exception was XCOM 2, but with the technical issues that had and still has I'd recommend waiting for the next round of patches unless you were a massive fan of XCOM:Enemy Unknown / Enemy Within.
Gameplay is solid apart from a few stupid glitches and some of the weirdness from the previous game still being around, but apparently especially on more powerful hardware there's a number of weird performance issues as well. Some of which are only bearable because the game's moslty turn-based, so framerates etc. matter less.

Not having that much time and huge backlog of games that I really do want to play, I can't justify paying full price for games. Sure, there are some exceptions, like Invisible Inc, Transistor, etc. but that happens maybe once a year. For me it's not that much about money, it just would be dumb in my position to do so.

you should always wait atleast for the polishing. Everytime a game comes out it has terrible bugs and crashes. The guys who buy it directly at the beginning are always frustrated.
I wait always and i dont care for getting it at first, i buy a game after 1 year with 50% discount. Much cheaper more dlcs and no bugs.

Unless it's a multiplayer game - wait - you will get cheaper, bug-free product with more content.
If it's a multiplayer game it's the only time purchasing at launch at full price makes some sense - as when game is new and fresh it will have bigger community then months after aunch, also if there's some progression you don't end up having problems to catch up with the rest of the community.

PatientGamers unite!
And wait.

I'll never pay full price for a Steam game, even if it means waiting a while (though Stardew Valley is testing me - it looks worth the price, but I can't justify getting it with my current backlog.. sigh). I usually wait for games unless it's a 3DS game I really want, because those never go on a good sale anyway, at least for the games I like :P

Wait for bundle/goty/edition with dlc included

You are in a website mainly dedicated to getting (and giving) free games. So it should not be a surprise that the majority here waits for the price drop on most games.

I used to wait for complete editions but after several cases in which I bough goty/complete and never touched the DLCs I ended up with picking the base game and if I still play the game by the time next sale came around(I usually play the games I bought right away) I get the DLCs.

I have no problem with paying $60 for a game just released and then 2 years later another $30 on DLCs if I still play the game. Yet to have issues with any new release that I bought.

I have preordered only two games in my entire life: The Witcher 3 (wise choice, it was $36 for me, so it was an awesome discount) and Naruto Storm 4 (Not so wise, but I don't complain: It's a good game).

I take my backlog into account. I have too many games waiting to be played right now that I don't need to buy a new game only to have it go right in the backlog. I only make exceptions for games that got my hyped up to play it. I bought MGS5 this past winter sale and played it immediately.

Do you buy games fresh or wait for them to ripen?

i just win them :3

If I really like the game I'll buy it when it comes out, otherwise I'll wait for the price to drop.

indie game studios that are pretty good like Larian
and InXile
Grinding Gear Games ,etc ,they deserve support, others well....look waht happened to The Stomping Land :) if i wrote it's name good,i think ,search it on google & steam discussions

I usually wait for a price drop but around once a year I buy a game I can't wait for when it comes out near the full price (still looking for the best deal), that's how I bought Dragon Age Inquisition, Witcher 3 and Tales Of Zestiria.

I used to get them new/preorder ( back in the good old days of dragon ages origins etc) but after being hit by disappointment a few times ( I am looking at you, bioware) I changed to reviews + waiting for the price to drop/sales/bundles.
My backlog is big enough as it i so I can live without witcher 3 for a couple of years for example. XD
I did back a couple of games on kickstarter though, that counts as pre-pre-preordering. For example pillars of eternity and the torment: tides of numenera (the last one I backed was some japanese adventure game inspired by film noir called tokyo dark, but I don't remember if that will come out on steam).

Always old or heavily discounted games. No exceptions.
I'd be broke and nowhere near the game count I'm at if I paid full price or for babby discounts like 10-25% off at release/pre-order.

I would personally buy new, if I had the funds to do so -- you support the game developers this way. These same devs take massive profit hits when discounting games, but that's usually the case for digital and not retail.

If you do not have funds, then you have no choice but to wait for sales. The majority of Steam users accumulate a huge backlog by spending during sales, and my sweet spot is 75% and higher discounts.

If the game is from a series I really enjoy, I buy it fresh. But a lot of the time I'll be reasonable and enjoy the games I already have. I buy less and less games as the years go on.