I haven't payed full price for many games, but most of them were well worth it, and there are a lot of games that I've got on sale that I would have gladly paid well over full-price had I known how much enjoyment I'd get ouf of them (I would have gladly payed $60 for the 150 amazing hours I have played Factorio which I purchased for $17.50). However, with all these sales I generally would rather buy 10 heavily discounted games over 1 full-priced game and I think I may miss out on a lot of amazing titles because of that.

After reading reviews on What Remains of Edith Finch I have it wishlisted and may end up buying it soon.

Amount of games entering market has increased, but size of market hasn't increased as much. So earnings per games drop. It's natural in the free market. And why should people pay more than they need, as they can clearly get better value for money. Even just buying older good indie titles...

Tbh I dont have a lot of money. I cant buy AAA titles (i dont even have the PC to run them) so I mostly play indie games. I refuse to pay full price due to the fact that it's a digital copie. When I was using PS I paid full price for titles that I'd enjoy for a year with friends (FIFA, NBA 2K, WWE & more) now with all these titles coming and me wanting to try the most of them I buy them when they drop really low. I paid full price for Skyrim Legendary Edition because that game blew my mind while playing it (pirated tbh but had to give money for it, they deserve it) I can wait to play a game, I dont NEED to be the 1st day man, I have better priorities than paying 20€ for an aritstic non the less game. I will buy it but when the time is right. Take for example DS series. I played it some months ago in a friends PS and I really loved them. I wanted to buy DS 1 through sales, DS with Humble Monthly and so on. BUT WHAT THE DO? They try to MILK fans now that the game is hot buy not reducing DS 1 not even a cent (when 6 months ago t was for 5€). Also, it's a company matter to me. CD Project? They deserve it. Bethesda (bugs but) they deserve it. Ubi, Activison and others? HELL NO! I refuse to pay/play their games.

OVERALL I can't afford full price games (60€? really?) and also I don't NEED to buy 1st day-full price games. That's for people with $$ or people who are Gamers and nothing else. I have many interests and try to fullfill them all :D

TL;DR version of ~7 paragraphs I've written in Notepad right now: I agree, people are now accustomed to waiting to pay very little for PC games that aren't AAA titles. Negatives: developer's reputation isn't known to me, actual title sounds dated, store description is somewhat bland, HLTB playtime is disappointing, screenshots aren't compelling, and it's a niche title (negating a tiny bit of the positive feedback, like baseball games with high review ratings). Positives: Steam and critical reviews, people I trust own it, many others want it, screenshots look well-made. Other: if the developer holds a reputation for not budging much on the price (e.g. Kerbal Space Program), and people like yourself continue passing on the word of it being a great game, it will eventually sell at its asking price. I believe too many developers are in it for the short haul, and that ruins things for everyone.

I tend to agree.

There's one thing I have a serious problem with when it comes to PC games: many sales don't reflect on the desirability of the game.

That started with bundles, where games are bought together. It's possible that a bundle is bought for one or two games, yet all devs get money for it. (The exception is Humble, which allows choosing where the money goes, but probably few people reward specific devs, and some don't reward devs at all, giving all money to charity, even if they want the game.)

What made it worse was trading cards. When people buy games for trading cards they encourage creating crappy games with trading cards. Devs making crappy games make money from these sales and the card sales.

The end result is a lower correlation between game quality and sales (by 'quality' I mean playability, sales meant for playing), which is pretty bad for gaming.

Hmmm I do understand what you're saying, but the fact is the market is just overcrowded on PC. Unlike the consoles, where it's a highly curated process to get a game into the store, just about anyone with a computer can make a game and sell it on the PC market. So whilst on console, the store might have 1000 games, on PC it's 10s of thousands. But at the same time that freedom also means there are a lot more ways of selling your product. Steam's cut is a lot smaller than the console makers, and they even allow you to create your own keys and sell them with no money going to them. So you may be getting less money but a higher cut of that money can be yours. You don't pay or require approval to release a patch either.
Pc is also extremely backwards compatible. So if you make a game today you'll be able to probably still sell it 10 years later. Try and do that on a console. Pc games last a lot longer as result, and PC gamers will often pick up games from 10 years ago+ and still play them. I just look at my friends activities on steam and I see a lot of games from more than 5 years ago getting added to their libraries all the time. If it was on console, those discs would just be dead stock.
The average library of a PC gamer is also far bigger than that of a console. So yes, maybe you only gave a small amount to each developer, but spread across millions of steam users giving small cuts, the numbers do add up.
As for waiting to buy the game, it's unfortunately something the publishers have encouraged. They bring out a lot of games that are badly optimised/buggy and with a crap load of DLC, and of course people will then be more and more likely to wait until it's all patched and sold for a lower price with the DLC. Waiting also means I can get a better idea of how much enjoyment I'll get from the game from reading reviews and watching gameplay.
I don't have a big enough budget to buy games as they come out. So is it worse for me to spend $50 a month on several different games, and everyone gets a cut, or to just buy one game, especially if that game might not even meet my expectations? But if I add it to my wishlist, and watch some videos of it, and read some reviews, I get an idea of how much I am willing to pay for the game, and when the price is right, I'll buy it. If it never gets to that point, then the dev just won't ever get any money from me. I don't know then if it's better to never lower prices and sell less or to get less money, but at least make something?
Don't worry, I also get sad when a good game is buried in the dump truck full of the crap that gets released on a weekly basis, but I don't really know what else could be done? People have access to reviews and games sites, and can make their own informed decisions about what they spend their money on and how much it's worth.

Maybe this games have such low sales, because it's not many people who are interested in these games?

What's wrong with PC gaming

That despite PC games generating more revenue than the entire console market put together, it is still treated like some mandatory chore by many large publishers.
That technical progress is still tied to the hardware limitations of the latest console generation, even if said consoles now are literally just low-budget PCs sold with a special operating system.

That the indie craze of the late 2000s spawned the third age of shovelware shit, and this problem escalated several folds thanks to Valve putting them upfront with Greenlight and now Direct, with zero quality control.
That many users started to become mindless hoarders who never actually play their games outside the 2-3 they have thousands of hours in, further fuelling the steam engine of lowlife "developers" to pump out no-cost junk to cater to the +1 crowd.
And since they never play the games, they instinctively do not want to spend more than a few cents to get some new additions to the unplayed mountain.

That gamers put more value to an additional content if it is nothing but one single texture file than if it is a full-fledged story content, only because a herd instinct once made some of these valuable and now every of these texture files carry laughable prices based on an artificial need that is literally held together by itself and nothing more—this market is economically a lot worse than the dotcom craze was or the artificial and unrequested need planted in the general public by Apple a decade ago.

That many of the gamers are so attached to one single platform that they are now a lot worse zealots when it comes to defending it than Xbox kids.

Also, said platform generated the fame of selling games much lower than console/launch price, even if this stopped being true for longer than how some of their registered players lived.

That bundles originally more aimed at promoting better but overlooked indie games somehow made people think that they can get two-month-old AAA games for 50 cents.

That the grey market made people think that the two-week old AAA game going for 10 dollars is a totally legit deal and they stopped using legal ways of purchasing, creating an underlying black economy that is worse than pirating because pirating was not used for money launder.

I think, and i firmly believe i can say this with a straight face: sales and constant discounts has lead to the plague that has been literally butchering the mobile gaming market, and that is the infamouse "race to the bottom", aka when people refuse to buy games until it reach a certain price.

Would I blame people for not buying things full price? absolutely not, been doing the same simply because

1. I have a very tight budget as a graduated university student with no stable income currently

2. I try to buy games that are actually worth my investment and my time. Im not against games that try to get me out of my comfort zone so to say, but lets just differentiate between games with meaningful content to it (such as Life is Strange/ Gone Home and such) and games where literally there is no substance, philosophy to it rather than trying to be all corny and dramatic for the sake of being dramatic. As a gamer, in these games I appreciate seeing good narrative, being able to immerse into the story, feeling like part of the world outlined by the game and not feeling like im simply watching an interactive movie.

That being said i would rather buy a short game with actual story and content with it than any of those games where there is a huge sandbox world but nothing meaningful added to it.

admittedly been fallen too many times into the trap of gathering up completely crappy games that i dont wish to play anymore, but ever since then I decided to choose carefully and start to actually "curate" my steam library

Plenty of reasons for this sadly.

1. Way too many games get released on a daily basis( I think for this month on Steam there were released ~500 games)
2. A lot of sales and cheap deals(aka bundles).
3. Quantity over quality ( its so much better to say that you got 10 games for the price of 1).

Now on personal note: till 2016 I was looking forward for sale on games I want but now that I dont desire any old game and the new games are rarely worth it I can just focus my budget on 1 game per month with maybe a good bundle(bought only 2 game bundles this year ..). For this year I have planned to get only 2 more games day 1 ( Finding Paradise and Nine Parchments) and save money for a new GPU for next year's AAA releases.

From the sidelines it seems that getting a good deal is better than rewarding a developer/publisher who does something good. Sadly nothing cant be done so just be selfish and try not to think much about it.... until next game that you enjoy gets released and then burried together with the shovelware.

Sadly, my PC is still potato for now...

The last two games I paid full price were probably the pre-order of Witcher 3 at GoG (however, the price was reduced by already owning its predecessors) and Rocket League from PSN to play it with a friend locally (after already owning it on Steam).
But these are exceptions.

Reasons?

• Pre-ordering led to many disappointments, Kickstarter too.
• My backlog doesn't urge me to have the games fast. And that was already my way before I was on Steam, because I don't need everything at release, neither games nor electronics. Of course there are exceptions like favourite game series.
• Missing demos. How can I be sure to invest into the right game? Reviews and curators don't always represent my own taste.
• If I really enjoyed a game, I can buy it again for gifting purposes.

There are few developers who offer "support" DLCs with no content on Steam (e.g. Think To Die). This is imho a good way for indie devs to get an additional income, if the game was really good.

It's not a matter of willingness to spend. PC generated 442% more revenue than consoles in 2016. My theory: PC gamers are spoilt for choice. Edith Finch seems like an objectively good game, but it's got plenty of competition in its genre - games that have been around for years, done the same thing bigger or better. The Unfinished Swan may have been a novel masterpiece on its original consoles, but PC gamers see games of its calibre released every other month. PC gaming is at saturation point, and Steam's open doors policy doesn't help. But even if you remove the crud from digital stores you're still left with a veteran platform that's supported indie gaming since its inception, has seen it all, and the pool of money is spread thin.

TL;DR: great games, even those with a track record of success on console, may die on PC because of the magnitude more competition.

Pre-Ordered Dead or Alive 5 LR for Steam - being a huge fan of the series ... turned out to be an awful disappointment its, first it got delayed 3 months, online didn't work for another 1-2 Months, online was shit for almost a year, games player base wuz dead by then.
AWFUL exp. - 4/10 despite the offline base game being pretty good

MGS-PP bought from some guy in the forums for half the price before it even released, played it day2 once i plowed through MGS-GZ
GREATEST exp. - 10/10 expect nothing, paid half and enjoy everything about it

The only games i'd be willing to throw bucks at it before the release/disc. would be Shenmue III and FF VII-Remake - can't help it, but others? No thx. With whats given, better wait for the sale of the sale or bundle or GPU Bundle or shady backyard trade (steamtrades).

Best thing to do in my op, expect nothing buy as cheap as possible (duh) and ignore everything that doesn't "hit the spot" ...
PC G. already is the unified system that runs as good as everything, i'd be expecting that the market will weed itself out sooner than later.
Till then enjoy the overwhelming choice, emulation, piracy, consoles + console emulation and piracy, bundles, ru-idling-games ... whatever floats ones boat, and if all turns to ash - good thing I have other interests. Right now i'm carefully considering if should buy a ShamWow.

Once indie games came in, AAA game prices went up very much. Before You could get for 10-20 pounds AAA game, now most of them are 40-60. I'm not a fan of walking simulator games, so maybe that's why the game doesn't sell good? I mean how many of us, would rather walk in game than just simply open the door and take a journey in real life.

I think games are way too expensive for their content, and there are only few that are worth full price.

...this game has between 36,185 - 47,469 owners on pc for a three mouth old walking sims at 20€ with not a lot of marketing behind it. To compare with a game in the same niche genre, it's more sales than That Dragon Cancer, witch cost half and is more than 1yo... and both games take 2 hours to beat.

What Remains of Edith Finch isn't doing poorly by any mean. It's niche, and it's sealing great inside this niche.

1. Never heard of any of these games, have no idea who devs are, who begged them and so on. How can I want a game I've never even heard of? I guess their PC marketing failed in that regard.
2. I consider $1/hour of fun to be a good measure, with some exceptions of course.
3. Agreed, people nowadays delay purchase until everything gets bundled and apparently, 90% of the games do get bundled sooner or later so it's hard to blame people for waiting and saving money. The other problem with this is that, while having 1-2 bundles a year in the past made us welcome several discounted good games, play them all, then wait for the next bundle with our steam library, now we all have so many games we don't even have the time nor will to follow 50% of the bundle releases, let alone full priced games...

I believe that with closing of some bundle websites (because of the low sales due to market over-saturation) things will slowly go back to normal, as in, less bundles means better game selection, more waiting, more meaning for regular store discounts, more importance to reviews in media and curators and even steam reviews, no place for trash games that wouldn't sell anyway otherwise and so on... I might be wrong though, several of these websites already closed but they still keep earning. We'll see how it goes now that cards are not available to anyone releasing on steam and they have to pay $100 per game.

Good reviews are not an indicator of wide appeal; just because most people who've played the game enjoyed it, doesn't mean everyone else would. But I agree with most of your other points.

I didn't read all the comments, but read your post. I'd recommend start a movement/community - vote with your wallet. Each month (shouldn't be too costly if all the games are not 30+) the club selects a game (based on votes? or somehow) that every member buys and discusses the game (like a book club). Get like minded people together to support gems at release.

I personally have so many games to play at the moment that I just don't buy games (only on discount the games I really want to play which leads to a bigger backlog). I tend to support some kickstarters based on past experience, but other than don't buy games when they are at full price. For example, I got Stasis for free and really loved the game so much that I instantly backed their kickstarter for the second game when they announced it.

The funny thing is I don't even have time to look at new releases or read what critics and curators write. Mostly spend my time already playing games I have and I know will like to some extent. SG is actually pretty good indicator of good games that too look out for (I have hidden a lot of games and only see a handful of giveaways).

The other thing is bugs, balance and dlc. It seems that when you play a game a year or two after release it is going to be a better experience probably. Less bugs, better balance and all the DLC is available as well.

On the other hand, I really agree that I should support the devs of indie titles more by buying their games at full price. Especially the ones that I really value and have enjoyed a lot in the past. I think I'll start doing that when I get a higher paying job, right now I'm PhD student with a part-time job at the university. Need to save my money wisely.

Here's my problem. A lot of games I would want to play and pay full price for, are not on GOG or don't have a physical release. I just don't feel comfortable paying a lot of money for games that will never truly be mine.

If the game is the one that I really anticipate and want to play, then I will not hesitate to buy it even at full price. However, most probably, due to a large backlog that I have (and generally many other people), I tend to check whether there is a sale on my wishlisted game. Still, I am supporting the developers by buying it.
So, it is kinda like a stick with two ends situation. Just my opinion.

So, who's to blame? The sheer number of big sales throughout the year and the high discounts are certainly a factor. People got used to not paying full price. Even for games that deserve it, that need it. Everything gets real cheap real quick. People are not used to buying games on release anymore. And I can understand that. If a game might be -50% a few months later, why not wait until then and save a few bucks?

I think developers need to start viewing the PC market as a bit of a more long-term investment. You can't expect most of your sales to just come the first month, but rather you'll get your money back over a slightly longer period of time, but then games will have a far longer shelf-life on PC, with copies being sold years after the games original release. So in a way waiting for a discount is still not a bad idea, but still, make sure that it's the good games that gets the money in the end. Be it "What Remains of Edith Finch" or "DOOM". What PC gamers basically do these days it not spend less money on games, but individually we spread our money out over a wider number of releases.

People also value games based on length. On PC probably more than on consoles, would be my guess. 20€? If it doesn't give me at least 80 hours, it's not worth that kind of money!

There is a value argument to be had with any game, "if this game does not give me as much good stuff as another game at the same price range, why should I buy it?". I'm just surprised that "time" is the thing that people focus so much on, now that games are so much cheaper than they used to be. Would not the amount of quality content in a game be more important than just hours spent on it? Hours spent just encourages developers to make lifeless repetitive games with little variety (and to me, boring filler content lowers the overall value of a game, not raise it).

Many people just really don't have the money to. Some games have insane prices that many just can't pay. Especially not if the game is still new and bugs are still discovered daily. Also as someone who's still relatively new to steam, I feel weird paying that much money for a game that I only own on their platform. While it's unlikely that steam would just suddenly vanish, it's still a fact that I don't actually own the games I payed for. I'm much more comfortable paying for something physical that I can re-install any time I want to, independend from steam or any such providers.