Ben Kuchera writes:

Early adopters pay the most for a game and get the least finished version of the release. It’s often worth it for them to play it along with the huge rush of other fans who want to be there first, but you don’t have to join them, even if many are perfectly happy to sign up for the journey of a game’s patches and updates and price drops rather than the pure destination of just playing the damned thing.

So, I agree and disagree. Fiscally, he’s right – but if I was fiscally logical person, I probably wouldn’t have a PS4. So, there’s that.

The problem I run into is that I read a bunch of gaming websites and listen to several gaming podcasts, so I want to play some of the same things they’re playing so I have context for the things they’re saying. It’s also hard to hear multiple people talk about how great The Last of Us is (for example) while resisting the urge to buy it. The louder the crowd’s voice, the more difficult it becomes to resist. What it all boils down to, though, is that buying games on release day is a fundamentally social thing, and I enjoy being part of that conversation.

At the end of the day, though, I take it on a case-by-case-basis. If your game is online-only, I probably won’t buy it on release day, because it probably won’t work. If your game is single player always-online, then I probably won’t ever buy it…period. That’s why last night I played Diablo 3for the first time, because the console versions aren’t always-online, and I put my money where my mouth is.