When I bought Titanfall 2, I was also confused by what the DLC for the game added, but as far as I understand, it's just some skins for your Titans and multiplayer maps. Unless you're interested in the multiplayer side of the game, you can buy the great Titanfall 2 campaign for just $5.

The only thing that keeps me from buying games that have tiered editions, are usually the extras you get from the more/most expensive tiers, which you can't buy separately. For example, here on GOG, Divinity: Original Sin is currently available for 75% off. A great deal, however the only way to get the soundtrack for the game, is to get the Collector's Edition which isn't discounted... I guess I won't be getting D:OS just yet.

no

After not getting quite all of Fallout 3 despite paying through the nose (which is now scarred) for game of the year, I am very vary. In short: yes.

Yes.

As others have said:
I Wait a few years.
GOTY or Director's Cut or something similar edition is released.
Even the price gets slashed.

If I ever see a game where the content has been carved up into a graph of purchase tiers, I give the publisher a middle finger.

Yes. Given you have to wait anywhere from 6 months to 2 years for modern games to be "finished" anyway (patches for bug fixing, optimisation, etc), I always wait for the "final GOTY". If you don't play multi-player games, you literally miss nothing at all by waiting and usually gain a price-cut / discount. Even so called "pre-order exclusive" soundtracks usually end up on Youtube.

As for "tiered pre-order" and "per play DLC" garbage, that's half the reason why Deus Ex: Mankind Divided was a flop. In fact it was on sale for a mere £2.99 in recent Humble sale a mere 2 years after release which along with mass down-votes ("Mixed" vs "Very/Overwhelmingly Positive" of earlier games) suggests most gamers can see through the BS too and like myself, kept our money in our wallets and moved on to other games which don't treat customers like dribbling idiots...

[1] No, I hate that system too. It does seem publishers are making money, the system has been in place for years and no plans to scrap it have been in place because it's earning revenue.

[2] Or it could be that the full ultimate tier is in fact the full game. Take Shadow of The Tomb Raider for example. You pay to access the game ***2*** days earlier (48h earlier access). Technically, that 2 days earlier is the actual release date, since it is, you know released for useage. Which means normal edition buyers simply have access to the game three days after its official initial release.

[3] A lot of it is marketing, most of it is marketing. Getting front page on Steam out of 1000s of games must cost, youtube channels, youtube adverts with prime time space. A game must:

1) Pay for itself and make profit.
2) Pay for advertisement and make profit.
3) Pay for the DRM and make profit.
4) Pay for Human Resources and make profit.
5) Pay for electricity bills, software purchases and so forth.

[4] It's a horrible system, no you're not old and cranky, and it's the outward manifestation of a nickle and diming materialistic society. Look at The Witcher 3 or Project Octopath as how they approach DLC, tiers and Expansions. Steam sales is another horrible system.

Yes. It's just another con mechanic, like all the others.

If there is a mess of DLC or different editions, I will just probably wait for a GOTY/Collector's Edition/Definitive release.

That's what got me confused with Titanfall. The ultimate edition want a game-of-the-year type edition. It didn't have all the dlc at all. But had other strange additions that, as far as I can tell, are basically cheats.

I to usually go for game if the year editions. But I think there's additional layers of confusion are added to make people think they're getting something like a goty edition, but they aren't.

I'm glad to hear most are against the practice. Publishers complain a lot about unpredictability of the game market and fickle customers. But I see many publishers purposely making bad decisions when it comes to the customer. Makes it more likely to not get a sale from a lot of us.

There are probably more games coming out every week than u can play in my lifetime. I used to read a lot and try to figure things out. Now I'm like some of you. Bad purchasing scheme? Middle finger and move on. I can find a great game somewhere else.

It usually comes down to 2 things:
- price distinction
Usually, the edition with the most extra content has the highest price tag and the regular/normal edition has little more than the game itself and is the cheapest.

- in-depth, careful reading
Usually, GOG will have links for other editions on any edition's store page. Checking under "included goodies" should do the trick. That and reading the news about the game posted by GOG.

E.g. I think it was Pillars of Eternity 1.
I got the Royal edition and in the end, I just needed to upgrade it with a free DLC to have the complete edition.

All that said, it's easy to win me over with pet/animal rewards.
A (cute) critter you say? I want it! XD

If there are more than a standard edition and a collectors edition, or if they have weird, none obvious names (like hero vs. champion edition) I'm getting headaches. Chances are I'd buy another game instead...

Yes. Same here. If a publisher breaks up a game into chunks, no matter whether they call it tiered editions, DLC, seasons or any other scheme, I just wait until they stop doing that an release an edition that is actually complete.

And if they add regional pricing to that, it just means that I will wait longer until that complete edition is discounted. So generally, the greedier a publisher is, the less money they get from me.

Another benefit of waiting is that you get a more polished game, with all the fixes and balance improvements released in the interim. Too many games are released in a ridiculously buggy and unfinished state.

Yes, it puts me off too if there's lot of different editions. My most common strategy is wait for a game to be several years old and buy the complete edition for cheap. Sometimes I'm too impatient and I buy the base game in a sale, waiting for another year or so to complete it with a 'Season Pass' that adds all the possible extra content.

If however, there's no complete edition or the option of just the base game + one pack to get all the rest, but instead a bunch of DLC's scattered all over the place, I don't buy it.

I do have some base games where the DLC's are scattered all over the place that are against my policy, but that's because I didn't pay for those base games but got them in a giveaway (like Total War: Warhammer). But with a lot of DLC's being around, I end up buying none of those.

I either want the base game, or the complete game if it's a game I like. What I hate is having a game with bits of this and bits of that but not all of it. I'm too obsessive compulsive to buy bits and pieces for a game that would make it even more incomplete than just the base game. At least the base only has a sort of minimalistic style to it.