When I was a kid I played the whole day and I paid willingly the full price for everything that I wanted and if I wanted something I wanted it really badly.

Now I still want some games, but my time is much more limited. Also I have the money to buy more games than I can play, so they pile up but my interest changed. I'm not so focused on games anymore.

However for books I still feel this need to get them immediately. I had to buy the latest George RR Martin novel just 4 weeks after it came out. I red it within 2 weeks. Now I'll have to wait 5 years until part 6 will come out. :(

For movies the interest also has gone somewhat. Do I have to go to the cinema? I find renting them later and watching them at home much more convenient.

Maybe if I would loose interest in everything I should get worried but I am not there yet.

Release dates never really meant anything to me when I was younger. I'd buy a new game I was after when I had the money for it. Be it the Saturday following release (UK release schedule, mind) or a month or so later.

Maybe it's just because it's been several decades, but I can't really remember a single game I simply had to have on the day of release back then - even when I was in a position to rush home from work via the game store.

These days, I tend to get some games (PC ones) on day of release simply because it's convenient to do so. But given the quality of most at around release and the increasing prices (and in the case of a certain service, surprise denials of access), I've been doing that less and less.

When it comes to consoles, there's only three types of game I feel a need to get on day of release (or as soon as possible thereafter). Those being anything by Team Ico, titles in the PS3 Ryu ga gotoku (Yakuza) series and limited quantity special editions of games I'm interested in that come with an additional full game only available in that edition (such as the Ore imo or Tomodachi ga nai sets). If it's just a bog standard release with no real additional bonus, or the bonus items are not of much interest (such as simple in-game items) then it can wait.

Surprisingly, my children also don't care much for having new games on day of release, with only one exception - DS Pokemon titles. Those I always need to pre-order for them.

Since we are in GOG, I'd expect quite a few people be like that. I'd guess it mainly depends how new you are to gaming, most people here seem to be old dogs.

I used to be more interested into new games when I subscribed to a gaming magazine, many times the previews and reviews raised my interest to certain games. But, maybe it is also how many others say that there are just so many options nowadays, and digital shelves are full of games, old and new (not only new + clearance sales). (And yes, DRM + DLC lessen my interest to rush to get new games either, just like Starforce did in early 2000s).

I don't read new game reviews even on free web sites much either. Sometimes I used to glance through GameSpot's "Best games of the (recent) year(s)", they were somewhat interesting. I sometimes watch a local game TV show called "Tilt", but frankly even it fails to get me pumped up for new releases for some reason.

For me it is the same with movies too. I have no idea what movies are coming out soon, and why I'd care anyway. Last time I was looking forward to new movies was:

- when Terminator 2 was coming out (because Terminator kicked ass)

- when Matrix + the sequels were coming out (because Matrix trailer I saw in another movie kicked ass)

- when the Lord of the Rings movies were coming out (because they were LOTR after all; I actually went to see all of them with my brothers, who hardly ever go to movie theaters, but it was a big thing to them as well)

- and the Star Wars Ep1-3 movies, just to get SW saga to conclusion so to speak.

So which movies, or games, should I be looking for? Blues Brothers 3000? Ghost Busters 3? Oh yeah, Men In Black 3 seems to be coming out (or out already?), somehow I'm just not too excited anymore. Will Smith is soooo 1990s.

As you get older, you know better. Hype doesn't do as much for you and you can see it for the marketing ploy it is.

I've never bought a game right after it's release. They're way too expensive for my taste. I rather do something different with the money. The most modern games I have, I buy a year or two years after their release, when the price drops to below €20,-. Medieval Total War, Dragon Age, Fallout 3 and World of Conflict (the last because of the free headphones and History of the Berlin Wall free DVD with it) are games I bought for €19,-. The only thing that can get me excited is if I want to play Dragon Age for example and after waiting for a year I found a store where the price did indeed drop between the 20 euro watermark. All other games were even older when I bought them. Why waste €45,- euro's on a game when there's still so many good games too play that cost me 9,99 or 5,99 or less if it was a GOG-sale?

Never bothered with release day. When I was younger I couldn't afford newly released games. When I got older, and could afford to, I realised that if I wait the price will drop and it'll be the same game (or better due to patches). So, I get more for my money by waiting the little bit.

I don't play multi-player much so the peer pressure to be in at the start doesn't apply.

What I have noticed over the years is the game prices drop much faster nowadays.

I get excited around Christmas or the summer lull because I know there will be huge sales where I can pick up those big releases at bargain prices. Last year I got the Paradox bundle on Steam for cheap and I got a few titles half price from GOG over Christmas. There are a few games I have been keeping an eye on, but my genre is the RPG and after the let-downs of Dragon Age 2 and Skyrim I can't get excited about anything any more (and before all you fan-boys start hating about my hating of Skyrim, I liked the game, it just plays more like an adventure FPS than an RPG).

For the first time EVER, and we're talking about a long life of playing games here, i've bought my first Pre-order back in November. It wasn't only for one but two games, Skyrim and Batman:Arkham City. I won't say i'd do it again as some mentioned on here, I usually wait about 6 months for somewhat reduced prices. I can't say i'm disappointed with the decision to Pre-order those title either

Also on an afterthought, i like waiting months to buy newer games because a lot of the newer titles have DLC that are released later...best to pick them up at that time, in my opinion

What happened was you got old enough to buy your own shit. Now, you aren't just limited to one game per multi-month period, you can buy 10 games a day if that's what you want to do. Hence, release dates don't matter nearly as much because there's no game receiving time for you anymore, you can just buy something whenever you want to.

Do you mean digitally? http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/prey

Finding a physical copy is easy however. :P

I just mean between digital and physical there isn't much out recently that promises to be hard to get in the future (unless you count some limited release handheld imports).

Frankly, I feel the same way, using 50-60€ for a game seems madness nowadays, unless it is some authentic US army tank simulator with loads of replay value.

Partly this is because nowadays you can't sell your finished games to recoup money to buy new games, so you have to take that into consideration. Buying a 60€ game that you can't even get rid of later (even as much as give it to your friend for free), without knowing for sure whether you'll like it at all, or whether it runs good on your PC, just sounds too risky. With 10€ or cheaper games, not so much.

But partly that is because Steam/GOG sales and IPad/Android games costing only few bucks or less have accustomed us to cheap game prices. In a way this may be problematic to game publishers, but IMHO nothing forces them to sell their games cheap, if they don't want to.

But who knows, maybe PC gaming market will mostly implode due to "too cheap prices", at least for those movie-like AAAAA titles with billion dollar budgets. More and more cheapo tower defence and puzzle indie games, same that are being made for smartphones.

Partly the publishers try to get around this by dividing the games into cheaper episodes, also known as "DLC". But I'm not quite as stupid as they think, I can see they are just trying to maximize their profits that way, making it look like as if I'm paying less, while in fact I end up paying more unless I am happy to play the demo version with less content over and over again.

I never really cared when they're released - I am usually too troubled with other games or life matters to notice.