Game Buying Process

Today the consultants were given the task of spending $500 on games for a game lab. They used the internet and shopped at Game Stop. They spent about an hour on this.

When they were done we had a discussion about the process they used. This was interesting. Some of them took it seriously and put a lot of thought into it. A couple just bought stuff.

I wanted to find out why they bought the games they bought. One guy said he just got the games he personally wanted. Cost didn't matter. He only bought 12 games with his money. Our youngest guy bought games he thought were fun and not too expensive. The oldest guy really put the most thought into this. His goal was to buy as many games as he could. He would not buy a game that cost more than $25. He did make sure that he bought good games though. The fourth guy wasn't too concerned with cost but still didn't want to spend a lot.

The two oldest consultants made sure to get games for various consoles. They all agreed that handheld's don't get played as much so most didn't buy many games for them. Also, those games cost more unless you get them used and they don't like used games, "used games don't work."

Three of the consultants also took ratings into consideration. The fourth sort of did but didn't really, he bought games that were rated T and one M. He figured T was fine as long as there weren't a lot of M rated games. The rest brought up the point that many kids' parents won't let them play games that are rated T so they had to have a lot of E games if they were going to have a game lab. Also, E games are usually more fun and playful while T games are more serious and grown up but still fun.

The game category was important too, but not that important. It was interesting to hear their perspectives. One more thing, if they were buying for themselves it would have turned out different. The money wouldn't have lasted that long.