A wise and venerable man once said, "Never pay more than twenty bucks for a computer game."
As someone who begun my gaming adventure as a pirate, as a student with not a lot of leftovers in my pocket, as someone who buy books more compulsively than I do games (bookstores are notoriously dangerous places), this is a phrase I had unknowingly taken to heart. I set a quota for myself. For frivolous spending, no more than [the equivalent of $14] a month.
It's not a difficult limit to maintain. I buy games on Steam during sales, and Steam has a ton of sales. The games I look forward to (and can actually play on my laptop haha) are indies costing no more than the aforementioned $14 (and Steam, bless be to the employees who manage it, has a much more generous exchange rate). In any case, I have plenty of books I already have that I can read, games already sitting in my library I can play, and work to be done. I can push off buying that one good game for another month.
Cytus II was released two weeks ago on Android. It's 2 bucks for the three-chapters base game, but 10 dollars for each of the three additional chapters. Each chapter represents one character and one genre of music.
Last week, after fighting the urge off for a bit, I bought one of the extra chapters: ConneR, the middle-aged adventurer professor who play this blend of classical and drum n' bass (it's called artcore, my friends). He quickly grew into being my favourite characters, both from his songs and the extra story bits I gathered.
He was expensive, but I did not regret it. Cytus II is a fine game and anyway, 2 bucks didn't feel like enough. Now, at last, it is enough.
I've been staring longingly at Xenon's character pack for the last week. Another ten dollars. Heavy metal, one of my favourite genre. Mostly metalcore, unfortunately, not power metal, but whatever, I can learn to enjoy that too. And they actually lock one of ConneR's song because I haven't played this guy too, which is a horribly smart business practice.
I'm pretty good at holding myself back. Keeping my money. Carefully considering about what I really want and need versus the impulse of the day (unless it's a bargain bin in a book store, natch).
But, look, I've been staring at the paywall screen for so long. Is this what it feels like to want to throw money at someone. "Rayark, take my moneyyy," I feel like yelling, even though it would go against the twenty bucks dictum. I don't even know what else I expect from this game. 12 dollars is a perfectly good price for it. I beat the game. I got the ending. There's probably only those tiny bits of extra story left to uncover in Xenon's chapter. 22 bucks.
But look, look. Whenever someone show me something I can buy, whenever I think about maybe spending a bit more for fancy food, or to buy some books that's been sitting on my wishlist for ages I keep thinking, "I'd rather use the money to buy a Cytus II chapter." Never before have I feel such a strong urge to throw my money at something.
And, I mean, I'm fortunate enough to even have the money. Is this frivolous way to spend my money sufficiently non-frivolous enough to justify its asking price?
I'm putting way too much trouble over ten dollars, aren't I?
(OH GOSH Google play is giving me a 7% discount. This is ridiculous. Why is buying things online so easy)
(Fine whatever brb buying.)
(They say writing will calm me down but this isn't calming at all)
