What to you makes a good game purchase?

[FUZZY PICKLES!!!]

I've been thinking about what makes a worthwhile game purchase to me. After going on several purchasing binges, I realize that while I was playing more video games, I still did not have the time to dedicate to playing all the video games that I bought and ended up with a massive backlog as a result. After this realization, my plan from here on out is to only buy one game at a time (or at most, a very small increment) and to be very selective with what I get. So from that experience, these are what I could consider a good purchase:

- It must be a game that I highly desire. Not just a game that "interest" me, but one that I would definitely make time for.
- It has to be fun to play and leave a good impression.
- It must be something I'd want to go back to. If I buy a game that I have no desire to ever replay, then that game has a limited value to me.

Of course I obviously have to financially justify it, but I am willing to save up money for relatively expensive games I want and when it comes to cart games, I don't go for CIB (unless there is no other option like with my Bomberman 64 Japan purchase) and I don't purchase games solely on rarity value, so only a few games are ruled out as potential purchases (only ones that come to mind are Zupapa! and Psychic Assassins Taromaru), but nothing that I'd really regret not getting earlier.

[Rickstilwell1]

I simply like games that I end up being able to finish and were enough fun to keep and play through again someday. If you can keep coming back to a favorite you will really get your money's worth out of that game. I've probably played Super Mario Bros. and Sonic the Hedgehog enough times where if I rented it every time I played it in my life, I could have spent hundreds of dollars on each.

[Tanooki]

A game one can return to many of times is a treasure, there just aren't that many. EA has a 60% off sale on GoG through Tuesday. I just snapped up Wing Commander 1 through 5 for just under $10. I have not been able to have fun with these since converting to 64bit windows which is depressing since I have original discs for 1-3. I'm downloading them and they'll get some play time shortly. I've played 1-3 more times than I can remember (especially 1-2) over the years as it was nearly my first game (wc1) I ever owned for PC. 5 (prophecy) I've had for years on GBA and rolled a few times and it doesn't get old either, just 4 is new to me. I've kept coming back to those as many times as I could over the years and they're more than worth the price to me.