The Hidden Cost of Waiting for a Game Sale

What You Need to Know

• A cheap Nintendo Switch game isn't automatically a good deal.
• Price, quality, playtime, and your actual interest in the game all matter.
• Waiting for the lowest possible price can sometimes kill the excitement that made you want the game.
• Sometimes paying full price feels better when you genuinely care about the people who made the game.
• My /all-time-low page can tell you whether today's price is the lowest I've recorded for that game, in that country.

A $4.99 Nintendo Switch game can be a terrible purchase. A $30 game can be one of the best games you've bought all year.

I know this sounds like the sort of sentence that should get me kicked out of the Nintendo eShop, so let me explain.

I don't always look for the cheapest game on the Nintendo Switch. I look for good games at a price I'm happy to pay.

Those are very different things.

A cheap game can still be terrible value

Come on. Don't be the guy who tells me that Overcooked 2 is only $4.99 in the US Nintendo eShop, therefore every game under five bucks is a bargain.

I love a cheap game too. Who doesn't?

But if I really wanted to test the idea that cheap games are good deals, I'd do something very simple. Take the Nintendo Switch games currently on sale, filter them by price, then compare those titles with review scores and HowLongToBeat completion-time data.

Suddenly the $2.99 price tag doesn't look quite as impressive.

The Nintendo eShop has a lot of games. It also has a lot of shovelware.

That's my not-so-humble opinion, anyway. A low price tells me one thing: the game is cheap right now.

It doesn't tell me whether the game is good.

That's why I care about things like review scores and playtime when I look at a deal. A $5 game that gives me an hour of frustration isn't automatically better value than a $20 game that keeps me busy for 30 hours.

I can waste five dollars. Wasting an evening is harder to forgive.

This is also why I like looking at cost per hour — the price divided by the HowLongToBeat completion time. It's not some magical formula that tells you which game to buy. It simply gives the price a little context.

If you're staring at a 90% discount on the Nintendo eShop and thinking, "I have to buy this," ask yourself one more question:

Would I want this game if it were $10 more expensive?

If the answer is no, the discount might be doing more work than the game.

Waiting for the lowest price can kill your interest

This one happened to me and my brother with Cult of the Lamb.

We both liked the game. We talked about it. We watched videos. We waited for the Nintendo eShop price to drop. Then we watched more videos.

And more.

You know what happens when you spend months watching gameplay, reviews, guides and streams of the same game? Eventually, you've already played half of it in your head. When I finally bought it on the Nintendo Switch, I played for maybe two hours and stopped.

That one still annoys me.

My brother had an even more extreme example with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on Nintendo Switch. He watched a streamer play it for hours and eventually decided he didn't need to play it himself.

"I watched someone play it. That's enough."

There is a strange point where waiting for a game to become cheaper starts costing you something else. You keep feeding your curiosity with YouTube videos because you're waiting for the "right" price, and eventually the curiosity disappears.

So what exactly did you save?

Maybe $10.

Maybe you saved $15.

Maybe you saved enough money to buy a sandwich.

And then you never played the game.

Sometimes I just want to play the game

I still remember buying Blasphemous on the Nintendo eShop. I wasn't sitting there calculating whether I could save another three dollars next month. I wanted the game, so I bought it.

That feeling was completely different. I didn't have to convince myself that the discount was good enough. I wasn't checking another website every few days. I wasn't watching somebody else play the first six hours on YouTube.

I've realised that the price I remember isn't always the price I paid.

Sometimes I remember the excitement of finally getting a game I've wanted for months.

Sometimes I remember opening it for the first time and thinking, "Yep. This is exactly why I bought it."

That's worth something too.

Paying more can make me appreciate the game more

There's another reason I don't always chase the biggest discount.

I genuinely appreciate the people who make the games I love.

Blasphemous. Dave the Diver. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. These games have shaped my idea of what I want from a game on the Nintendo Switch.

And the more I learn about how some smaller teams actually make their games, the more I care about where my money goes.

Take Blasphemous.

I remember watching videos about how the team at The Game Kitchen built the game and seeing the amount of work that went into creating that world. The pixel art, the animation, the atmosphere, the weird little details everywhere.

Suddenly I'm looking at the game differently.

I'm not saying you should pay full price on the Nintendo eShop for every indie game because developers deserve your money. Your budget matters. Sometimes a game really is too expensive for you right now, and that's completely fine. The same game might be cheaper on Steam — I check both stores before I buy anything.

But if a small team makes something I genuinely love, I'm happy to give them my money.

Especially when their game becomes one of the reasons I keep enjoying my Nintendo Switch.

Big publishers like Nintendo can survive without my $10. A small team whose game I adore? I'll think about that differently.

The cheapest price isn't always the right price

So this is where I land after spending far too much time looking at Nintendo eShop prices and Steam prices across the 48 countries I track. I don't think the goal should be finding the cheapest possible game. The goal is finding a good game at a price that feels acceptable to you.

That's a much better question.

Maybe Cult of the Lamb is worth $20 to you because you want to play it tonight on your Nintendo Switch.

Maybe it's worth $10 to you, and you're happy to wait.

Maybe you have five games sitting untouched on your Nintendo Switch already, so even $5 is too much.

There isn't one correct answer.

The useful part is knowing where today's price sits.

That's why I added the /all-time-low page. If a game is on sale for $12, I want to know whether $12 is genuinely a good price for that game or whether I should expect it to go lower.

The page tells you whether the current Nintendo eShop or Steam price is the lowest I've recorded for that game, in that country.

Then you make the call.

FAQ

Should I buy a Nintendo Switch game when it's cheap?

Buy it when the price feels acceptable and you actually want the game.

If you're unsure what "acceptable" means, check /all-time-low and compare today's price with the lowest price I've recorded for that game, in that country.

Is an all-time-low price automatically a good deal?

No. It means the price is at its lowest recorded level. It doesn't mean you'll enjoy the game.

A $2 game you never play is still $2 you didn't need to spend.

Should I always wait for a bigger discount?

I'd be careful with that.

If you genuinely want a game and the current price is already comfortable for you, waiting six months to save another few dollars may not be worth it.

Especially if you're going to spend those six months watching somebody else play the whole thing.

How do I know if a cheap Nintendo Switch game is worth buying?

Look beyond the discount.

Check the game's reviews, expected playtime from HowLongToBeat, your interest in the game, and how today's price compares with its previous low.

A 90% discount sounds great. It still has to be a game you want to play.

Is paying full price ever worth it?

Absolutely.

If a game excites you, you can afford it, and you want to support the people who made it, there's nothing wrong with buying it at full price.

Sometimes I care more about getting the game while I'm excited about it than saving another five dollars.

And honestly, that's probably the best bargain I've found.