It has less to do with cost, and more to do with physical/digital. When it's digital, if I bought it, I will enjoy it more than if it was free. But if it's physical, it could be free or paid-for... I will enjoy and cherish it so much more overall. It's a completely illogical thing, I know. But that's psychology for you lol.

I paid $1.99 for Green Hell. I would have gladly paid $30. The fact that I paid so little absolutely did not affect my enjoyment of the game. I'm pretty good at judging a game separate from other factors like popularity, graphics, price, typical audience, etc. I remember the thread where someone was asking if they were embarrassed about enjoying childish games. This falls into the same category for me. Trust yourself and your enjoyment of a game and let everything else go.

I so rarely pay full price for a game. And I almost never get to my games immediately (backlogs, amirite?), so when I get around to playing a game, I usually don't remember what I paid for it, whether it was on sale, free, etc. So it has almost no bearing on my enjoyment of the game.

I enjoy a game if it's enjoyable. My standards will be higher if I paid more, but price is less of a factor.
If I get the physical version of the game, then I can sell said game and mitigate any potential disappointment.

I dont buy games for over $20 unless they part of a complete collection - my limit is $30 in that case.

Why would I? That said, if I do pay more for a game, it probably means I'm very interested in it, and hence I'm probably going to enjoy it more - but that has nothing to do with price (correlation vs. causation).

Generally agree with this tho sometimes a game like Crackdown 3. I'd be miffed if I paid 60 bucks but the 10 bucks I paid? It was fun enough.

Exactly.

I bought the deluxe edition of FS2020, CAD 150, cause I knew I was going to enjoy it for a long time (and did)

GT7 the same, I bought the physical steel book edition and the digital edition. The steel book edition came with a code for PS4 (which I used to race against PS4 crowd, better behaved than PS5 crowd) while playing single player on PS5. Digital for convenience, physical for keepsake.

I've double dipped in many games, at full price. Same with movies.



Taking a risk on a new game (new IP) at full price is different though. I got burned on BG3, bought day one, tried to like it, tried co-op, now regret I bought it. Can't trade it in, simply deleted from my system. I took a risk, Baldur's Gate was always great, yet BG3 isn't like the older games. And now I'm extremely hesitant again to pay full price for any digital release.

So no, I don't enjoy games more because I paid full price for them. No causation indeed. Perhaps even some negative causation as paying full price for digital only BG3 had me try to like it more, causing me to hate it in the end. Much more than if I could have simply traded it in. Larian studios is now on my bad side.

All things being equal, price shouldn't be a factor.
But if I love a game that's $60-$70 it's better than not loving it when I paid that much.
There is also a satisfying feeling of really liking or loving free games because I paid nothing for the game.

I play a lot free to play games. I don't think my enjoyment of those games are any lower than for the games I pay to play. But i will give games I pay for more of a chance than free games. One is granted a few minutes and one is granted a few hours.
Expectations are probably skewed a bit. Expensive games need to slap more in order for me to feel satisfied.