I can second everything that
kris is saying, but I also second the "MMOs are best at launch" statement - I've only ever played one MMO, but what I've heard from others tells me that MMOs are best at launch/late beta.
Today there is NO NEED to buy a game when it's new if it isn't an MMO. Period.
And before anyone begins lamenting the sorry state of the game market today, let me give you some perspective in the form of a history lesson.
Since the video game crash of 1983, video games have had the stigma of being too expensive attached to them. In a response to this, at least two UK publishing houses were established with the sole goal of selling cheap games - £2 was their maximum asking price for a game. This opened up the market to lots of new customers, as well as putting pressure on the "big publishers" to lower their prices to remain competitive...at least for a while. Soon the word got out that the games being released by these budget labels were utter shit - turns out the term "shovelware" was alive and well in 1985. They took in any game that needed a distributor and releasing it under their label. The idea was that the "smash hits" would offset the costs of the "duds" - a strategy that lasted long enough to make the idea of "budget release" stick.
Eventually as 1990 came closer someone realized that this idea could be taken further: Take an older game that was out of stock, and re-release it at a cheaper price. IIRC Mastertronic was the first label to do this, and it netted them enough success that soon every major publisher had a smaller budget label attached to it. Ocean had "The Hit Squad", just to name an example. This practice has been in effect ever since - barring an overwhelming success or epic disaster, a game would find continued shelf life as a budget title or part of a compilation, or "bundle" as they're known today.
To give a better example, we move to the PC market as I give you a look into the Icelandic retail gaming scene: In 1992 a new retail release would be priced based on only one thing: The box itself. The bigger and heavier the box, the more expensive the game was. No other factors weighed in.
No, this is not a joke. Games released in small boxes (just big enough to fit 5.25" disks) would go for about 2500 ISK, while 'standard' retail boxes (Ultima 7/Ultima Underworld) would go for about 5000 ISK, and games like Red Baron and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego (both titles with huge manuals requiring large boxes and weighed a ton) were sold for 11000 ISK! And the price
would not change as the game got "old" - the concept of "sales" was unknown to Iceland back then. That was how it had been for years, but fortunately that was all about to change.
In 1995 one could find budget re-releases of games like Ultima Underworld and Ultima 7 being sold for as little as 1500 ISK. The upside being that these were "complete" versions on CD-ROMs. The downside was they shipped in bare-bones jewel cases with condensed manuals. But for many in Iceland, this was the only way to approach many titles at affordable prices. By 1996 sales had become a thing, and by early 1998 the video game retail market in Iceland had become what one could call "healthy" - the maximum price for a new retail copy of a PC game was 6000 ISK, regardless of physical dimensions, and about 70% of the titles would return down the road via budget labels/compilation releases.
With PC game boxes adopting the DVD case as a standard casing in 2001/2002, prices dropped even further for PC games. It wasn't until the recession hit in 2008 that game prices would climb again - but only for console titles. Today a console retail release goes for 8000-13000 ISK, depending on circumstances. Meanwhile, the PC retail market has stayed under the 5000 ISK mark - but the sales and selection has dropped so harshly that they're almost off the grid now - and Steam is a constant for system requirements. The PC gaming market has gone completely digital - and yet we're seeing many of the
same business practices in the market as before the days of the Internet. The only 'new' things we're seeing in the market now is Early Access and Enhanced Editions. Enhanced Editions I can understand because the possibility of revisiting and refreshing old titles wasn't financially viable until now, and the music and film industry have been doing it for years, but the concept of making us pay to be betatesters on an unfinished product is just outright absurd. Broforce is the only game I put down money on while it was in Early Access, and that was because they already had a highly enjoyable Brototype of the game out beforehand.
As for me and Day 1 purchases? Ultima 9 was a Day 1 purchase for me just before Christmas in 1999, hopefully I don't need to explain the ramifications of that. The next time I made a Day 1 purchase was Serious Sam 2 in 2005. Again I should not need to explain that. My last Day 1 purchase was Alien: Isolation back in 2014. It's a fun game, but it's not even worth $20, let alone the full retail price of $70 I paid for it.
So to summarize:
# Caveat Emptor.
# Don't pre-order.
# Don't buy Early Access titles unless they already have something good to show.
# Don't buy on Day 1 unless it's an MMO.
# Don't buy until you have written confirmation that there isn't an Enhanced Edition being planned for the next 5 years or so.
These 5 rules should have you sorted.