$59.99 PC Games, will it last?

[Delusibeta]

While a) PC games are back up to Secret of Monkey Island prices, b) it's probably Modern Warfare 2 and Starcraft 2's mad success which caused this trend.

Ultimately, the solution is to not buy the games at $60.

 

[Evil the White]

Well, considering I got New Vegas for £30, I'm still quite happy with my choice of games.

 

[Wicky_42]

I just don't buy ridiculously overpriced games. On Saturday I downloaded about 30 indie games, I'm occupied for at least a couple months now.

...I'm gonna go play Flywrench.

Oh man that game was sweet! Couldn't put it down till I finished it (and boy was that a late night!)

OT, I don't care if they're going to ask that much up front, I'm not going to pay more than £30 on a big-name game that I'm interested in - if they start asking £40-50 I guess I'll just have fewer big-name games. I guess that's good for a maturing industry, all in all - that's more money smart indie devs can have a stab at (as Minecraft is already doing!)

 

[Del-Toro]

I use Steam, I never bought anything over 40$

So... doesn't affect me

Then there's the daily specials, which can drop pretty good games down to something like $20 when they are still 40 or 50 in stores, (most of the games I got were on sale)

Really?

How about some examples. Right now the biggest savings on Steam is for a $35 game (Tales of Monkey Island) that is dropped down to $5, that's pretty massive but the game is over a year old and it isn't $50 regular price. I am not even sure if anyone cares to buy it at $5.

In fact, there are no specials on $50-$60 games. The closest we can come to your example is Guild Wars: Eye of the North which is $20.99 but is only reduced by $9.

I think Steam has some nice sales but I think people blow it out of proportion. I see more and better games on Wal Marts clearance racks.

Yep, there are a lot of hidden gems on those wal-mart racks, it's how I got my hands on some of the Rainbow 6 games, not to mention the blitzkrieg series and a few others. Hurrah for walmoart. As for an example to prove my point? I seem to recall getting Company of Heroes off steam for a sale price of 15 back when it was 35-40 regularly. I'm Canadian, so the numbers may be messed up for me (exchange rates and all that).

 

[anian]

Really?

How about some examples. Right now the biggest savings on Steam is for a $35 game (Tales of Monkey Island) that is dropped down to $5, that's pretty massive but the game is over a year old and it isn't $50 regular price. I am not even sure if anyone cares to buy it at $5.

In fact, there are no specials on $50-$60 games. The closest we can come to your example is Guild Wars: Eye of the North which is $20.99 but is only reduced by $9.

I think Steam has some nice sales but I think people blow it out of proportion. I see more and better games on Wal Marts clearance racks.

Well the game is not gonna be sold for 60 euros on the first week and for 5 on the second week...that wouldn't make much sense. But for example L4D2 was priced 50 euros, a few months ago it went to 7, last week it was 5 along with a new free DLC...and yes, this might be a bad example, but you wanted and example. Not to mention that you can buy 4 copies for 20 or something (about 6 months after release it was 50 for 4 copies).
How is that not a saving?
Also, Dragon age is 30 euros now, a year after release. ME2 is 30 as well.

Not only do games in stores here cost about 10% of average salary, but also not everybody lives next to Walmart...so every little bit helps.

 

[RUINER ACTUAL]

The prices will go up. The cost to make a game now is enormous. PC games are not special, their price will go up, it's a matter of time.

That extra $10 on console games is supposed to cover the licensing fees, something the PC doesn't have.

I think that depends on how the game was made. Someone mentioned MoH costs $60 on PC, probably because it was expensive to make, and it was built on the PS3, not on the PC.

IT WAS BUILT ON THE PS3?!

You need to rewrite that sentence. Built primarily for the PS3 perhaps (I can't confirm or deny that).

And the $10 increase is so that Sony and MS actually make money from their consoles; it does not cost lots more money to make a port (although I don't believe MoH actually is), especially since it's on the 360 as well. If anything it's more logical to build it primarily for the 360.

Anyway, MoH is £30 on Steam, which is £5 less than standard retail price for PC games.

I don't see the problem.

Especially since you can read all the reviews for a game and then pre-order it on Steam (and Steam pre-orders always have deals on them) hours before launch.

I thought I heard it was built on the PS3. That was a while ago, so I'm not sure.

 

[Valiance]

If Blizzard can do it, so can anyone else.

That's the mindset of this generation, and they charged 59.99 for SCII, so...

Expect to see a lot more of it.

And be like me buying 4-game packs for 5 dollars in discount aisles. lol.

 

[Woodsey]

The prices will go up. The cost to make a game now is enormous. PC games are not special, their price will go up, it's a matter of time.

That extra $10 on console games is supposed to cover the licensing fees, something the PC doesn't have.

I think that depends on how the game was made. Someone mentioned MoH costs $60 on PC, probably because it was expensive to make, and it was built on the PS3, not on the PC.

IT WAS BUILT ON THE PS3?!

You need to rewrite that sentence. Built primarily for the PS3 perhaps (I can't confirm or deny that).

And the $10 increase is so that Sony and MS actually make money from their consoles; it does not cost lots more money to make a port (although I don't believe MoH actually is), especially since it's on the 360 as well. If anything it's more logical to build it primarily for the 360.

Anyway, MoH is £30 on Steam, which is £5 less than standard retail price for PC games.

I don't see the problem.

Especially since you can read all the reviews for a game and then pre-order it on Steam (and Steam pre-orders always have deals on them) hours before launch.

I thought I heard it was built on the PS3. That was a while ago, so I'm not sure.

All games are made on PCs.

 

[anian]

What are the retail prices of these games?

Now in stores they're about 40-50 euros (6-12 months after release), they were 60 at launch.

 

[2fish]

Prices will stay here or go up, but 59.99 is a cool number, screw those even numbers. I generally wait until prices have lowered to buy a game, but in the end you have to decide if the game is worth the price. If not don't buy it.

Spoiler: how they decide how much to raise prices by

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

As long as what I'm paying for has an appropriate amount of content to make it worth the 60 bucks. That kind of why I prefer digital distribution anyways due to the lowered price, although I wish developers would take advantage of that so that we could do away with the waste generated from packaging/materials and the cost of being held in stores.

Lower price? Isn't Medal of Honor $59.99 on Steam too?

I think he means the fact that Steam does massive and ridiculous sales to try get people like me to buy more games.

Anyway I don't care I have not personally bought a single game that has cost over 30euro maybe even 25euro in the last 2 or 3 years.

 

[kibayasu]

I suppose some games are doing this, but from what I've bought and seen lately of the bigger names, most aren't. New Vegas, Lost Planet 2, Dead Rising 2, Metro 2033, Mass Effect 2, Bad Company 2, Borderlands, Dragon Age, Kane and Lynch 2, Mafia 2, Just Cause 2, Brink... I could probably go on.

Anyways, sure, some games are being hiked to $60 on the PC. More may follow. It's hardly a growing trend at the moment though. Besides Medal of Honor, Modern Warfare 2, and Starcraft 2 (and probably Black Ops come November), I can't really think of any.

 

[ProfessorLayton]

As for right now, I refuse to buy a $60 PC game. Like at all. If it was $60 at launch for PC I'm not buying the game for PC even if the price goes down. That was always one of the advantages of buying the PC version of games (along with free online, better graphics, better controls, etc... /fanboy). Eh, whatever, if everything changes like that I guess there's nothing you can do. Except what people seem to be forgetting is that if no one buys a PC game for $60 they'll keep it at the already outrageous $50.

 

[therandombear]

Regular price for new PC games here are about, this is in Norwegian money, 399kr, that is the normal price, which equals to about 69$, (BTW, 69$ is the price for MoH atm in stores).

EDIT: Console games cost about, 499kr(82$) some places, can range up to 699, which equals to 120$.

 

[Mcface]

I'm sure they won't go back down, but I don't agree with it being purely because production cost has gone up. I think they just realized they can get away with the price increase anyway, and almost all of the games in this price-range so-far for PC has made tons of money, that wouldn't have changed if it was at it's previous level.

I'd be willing to bet it's because there is less money being made in the PC game market.
It used to be cheaper because it was easier to put out, since the code was already formatted for PCs, and they are generally easier to code and program games on.

But with the thousands and thousands of pirates, it no longer makes sense to charge less. They need to charge the people who actually pay more, to make up the difference between the 20 thousand people who will steal the game.

Well, atleast we got to page 2 before the old reliable "blame the pirates" nonsense came out. I guess we should expect DS games to increase by $10 too because I hear the piracy on the DS is bad.

10 thousand games pirated, times 50 dollars = 500,000 dollar profit loss.

here are some pirate numbers.
1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (4,100,000, Nov. 2009)
2. The Sims 3 (3,200,000, June 2009)
3. Prototype (2,350,000, June 2009)
4. Need For Speed Shift (2,100,000, Sept. 2009)
5. Street Fighter IV (1,850,000, July 2009)

I'm pretty sure 4 million stolen games is more than enough to cause a price change.