"Games are a luxury item." So?

[GoaThief]

It's just business. If they can't afford to be competitive then why are they competing? It's nice of you to support them, but then don't moan about pricing.

Who's moaned about pricing?

I won't get into the ethics of big retail vs independent though, 'tis not the time nor place.

 

[Woodsey]

It's just business. If they can't afford to be competitive then why are they competing? It's nice of you to support them, but then don't moan about pricing.

Who's moaned about pricing?

I won't get into the ethics of big retail vs independent though, 'tis not the time nor place.

This is a thread moaning about pricing, I made a comment knocking people for moaning about pricing, you responded with a comment about pricing. Seemed a fair assumption.

 

[GoaThief]

No, I think games are quite fairly priced - better than they've ever been in fact.

I believe the luxury item argument is mainly directed at pirates, as there's no real justification to steal the owners right to set the production costs and scarcity.

 

[gizmo2300]

Games are not necessary for your basic survival, i.e. it's a luxury item. Same as soda, candy, movies, comics, books, television, and radio. It doesn't really go further than that. You want a hobby? You pay the price. You wanna collect Warhammer Figures? You go lay down the 60 bucks for the figures. You wanna play Arkham City on your handy dandy PS3? You go lay down whatever the price is for games in your country. Arguments like "I pirate to fight anti-piracy programs" are hilarious to me, because you're fighting it by making the problem worse. It's really not simpler, these things take cash to develop, i.e. by buying video games you're funding the survival of your hobby.

Adult clothes are considered luxary items (at least here in the UK). So according to your argument there would be no reason to complain if T-Shirts were on sale for no less than £100.

While I do think it would be much more proactive to simply stop buying games, I can imagine those of us who are in a less fiscaly sound position would feel bad about having to give up a much loved hobby due to their poor financial situation. Especially when it might only have become unaffordable over the past decade.
Hence they complain.

It's fair to say that complaining will achieve nothing but saying they shouldn't complain is nothing short of snobbery.
"I can afford luxary items so why are you complaining."

Okay, so if an alcoholic can't afford beer they should go steal it to feed their addiction? It's safe to say that I don't play new AAA titles every month, I've cut it down to only buying certain big titles, and have been playing more and more free-to-play titles. And no one says you HAVE to buy a title the second it comes out.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Games are not necessary for your basic survival, i.e. it's a luxury item. Same as soda, candy, movies, comics, books, television, and radio. It doesn't really go further than that. You want a hobby? You pay the price. You wanna collect Warhammer Figures? You go lay down the 60 bucks for the figures. You wanna play Arkham City on your handy dandy PS3? You go lay down whatever the price is for games in your country. Arguments like "I pirate to fight anti-piracy programs" are hilarious to me, because you're fighting it by making the problem worse. It's really not simpler, these things take cash to develop, i.e. by buying video games you're funding the survival of your hobby.

Adult clothes are considered luxary items (at least here in the UK). So according to your argument there would be no reason to complain if T-Shirts were on sale for no less than £100.

While I do think it would be much more proactive to simply stop buying games, I can imagine those of us who are in a less fiscaly sound position would feel bad about having to give up a much loved hobby due to their poor financial situation. Especially when it might only have become unaffordable over the past decade.
Hence they complain.

It's fair to say that complaining will achieve nothing but saying they shouldn't complain is nothing short of snobbery.
"I can afford luxary items so why are you complaining."

Okay, so if an alcoholic can't afford beer they should go steal it to feed their addiction? It's safe to say that I don't play new AAA titles every month, I've cut it down to only buying certain big titles, and have been playing more and more free-to-play titles. And no one says you HAVE to buy a title the second it comes out.

No, but if they could make their own using the recipe from their favorite brewery (which is, for obvious reasons, cheaper than buying if you have the equipment), nobody would stop them. Copyright infringement is not theft; you're not depriving anyone of what you make a copy of.

 

[gizmo2300]

Games are not necessary for your basic survival, i.e. it's a luxury item. Same as soda, candy, movies, comics, books, television, and radio. It doesn't really go further than that. You want a hobby? You pay the price. You wanna collect Warhammer Figures? You go lay down the 60 bucks for the figures. You wanna play Arkham City on your handy dandy PS3? You go lay down whatever the price is for games in your country. Arguments like "I pirate to fight anti-piracy programs" are hilarious to me, because you're fighting it by making the problem worse. It's really not simpler, these things take cash to develop, i.e. by buying video games you're funding the survival of your hobby.

Adult clothes are considered luxary items (at least here in the UK). So according to your argument there would be no reason to complain if T-Shirts were on sale for no less than £100.

While I do think it would be much more proactive to simply stop buying games, I can imagine those of us who are in a less fiscaly sound position would feel bad about having to give up a much loved hobby due to their poor financial situation. Especially when it might only have become unaffordable over the past decade.
Hence they complain.

It's fair to say that complaining will achieve nothing but saying they shouldn't complain is nothing short of snobbery.
"I can afford luxary items so why are you complaining."

Okay, so if an alcoholic can't afford beer they should go steal it to feed their addiction? It's safe to say that I don't play new AAA titles every month, I've cut it down to only buying certain big titles, and have been playing more and more free-to-play titles. And no one says you HAVE to buy a title the second it comes out.

No, but if they could make their own using the recipe from their favorite brewery (which is, for obvious reasons, cheaper than buying if you have the equipment), nobody would stop them. Copyright infringement is not theft; you're not depriving anyone of what you make a copy of.

Yeah. But there's a reason we illegalise homebrewing.. okay this argument is mostly related to My biggest problem with piracy which isn't those who's only downloading for self-use. I have a problem with pirates who download games or movies, burn 'em on discs and sell 'em for 2 bucks a piece to folks like co-workers or neighbours.

 

[42]

DVD's are 20-30 bucks here in australia. Brand New games cost almost 100. Now tell me how the hell does that not make it a luxury item.

If people can't afford something they will try and find a way around the system. if all else fails they end up pirating it. The current reason why games are not held in the same steed as Movies and books, is because Games will eventually have an Expiration date.

and people will pirate something they can't get. be it because of international availability, or because they can't afford it.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Games are not necessary for your basic survival, i.e. it's a luxury item. Same as soda, candy, movies, comics, books, television, and radio. It doesn't really go further than that. You want a hobby? You pay the price. You wanna collect Warhammer Figures? You go lay down the 60 bucks for the figures. You wanna play Arkham City on your handy dandy PS3? You go lay down whatever the price is for games in your country. Arguments like "I pirate to fight anti-piracy programs" are hilarious to me, because you're fighting it by making the problem worse. It's really not simpler, these things take cash to develop, i.e. by buying video games you're funding the survival of your hobby.

Adult clothes are considered luxary items (at least here in the UK). So according to your argument there would be no reason to complain if T-Shirts were on sale for no less than £100.

While I do think it would be much more proactive to simply stop buying games, I can imagine those of us who are in a less fiscaly sound position would feel bad about having to give up a much loved hobby due to their poor financial situation. Especially when it might only have become unaffordable over the past decade.
Hence they complain.

It's fair to say that complaining will achieve nothing but saying they shouldn't complain is nothing short of snobbery.
"I can afford luxary items so why are you complaining."

Okay, so if an alcoholic can't afford beer they should go steal it to feed their addiction? It's safe to say that I don't play new AAA titles every month, I've cut it down to only buying certain big titles, and have been playing more and more free-to-play titles. And no one says you HAVE to buy a title the second it comes out.

No, but if they could make their own using the recipe from their favorite brewery (which is, for obvious reasons, cheaper than buying if you have the equipment), nobody would stop them. Copyright infringement is not theft; you're not depriving anyone of what you make a copy of.

Yeah. But there's a reason we illegalise homebrewing.. okay this argument is mostly related to My biggest problem with piracy which isn't those who's only downloading for self-use. I have a problem with pirates who download games or movies, burn 'em on discs and sell 'em for 2 bucks a piece to folks like co-workers or neighbours.

I'm not going to push you on the piracy, but just so you know, home brewing is completely legal, at least in the US. Home distilling is illegal, but only because nobody bothers to pay the taxes on it; if you can afford to pay the taxes, even that is technically legal.

Edit: And I agree, commercial pirates suck. They're the reason copyright infringement is illegal in the first place, and the reason the punishments are so high; those laws were never meant to be turned against private citizens making copies in their own home, because nobody predicted the internet.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

DVD's are 20-30 bucks here in australia.

They are in the US, too. That's exactly my point: videogames are in the same class of entertainment product as a DVD, but they cost as much as a ticket to disney world. How on earth is that right?

 

[Loonyyy]

This comes up a lot in discussions about both piracy and the price of games: the argument goes that games are a luxury item, so there's absolutely no reason to complain about the price. The problem is that, first of all, games are a luxury item, but they're a luxury item of the sort that DVDs and books are, and they're priced high enough that they're more in competition with expensive wines and designer clothes, but more importantly, it is still possible to overpay for a luxury item, something that has been the source of many a joke about the nouveaux riches over the years.

You know why this is? Luxury items have price ranges the same as anything else. Just like $5 would be ridiculous for a loaf of white bread and $20 would be ridiculous for a gallon of milk, $10,000 would be ridiculous even for a high end home theater receiver, and $60 is ridiculous for a videogame. Anything can be overpriced, even luxury items -- especially luxury items -- so let's quit pretending videogames can't be overpriced just because they're not an absolute necessity for daily life.

The reason it gets bandied about in piracy discussions is that while you may be able to justify needing money to buy food, shelter, or medical care, it's hard to justify needing a video game that you can play on your several hundred dollar console, or thousand plus dollar PC.

The thing is, with videogames, assigning value on a content basis is notoriously difficult, and as consumers, we've shown we're happy to put up with decreases in content, at the same price mark. So, yeah, I'd say games are overpriced, and getting more so. The point?

 

[MiriaJiyuu]

less than 1 hour of gameplay per $5 I spent -> Really not worth it, get my money back
less than 3 hrs per $5 spent -> Not worth it, but I won't be demanding compensation
less than 5 hrs per $5 spent -> The game wasted enough time for what I paid for it
less than 8 hrs per $5 spent -> The game was definitely worth it's price tag
more than 10 hrs per $5 spent -> I got an amazing deal on this game

You judge the value of a product based on how much of your time it "wasted?" Maybe try looking at from the perspective of "How much did I enjoy this product?"

This mentality some people have of time spent equaling worth really pisses me off.

Don't be stupid, they go hand in hand, of course whether or not I enjoyed it factors in too. I'm not gonna play a game for 60 hours if I don't enjoy playing it.

 

[Jack Rascal]

*OP*

Game companies are out there to make money, why is that so hard to accept? They must make a profit, the more the better. This is very simple. People paint this picture that if a game sells 20m copies, and it cost them 50m to develop it, the company is swimming in cash. They are greedy overcharging corporate bastards who deny the joy of gaming from so many people. And they smell bad too. Game prices have not gone up in a very long time but the cost of making them has. It also seems that people (not saying you, just generally) fail to grasp the fact that when a game sells for $60,00 that does not go directly to the publisher or developer. The publisher gets about 30% of that price, so give or take $18,00. The rest is shop and platform holders profit, distribution, marketing and plain old VAT. And you need to make a profit of your game to develop more games. If it cost you 50m to develop one, expect the next to be about the same or more.

Gaming is a hobby (I'm avoiding using the word luxury here) and, as in any hobby, you are free to choose your "equipment". You can go for the best (AAA games or sport equipment) or you can lower your bar and buy inexpensive "outdated" equipment. You are not entitled to have the best of the best for mere pennies just because you want it.

It seems to me that most people who complain here or elsewhere are very young people; people who may be making minimum wages (I do not mean to insult anyone with this). It does hurt if you cannot play a much anticipated game on release, but that's just how it goes. I am more likely to complain about my rent, electricity bill or the price of food because, well, I need those. As much as I love games I do not actually need them. They are a lux... um, goods that I can live without.

I buy games I think I will like (or part of series I love) new and pay the full price. If I don't have money when the game comes out I wait until I have the money. And I know the release dates of the games I want, I can save money months before I have to pay for them. On those that I am not sure about I wait for the price to drop. This is not hard. There are many games I have on my "me wants" list and I buy them when I can. I do not need them all at once.

And I wish people would stop comparing books and films to games...

 

[Savagezion]

Games are not overpriced. Never have been and never will be.

Game are over funded, which leads abusive business practices and shanking the customer's wallet.

Back when I was a young lad I got the full game for 60 bucks. I wasn't told I could pay 60 bucks and wait two months for more content on the disc and give more money.
I wasn't told that my sixty bucks was only buying half the game.

NOBODY, would give a fuck if Mass Effect were built on the same graphics of KOTOR. Nobody. It would still be just as amazing a game. But these days games are costing hundreds of millions of dollars to make and the best we can hope for from that money is six hours of game play and pretty pretty graphics, and told that we need to pay more than 60 dollars to unlock the full game because the dev's and producers are too fucking greedy.

Games are not to expensive to purchase, they are too expensive to make.

May I ask when you were a young lad? Because when I was a young lad you got the full game for $40, and that was on day one; back then, they dropped quicker and lower than they do today, with bestselling PC games frequently hitting $10 a few years after launch[footnote]Console games bottomed out at $15 to $20, theoretically thanks to licensing fees.[/footnote]. The only game I remember costing $60 prior to the current gen was the PS1 remake of the first two Lunar games, which were $60 each but were really impressive editions with books, soundtrack CDs, and toys packed in; the equivalent of today's $200 special editions.

By the way, the average cost to make a AAA game is something like $30 million. That sounds like a lot, but your average blockbuster movie is more like $100 million, and those make a profit with a much smaller cost to the end user. The only real factor in the cost of games is what consumers are willing to pay; the publishers were able to give a justification for arbitrarily jacking up the already arbitrary price by $10, so they now cost $60. There's nothing else to the cost, it's completely arbitrary.

I'll also add that movies that are made straight to DvD can hit a $20-30 million dollar budget pretty easy. That means no theatrical release. They still pull in millions of rofit by selling them for 10-20 bucks.

 

[Savagezion]

My internet screwed up.

 

[Savagezion]

*OP*

Game companies are out there to make money, why is that so hard to accept? They must make a profit, the more the better. This is very simple. People paint this picture that if a game sells 20m copies, and it cost them 50m to develop it, the company is swimming in cash. They are greedy overcharging corporate bastards who deny the joy of gaming from so many people. And they smell bad too. Game prices have not gone up in a very long time but the cost of making them has. It also seems that people (not saying you, just generally) fail to grasp the fact that when a game sells for $60,00 that does not go directly to the publisher or developer. The publisher gets about 30% of that price, so give or take $18,00. The rest is shop and platform holders profit, distribution, marketing and plain old VAT. And you need to make a profit of your game to develop more games. If it cost you 50m to develop one, expect the next to be about the same or more.

Gaming is a hobby (I'm avoiding using the word luxury here) and, as in any hobby, you are free to choose your "equipment". You can go for the best (AAA games or sport equipment) or you can lower your bar and buy inexpensive "outdated" equipment. You are not entitled to have the best of the best for mere pennies just because you want it.

It seems to me that most people who complain here or elsewhere are very young people; people who may be making minimum wages (I do not mean to insult anyone with this). It does hurt if you cannot play a much anticipated game on release, but that's just how it goes. I am more likely to complain about my rent, electricity bill or the price of food because, well, I need those. As much as I love games I do not actually need them. They are a lux... um, goods that I can live without.

I buy games I think I will like (or part of series I love) new and pay the full price. If I don't have money when the game comes out I wait until I have the money. And I know the release dates of the games I want, I can save money months before I have to pay for them. On those that I am not sure about I wait for the price to drop. This is not hard. There are many games I have on my "me wants" list and I buy them when I can. I do not need them all at once.

And I wish people would stop comparing books and films to games...

The number of games that have sold 20m copies can be counted on one hand and they are mostly multi-platform games. The market has shifted since gaming got started. Games were priced how they were because they were a niche market that didn't expect a lot of sales. Now, the market has embraced them and more people would buy them if they had the cash. All this talk about how used games and piracy are evil, its a consumer looking for a cheaper way to play because publishers are not offering one. I don't know how many times I have had 3-4 games comes out in one month I wanted to play and I had to pick which ones I could get because I can't just buy all of them.

The industry claims innovation is risky, because a game could tank with one bad idea. The reason why is because people wait to see what other people think before buying. Lowering prices would make people more impulsive. This means they will support more titles on a whim than they do now. Or better yet, spend more money accidentally.

(Example: My mom will ***** that a blender costs $20. However, make them $5 and I shit you not, the woman will buy 10 of them because it is such a good deal. I don't claim to understand it, I mention it because its a relevant consumer mindset. The woman will spend $50 on 10 blenders when she only needs 1, yet she thinks $20 for 1 is too much.)

I used to work in sales but have recently landed a new job as a welder. (I went into sales when the price of steel went up and a lay off occured.) I am one of the many middle class Americans out there. Games are too damn high and there is no reason for them to be. As well, there actually is reason to lower them. Doing so would actually stem support for innovation in the industry. Look at how many people picked up Minecraft or throw 15 bucks out to the PSN or XBLA for a 2-5 hour experience. The problem is assuming that the amount of sales being made right now, is all there is available in the market and that they are capitalizing on that. In actuality that is an unknown number and I think it is highly likely there is much more sales out there but the price point is scaring off potential sales. The psychology of consumers at checkoout is something that is not being considered in this price point. The only consumer psychology that is being considered is initial interest with big hype campaigns.

 

[Jfswift]

I still don't understand why anyone would defend high prices (unless they're on the companies payroll *cough*).

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I still don't understand why anyone would defend high prices (unless they're on the companies payroll *cough*).

I dont understand why anybody with a job would call game prices high.

Because $60 can buy you a yearly pass to Busch Gardens, or most of a single day at Disney World (and that's only because the prices have gone up in the last few years; at the start of this console cycle, $60 was the exact cost of a disney ticket.) Games are in competition with DVDs, not theme park tickets. $60 isn't a lot to a person with a job if it, say, pays for an important repair to their car, but it's a heck of a lot for a throwaway entertainment item.

Edit: Even better example: $40 can buy you a weeks' worth of food if you're poor/cheap. $60 buys you one videogame. Source: Being a college student who dropped the overpriced meal plan to save money and averaged $40 a week on food.