games really are not that expensive...
- Thread starter HarryScull
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While this arguement does hold up in most genres, it doesn't quite apply to multiplayer, first person shooters. Chances are, if you wait four months to play it, they've released DLC, which is going to double your cost of entry and is essentially required to play the game. If you wait for them to discount the DLC (another four months, maybe longer. I'm not even sure that DLCs are discounted at all, but I may be wrong), you've spent about 1/3 of the game's life cycle waiting. If you're lucky, the game company will wait another year to release the next entry in the series.
Get this, I can buy parts for my car from America, and pay less than an American would to buy the same thing.Somonah said:
Yet I pay twice as much for a game developed in America, produced in a chinese sweat shop and shipped in bulk to Australia.
How the fuck, does that make sense?
no it was to show that although games are expensive if you buy on launch day, if you wait for sales and price drops games are really cheap, and that a lot of people I know pirate because "games are to expensive and I wasn't going to buy it for £40 anyway" which is a retarded argumentDoPo said:
I used to play xbox and games are a lot more expensive for console, even when I bought used games and waited for sales I was still paying £20 a game, and with used games being destroyed with the nest console generation, one of the main reasons I got a PC was because it should save me money in the long run on gamesTreblaine said:
um no, I mean that if you insist on buying brand new games on launch day then games are expensive and you are letting game company's screw you over but if you are happy to wait for price drops and sales you can buy some really great games for very cheapTrippy Turtle said:
my statement stands, gaming really ins't that expensive
Am I the only one that doesn't find RRP for new games too pricy?
I mean, by no stretch is my family rolling in money, but it costs about 1/2 or more of £40 to just go out for a night, eat out somewhere or to buy almost anything else that could be considered a 'luxury hobby item'.
£40 for what could last me months and rack me up 100+ hours of game time is a good deal, and it's often worth buying multiplayer games early because you get to play when everybody else is playing and get a feel for it sooner. If you think £40 is too expensive for something that lasts you so many hours, how can you ever justify buying alcohol for the price its at, buying a ticket to a movie or buying an expensive phone every year?
I mean, by no stretch is my family rolling in money, but it costs about 1/2 or more of £40 to just go out for a night, eat out somewhere or to buy almost anything else that could be considered a 'luxury hobby item'.
£40 for what could last me months and rack me up 100+ hours of game time is a good deal, and it's often worth buying multiplayer games early because you get to play when everybody else is playing and get a feel for it sooner. If you think £40 is too expensive for something that lasts you so many hours, how can you ever justify buying alcohol for the price its at, buying a ticket to a movie or buying an expensive phone every year?
Hmm, you're purchasing last gen games over the internet that are on sale, so of course they're cheap. No-body is arguing that OLD games are cheap, the problem is with the NEW ones, or the big Triple-A titles. For example, Modern Warfare 2, or even WaW still retails in EB Games for $60, and that's a used copy in Australia. Brand new games usually average between $90-$110, depending on how much you shop around, and this can last for months depending on the title. BF3, which has been out for almost 8 months STILL retails at the full $90 price tag that I payed for it new.HarryScull said:
Yes, I'm sure people could find it cheaper if they shopped around, purchased things online or via Ebay, but that is not the problem. The problem is that retail stores, and to some extent digital distribution platforms like Origin, are priced ridiculously high. Can someone explain to me why a hard copy of Mass Effect 3 costs the EXACT SAME price as a digital version that has no printing or shipping costs associated with it?
Sure, the price for many games invariably drops, faster if it's quite shit/unpopular, and I am not arguing that you can get the game cheaper at a later date, nor am I arguing that piracy is the way. I just think it's a little bit unfair for you to say that 10 year old games are cheap, therefor all games are cheap. As with anything else, the price will depreciate over time in accordance with demand, and that is fine. The real problem is the ridiculously high starting price.
Someone used a car analogy, where they said an '05 car is cheaper than a '12 luxury car, which is of course true, but it is an unfair comparision. Sticking with this analogy, the older model might not have all the little extras, or support for your problems might have been cancelled for some reason, or maybe it simply runs on a type of fuel that isn't produced any more and this is why people want to buy a new one, provided they could afford it.
But let's say cars were all priced the same for their category, regardless of their actual value. All new small cars were priced at $20 000, 4 wheel drives at $60 000 and then luxury cars like BMW's at $100 000. This is the problem with gaming. All games are arbitrarily released at the same price, and the rate at which they depreciate is dependent on their quality/popularity and the problem is, there is no way for the buyer to get a better deal, because there is simply no competitiveness in the industry. If people want to get a game new, then that is the price they must pay, no if's, but's or maybe's and in any other industry that would be considered uncompetitive and economically wrong. This either forces people to wait until a game MAY come down in price to an acceptable level, or just fork over their money for the game they want.
Again, I'm not arguing that people should or shouldn't wait for the price to drop, as that is their own perogative, but the real problem with the industry is the lack of competitve pricing. And THAT is why games are too expensive.
That exists on PC where it is much more open to competition and with less expensive stipulations of set-price licence fees and retail-store mark-up like you find in console gaming.Mortai Gravesend said:
The problem with consoles is there are just too many factors pushing the price towards $60 (and higher) and no one is really allowed to go any lower. And people are NOT accepting these prices, the majority of shelf space in stores is dedicated to used-games that means a huge proportion of the market are compelled to sell their old games and buy used rather than new.
Sony, Microsoft, etc will orchestrate circumstances to keep game prices high, that makes it easy for them to have a $15 licence-fee per game.
ON PC you can have such dynamic pricing from how many middle men are cut out of the loop. There is REAL competition from how with PC you aren't forced to use Steam for EVERY game, but if you boguth a PS3 you MUST use PSN. If You bought a 360, you have no choice but Xbox Live.
That isn't true competition. That's like buying a Ford Automobile but you can only buy fuel that Ford sells in their special gas stations where they can charge whatever they like.
Capitalism is BROKEN on consoles. It is broken by how pricing is not truly independent and there are effective monopolies on a per-customer basis.
Gaming IS expensive if you want to keep up to date with brand new releases all the time.
I started saving a lot of money once I stopped buying games on release and just waited for their price to drop after a couple of months, as well as started buying more pre-owned games.
At this stage, I'd say gaming is as cheap or as expensive as you want it to be.
I started saving a lot of money once I stopped buying games on release and just waited for their price to drop after a couple of months, as well as started buying more pre-owned games.
At this stage, I'd say gaming is as cheap or as expensive as you want it to be.
As far as entertainment goes, games are bargain. Hookers are much more expensive for the time you get out of them, plus they can leave you with much bigger problems than poor vision and RSIs.
OP, you are missing the point of most of the articles which say video games are too expensive. Many video game publishers view selling and purchasing pre-owned games as piracy. They think you are breaking the law no differently than someone who downloads the game off the internet for free, because they only see the money from the original purchase. They go on to site this practice as one of a myriad of reasons why video games cost $60 new and creativity is stifled. The counter argument to the publishers is that [new] games are too expensive for 10-20 hours of play time (on average), so people resort to purchasing pre-owned games, selling used games back, or waiting for the game to get old enough to buy it new on sale. Additionally, the target audience for most games are teenagers and college students, both of whom have a high percentage of disposal income (assuming they work), but not a high absolute dollar amount.
So yes, I think we can all agree that games are affordable as long as you purchase them in every way that publishers view as illegal and which they make no money. If they had their way, you would only be able to purchase the new game for full price.
So yes, I think we can all agree that games are affordable as long as you purchase them in every way that publishers view as illegal and which they make no money. If they had their way, you would only be able to purchase the new game for full price.
I have to agree. I mean, you can say that a car isn't expensive if you count waiting ten years and buying it for a couple hundred bucks. But that ten-year-old car isn't going to last nearly as long as a brand new one, or even slightly used one.Dirty Hipsters said:
But the thing is, you can't wait too long for the price to drop if you're thinking about playing multiplayer. You wait too long, and there won't be anyone to play with. And I don't want to wait a year or two to get a half-decent deal on a story-based game, because no matter how much you try to avoid it, someone is going spoil the awesome plot-twist for you.
Now, I usually don't spend more than 20 or 30 bucks on games myself, either because of promotions or using gift cards I've saved throughout the years. But that doesn't change the fact that a brand new game costs more than 1/4th of my weekly paycheck, and that's kind of ridiculous. Also remember that a lot of games are forcing you to buy extra content, like multiplayer passes, if you buy used. So you're not always getting games at 20 or 30 dollars, but 25 or 35 dollars.
Another thing with PC gaming is you pay for as much graphical quality as you want. You either get a super graphics card for the top range, or a budget card, or anything in between. And if later you want more power you don't need a whole new machine but just upgrade one major component.HarryScull said:
Consoles had an edge over PC at the beginning of this generation but they have pushed things too far. They killed their golden goose by being too greedy.
I think if there is EVER going to be a new console generation a lot of people are going to seriously question if it is worth it, and if they are going to move to a whole new system might a decent PC not just be a better choice.
And uuhh... why don't Steam sales count?Dirty Hipsters said:
OT: Yeah, between Steam sales and Amazon.com digital download sales I've been saving a shit-load.
Nabbed The Darkness 2 for a tenner about 3 weeks after release from Amazon's download store.
PC games are a lot easier to get a hold of cheaper though, I'll grant people that.
I always use http://savygamer.co.uk/ nowadays.