My thoughts on game prices.

[Kingme18]

Surprisingly, it was my grandpa that made me have this revelation. Before now, I thought games cost too much($60, as I live in the U.S.) But while my grandpa watched me play Gears of War 3, he asked me a question: "How in the world do the people that make this game get all of those people to move on their own?" To this I replied: "They can do some pretty sweet stuff to games nowadays!" Then he said, "It's a wonder that they don't make you pay more, with all the technology they use to make this!"

This got me thinking. Are we spoiled? Do we expect more out of games at a lower cost? What do you think? Is the price tag on games too high, or is it just right?

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

It really depends on the game. Some games are worth much more than what they actually cost whereas others aren't worth the plastic their cases are made out of. That's why we have DLC, used games, and sales. Good games make more money with DLC, bad games get bought second hand. It all balances out, and shame on consumers and publishers for disliking either one of these.

 

[MrTwo]

Well, I'm in Australia so naturally I think games are overpriced here and I try to import when I can. $100AUS and $60US is too big a gap when the value of our dollars is so close now. And if any publishers or retailers tried to up the price to more than other games, they would be hated upon and buyers would flock to eBay.

 

[rod_hynes]

Thats Capitalism at its best. If games weren't worth 60$ would you be paying for them?

 

[BanicRhys]

Americans and their $60 games are spoiled, yes. But us Australians and, to a lesser extent, Europeans etc are most certainly not spoiled.

Games don't cost as much to make as you would think. Plus, a game like Gears of War would sell millions of copies so I'm sure the studio behind it made a nice profit anyway.

 

[Danceofmasks]

Well, I'm in Australia so naturally I think games are overpriced here and I try to import when I can. $100AUS and $60US is too big a gap when the value of our dollars is so close now. And if any publishers or retailers tried to up the price to more than other games, they would be hated upon and buyers would flock to eBay.

Check out Dungeon Crawl.
I go to their retail store, which is in Melbourne, but they do have free shipping Australia wide, at prices that don't make your butt hurt.

 

[Fat4all]

I paid $80 for A Link to the Past when it first came out.

I'd say standard pricing has it's ups and downs.

 

[JochemDude]

No, were not spoiled when something sells like crazy prices are going up. Simple logic that is.

 

[DementedSheep]

I know games cost allot to make but that doesn?t mean the end product is worth the amount they charge to me. I live in NZ, the prices for new games are generally $100 to $130 in stores regardless of the of the game and also take a very long time to drop prices so no I don't think I'm spoilt. For most games I don?t think that is reasonable. To justify that cost I would have to get quite allot of playtime out of it. So while I might pay $100 for a long rpg or a game I know I will love and play multiple times I'm not going to pay that for a 15 hour game or one from a franchise or developer I'm not familiar with and I have to be damn sure I'm going to like the game. Generally a $60 to $80 price range I'm ok with. Not an impulse buy and at that price they are still expensive so I?m certainly not going to be buying new release games every month but its seems reasonable and relatively fair.

 

[feeback06]

I paid $80 for A Link to the Past when it first came out.

I'd say standard pricing has it's ups and downs.

This.

I remember SNES games costing around this much when I was a kid, and this was during a time without the plethora of information about games that we have these days.

 

[Cyberjester]

Think of your grandpa like this, he's still getting his head around phones that can browse the web and play music.. Technology doesn't cost much. Especially when creating the disc and packaging is on a factory line. The main cost there is labor to make the game, and even then I can guarantee that most of the employees of Activision would not be paid a percentage of the profit from the CoD franchise.

And a lot of it is profit, $100 a game, at ten million copies is a lot of money. I'm also in Aus, so I can state quite definitely that I am paying too much for games. Go to steam.com.au, then just to steam.com. Half the price just for changing where I live? Capitalism at its best. Most games also don't take me that long to get through, so in a lot of cases I'm paying the same amount as a cinema outing. (Cinema ticket is usually 23/25, more if I go to see a movie I like which mainstream cinemas don't, Pans Labyrinth is a good example. 60USD would still be a rip off? But people will still pay it so we still get charged a fortune.

 

[Asuka Soryu]

No, not really. Look at how much money goes into a movie yet you can get those for around 24$ Imagine the budget spent on 3 big budget movies vs one video game.

Then you look at games that are quite a joke, that still sale for 60$

 

[MrTwo]

Well, I'm in Australia so naturally I think games are overpriced here and I try to import when I can. $100AUS and $60US is too big a gap when the value of our dollars is so close now. And if any publishers or retailers tried to up the price to more than other games, they would be hated upon and buyers would flock to eBay.

Check out Dungeon Crawl.
I go to their retail store, which is in Melbourne, but they do have free shipping Australia wide, at prices that don't make your butt hurt.

Yeah, their prices are pretty good, but I usually go to http://www.ozgameshop.com. They have slightly lower prices than Dungeon Crawl because their games are shipped straight from the UK. Of course, that means it takes at least two weeks for a game to arrive, so if I need a game quickly I'll have a look at DC. Thanks =).

 

[SFMB]

60$ is now the optimal price for new games, for people are willing to pay it. If sales begin to drop (drasticaly), prices will too, but this is not going to happen, because consumers cannot affect the publishers tht much. Boycots don't work.

 

[funguy2121]

Surprisingly, it was my grandpa that made me have this revelation. Before now, I thought games cost too much($60, as I live in the U.S.) But while my grandpa watched me play Gears of War 3, he asked me a question: "How in the world do the people that make this game get all of those people to move on their own?" To this I replied: "They can do some pretty sweet stuff to games nowadays!" Then he said, "It's a wonder that they don't make you pay more, with all the technology they use to make this!"

This got me thinking. Are we spoiled? Do we expect more out of games at a lower cost? What do you think? Is the price tag on games too high, or is it just right?

Yes, yes and yes. Also, your grandfather is right. It costs exactly $59.99 to make all of those people move around on their own.

 

[Astoria]

I think $60 per game is about right. It's not just technology that is going into those games but also writers, voice actors, artists, all sorts so wages and other things come into it too. Here in Australia I think we get charged a bit too much, especially when our dollar is as high as it is at the moment. I really don't see how shipping them out here costs a extra $40 and sometimes even $50 per game.

 

[random_bars]

In general I think $60 is too expensive, but more importantly there really shouldn't be one set price for every game. Games are different sizes, different lengths, they hold peoples' interest for different amounts of time, they're different levels of quality - and so they need to be priced individually depending on how much they're worth.

With every retail game costing $60, any of them that aren't worth that much (usually because they simply don't have enough content to justify that price) are forced to either pad out their length in various ways - you know the drill, huge arbitrary fetch quests, copypasted dungeons, unnecessarily huge world with all the missions spaced out far more than necessary, etc etc - or else recieve a huge backlash of criticism for being too short and not worth the money.