Poll: If games cost $69.99 next gen?

[Genocidicles]

If prices rose that high I might just have to *ahem* go... sailing. So to speak. On the high seas.

 

[Voxgizer]

Nope. Everything else I get when it's rock bottom cheap, or on Steam Sale, which is basically the same.

In the past 6 or so years, I think I've picked up a total of TWO games on release. Duke Nukem and Dead Island. Both were worth it. No sarcasm.

 

[jdogtwodolla]

I don't even buy at the prices now. Haven't even had a new console game in quite a while, especially from nintendo.

If that is what the price of next-gen titles are going to be, then I'm sticking with Steam and probably branching out to other online services.

 

[bullet_sandw1ch]

Voted "R3v01uti0n!!!!," because it was the closest option to "start buying more indie games and watch the AAA industry go into another crash." Because seriously, they were reaming us at $50 a pop. $60 each was worse, adding DLC was just highway robbery. If they go $70 and still do DLC (which would happen -- there's no way the majors will give up on paid DLC just because of a price hike), I'll sit back and laugh as they go out of business, while my money goes to bedroom coders who actually treat their customers right.

guess what the best part is, games have cost $69.99+tax in Canada for God knows how long! they've only recently dropped to a reasonable price of $59.99.

 

[Kanatatsu]

I could care less. Games are still amazing entertainment value, and plus I am an adult with a big boy job.

 

[Catrixa]

I pick yes, because I assume those extra $10 are to cover the cost of all the extra content we're getting, as well as pirates, because how else would they release games without all that nasty, old DRM of yesteryear? Now, if they're just raising the price because "roflroflrofl, peepz want t3h gaemz!" and don't actually plan on including $10 of worth to the product, I probably wouldn't pay it for very long... I've got plenty of games with many hours of content that I'd probably rather play more anyway...

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I'd never pay that kind of money for a videogame, let alone in Argentina, where the price would probably double by the time the game makes it here.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I've pretty much already written off the next generation of games so no.

 

[synobal]

Just wait for the steam sale.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

It would barely affect me at all.

Games drop in price so quickly now and there are SO many of them to chose from that unless I MUST HAVE IT NOWZ! (maybe once a year), I don't ever buy at full price. So they can do what they want with the price for I will just continue waiting to buy the game until it gets to a price that I find reasonable.

So I suppose "Other" would be my choice since I wouldn't say Yes or No because I don't care. I also don't buy used games all that often so that wouldn't matter and I don't think we need to overthrow the gaming government because the prices of our games have gone up

This.

I haven't paid 60 bucks for a game since... **thinks** Mass Effect 3 - no wait, I didn't pay full price for that either. I got it for 55 buck at a Midnight release because a local hole-in-the-wall game store gave a 5 dollar discount for pre-orders.

Before that...

....

Catherine, maybe? I can't remember if I paid full price, but I preordered that one too.

 

[klaynexas3]

This is the reason why I never buy games on release. That and because I don't care enough pre-release, I have to know post de facto if it's any good before I consider buying it. Or it's really cheap in the DS library. Sometimes other libraries, but mostly DS.

So even if they do increase the release price, it won't affect me unless it's like a really good game, in which case I will pay the extra price to make sure I get a copy.

 

[Stavros Dimou]

Welcome to the world American gamers!
I live in Europe where xbox360 games cost 75 euros (97.57US$), ps3 games cost 60 euros (78.06US$) and Wii/WiiU games cost 50 euros! (65.05US$)

New PC games range from 30 to 50 euros depending on the game's publisher. (39.03 to 65.05US$)

 

[Lord_Jaroh]

Nope. Game prices got arbitrarily raised this last generation, when they did not need it. I'm not buying into the "next generation" of gaming at launch (because of Sony's lack of support for my existing library), and I will be even less likely to bother at all if games go up. Unfortunately, there are enough hypocritical people with no spine that will just shrug and accept it (all while bitching about it) that it will be done anyway.

 

[l3o2828]

The $60 price model doesn't work. Making it pricier isn't fixing it.
So no. I wouldn't.

 

[Insanity72]

$70 for a new gen game, I would love that if it was AUS dollar! The absolute cheapest I can find for new release games is $80, but at some places you can be paying $100 - $120

 

[thedoclc]

I'm going to leave this here while the thread is nice and short in its early stages. Later posters are a bit more likely then to see this post as they skim the first page, after all.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2010/10/an-inconvenient-truth-game-prices-have-come-down-with-time/

Basically, $69.99 (US money, not real money like we have in the UK xD) is not as expensive as games were years ago. We're not forking out silly amounts, we're paying the same or less than we used to but the number has simply changed. Unfortunately, most people on this site don't understand what inflation is in the economy, not properly, because they're in their late teens or early twenties and thus are too young to have experienced the reality of 'financial value' first hand, so game prices seem to be going up when really they're coming down. So yes, I will still buy games at full price in the future, because I know I'm getting a decent deal there.

This person's post is worth repeating. When the switch to $60 happened in the US, that price would be $77 using the Consumer Price Index to adjust for inflation. That sounds bad, but that also means that prices for day-1 triple A games has dropped $17 USD in real dollars, not nominal dollars, over 11 years. 2013 prices will have to wait a bit.

In 1994, $50 USD would equate $76 in today's money. I remember it as the year $80 USD got a copy of the SNES' Final Fantasy III (US).

And in 1986, Metroid would cost a little over $100 USD in 2012 dollars ($50 USD then). That's Australia pricing, damn it.

That said, as Trivun brought up inflation I will mention elastic demand. Inelastic demand means you buy a similar amount of the product regardless of the price changes (within reason). Gasoline generally has fairly inelastic demand, since the decisions that control how much gas you buy were generally made by where you decided to buy your home, where you attend school, and a host of other bigger things. If demand is elastic, then consumers will sharply decrease purchasing over even modest price changes. The question is where video games are in this regard. There's four options:

1) Video games have high price elasticity of demand (PED, ok?), as even small shocks will lower sales significantly.
2) Video games have low PED, and modest shocks will barely change demand.
3) Video games have moderate PED and companies should think over how the change affects demand.
4) Video games should not be thought of as a single good with one level of PED. Instead, each series and IP and game is its own case.

I tend toward number 4. A single day-1 price of entry for every console game out there makes about as much sense to me as a single price for every car by a manufacturer. There are games I'd happily pay full price for on day 1, games which are worth more than that to me on day 1, and games which frankly you couldn't sell me at any price short of one that let me resell it on eBay.

Short answer: day 1 $70 USD pricing would not affect my demand for some games, would cause me to wait on others, and would be irrelevant for some games I've no interest in because my demand for games follows model 4.

 

[Olas]

I'd continue doing what I've been doing. Buying games years after they come out for a hugely reduced price.

 

[Sprinal]

I live in Australia. So minimum price for new a new (AAA) game (for PC) is around AUD 70-80 anyway.

So if it went down to 70 I wouldn't mind.

Not at all really.

 

[Little Gray]

While I doubt it would happen especially with Sony saying it wouldnt if it did it really wouldnt bother me at all. Even at $70 a game that is still cheaper then we were paying five or six years ago. While game prices have been relatively stable inflation and minimum wages have got up considerably.

 

[monkey_man]

70 dollar is about what, 50 euros?, well 53,80, but my guess was close. Games here usually cost about 50-60 anyway, which is why I use steam to buy everything on sale. and second hand stores to buy console games. cheap, effective and the game was originally bought, so the publishers already have their money. Everybody wins!