Poll: If games cost $69.99 next gen?

[Owyn_Merrilin]

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.

More inconvenient truth: that's adjusted for inflation, but not wages. Because wage increases haven't been keeping pace with inflation, let alone outpacing it. It's also comparing prices at stores that routinely overcharged for games. I'd like to see someone dig up an old Walmart flier for comparison.

 

[Jas0913]

i would become a pc gamer. done.

 

[TheLycanKing144]

I would do the same thing that I do now, just wait for a price drop to eventually occur. In my opinion, most games are NOT worth $60, I rarely ever by a game at full price unless it's a REALLY good one (such as Uncharted or Skyrim). Otherwise I just wait until it goes down to $40-$30 range.

I don't buy used games however because I believe they hurt devs and I want to support them. Plus I just hate the stickers they put on the cases, but I have nothing against people that do buy used.

 

[mike1921]

I buy maybe two or three full priced games a year as is so....It wouldn't considerably change my buying habits.

 

[JEBWrench]

Sure, why not? If the game's worth seventy bucks, I'll pay seventy bucks.

 

[josemlopes]

I will say no but I already dont buy them at the full price now. Usually I buy at 19.99? and only get games that cost more if its unusual for them to get that much cheaper (a GOTY edition with DLC included or a HD re-release that includes multiple games)

 

[Reaper195]

Considering how games in the US only cost ten bucks less....and according to Steam, more than sixty bucks (Srsly, almost all AAA games from the end of last year came out about seventy to a hundred bucks day one!).

But on the other hand....they shouldn't go up in price at all. PS1 games cost a hundred bucks NZ when the games first came out. Same with PS2, X-Box, PS3, 360 and PC. I remember when people were afraid PS3 games were going to cost nearly two hundred bucks because they were coming out on Blu-Ray discs. Never happened. Ever. Except for CoD games. There is no reason for games to be incredibly expensive. In fact, there is no legitimate for a game to cost more than sixty bucks anywhere, in any country. Christ, in New Zealand, Modern Warfare 3 came out at a standard $150 for console, and $130 for PC. For a game that has as little effort put in as MW3 (The single player was only five hours long, and multiplayer takes fuck all time to make, especially when there was near on no difference between 2 and 3's multiplayer.)

P.S. Not a rant at CoD, it's just one of the best examples.

 

[Evil Smurf]

This is Australia calling.

A day one, high profile PS3 game can cost $110.00 at some retailers here. And yes, our dollar is worth about the same as the US dollar.

We laugh at your alarm.

So yeah, personally I wouldn't be all that fussed. Besides, between Steam sales, GreenManGaming and other such sellers, I rarely pay full price these days.

Yep, we laugh at your American bewilderment!

FYI: 1 US Dollar equals 0.98 Australian Dollar

 

[New Troll]

Pricing should remain pretty much the same as it is right now. Sure the cost of making games continues to go up, but the cost of distributing games continues to go down. Add the fact more and more people buy games every day and you realize prices actually should be going down. But instead we get more and more microtransactions and non-free expansions.

With today's prices, I usually wait for sales. I might buy one or two games at $50+ a year, but the vast majority I buy for under $20.

 

[RicoADF]

I've been hearing a lot of people wondering if the cost of games will be going up next gen since the costs to make games are still going to increase. So, I want to know from you fellow escapists.

Would you still buy games if the cost were to go up to $69.99?

Ofcourse I'd still buy games if they were released at half the current price.......


........ In Australia its $110 for PS3 new standard copy. I don't buy standard copies new from retailers anymore, its either online or collectors edition.

 

[bigfatcarp93]

No. I think a lot of people will agree with me here, but on the other hand, we have to consider a simple logical pathway: if no one is buying new games to trade in, there will be few used games for us to buy.

 

[Baldr]

This is Australia calling.

A day one, high profile PS3 game can cost $110.00 at some retailers here. And yes, our dollar is worth about the same as the US dollar.

We laugh at your alarm.

So yeah, personally I wouldn't be all that fussed. Besides, between Steam sales, GreenManGaming and other such sellers, I rarely pay full price these days.

Yep, we laugh at your American bewilderment!

FYI: 1 US Dollar equals 0.98 Australian Dollar

Yeah, but Australians also earn about 40% more in their jobs than their American counterparts.

 

[Quaidis]

I don't have the funds to afford more expensive games. Would have to wait for the prices to tank in the proceeding weeks or buy it used long down the line. It sucks for the gaming industry if everyone ended up doing this, but perhaps they should set back the tone a few notches on making pricey games and do things more realistically (in terms of goals, not pretty images) in the future should they ever even remotely consider amping prices as an option.

 

[Mr F.]

Steam.

So I fail to understand your pricing models.

 

[Lilani]

i would become a pc gamer. done.

The problem is, a lot of console games get PC ports now, and the last thing publishers will even consider doing is charging less on one of their platforms. So on PC you'll be able to get Steam and GOG and whatever else you like, but for your big-name games that are on console and PC the $70 price will invade PC gaming one way or another.

To answer the OP, I don't know if it will affect whether or not I buy the console, but it might well affect when I buy it. If next-gen games cost more than this gen's do, then I'll be waiting quite a bit longer to get it just so I can wait for a good backlog of games to come out that I can buy them cheaper. But again, that's if I buy it at all. I never got a PS3, so I might just buy one used or off a friend and work on the PS3 games. Come to think of it, now that I'm a full console generation behind (apart from a few PC games off Steam and Mass Effect), I could spend this entire generation catching up on PS3 games all through ultra-cheap secondhand games. Hm, this is something to think about indeed.

 

[lyricalvagabond]

No. I used to on somewhat rare occasions. But then I paid full price for Duke Nukem Forever, and then for Diablo 3. You know how the old saying goes: fool me once, etc etc.

Now, I just wait for the game to become value binned, or to go on some big sale, regardless of how badly I want the game.

 

[AngloDoom]

I have a backlog from about four years ago when my console died and I've been too poor to buy a PC that can game. By the time I get around to this next console generation we'll be talking about our fancy new hologoggles.

 

[mokes310]

I guess I would buy them, but I really only buy two or three games per year now, so it's not that big of a deal. This year, I bought AC3, FC3, and F1 2012. As it stands now, the games I'll be buying next year are the new GTA, AC4, and F1 2013...

Who know's if I'll continue to play that much since I seem to play less and less each year?

 

[Sajuuk_Khar]

Seeing these complaints of games going up to $70 USD with the next gen makes me sad, in New Zealand we have a current price of $127.50 NZD (about $105 USD) for the recently released lot of PS4 games [http://www.mightyape.co.nz/Games/PS4/All/]. That price may go down before release, but we still end up paying quite a bit more for games.

Snip.

I agree with Trivun and the linked article, game prices have been coming down, in the last few years at least. I remember having to shell out $120 NZD for Ratchet and Clank 2 sometime around 2004 (I don't remember how new it was at the time or if it had dropped in price already.), I haven't paid anywhere near that figure for games since, as an example Tomb Raider is releasing at just under $100 and Bioshock Infinite at just under $90, both for the (PS3) game alone. Since 2004 there has also been a %50 increase in the NZ minimum wage, meaning an over all decrease in relative prices.

 

[Heaven's Guardian]

Accounting for inflation, $69.99 will not really be any more than $59.99 was for this cycle, and if a really good game comes out at that price it won't deter me at all. Regardless of what Sony says, I expect the first games at that price to come out shortly after the PS4 launch, because companies are going to have to try and recoup development costs, and if all their costs are increasing when prices aren't, we know what is going to have to happen eventually.