Poll: The "Sweet Spot" for Videogame Prices

[chronobreak]

In your opinion, is $60 just too much to ask these days for a game?

Myself, I think $50 would be perfect for new releases. AAA titles wouldn't miss out on profit, and more people could probably justify spending that money at release than waiting a month or two for it to drop to something like $45. It's a nice, even number. I even think that when the next console generation rolls around, if a company were to announce all their new games would be $50 from that point forward, it would give them a massive heads-up in the industry. Plus, the same way you can find deals now to take a few bucks off a new release, you could do it with this price model and that would be that much more people buying.

So Escapist, what say you?

 

[Togs]

Well talking in Pound Sterling I dont like spending over £30 on a game, anymore then that and I feel like Im getting screwed over.

 

[EightGaugeHippo]

£25-£30 (what ever that translates into USD)

Sometimes paying up to £30 is taking the piss when the game isn't worth it, but that reasonable compared to paying £45 for a new release.

 

[brunothepig]

Other. It depends on the title. I wouldn't have payed $40 (Australian here, by the way) for Bastion... Well actually, I would have now, but I wouldn't have been willing to give it a shot for that much. But AAA titles need to be more expensive. They have a far larger budget, they need to make more or the studio dies. So I'm ok with games like Saints Row 3, Arkham City etc being more expensive, because it allows for a bigger team, a longer dev cycle, which means a bigger, more polished game (hopefully). I like how Valve have dropped Portal 2 down to $30 on Steam. It's a good approach, 100% of that money is going to them, so they're probably getting as much as companies would selling their games for $60 at Gamestop. So, in short, it's a situational thing.

 

[Thrillho]

I'd say £24.99 in general, but they could charge £29.99 for big releases like the Fifas, Halos, Zeldas, etc. Pretty much what they do now, but £15 cheaper.

I reckon if the normal price of a game was lower, people would be more likely to give something new a try and we wouldn't end up with most games ending up in bargain bins within a month.

 

[Arina Love]

60$ given that in my country we pay 80-85$ for a new console games and discounts are rare + no used game business so if games were 60 bucks it would be so awesome!! so no impulse buys for me and generally i don't buy FPS because of short single player (don't do multi).

 

[oplinger]

Anywhere between 40 and 50 imo.

If I had to choose 1, I'd go with $50. I think games should be expensive enough to be considered an investment, but not cheap enough where it feels like we're going through a "Games for all" initiative. They're a luxury >.> They should feel like one.

we have all the budget games right though..10-20 dollars.

 

[chronobreak]

Other. It depends on the title. I wouldn't have payed $40 (Australian here, by the way) for Bastion... Well actually, I would have now, but I wouldn't have been willing to give it a shot for that much. But AAA titles need to be more expensive. They have a far larger budget, they need to make more or the studio dies. So I'm ok with games like Saints Row 3, Arkham City etc being more expensive, because it allows for a bigger team, a longer dev cycle, which means a bigger, more polished game (hopefully). I like how Valve have dropped Portal 2 down to $30 on Steam. It's a good approach, 100% of that money is going to them, so they're probably getting as much as companies would selling their games for $60 at Gamestop. So, in short, it's a situational thing.

Do you think $50 would still pull in enough money for a AAA title to be considered a financial success?

 

[brunothepig]

Other. It depends on the title. I wouldn't have payed $40 (Australian here, by the way) for Bastion... Well actually, I would have now, but I wouldn't have been willing to give it a shot for that much. But AAA titles need to be more expensive. They have a far larger budget, they need to make more or the studio dies. So I'm ok with games like Saints Row 3, Arkham City etc being more expensive, because it allows for a bigger team, a longer dev cycle, which means a bigger, more polished game (hopefully). I like how Valve have dropped Portal 2 down to $30 on Steam. It's a good approach, 100% of that money is going to them, so they're probably getting as much as companies would selling their games for $60 at Gamestop. So, in short, it's a situational thing.

Do you think $50 would still pull in enough money for a AAA title to be considered a financial success?

As I said, it would depend on the title, and the budget. If it's well known, like COD, it could probably stand to drop it's price a little, since everyone knows about it, so they've already decided if they're going to grab it cheap and pre-owned or buy it on release. Although that may have the effect of forcing many other titles to drop their price. Who knows, they might see more or less profit. Some companies have been taking this approach, Valve for one, and it would be nice to see the numbers on that. Still, I'm Australian, so we're paying $80, if we're lucky.