Poll: Video Game Pricing

Recommended Videos

RanD00M

New member
Oct 26, 2008
6,947
0
0
Ok how about you think about this.You're saying that 60$ is much for a game and i agree.But for the newest games i have to pay 80$.Ok.And don´t think that companies sell the games to the retailers for a much lower price then the games costs to the consumer.
 

-AC80-

New member
Jul 10, 2009
317
0
0
as a responce to the thread no one can make a game for $2 as it the parts it is made out of eg disk and box costs more than the actual software. if it was a download and it had to have been a tiny and crap game to cost that much
 

Akai Shizuku

New member
Jul 24, 2009
3,183
0
0
I'm not going to spend any amount of money on a game if it's going to suck. In fact, if I know a game is going to suck, I'm not going to play it unless I'm the one getting paid.
 

Erana

New member
Feb 28, 2008
8,010
0
0
Akai Shizuku said:
I'm not going to spend any amount of money on a game if it's going to suck. In fact, if I know a game is going to suck, I'm not going to play it unless I'm the one getting paid.
But the point the OP is making is that, by his theory, games could be up to production value and cheap.

Seems like a geeky Holy Grail, to me.
 

mageyolook

New member
Sep 5, 2009
83
0
0
$60 is WAYY too much to pay for a game. and here its usually closer to 80 fucking dollars. as such i only buy games i REALLY want. the only game im willing to spend copious ammounts of money on is Modern Warfare 2, and thats cuz i know im gonna play it alot. like CoD4. make games cheaper and i will for sure be buying more, and giving companyies $$$. step one:lower game prices. step 2: ??? step 3: PROFIT!!!!
 

Altorin

Jack of No Trades
May 16, 2008
6,976
0
0
in a perfect universe where noone needs to get paid except the people who actually made the game - not the people who make the copies, not the people who deliver the games, not the people who sell the games

Bobby Kotick wants to increase the prices of games, probably to 70-80 bucks american.
 

Akai Shizuku

New member
Jul 24, 2009
3,183
0
0
Erana said:
Akai Shizuku said:
I'm not going to spend any amount of money on a game if it's going to suck. In fact, if I know a game is going to suck, I'm not going to play it unless I'm the one getting paid.
But the point the OP is making is that, by his theory, games could be up to production value and cheap.

Seems like a geeky Holy Grail, to me.
Well, I'm all for that, as long as they get (and keep) the quality up.
 

vampirekid.13

New member
May 8, 2009
821
0
0
theultimateend said:
So I was thinking in another thread. When developers make games and charge 60 dollars and folks try to justify the cost of the game to help recoup cost of development. It got me thinking (as the beginning of this post might have already pointed out...) do they really need to charge 60 dollars?

According to nexgenwars.com there are tens of millions of each console sold, the specific numbers as of the posting of this are below:

360 32,193,652
PS3 24,772,300
Wii 53,268,494

Now imagine if you will if someone made a game and only charged two dollars per copy (perhaps requiring it be digital but lets just say hard copy). That means that if every person who owned a certain console bought it they would make the following amounts:

360 32,193,652*2= $64,387,304
PS3 24,772,300*2= $49,544,600
Wii 53,268,494*2= $106,536,988

Now from my quick google the most expensive game ever made was supposedly 100 million dollars. However the average cost to make a next gen top tier game is roughly 60 million.

Now I realize that by that account the PS3 would not be able to recoup costs and the 360 would be pretty close. But this is JUST 2 dollars. You bring it up to 3 or 4 dollars and all companies are making a profit and still staying at a low enough cost that there is almost no danger in the purchase.

So yes, before anyone attacks this, I realize that 2 dollars is likely a bit on the extreme. But the study here is to see if folks would be more likely (even regardless of quality, considering 60-100 mil is for really top of market games) to buy something without fear if it was this inexpensive.

It is also in hopes of dismissing the idea that if a company doesn't charge 60 dollars per copy that they'll never recoup costs.

Really? Even on the PS3 that would end up being a possible 1,486,338,000 dollars in profit. Now I'm not a rocket scientist but I'm pretty sure that nobody has come near to spending 1.4 billion dollars on a game (that isn't constantly maintained and even then I don't think wow is near this kind of cost yet).

The less you charge for a product the more people will buy it. In the past companies (long before video games) made some pretty sexy profits by selling in bulk, now it seems the new strategy is to sell less at a higher price. While this might be more friendly on physical resources it certainly isn't consumer friendly ;).
the argument is flawed because you are assuming everyone that owns an xbox.ps3/wii will buy the certain game you are thinking about, in all reality most people will not bother if its outside their genre spectrum. for example, u could offer me call of duty for free and i would still say no simply because its an FPS and i dont like FPS games.
 

leet_chris

New member
Apr 14, 2009
56
0
0
but not all people would buy the game people have different tastes for a game also some of those consoles sold wouuld be replacement ones probably by the people who couldnt get them repaired
 

theultimateend

New member
Nov 1, 2007
3,621
0
0
vampirekid.13 said:
theultimateend said:
So I was thinking in another thread. When developers make games and charge 60 dollars and folks try to justify the cost of the game to help recoup cost of development. It got me thinking (as the beginning of this post might have already pointed out...) do they really need to charge 60 dollars?

According to nexgenwars.com there are tens of millions of each console sold, the specific numbers as of the posting of this are below:

360 32,193,652
PS3 24,772,300
Wii 53,268,494

Now imagine if you will if someone made a game and only charged two dollars per copy (perhaps requiring it be digital but lets just say hard copy). That means that if every person who owned a certain console bought it they would make the following amounts:

360 32,193,652*2= $64,387,304
PS3 24,772,300*2= $49,544,600
Wii 53,268,494*2= $106,536,988

Now from my quick google the most expensive game ever made was supposedly 100 million dollars. However the average cost to make a next gen top tier game is roughly 60 million.

Now I realize that by that account the PS3 would not be able to recoup costs and the 360 would be pretty close. But this is JUST 2 dollars. You bring it up to 3 or 4 dollars and all companies are making a profit and still staying at a low enough cost that there is almost no danger in the purchase.

So yes, before anyone attacks this, I realize that 2 dollars is likely a bit on the extreme. But the study here is to see if folks would be more likely (even regardless of quality, considering 60-100 mil is for really top of market games) to buy something without fear if it was this inexpensive.

It is also in hopes of dismissing the idea that if a company doesn't charge 60 dollars per copy that they'll never recoup costs.

Really? Even on the PS3 that would end up being a possible 1,486,338,000 dollars in profit. Now I'm not a rocket scientist but I'm pretty sure that nobody has come near to spending 1.4 billion dollars on a game (that isn't constantly maintained and even then I don't think wow is near this kind of cost yet).

The less you charge for a product the more people will buy it. In the past companies (long before video games) made some pretty sexy profits by selling in bulk, now it seems the new strategy is to sell less at a higher price. While this might be more friendly on physical resources it certainly isn't consumer friendly ;).
the argument is flawed because you are assuming everyone that owns an xbox.ps3/wii will buy the certain game you are thinking about, in all reality most people will not bother if its outside their genre spectrum. for example, u could offer me call of duty for free and i would still say no simply because its an FPS and i dont like FPS games.
You make a good point. My argument IS flawed. I like your sampling size of one person. That is far more accurate than anything I could have ever thought up.

Just like I don't like Olives which means that most people in the world don't like Olives. Sure in reality it is one of the highest output options at Subway. But what the hell do I care? It doesn't match my perception of the world so it obviously must not be the case.

Kudos there tiger ;).

Lord knows I wasn't talking about the "Maximum Possible Growth" and making the point that historically anytime an item is a low price more people are apt to buy it regardless of a desire for it.

It's almost like that is the entire driving force behind micro payments and mini transactions that add up to tens of billions of dollars a year in dime to dollar sized purchases.

*Swings his fist* Damn you reality!
 

cleverlymadeup

New member
Mar 7, 2008
5,256
0
0
no i wouldn't buy a game, if it was $2 no matter the quality, i'd rather pay more money for a good game than little money for a crappy game
 

vampirekid.13

New member
May 8, 2009
821
0
0
theultimateend said:
vampirekid.13 said:
theultimateend said:
So I was thinking in another thread. When developers make games and charge 60 dollars and folks try to justify the cost of the game to help recoup cost of development. It got me thinking (as the beginning of this post might have already pointed out...) do they really need to charge 60 dollars?

According to nexgenwars.com there are tens of millions of each console sold, the specific numbers as of the posting of this are below:

360 32,193,652
PS3 24,772,300
Wii 53,268,494

Now imagine if you will if someone made a game and only charged two dollars per copy (perhaps requiring it be digital but lets just say hard copy). That means that if every person who owned a certain console bought it they would make the following amounts:

360 32,193,652*2= $64,387,304
PS3 24,772,300*2= $49,544,600
Wii 53,268,494*2= $106,536,988

Now from my quick google the most expensive game ever made was supposedly 100 million dollars. However the average cost to make a next gen top tier game is roughly 60 million.

Now I realize that by that account the PS3 would not be able to recoup costs and the 360 would be pretty close. But this is JUST 2 dollars. You bring it up to 3 or 4 dollars and all companies are making a profit and still staying at a low enough cost that there is almost no danger in the purchase.

So yes, before anyone attacks this, I realize that 2 dollars is likely a bit on the extreme. But the study here is to see if folks would be more likely (even regardless of quality, considering 60-100 mil is for really top of market games) to buy something without fear if it was this inexpensive.

It is also in hopes of dismissing the idea that if a company doesn't charge 60 dollars per copy that they'll never recoup costs.

Really? Even on the PS3 that would end up being a possible 1,486,338,000 dollars in profit. Now I'm not a rocket scientist but I'm pretty sure that nobody has come near to spending 1.4 billion dollars on a game (that isn't constantly maintained and even then I don't think wow is near this kind of cost yet).

The less you charge for a product the more people will buy it. In the past companies (long before video games) made some pretty sexy profits by selling in bulk, now it seems the new strategy is to sell less at a higher price. While this might be more friendly on physical resources it certainly isn't consumer friendly ;).
the argument is flawed because you are assuming everyone that owns an xbox.ps3/wii will buy the certain game you are thinking about, in all reality most people will not bother if its outside their genre spectrum. for example, u could offer me call of duty for free and i would still say no simply because its an FPS and i dont like FPS games.
You make a good point. My argument IS flawed. I like your sampling size of one person. That is far more accurate than anything I could have ever thought up.

Just like I don't like Olives which means that most people in the world don't like Olives. Sure in reality it is one of the highest output options at Subway. But what the hell do I care? It doesn't match my perception of the world so it obviously must not be the case.

Kudos there tiger ;).

Lord knows I wasn't talking about the "Maximum Possible Growth" and making the point that historically anytime an item is a low price more people are apt to buy it regardless of a desire for it.

It's almost like that is the entire driving force behind micro payments and mini transactions that add up to tens of billions of dollars a year in dime to dollar sized purchases.

*Swings his fist* Damn you reality!
1 person is all thats needed to debunk that argument, since you assumed everyone would buy the game. i woudlnt buy it. therefore the argument right there is wrong, if you think im the only one that wouldnt buy a 1 dollar game thats out of their spectrum you are probably wrong, most likely. sure its not like im saying 80% of the people wont buy it. im saying NOT EVERYONE will buy it, you said EVERYONE will buy it. which is wrong.
 

Blanks

New member
Mar 17, 2009
1,203
0
0
The fact that new games are getting pricer and pricier is the reason i buy old used PS2 games for $5-$20 CND(which isn't great cause i have a 360 and PS3)
 

Guitarmasterx7

Day Pig
Mar 16, 2009
3,872
0
0
Remember those crappy burger king games? those where like $3.50 IIRC. Totally worth it to see the king sneak up on someone then dance around like an idiot and hand them a burger.
 

michael_ab

New member
Jun 22, 2009
416
0
0
im just happy with the consistancy, $60 for a new game, off the shelf, recent release. after that numerous factors contribute to the decrease
and hell if every game was 2 bucks, id clean out the whole store... wait...

maybe thats why, if its too cheap they cant meet the demand
 

Tonimata

New member
Jul 21, 2008
1,890
0
0
Well I found Splinter Cell for pc for 1 euro, so glee
Aside of that, games are overpriced altogether here in Spain. Honestly. WAY too expensive, even secon handers.

But of course the target market has already proven it is ready to pay for it, so it is just a matter of questioning if lowering pricing will raise sales.
 

Noamuth

New member
May 16, 2008
1,137
0
0
In Australia, just about every new release costs $100 - $110.

Yeah. I wish it was something like $60.
 

ParkourMcGhee

New member
Jan 4, 2008
1,219
0
0
Good games? yes. I go to CEX, carboot and charity shops regularly to get good deals (£1-£5 per game). However the 99p store really isn't an option. Their games extend to something nobody's ever heard of and has worse graphics than red alert (the original).

Also there are various flaws in your argument, firstly that all the consoles bought are bought be separate people, are all working, and are all in constant use.

The second being that not all people will buy a certain game, and that they'll opt for digital download (I hate it for example). CDs/DVDs cost something, even if it's not much. Dual layer DVDs themselves cost £2 a pop if you go to PC world.

I'm not defending big game companies who like to mooch off people, I'm just saying there's "real world" factors to consider unfortunately.