They are getting pretty high. On one hand I understand... its called inflation, everything goes up in price every year, and the move from 50 to 60 was right about on schedule.
On the other hand were looking at situations with new games that increasingly more will have even more of a price tag attached in the form of DLC that will be out in some cases the day of release. Look at a game like dragon age. 60$ new, 35 for awakenings, 6 DLC packs ranging at an average of 10 per pop... meaning if you got everything day one, over 150$ in less than a years time, on one single game.
However on the development/distribution costs lowering so we can get a price drop.. I dont see it happening. First off, distribution costs, arguably the biggest price involved in distribution is the manufacture of the item itself. However consider recordable disk media has never been more inexpensive. If your buying bulk, blu/hddvd disc blanks cost around .16 cents a peice dependent on how much bulk. Packaging probably runs about 10$ between the box, manuals, inks for printing, plastic liner, shrink wrapping, magneton strip, ect. Shipping to distributors, prolly about 1$ per unit or less. and probably another 5 for production labor costs per unit. So a game typically just from its production runs about 15-20 per unit.
The real bulk of the expense of a game is development, simply for the sheer magnitude of man hours and people involved, unfortunately that amount is the biggest component of cost in production with gaming and if anything that will have to increase, not decrease as people demand more content, and better visuals.
On the other hand were looking at situations with new games that increasingly more will have even more of a price tag attached in the form of DLC that will be out in some cases the day of release. Look at a game like dragon age. 60$ new, 35 for awakenings, 6 DLC packs ranging at an average of 10 per pop... meaning if you got everything day one, over 150$ in less than a years time, on one single game.
However on the development/distribution costs lowering so we can get a price drop.. I dont see it happening. First off, distribution costs, arguably the biggest price involved in distribution is the manufacture of the item itself. However consider recordable disk media has never been more inexpensive. If your buying bulk, blu/hddvd disc blanks cost around .16 cents a peice dependent on how much bulk. Packaging probably runs about 10$ between the box, manuals, inks for printing, plastic liner, shrink wrapping, magneton strip, ect. Shipping to distributors, prolly about 1$ per unit or less. and probably another 5 for production labor costs per unit. So a game typically just from its production runs about 15-20 per unit.
The real bulk of the expense of a game is development, simply for the sheer magnitude of man hours and people involved, unfortunately that amount is the biggest component of cost in production with gaming and if anything that will have to increase, not decrease as people demand more content, and better visuals.
