The Price of Games is TOO DAMN HIGH

[Zetona]

This idea has been stewing in my mind for a while, but some recent visits to Amazon.com really drove the point home.

If there's any indication of how overpriced retail games are, it's how quickly their value drops off. Mass Effect 3, a AAA game launched less than two months ago, was 50% off on Amazon the other day. The sale has ended, but its price is stil $20 less than it was at launch. Many big-name titles from last fall are now in the $30-$40 range on Amazon. Only the very best, highest-rated titles are still worth $50+. Driver: San Francisco came out in September. It's now going for less than $20, as are most games a year or more old. No other medium has anywhere near this level of dramatic price depreciation. The standard price of a Blu-Ray movie on Amazon, for instance, seems to be about $25, the movie's age be damned.

Oftentimes it seems like games and game systems are priced so as to punish the early adopters, or at least make them regret their early adoption. Pay $60 within a launch, buy all the DLC, and then watch as they release a $30 Game of The Year edition with all the bonus content included at no extra charge. I got my Xbox 360 in late 2006. The price was $400 for a 20GB hard drive and a unit that has RRoD'ed on me twice. Now, for the same price, someone can buy an Xbox 360 Slim, which runs quieter, uses less energy, and is more reliable, has a 250GB hard drive, and comes with Kinect and two (admittedly mediocre) games.

I feel like this merits more resentment than I generally see, and it's obviously a factor in used game sales. What do you all think? Should this change? Is it something we'll just have to live with?

In what currency?

I live in Australia, you only get any sympathy from me if your price is in GBP.

If not, please quit complaining!

Our new game price? $99.95 AUD. Go to a currency converter, compare, then get back to me.

I'm American, admittedly. I'm somewhat familiar with Brazilian gaming prices, though. R$ 180 converts to about $100 US. Speaking of which?how bad is piracy in Australia? Street vendors in Brazil very often sell pirated games because the prices at full retail are ridiculous.

 

[likalaruku]

When all the developers dump investors & publishers for fan-funds & all games are downloaded from their website, if they're still charging the same prices as they are now, THEN it will be too high.

 

[The_Echo]

No. No, the price is not too high. No one forces you to buy the DLC, 60$ is less than games costed on NES and you don't have to resort to big titles only. My best gaming expiriences of the last years came for a big part from <20? titles.

NES games were $50 and there was no DLC. Now maybe you do math differently than I do but I do believe that $60+ is more than $50.

If we consider inflation, a copy of Castlevania would run you around $100 today.

Anyway, I personally don't have a problem with the price of games. It is what it is, gaming has always (well, maybe not always, I haven't done extensive research or anything) been an expensive hobby. Always will be.

 

[Darknacht]

I'm American, admittedly. I'm somewhat familiar with Brazilian gaming prices, though. R$ 180 converts to about $100 US. Speaking of which?how bad is piracy in Australia? Street vendors in Brazil very often sell pirated games because the prices at full retail are ridiculous.

Why would you buy a pirated game, you could get it for free if you want to pirate?

 

[Pumpkin_Eater]

Oh buuhuuuu, little crybaby cannot afford a game that costs 60 dollars... Get real mate, it is a lot more expensive in other countries.

Try to go to Australia or Sweden and purchase a game... Quit whining when you have it good. You americans sure are spoiled.

That's all the more reason for you to agree with the OP.

If you like EA and play on the PC, find a way to buy it in Mexican Pesos. For some random reason they sell the $59 USD games for $30 bucks.

Russian Rubles will get the job done too. I have a friend who bought ME 3 and BF 3 that way for about that price.

 

[ResonanceSD]

This idea has been stewing in my mind for a while, but some recent visits to Amazon.com really drove the point home.

Oh hey. For Aussies, MW2 is still $90 USD. MW3 is $99. A new game on release is anywhere between $100-120 (I just dropped $200 for the GW2 Collector's Edition).

Even though our currency is stronger than yours, we get gouged.

 

[Guilherme Zoldan]

I'm American, admittedly. I'm somewhat familiar with Brazilian gaming prices, though. R$ 180 converts to about $100 US. Speaking of which?how bad is piracy in Australia? Street vendors in Brazil very often sell pirated games because the prices at full retail are ridiculous.

Why would you buy a pirated game, you could get it for free if you want to pirate?

Okay okay I can answer this one. The whole thing of downloading it free from the internet instead of buying it from a bootlegger is kinda new, relatively speaking, the tradition still persists. Also a lot of people in brazil have relaly shitty internet connections.

 

[Joccaren]

Eh, I don't find it that bad.

I don't buy consoles, and just upgrade my PC every 6 years or so, so I save money there.
I buy my games from online stores, which sometimes have the pre-order limited editions of games for $50, whereas nearby brick and mortar stores sell them for $100.
In addition, I ignore most DLC, and get a number of Indie games instead of all AAA titles. They tend to last me a similar amount of time, and are far cheaper.

So I personally don't notice things being way too expensive. Not sure if you can count consoles and the AAA games as being too expensive, from memory consoles are sold at a loss and require game sales to make money off of or something [I'll try to double check that some time], and games cost less these days [Adjusting for inflation] than they did previously. I think its all a matter of perspective though.

 

[Dryk]

The weird thing is, publishers seem to be trying to push past $60 by using DLC. Yes, this is because their production budgets are getting too big but that bubble is going to burst at some point, it's completely unsustainable.

I'm still amazed Australians throws this out there every once and a while when it's reason is fairly simple and the information why is so easy to obtain. It is because prices are based on certain percentages set by the economy. The Australian economy is quite high (I believe the minimum wage is like 2x that of the US) and prices are adjusted to fit an economy's relative costs. If you try to scale things in a 1:1 fashion you would ruin the global economy. I mean look at the past when the US dollar was like 300: 1 for some countries your buying power in another country becomes ludicrous and left unchecked could cause terrible inflation in the other country.
You can't think of it as oh we're paying double the amount that Americans do how unfair, because in reality you paying the same relative amount. You don't see americans complaining how games in places like russia / some of eastern europe cost half of American prices.

If you look back, the $100 price first came into effect when our economy wasn't doing to well, and our dollar was worth about half as much as it is now. I always figured that they had to raise the price to $100 to compensate for our dollar being worth half as much as yours, and then just never decided to bring it down.

 

[johnnnny guitar]

Wait where did you find those prices oh wait that's right I'm in a country where it's $120 I can see your argument but I would be happy for games to be $70 at launch it's fucking insane especially with online services like steam and origin where the price of dead space 2 which came out ages ago is still $70 bucks.
I know that the publisher set the price but they shouldn't be allowed to set it globally it should be like Good old games where it's a global price not for example dead space 2 which came out months ago where it is still $70 in Australia but $20 in the US.

 

[Rheinmetall]

Here in Greece games start as very expensive, usually 60 Euros (some times more) and depending on their value their price gradually drops over time, but no so quickly as in the US. It takes about four to six months to see in some games a price cut. In some other games there is no reduction at all. After a year has passed every game, regardless its value costs half its initial price, or less if it is mediocre. After two years the price usually drops at about 20 Euros, or even 10. I forgot to say I'm reffering to the PS3/Xbox 360 titles. The PC titles are significantly cheaper; brand new big titles rarely exceed the price of 40 Euros, and usually is 30 Euros. A title developed by European, or generally smaller studios costs between 10-20 Euros.

 

[Griffolion]

-snip-

I get what you're saying regarding games, but with consoles you can't really make the same argument. Consoles are hardware, the ability to manufacture hardware get's cheaper over time through both refined designs and general advances in technology which allow slimmer chassis (so the 45nm die shrink on the later generation 360's allowed for a smaller cooling system and less bulky power board to be implemented). It's only expected that has technology advances and allows for cheaper production of things, that the price goes down.

With games though, I do agree. I'm pretty sure the CEO of GOG recently said that game sales (like the infamous Steam sales) actually lower the "percieved" value of games because the vast majority of a games sales (outside of massively anticipated AAA's) will come in the sales. What does this tell you, it says that the game is only worth buying at cut price, not at "full" price. So why not put the "full" price nearer to the "cut" price to begin with. This will both accelerate sales as you're not alienating people who can't afford $60 a time (or $100 elsewhere) AND you're getting more people to buy at "full" price, thus raising the percieved value. For example, sell a big AAA for $40 instead of $60. You'll get more day-1 sales at that full price, which in turn WON'T be people buying later down the line in sales etc.

If first hand games were priced in this way to begin with, i may (read: may) begin to consider the validity of locking out second hand sales. Again, may. The industry needs to prove itself to the customers and consumers that keep it going before they can just throw stuff like that on us.

Captcha: upward slope - you're damn right, captcha, you're damn right.

 

[getoffmycloud]

The thing is most new sales come in the first couple of weeks after launch beyond that you don't get many people buy the game new because they just weren't that interested so the price goes down because there is not that much demand whereas films generally do keep their demand because its something that is easily done as a group so people might go out buy a few films and have some friends round to watch them but due to the decline in local co-op that doesn't really happen with games anymore simply because you need multiple consoles and TV's and it is a bit of a faff

 

[Starke]

I wish prices were lower, but they won't drop until:

1. We stop buying them (that's not gonna happen)

Honestly? Quite possible. Obviously not "everyone stops buying games", but in the current economy, people are far less likely to be conspicuous consumers on games. People are still buying games, but every TOR free weekend, or extended game time message, and every Mass Effect 3 double XP weekend promotion suggests they're not getting the numbers they want.

On top of that, Kickstarter is suggesting an alternate game revenue stream that could honestly upset the publisher model and force them to compete.

The short version is, the game industry is going through what the film industry did forty years ago. We're seeing the publisher model grinding itself to death, and we're witnessing a Renaissance among the indy developers with a lot of top shelf talent defecting.

People aren't going to "stop buying games", but it is actually quite possible that the publishers are going to take a serious hit.

At <$3/hour, it is still the cheapest non-commercial media available.

Well, it is commercial media, but you're talking about advertisement dependent media, not commercial media.

And, honestly, that number's still bunk. I've got MMOs with thousands of hours logged play time, that cost me far less than $60.

 

[Zack Alklazaris]

Video games have always costs 60 dollars. Video games are one thing that hasn't gone up with inflation and you should be happy they haven't.

 

[Starke]

Video games have always costs 60 dollars.

No they haven't. Back in the mid 90s, CD titles could cost over $100, that's not adjusted for inflation, that was the cost. For most of my gaming life, games have been $50, and that is still the nominal cost for PC players. It's only been in the last two years or so that the $60 price point managed to sneak over onto the PC. Shareware has never had consistent pricing schemes. Torchlight retailed for $20 at release, Terraria for $10. And as Indy games have become more prevalent again, the whole "Video games have always cost 60 dollars." argument starts to degenerate into inaccuracy.

If you want to say that "360 games, or PS3 games, have always been 60 dollars," then sure, but the original XBox and PS2 weren't built around the $60 price point. I'm not saying that you're wrong about games and inflation, just that the price of games has never been mystically locked at $60 bucks.

 

[Sunrider]

No. No, the price is not too high. No one forces you to buy the DLC, 60$ is less than games costed on NES and you don't have to resort to big titles only. My best gaming expiriences of the last years came for a big part from <20? titles.

NES games were $50 and there was no DLC. Now maybe you do math differently than I do but I do believe that $60+ is more than $50.

There were several games for around 700 SEK (which is the Swedish currency) for the NES and the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive, which around that time would be 65-70 dollars.
Today that would be $104, but I don't care about the inflation discussion. My point is, I dunno where you are from, but NES games WERE more expensive. That might not have been the case in every country and / or situation, but it was for me.
I know I'm simply using anecdotal evidence here, which isn't really evidence at all, and you don't have to take my word for it, but this was the case for me.

OT: No, games are not too expensive. They aren't cheap, but considering the budgets going into a lot of them, I don't personally find them too expensive. Vote with your wallet, people.

 

[Zack Alklazaris]

Video games have always costs 60 dollars.

No they haven't. Back in the mid 90s, CD titles could cost over $100, that's not adjusted for inflation, that was the cost. For most of my gaming life, games have been $50, and that is still the nominal cost for PC players. It's only been in the last two years or so that the $60 price point managed to sneak over onto the PC. Shareware has never had consistent pricing schemes. Torchlight retailed for $20 at release, Terraria for $10. And as Indy games have become more prevalent again, the whole "Video games have always cost 60 dollars." argument starts to degenerate into inaccuracy.

If you want to say that "360 games, or PS3 games, have always been 60 dollars," then sure, but the original XBox and PS2 weren't built around the $60 price point. I'm not saying that you're wrong about games and inflation, just that the price of games has never been mystically locked at $60 bucks.

Its still been high I remember my parents saying I couldn't get an SNES game because it costs 50 dollars. Hell you don't remember N64 games costing around 54 dollars? These were consoles that came before even the Xbox.

Yes computer games were kind of all over the place depending on which ones you got. Though I didn't start buying computer games till the early 2000s so video games in general have always been around 50-60 dollars, at least for me.

And indie companies just don't count. They don't have the "quality" (as in attention getting big marketing that larger companies have) to ask 60 dollars for a game. Nor did they put as much money into it so they can still make a profit selling it for 20 dollars.