Why the 'games are cheaper than ever argument' is complete bullshit.

[CardinalPiggles]

In fairness the price of triple A game development is inflating quite a bit. Compared to say music CD production, which floats at roughly the same cost as 10 years ago.

I'm not saying games SHOULD be more expensive for the consumer, of course they shouldn't. What I will say though is that game developers/publishers shouldn't be throwing so much money into game development and marketing in the first place, and then complaining when their game doesn't sell 50 million copies.

Also, that user on the first page that got banned, I assume the link he posted was against the rules for whatever reason, I would suggest a mod removes to the link to remove temptation of clicking it.

 

[AT God]

I don't hear this argument very often, but economics 101 suggests games have to decrease in price because there are a hell of a lot more of them these days. While games may take a long time to make still, there are thousands of games released each year, and when games were more expensive, they were less popular so I feel people who wanted them were willing to pay more. But essentially it is competition, I find it interesting looking at brand new games on Steam and seeing which ones have the guts to ask for 60 dollars at launch. I don't have the money to pay full price for games so it is interesting to see games that I have never heard of asking $60.

That said, I think lots of games charge huge prices at launch because there are always some die hard collectors who want to get games early or collect them. I think a fairly clever game dev could charge almost anything under a hundred bucks for a youtube fodder game because if the game looks amusing, at least a few dozen people will buy it because youtube people need things to make videos for. (Note: some famous Lets players might get games for free but I am sure that at least a few copies would sell regardless). The only real LPer I occasionally watch is Jim Sterling's usually humorous Steam game LPs, and I get the feeling the games he often outs only get bought for novelty, and while that is devious, money is money if that is what the dev wants. Even if Jim gets the games for free for review purposes or through some crazy steam review system, at least a few chumps out there will buy the game because they have money to burn and want to be like Jim. I have no intent of buying them but I get a kick out of watching people play the various pieces of crap that appear on Steam's store.

 

[TwiZtah]

That may be technically correct but games ARE cheaper than ever...as long as you're willing to wait about nine months.

Except for Madden 25 (which I got $20 off for buying right away), I don't think I've paid more than $20 on a game in quite a long while.

"Why tippy2k2, of course that's the case when you're living in 1999 and buying Xbox and PS2 games!" I hear the voices in my head saying.

Well that is wrong voices in my head; here are a few of the games I just bought recently (and this is all on console, I can't imagine what this list would look like if I played with STEAM)

Assassins Creed 4 for $15 on Amazon (10 months old)
Metro Last Light for $10 on Xbox Live (1 year 1 month old)
Saints Row 4 for $25 on Black Friday at Walmart (less than 3 months after release)
Batman Arkham Origins for $25 on Black Friday at Walkmart (less than 3 months after release)

And those are just my own personal examples of games I found for cheap. Games start at $60-70 but they plummet in price so quickly that unless you absolutely HAVE to have the game right away, gaming is incredibly cheap.

Good points it just annoys me that people think that $60 is ok to pay for a video game in 2014. A single piece of entertainment costing $60 just doesn't make sense, Yes GTA and Skyrim might be worth it but lets face it 90% of games are crap.

Why are games not worth 60$?

Let us break it down. Let us say that the average game is 8 hours long, that is 7.5 dollars per hour. That is about what you pay for a movie, or less. I have heard the same thing about Shadows of Mordor, that apparently is 15-20 hours long. That would be 3 dollars per hour of entertainment, a very low price. Add to that how many games are based around multiplayer, CoD, Battlefield etc. spending hundreds of hours on the game, and you have a few cents per hour of entertainment.

 

[jklinders]

That may be technically correct but games ARE cheaper than ever...as long as you're willing to wait about nine months.

Except for Madden 25 (which I got $20 off for buying right away), I don't think I've paid more than $20 on a game in quite a long while.

"Why tippy2k2, of course that's the case when you're living in 1999 and buying Xbox and PS2 games!" I hear the voices in my head saying.

Well that is wrong voices in my head; here are a few of the games I just bought recently (and this is all on console, I can't imagine what this list would look like if I played with STEAM)

Assassins Creed 4 for $15 on Amazon (10 months old)
Metro Last Light for $10 on Xbox Live (1 year 1 month old)
Saints Row 4 for $25 on Black Friday at Walmart (less than 3 months after release)
Batman Arkham Origins for $25 on Black Friday at Walkmart (less than 3 months after release)

And those are just my own personal examples of games I found for cheap. Games start at $60-70 but they plummet in price so quickly that unless you absolutely HAVE to have the game right away, gaming is incredibly cheap.

Good points it just annoys me that people think that $60 is ok to pay for a video game in 2014. A single piece of entertainment costing $60 just doesn't make sense, Yes GTA and Skyrim might be worth it but lets face it 90% of games are crap.

Why are games not worth 60$?

Let us break it down. Let us say that the average game is 8 hours long, that is 7.5 dollars per hour. That is about what you pay for a movie, or less. I have heard the same thing about Shadows of Mordor, that apparently is 15-20 hours long. That would be 3 dollars per hour of entertainment, a very low price. Add to that how many games are based around multiplayer, CoD, Battlefield etc. spending hundreds of hours on the game, and you have a few cents per hour of entertainment.

I would tend to agree that games are actually a steal at full price in dollars per hour compared to a lot of other media. But that takes us back to something I have been knuckle rapped in the past over pointing out. Games are in fact a luxury. Most luxuries will be priced as the market will bear. If people do not want to pay those prices the companies either lower them, change their business model or crumble. The key here of course is the concept of luxury. We don't need games to live so we can wait until the price drops low enough to to pay or get it right away. No purveyor of luxury goods will price themselves out of business if they want to stay in business.

 

[laggyteabag]

I actually think that $60 for a game is a very reasonable asking price, at least for something where you can sink 100's of hours into, and even so, these games can take years to design, so I imagine that has something to do with the price. I bought Borderlands 2 at launch for $60, and I have spent over 300 hours playing it, same goes for Battlefield 4, Halo 3, Mass Effect 3 and a bunch of other games in my library. Besides, wait a couple of months, and the price of a game will shoot right down (unless it is Call of Duty of course). What doesn't really make sense is why digital download games are often the same price (or even more expensive) than their retail counterparts, if they changed this, then I imagine that a lot of people would be happy.

 

[The White Hunter]

$60?

Cry some more, try £50. That's what the console peasants here have to pay, and it's much closer to $100.

Of course though, games are cheaper than ever, on PC.

Because we have devalued the market to the point where nobody pays full price because fuck that.

 

[Thorn14]

Games are also getting shorter and shorter it feels though.

 

[Ratty]

OP - The last video game I payed more than $40 for was a rare Playstation 1 game like two years ago lol. All hail GoG and Steam!

However, there was an old game I remember playing in my childhood which was called Claw. It was a platformer, and it was cool, but it was only on Windows 98 and now it is gone forever. I don't believe anyone has ever bothered emulating it, so that game is gone forever.

Just popping in to say if you really want to play this you could probably install windows 98 on a virtual PC on your computer and play it. The universal install key for windows 98 was released years ago and a used copy of the disc doesn't go for much on ebay I imagine. Of course to install it and the game on a newer computer you might need to buy a USB floppy and/or disc drive.

 

[DoPo]

$60?

Cry some more, try £50. That's what the console peasants here have to pay, and it's much closer to $100.

Erm, yeah, technically, £50 is closer to $100 than $60. However, £50 is about $80, so your claim is, in fact, misleading. You are going to be as correct as saying games are closer to $1000 or even $100000.

 

[Danny Dowling]

except that when new technology for things like films comes out they cost far more than the previous tech. 3D films were expensive to watch when they came about, Imax the same, Bluray's were more expensive when they came out as well.

The mistake you're making is that you're saying "music get's cheaper" without considering the platform shifts bumping up the price and get with video games when there's a platform shift there is a bump up in price and you're focusing on that. I remember paying £50 for Fight Night Round 3 new on PS3, I got Destiny new for £45 on PS4. The shift in tech puts the price up to begin with, it's not rocket science.

 

[The White Hunter]

$60?

Cry some more, try £50. That's what the console peasants here have to pay, and it's much closer to $100.

Erm, yeah, technically, £50 is closer to $100 than $60. However, £50 is about $80, so your claim is, in fact, misleading. You are going to be as correct as saying games are closer to $1000 or even $100000.

It's 81.35 US dollars to be precise.

Didn't look it up. Didn't care to, the example wasn't for the sake of precision, it was just to demonstrate the point that 60$ isn't really that ludicrous of a price.

 

[DoomyMcDoom]

ummm...op... I don't think your looking at everything right.

This. Games are stupid expensive when they get right out the gate, but wait a few months down the line for that sweet steam sale and you can get games for like 3-5$ if you're looking in the right place.

And even right out the gate, pc games cost less than console games by anywhere between $10-$30... That and steam releases, some publishers will give you a discount for owning a previous title by them.

I mean, A buddy of mine pre purchased destiny, he paid in $64 or so, when he went to pick it up they made him pay an extra $11 and some cents because the price for the game went up, I have never, and never will pay over $60 for a game, let alone over $70, I could buy another hard drive for a little more than that, or a whole developer package (A whole pile of games, generally more than 10, including new titles) on steam during a sale for less.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

With C64 titles they were between £5 - £10.

 

[Czann]

I buy few games at launch and almost all at Steam or GOG. Good prices.

 

[Th37thTrump3t]

Ever here on games sites how games are cheaper than ever? how they havent gone up in price? and some website say games should now cost about $100.

Well, technically they should. Games have always been around that $50-$60 price range. Some SNES games used to cost upwards of $80. Now, calculate for inflation and the average game would cost you now adays between $80 and $100, with the most expensive titles costing a whopping $140. That's more than most collectors editions.

So the next time you hear this argument you can say that, historically, movies, music and any other entertainment medium decrease in price rather than increase. So in other words Gaming in the only industry that still has yet to evolve.

Movies and music have been around for a hell of a lot longer than videogames. One could argue that gaming is now in its formative years. It takes time for a medium to evolve and the gaming industry is slowly starting to change. We're right in the middle of an up rise of $10-$20 indie games that are competing with some of the biggest AAA titles and $1 mobile games that sell millions. The change is happening. It's slow, but it's there.

 

[Bad Jim]

That said, game length and 'entertainment hours' is a pretty bad metric for 'value for your money' since most of the things that writers use to pad the length of their games (and stories in general, it's not just a video game thing) are things that the customers largely _don't_ enjoy but rather tolerate while they try to get to the good bits... that is to say, the bulk of long games tends to by definition be _not entertaining_ so it doesn't really count as entertainment value.

This isn't really a subtle or hidden point, either, most of the games that manage to be both well-regarded and popular tend to average fairly short

There is a simple way around the padding issue. Look for games with good reviews and community approval first. Excessively padded games will have trouble here.

The claim gets repeated because it's a really easy thing to claim and outright impossible to verify.

There are a few websites that let players upload their completion times so others can get a (hopefully) bullshit free idea of how long a game takes to beat.

http://www.howlongtobeat.com
http://www.gamelengths.com

Another thing you can do is go on the Steam forums for the game you are interested in, then look at the profiles of random users and see how long they've played. This isn't perfect, as Steam doesn't measure playing time accurately, but you should get an idea. You can use this to discover games like Civ 5 that people sink hundreds of hours into, even thought it does not take that long to beat.

 

[Adultratedhydra]

All these people talking about cheap games while we in australia just sit here and watch the prices climb higher and higher every day.

 

[KingmanHighborn]

You know all this talk about game prices in the 80s and 90s in the NES and SNES era, makes me really happy I grew up in video rental store until I turned 13.

 

[Bombiz]

$60?

Cry some more, try £50. That's what the console peasants here have to pay, and it's much closer to $100.

Erm, yeah, technically, £50 is closer to $100 than $60. However, £50 is about $80, so your claim is, in fact, misleading. You are going to be as correct as saying games are closer to $1000 or even $100000.

It's 81.35 US dollars to be precise.

Didn't look it up. Didn't care to, the example wasn't for the sake of precision, it was just to demonstrate the point that 60$ isn't really that ludicrous of a price.

neither is $81 since i had to pay 80CAD.

 

[AgedGrunt]

Someone posted the history of console prices [http://i.imgur.com/nBN0mbS.jpg] on Reddit a while ago, which includes a critical factor: inflation.

So not only are console prices today about average, but here's a game advert for an Atari 2600 game [http://38.media.tumblr.com/53219305f038ba3b738e169548c5ef80/tumblr_mnkgo02yrw1r1yctyo1_500.jpg]. Using the same inflation factor from the other image, that game today would be more than $100.

It's never been cheap to buy new AAA releases, but it's relatively cheaper to game today because of things like indie development, world wide web and smartphones. The whole industry has undergone transformations, and it's bigger than ever. That will always make games more accessible, even though The New Super Call of Halo Brothers titles will always drop at full price the market will bear.