Zetona: 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.
Because that wasn't actually related to the ending at all...
Anyway, if you want to see how overpriced games are check for how long MW3 stayed at $60.
SmashLovesTitanQuest: Well, I will say this: if the new consoles shut out used games, they HAVE to lower the price of new games. Absolutely have to. No way around it.
Baldr: At <$3/hour, it is still the cheapest non-commercial media available.
Netflix runs commercials?
Netflix is still a rental system. Compared to a streaming service like OnLive where I got an email today to join their 200 game selection service for $2 this month and $10/month afterwards. I still think OnLive still a little overpriced to begin with.
TheKasp: No. No, the price is not too high. No one forces you to buy the DLC, 60$ is less than games costed on NES ( adjusting for inflation) 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.
The only reason older games had ever cost so much was because of the prices of cartridges, when we switched to CD the price did go down but only a little.
Whether it's too damn high or not isn't my main problem, my main problem is that it's too damn arbitrary. Why do PC AAA titles cost 60 bucks? Because PC AAA titles cost 60 bucks. I haven't yet seen one elaboration on why that price is "right", all I get when I ask is "It is because it is." I mean, I'm not sure I'd say they're all worth the same. Or that they're necessarily worth 60 bucks at all.
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
Right... I think this should be made a sin. Comparing the game market to the movie market IS NOT FAIR!
Tell me, where do game developers make their money? Mostly off of selling their games from digital or retail outlets. Maybe a little bit of advertisement from other products but this isn't particularly prevalent.
Movies? Cinema. DVD release. TV slots. Digital downloads. LEGAL streaming services. etc etc.
Also note, despite the rising consumer base, games still have a substantially smaller market then Film.
Of course this is not to say there is an issue with game pricing. There is, oh BOY there is. But a comparison to the film industry offers nothing and skews the problem with misinformation.
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?
This is the reason why I dont buy games retail, I buy online when they are cheaper and play the games like baldurs gate and classics that I know actually have replay value.
I don't agree. Gaming prices are extremely reasonable.
Games were largely $50.00 new from the NES days until something like XBOX. From there it's been a steady $60.00 price. How many other things in life stay so stable and reliable?
The time investment you get from games for their price tag is a bargain as well considering you'll likely average 20 hours of fun out of a game purchase (this clearly ranges from like 6-100+ hours).
On top of all of that, the cost to make a game now is more than it's ever been.
It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Next Generation consoles release games at $69.99 on average. A price which I'd rather not pay, but would still consider fair.
Zetona: 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.
OK, lets look at movie releases if I go to a movie day 1 at the big megaplex theater it cost $10 where I live, but if I wait 2 months it will be at the discount theater for $2, thats a 80% discount way more then most games get discounted after 2 months. Also could you imagine how annoying it would be if game releases where like movie releases, if you want to play the game day 1 you would have to go to an arcade and probably pay per-hour to play the game, then after a couple of months you could play at your local cybercafe but it would still be pay per-hour and then finally after a year you could buy the game to play at home any yeah it would probably be cheaper then $60 but its been out for a year at this point. The other problem with comparing it to movies is in a big theater they get $10 per-person and they can cram hundreds of people into one showing, I'm sure game publishers would love to charge you $10 to share a single playthrough with hundreds of other people but that would suck. And one final point, I like this system it means that if I don't want to pay full price for a game I can just wait a few months and get it for cheap and the game can still be profitable. Look at EA they actually lost money last year, even though they sold big AAA games, it can be very hard to make money back on these big games. If you don't like paying full price wait and buy it when its cheaper, no one is forcing you to buy the game day one.
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?
babinro: I don't agree. Gaming prices are extremely reasonable.
Games were largely $50.00 new from the NES days until something like XBOX. From there it's been a steady $60.00 price. How many other things in life stay so stable and reliable?
The time investment you get from games for their price tag is a bargain as well considering you'll likely average 20 hours of fun out of a game purchase (this clearly ranges from like 6-100+ hours).
On top of all of that, the cost to make a game now is more than it's ever been.
It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Next Generation consoles release games at $69.99 on average. A price which I'd rather not pay, but would still consider fair.
I have still always considered Gaming to be a rather expensive Hobby. I would pay 100$ a game if I had to, then again I would be getting far less games than I do now :P
Don't worry. It will get even worse if people keep supporting Sony and MS for making the next gen consoles much stronger than the current one.
Let me quote Warren Spector, the producer of Epic Mickey:
"Honestly? I don't care much about hardware. Nintendo games are some of the best games in the world and from a more graphical standpoint, the Wii can't do what a PS3 or 360 can do."
"It's about design and not so much about tech for me. Honestly, I'm more scared about what will come next than I am excited.
"Once we can do Pixar-quality graphics rendered in real time with interactivity, I could see games costing $200 million to make and all of a sudden you have to sell a lot of games just to break even, so I'm a little worried someone's going to do that.
"Someone's going to spend... well, there are already people spending $100 million on games, that's not even insane anymore."
"$200, 300 million games, I'm a little scared about that, there aren't a lot of companies that have the resources or the courage to spend that much. So my gut's in a bit of a knot about that but whatever comes along I'll just make games that work on that platform, I don't think about hardware too much.
"I think the power of the platforms is outstripping the size of the audience. We can't charge $150 for a game. And when the best-selling game of all time has sold only 20 million copies, at $60, do the math!
"If you're spending $200 million on a game and you're making $60 on 20 million copies sold, oh wait, you're losing money if you're the best-selling game of all time basically, right? I don't know how the business works anymore, that's the problem."
"It already takes three years to take a game, when all of a sudden creating assets at an even higher level of quality and animations that are even a higher level of quality, I don't know how we're going to do it. We'll figure it out but right now I'm content where I am."
Well, there you have it. A smart person finally talks a bit about this problem. I'm sick of random developer requesting much stronger consoles, but then cry about the cost and how evil we consumer are for not trowing our money to them.
I think it's annoying that games launch at 60 dollars by default on consoles.
Game only 4-5 hours long with no real replayability? 60USD Game 10-60 hours long with lots of options and replayability? 60USD
There's no value set in games they don't try and price games they just go 60 bucks end of argument. And a lot of these games would sell more if they weren't priced the same, I wanted Vanquished, but 60 bucks for a 5 hour game? Hm, Skyrim 60 hours+replaybility or Vanquished 4-5 hours and that's it? Which should I get...duhh.
Game costs to high? 60 bucks gets 4 copies of torchlight and 4 pre orders of torchlight 2 on steam.... thats $60 bucks for like $160 of games. true its only 2 games but I did it now all my buddies have both now :P
Fireface: U guys think you have it bad, in Australia we pay $90 and up for a new game and our dollar is currently worth more than yours :(
Damn right. That's what I want to know. Why the hell do Aussie games cost almost twice as much at launch than elsewhere in the world. Seriously, where is all this extra money going? Then again, the price of most things in Australia is going up freaking high, shit even in Perth there are places selling bottles of water for $4. FOUR DOLLARS. Just makes you want to get everything shipped in, or buy games when you go overseas (for those that are lucky enough to have the money/time to do so).
Barring that, I think everyone just loves to forget that games cost such a crapload of money to make these days. Let's look at some of the things that would drive the cost up on a triple A game.
Marketing Shipping Manufacturing Shelf Space (Not too sure on this one) And add some more money on the asking price so you can make at least some profit.
Not to mention the plain, simple fact that games are SOOO much more complicated to make. I mean, just LOOK at them. Compared to the Atari or even the SNES, these games look downright alien.
SmashLovesTitanQuest: Well, I will say this: if the new consoles shut out used games, they HAVE to lower the price of new games. Absolutely have to. No way around it.
Baldr: At <$3/hour, it is still the cheapest non-commercial media available.
Netflix runs commercials?
Netflix is still a rental system. Compared to a streaming service like OnLive where I got an email today to join their 200 game selection service for $2 this month and $10/month afterwards. I still think OnLive still a little overpriced to begin with.
Netflix rents DVD's but the streaming is a service, not a rental.
Arnoxthe1: As someone else said, the game is in high demand.
Barring that, I think everyone just loves to forget that games cost such a crapload of money to make these days. Let's look at some of the things that would drive the cost up on a triple A game.
Marketing Shipping Manufacturing Shelf Space (Not too sure on this one) And add some more money on the asking price so you can make at least some profit.
Not to mention the plain, simple fact that games are SOOO much more complicated to make. I mean, just LOOK at them. Compared to the Atari or even the SNES, these games look downright alien.
What a game costs to make is irrelevant. Games cost $60 because people buy them at that price. If people refused to pay $60, the price would go down. When the demand on a specific game goes down, so does the price. That can happen across the industry too and bring the standard price back down to $50, if people stopped paying $60.
There's no particular way to determine whether it's too high or not. It's just going by demand. Some people want the game so badly they'll pay a lot fast. Others don't want it as much and won't buy it. As sales go down they will lower the price to accommodate those people.
SmashLovesTitanQuest: Well, I will say this: if the new consoles shut out used games, they HAVE to lower the price of new games. Absolutely have to. No way around it.
Netflix runs commercials?
Netflix is still a rental system. Compared to a streaming service like OnLive where I got an email today to join their 200 game selection service for $2 this month and $10/month afterwards. I still think OnLive still a little overpriced to begin with.
Netflix rents DVD's but the streaming is a service, not a rental.
Rental/Subscription doesn't matter my point still stands, it not a to own service.
I really don't see what the issue is. If you are certain that you will get a better deal later on, and don't mind waiting, just buy it later on. If you want it at release, you're going to pay more for the opportunity. There is no such thing as games being too expensive when one can go to either a retail store or an online one and find absolutely great games for $5 or $10. You might mean that brand new games should be cheaper, but that's silly too as you're ignoring just how expensive it is to make a game these days.
It's also a bit of a fallacy when it comes to hardware pricing. Hardware is very expensive to produce and get on a store shelf, so much so that I believe Sony and MS are still actually losing money (or are breaking even) on every console they sell. Cheaper hardware really isn't something that's overly possible, especially when a system is first released.
Capcha: watch c-beams glitter Okay, that's actually rather awesome.
Maybe you should have said "adjusting for inflation" in your original post. Also, you said "costed" as in past tense. No, in the past NES games costed $50.
Well, you are right. I am just a little sleepy and forgot to add that. I am actually editing the post right now!
It's cool. It's just a pet peeve of mine that people claim that they HAD to pay $80 for Chrono Trigger in 1995, it was $50 at Wal Mart. If people paid that much for Chrono Trigger, blame the retailer. Nintendo has always had the same MSRP for games, $50, it's true today as it was in the NES days.
Technology should get cheaper as it gets improved. A blu-ray player is much cheaper today than it was 5 years ago and it has better technology under the hood too.
Conker's Bad Fur Day for the N64 was £60 at launch...
Well, you are right. I am just a little sleepy and forgot to add that. I am actually editing the post right now!
It's cool. It's just a pet peeve of mine that people claim that they HAD to pay $80 for Chrono Trigger in 1995, it was $50 at Wal Mart. If people paid that much for Chrono Trigger, blame the retailer. Nintendo has always had the same MSRP for games, $50, it's true today as it was in the NES days.
Technology should get cheaper as it gets improved. A blu-ray player is much cheaper today than it was 5 years ago and it has better technology under the hood too.
Conker's Bad Fur Day for the N64 was £60 at launch...
I live in the US, I don't what your prices were but here, N64 titles were $50 just like the SNES before it and just like the Gamecube after it.
It's cool. It's just a pet peeve of mine that people claim that they HAD to pay $80 for Chrono Trigger in 1995, it was $50 at Wal Mart. If people paid that much for Chrono Trigger, blame the retailer. Nintendo has always had the same MSRP for games, $50, it's true today as it was in the NES days.
Technology should get cheaper as it gets improved. A blu-ray player is much cheaper today than it was 5 years ago and it has better technology under the hood too.
Conker's Bad Fur Day for the N64 was £60 at launch...
I live in the US, I don't what your prices were but here, N64 titles were $50 just like the SNES before it and just like the Gamecube after it.
Games here usually cost £30 - to £45. Conker was an exceptionally expensive game, even by today's standards. I've found this generation to generally be lower in price than the average N64 game.
But I have no idea about prices outside of UK so I can't really contribute to this.
Fireface: U guys think you have it bad, in Australia we pay $90 and up for a new game and our dollar is currently worth more than yours :(
Damn right. That's what I want to know. Why the hell do Aussie games cost almost twice as much at launch than elsewhere in the world. Seriously, where is all this extra money going? Then again, the price of most things in Australia is going up freaking high, shit even in Perth there are places selling bottles of water for $4. FOUR DOLLARS. Just makes you want to get everything shipped in, or buy games when you go overseas (for those that are lucky enough to have the money/time to do so).
We really need to make games cheaper over here in Aus.
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.
The thread title states that prices for games are too high then the text states that prices are too high for early adopters. Early adopters always pay more. Early adopters pay for the exclusivity of playing the game, well, early.
Solution: Don't buy games on launch.
Snotnarok: I think it's annoying that games launch at 60 dollars by default on consoles.
Game only 4-5 hours long with no real replayability? 60USD Game 10-60 hours long with lots of options and replayability? 60USD
Do you purchase games for a time sink or based on the quality of the experience?
My preference is for games with loads of content (time sink) but the game still must be an enjoyable experience. I gladly take a 2 hour game for $60 that provides me with an excellent experience over some 100+ hour monster that I find boring or offensive for $60.
I'm saying that quality trumps quantity. Do you not agree?
Because that wasn't actually related to the ending at all...
Anyway, if you want to see how overpriced games are check for how long MW3 stayed at $60.
PS3 games are about 70€ around here. About $100 US.