So what is a fair price for games in your opinion? $50?Originally Posted by eugenek
I got a Neo-Geo in November 1990, so after paying $200 per game, everything looks cheap.
So what is a fair price for games in your opinion? $50?
I got a Neo-Geo in November 1990, so after paying $200 per game, everything looks cheap.
Well, I'm almost 30 and I made nearly $30,000 last year.
Keep in mind that I don't have any debts, bills are on the low side (I don't consume much) and I don't buy much either...and I STILL think games today are expensive.
Of course, that's me...I've always been super cheap when it comes to money. Heck, I complain about spending $1 buying lunch!
I have a question, though. What if, in the future, all games will be in digital format (for example, all games will be available for download ONLY). No more physical media exists. Yet the game still costs $60 to purchase. Is this still acceptable, at least regarding price?
Proud owner of a Neo 25 Neo Geo Candy Cab!
Well, as I said before, I admittedly don't know what a fair price is. The best price is the optimal intersection of profit margin and demand. If a company could either sell 100 copies of a $60 game at a $10 profit margin for each OR 300 copies of that game for $30 at a $5 profit margin, they should do the latter. (I made those numbers up just to illustrate, I don't know the exact structures). That's the Wal-Mart business model that is so successful...lower the margins but make up the loss in volume. I mean, maybe it IS $60 that is optimal, but seeing as to how Gamestop can rake in record sales discounting used games only $5 in some cases, well, my sense is that there's still a little bit of pricing inefficiency. I would personally like to see a publisher simply lower game prices a little instead of bitching about the used game market.
im 32, my wife and i together make over 60k a year.
i talk with my wallet. i have yet to buy a new game at the 60 dollar price point. i will not buy DS or PSP games at 40 dollars, and i rarely buy wii games at 50.
$60 for download-only games would be a rip-off. That's why I like WiiWare. There's a very good selection of $10 and $15 games. It's a great price point and the library features many high-quality, well-produced titles. I'm sure the same goes for Xbox Live and PSN.
Even for a complex, full-length, AAA game like Metal Gear Solid 4 or Super Mario Galaxy, I think $35 would be the most I'd spend on a download-only version. Think about it: the publisher isn't paying to have discs, cases, and covers manufactured and shrink-wrapped. The publisher isn't paying shipping costs, either. The game is just files on a remote server. With those expenses gone, why would I still be expected to pay $50 to $60 per game? I imagine publishers would pass along at least some of the savings to us, their customers.
Back to WiiWare though: This is the direction in which I want the game industry to go. For $60, I can buy World of Goo, LostWinds, Mega Man 9, and one of the Strong Bad games...or for $60, I could buy Metal Gear Solid 4. I realize for some people, spending $60 and getting one deep, complex game like MGS 4 is the better value. That's fine. For me though, spending $60 and getting four fun, simple, highly-rated pick-up-and-play games is the better value. I don't have time for long, involved games anymore and am glad quicker, simpler, arcade-style games are making a comeback...and for a much lower price, too!
Last edited by Rob2600; 02-23-2009 at 01:29 PM.
Very good question. I think that it is high, depending the game. Then again it depends how I feel about the game thats worth the money it cost. There are games that you can play endlessly no matter how you look at it (Online games, Racing games, Strategy), that I might not have a problem paying 40-60. I couldn't bring myself to pay 60 for some adventure game that lasts me 5-10 hours. Hell even with the new street fighter, I am trying to decide if 60 is worth it.
I love buying used games, but I also like to support the Game co.'s if I really like them. I hardly have a problem paying 40-50 for a Nintendo brand game, although nothing has caught my eye as of yet. But some game I MIGHT not like and pay 60...dunno.
Clownzilla I wish I was as controlled as you! Spending 20 the most on a game is hard with this generation, tell me your secret!!
Last edited by demen999; 02-23-2009 at 01:51 PM.
I think you have fundamentally overestimated the cost of replication, packaging and shipping. For most games produced in quantities over 20,000 units, it only costs about $3.00 each to get the discs pressed, the inserts and instructions printed and inserted, the cases sealed and the units shipped to distributors. At larger quantities, this can drop to below $2.00. The cost in games is not the physical media anymore (although this was a valid issue in the previous generations where cartridges and even DVD-Roms were more expensive to produce), it's in the development and marketing. Aside from the fact that Wiiware style games don't appeal to a lot of older and more experienced gamers, they also don't generate the same kind of return that an A-list title can. When games do almost $200 million in first day sales like Halo 3 did, that's serious money, even if development and marketing was over $100 million. Even assuming a Wiiware game sells a million units, at $10 a pop, once you subtract out development and licensing, what's the profit like $3 million? I know that sounds like a lot, but even a small studio is very expensive to run and very few download titles ever sell in the millions. The business model for Wiiware only works for small studios and only works for those lucky few that design a really addictive little game. I personally like that Wiiware and Xbox Live and PSN are available for games of this type, but I don't think the majority of gamers prefer games of that type to real A-list titles.$60 for download-only games would be a rip-off. That's why I like WiiWare. There's a very good selection of $10 and $15 games. It's a great price point and the library features many high-quality, well-produced titles. I'm sure the same goes for Xbox Live and PSN.
Even for a complex, full-length, AAA game like Metal Gear Solid 4 or Super Mario Galaxy, I think $35 would be the most I'd spend on a download-only version. Think about it: the publisher isn't paying to have discs, cases, and covers manufactured and shrink-wrapped. The publisher isn't paying shipping costs, either. The game is just files on a remote server. With those expenses gone, why would I still be expected to pay $50 to $60 per game? I imagine publishers would pass along at least some of the savings to us, their customers.
Back to WiiWare though: This is the direction in which I want the game industry to go. For $60, I can buy World of Goo, LostWinds, Mega Man 9, and one of the Strong Bad games...or for $60, I could buy Metal Gear Solid 4. I realize for some people, spending $60 and getting one deep, complex game like MGS 4 is the better value. That's fine. For me though, spending $60 and getting four fun, simple, highly-rated pick-up-and-play games is the better value. I don't have time for long, involved games anymore and am glad quicker, simpler, arcade-style games are making a comeback...and for a much lower price, too!
There is something I don't understand and maybe somebody more knowledgeable can enlighten me.
Big budget Hollywood Blockbusters can cost up to $300,000,000 in total to produce. I'm guessing that includes distribution costs, prints and advertising, and other expenses. Even the biggest budget video game doesn't come near this kind of cost. So what's with the incongruity?
Granted, a movie has more sources of income. Movie tickets in addition to DVD sales. But movie tickets even today aren't going entirely to make up the cost of the film. That $10 movie ticket is split first between the movie theater and the film's distributor. The film studio takes a relatively small piece of that pie.
So why is it that Superman Returns, one of the most expensive movies ever made, sold for under $30, yet a game that costs a fraction to produce, distributed on the same media format, in an environment where supposedly everybody is buying video games, sells for double that?
The only thing I can figure is that movie studios make a shit load from movies airing on TV and stuff while game publishers don't have that luxury. But there still seems to be some incongruity there.
"The only thing I can figure is that movie studios make a shit load from movies airing on TV and stuff while game publishers don't have that luxury."
I totally don't understand that either. It's like they are always scrapping at the floor for food or something. Yet Uwe Boll continues to make shitty movie after shitty movie.
I think another answer is that film studios make money off catalogue sales of their films (these days, principally on DVD). Video games, as software, don't have that kind of "shelf life."
That's a big part of it and rights to catalogue sales typically get sold in chunks which is something I have never seen in the video game world probably because until services like Gametap came along, there was literally no market for games on defunct platforms. The other big part of the equation is that films can make money in just about every part of the world and often do with very little localization save for either subtitles or dubbing which costs surprisingly little to do. Also, even a movie which flops has some value in the cable/premium pay cable/PPV/DVD Rental market. Movies typically don't get resold on the used market (unless you have a wholesale shift in technology like VHS to DVD) multiple times the way a game does (with no money coming back to the developer/publisher) and movie studios get a guaranteed residual when a copy of a movie gets sold to Blockbuster or Hollywood Video on top of the purchase price. A game which fails gets thrown in the bargain bin and is generally never heard from again.
Then you'll be glad to know that at the no DS or PSP game for 40 bucks that you've got the buying power of 95% of all the new games coming out for the systems. Very few DS games come out at 39 bucks (in fact only one company charges that, SquareEnix, high end Nintendo titles are 34, everything else is 29 or less), and so few PSP games are even coming out now that 39 is almost moot (most are releasing at 29 anyways).
The games are what they are due to licensing costs and the insanely high costs that it takes to make many of the modern games on todays systems. PS3 is not cheap to develop for. XBox 360 isn't cheap to develop for and thus why we have 59 buck games and sequel after sequel because its hard for companies to eat a 300 million dollar loss in the pants because of inital game costs and be viable for more than a release or two.
/end rant
If the game hits at a 59 buck pricepoint and I want it, I'll get it. I might not buy it day 1, but i'll get it. Some other games i'll balk at that price. HotD:Overkill isn't worth 50 to me, and having played about 4/5ths the story mode, i'm glad I didn't buy it at 50. Hard to charge 50 bucks for 2 hours worth of gameplay, replayability be damned.
Because it makes no attempt to be great, it is therefore extremely great.
Some of My Game Collection Mah Mac n' Cheese Blog
"Hard to charge 50 bucks for 2 hours worth of gameplay, replayability be damned."
PapaStu you hit the nail on the coffin there. That is why I don't have many of the new games out now.
This is one reason why cartridges and VHS was so expensive, even after the price of manufacturing dropped. One of the arguments put forth by the studios and developers was "Why pay 7.00 to see it once, when you can pay fifty dollars and see it forever, in the luxury and comfort of your own home?"
Well, it's thirty years later and that novelty has passed. How many people buy a movie or game brand new that they watch/play once a week for the rest of their lives? Maybe one out of 100 titles has that type of merit with the end user, but most people buy games and play them for the first few days or maybe even a week or two at best and then never touch them again?
I think to better ask the question "Do new games cost too much?", we have to weed out a couple of segments of the gaming community:
Believe it or not, I commonly hear "Games aren't expensive" the most from people that buy used games, budget titles, or wait for the games to hit forty dollars. In doing so, you're actively admitting that games are too expensive, otherwise why don't you just buy it when it comes out at full price? Next.
Of course, how many of us work for our own money and have to choose between gas, food and games? I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of us posting in this thread are uh, taken care of by their parents and don't even buy their own games. No offense to you, but you have no business weighing in on this subject unless you are fully self-sufficient and buy your own games. Next.
For the guys that bought one 60.00 game last year because you absolutely couldn't wait for it to possibly end up cheaper, but rarely (if ever) buy a 60.00 title, your input is not needed either as you vote with your wallet.
So, for the guys that regularly buy full priced, 60.00 games, with your own money, do you feel you're paying too much?
Who said pirating carts wasn't possible? I certainly didn't, so you'll get no 'break' from me.
Time will be when the broadest river dries
And the great cities wane and last descend
Into the dust, for all things have an end
If you're only asking the people who regularly buy the games at full price, why bother asking at all? Obviously they feel it's worth it or they wouldn't be buying them. That's like asking, "Of the people who like McDonalds the best, who likes McDonalds the best?"
I don't buy games new if they're full price, I wait until they get very cheap. There are certain games I've bought once they got to $19.99, but I really wanted those games very badly. Usually I now limit myself to $5-$10 for games that are current gen(DS games). When the system was newer I had a higher limit, but not really anymore. I only buy games myself, I don't get games bought for me anymore.
The main reason people aren't willing to spend so much on games anymore is because there's a bigger selection available of used stuff. You can buy a full price current gen game, or you can buy older gen stuff for $5-$10 each. The games and systems that are available now used are still pretty good, there's plenty of people that would gladly play an NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube, Dreamcast, Genesis, PS1, PS2, Saturn, etc. The games are still pretty fun and plenty of younger people are looking for this stuff now. Back when the NES was new, what was the other stuff available? Atari 2600, Colecovision, Intellivision, etc. Those aren't that close to the NES, those other systems are still good but aren't anywhere near the same like the NES was.
Whether or not game prices are too high is one thing. I'm sure there can be a healthy debate on that subject. But I don't think any reasonable person can conclude that game prices are not at least prohibitively expensive for the purposes of impulse buying. The moments when you just happen to be in a store and see a new game on the shelf you weren't planning to buy yet figured "what the hell" for one reason or another. I have a rather large collection of games yet I can count my full price impulse buys on one hand. Used impulse buys, however, are a different story.
Clearly people like used games. If they didn't then there wouldn't be such boisterous outrage over many of Gamestop's practices. Who cares if Gamestop puts stickers all over used games if you only buy new ones? Games might not be too expensive but they certainly aren't inexpensive. Even if you eliminate impulse buying from the equation, buying every game you want to play brand new will get very costly very fast if you want to play more than a few games each year. I don't know of anybody who isn't at least a little discriminatory with what games to buy at full price.
Last edited by TonyTheTiger; 02-23-2009 at 07:39 PM.
Exactly.
I ask this of the people that buy 60.00 games because most of us, as I've pointed out, feel that 60.00 is too steep for a new game and accordingly wait for a cheaper alternative.
The guys that actually PURCHASE 60.00 games are the ones I want to hear from. Do they buy them because they feel that the games are worth every penny, or that they're not expensive, or that they're buying them at full price to support the industry, or they have enough disposable income to buy it whether it was 60.00 or 160.00?
I'm just curious as to who the guys buying sixty dollar games are, as few of my friends and apparently few of the guys on this thread do so. For the ones that do, I want to know how they justify doing so. I really want to be proven wrong when I say that a great majority of 60.00 games are purchased by parents for their offspring. My theory is that the average adult gamer isn't going to plunk down 60.00 every week or two unless he's insanely well off.
It's closer to $10, actually... And that depends on a number of other factors.
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