Are Games Too Expensive?

[loren.daniel]

I'm a cheapie ! I waited until TF2 dropped to under $20

[Toadster]

[quote="Alizée Fan";p="154546"]
[quote="Shifty";p="154501"]I don't think that 60 dollars is steep for a good game, the orange box for example has given me 500 hours of entertainment (and going strong). Thats definitely worth it to me.
[/quote]

I agree, Orange Box was worth it. Orange Box, however, is not a game. It's 3 games and 2 expansion packs. That's $60 well spent. If TF2, or Portal, or either expansion pack were $60 by themself, I would not have them - period. That'd be pushing it for even HL2, though I'd probably pay it, being as it is one of the greatest games ever made.

The most I have ever spent on a game was about $75 for the Spore: Galactic Edition, in a hard case with extra books and such included. I did this because I expected Spore to be another of the best games ever made - it had so much potential, and I fell for the advertising. Turns out instead to be one of the greatest disappointments ever, and I am filled with rage that I was taken for so much. Neither Will Wright nor EA will easily, if ever, be getting my money again.
[/quote]

you forgot Peggle Extreme

[Yahoo!!]

Considering how much other forms of entertainment cost? Video games are an absolute bargain. It costs $60+ to go to concerts and sporting events that last only for a couple of hours.

What about eating for dinner? Same thing.

I think there is a wee bit of whining from people who don't understand the sheer amount of coding and effort put into these games. Games like Fallout 3, GTA 4, MGS 4, TF2, L4D aren't cheap to make. It takes time and effort. To top it off, they release patches to bolster the game.

Take your lumps like a man.

[gator]

[quote="ShiftyDevil";p="154569"]I don't have a problem with game prices, however, I am pretty picky about what I buy.

But then, I'm picky about anything I buy.[/quote]

Same.

For the amount of design/development/testing work that quality games require, I have no issue paying $50+ if needed. Especially for MP games like TF2, DOD:S, L4D that can easily provide tens (or hundreds) of hours of gaming.

Even a good single player game that might provide 10-20 hrs of gaming, $50 is quite reasonable.

Compared to other forms of entertainment, I consider it a great value.

That said, the online delivery model is great for publishers to experiment with pricing/volume, since margins on software are usually in the 70-80% range and costs are very low post-development. Very similar to price variation people have experimented with on the iTunes App Store.

[shimmybot]

[quote="Yahoo!!";p="154622"]
Considering how much other forms of entertainment cost? Video games are an absolute bargain. It costs $60+ to go to concerts and sporting events that last only for a couple of hours.

What about eating for dinner? Same thing.

I think there is a wee bit of whining from people who don't understand the sheer amount of coding and effort put into these games. Games like Fallout 3, GTA 4, MGS 4, TF2, L4D aren't cheap to make. It takes time and effort. To top it off, they release patches to bolster the game.

Take your lumps like a man.
[/quote]

this

[itchy]

Considering the ridiculously upwards-sloping development cost and time for modern (HD-era) games, no. I don't think games today are overpriced.

[CastleDoctrine]

The article mentioned in the original post demonstrates that aggressive price cuts, regardless of current economic conditions, can increase sales and revenue. This doesn't mean that games are overpriced, just that customers ration their resources when judging the cost of an item versus their potential benefit from acquiring it.

Games and gaming equipment cost what they do because people are willing to pay for it. If developers/manufacturers charge too much, they will sell fewer units. If they charge too little, they're not trying to get the most buck for their bang, so to speak, and not serving their business's best interests (making money). With reasonably accurate market research, a manufacturer can find a range of pricing that gives the greatest return on their product without alienating customers. With temporary sales and price cuts over time, they can continue to generate revenue for as long as their product remains popular or comparable to what their competitors are producing. It would be interesting to know the detailed costs involved in developing a game, and detailed returns from sales (gaming company stockholders likely have access to this data).

TTHREAZ made valid points regarding the effect of monetary inflation on prices over time versus the ratio of entertainment content per dollar value.

As for me, I am not an early adopter in general when it comes to games. I'll try to research a game, play the demo if I can, and wait for a price cut, the deeper the better. Like others, I bought The Orange Box which has been worth every penny (Funny Story: I bought it for HL2, the Episodes, and Portal, completely discounting TF2). Other than that, I've only bought games used or at significant markdown. There have been two exceptions:

• Halo 2: Microsoft and Bungie totally suckered me on that one. I loved the first game and took it on faith and slick advertising that the second game would be just as fun if not more so. Negatory!
  
  Left 4 Dead: In hindsight, I should have waited for a 50% off situation and the DLC and SDK, and not paid full price. It's a fun game, but playing the same maps over and over again can become stale. In my opinion, it just needed the content we will soon receive when it was released in order to be worth $50.

[/my2¢]

[Flobee]

In Australia, yes. The games are too expensive.

Brand new games are $100 in Australia.

I'm lead to believe that brand new games are around $50 in the US, right?

Keeping in mind that the online currency converter I used may or may not have updated to take the global economy crisis into account, $50 US is roughly $77 Australian.

YET WE ARE PAYING $100 ($99.95) FOR GAMES.

SO YES.

GAMES ARE TOO EXPENSIVE.

[Plinko]

I think it's quite likely that games are much too expensive. Valve's experiments do show that companies make a lot more revenue when cutting prices and with an extremely low marginal cost per unit vs. the massive development costs - maximizing revenue is much more important than maintaining per unit margins.

Games are expensive to make because companies that make games choose to risk big bucks chasing blockbusters, but most of the games they churn out are not worth $50 or more to most gamers, so they lose a lot of money on those. There are too many companies chasing too few customers for games with massive budgets and giant swings in quality/replay value. Maybe once enough of them lose enough money some will get it straight.

Arguments about development costs or inflation don't matter. What matters is what consumers are willing to pay for a product, and as a manufacturer have no choice but to make products that you can profitably sell to people.

My company makes kid clothes. I work actively in mnaufacturing and cost/margin/price/volume figures tremendously into what I do daily. Clothes today are a massive steal compared to what they cost 20 or 50 or 100 years ago, yet the quality of materials going in are much better than what was used before new technolgies in spinning/dyeing chemistry not to mention supply chain/inventory/POS sofrware that lets us do a better job of making what people want and avoiding more stuff poeple don't want. Yet, for all that our prices and margins are lower than ever. Competition and the nature of the market drive it, and it's good for customers and its my job to find a way to make money. No one owes me profitability.

Video games don't get to be special, they don't get to avoid competition or changes in their market. They have to adapt and find models that work. Just because some people were OK paying $50 for Castlevania in 1987, it doesn't make some moral argument that paying $60 for some souped up version with better graphics and 3D movement and such today is manna from heaven.

I don't buy games very often any more. Games that can give me hundreds of hours of quality entertainment can easily earn my $50 or $60, but how many of those come along? And even if they do, I can only find the time to keep up with a few.
Now, I do have time for interesting games that can entertain me for 10-20 hours and be done with them, but I am not shelling out big bucks for them. And let me tell you, most companies are churning out games that are not going to provide much more than a few hours of entertainment. Game companies that recognize that and make and sell games that fit into a great value for an impluse buy are going to do well and I applaud them.

[BlackHawk]

For me it depends on where I buy them. I don't mind the price on steam, where the developer gets most the money, but I won't buy in store because of how little the developer gets. By the the time the the Publisher, Distrubuter, and store take their cuts the developer is not left with much.

And you can't really compare it to many other forms of enteratinment, except for movies, because stuff like concerts and sporting events are one time things, where as a game can still be purchased even after it has its run. Take Doom, or GTA, they still sell the older versions and people do still buy them. There is also no limit to the number of copies of a game that can be sold, while in the case of a concert or sports event there are limited seats. If there were unlimited seats you would be seeing far far cheaper ticket prices.

This is why I do think the video games are over priced. If the game is good (Like Half Life) then they will make a lot of money. Now the problem with the price is that you can not afford to get a bad game. at $60+ a game that is an entire night of work for me. So after bills I really can only get maybe one game a month during the usy season, and none in the winter because I have to be sure that the game will be worth the cost. I get a game and if it turns out not to be good I have either a paper wieght or I can return it and get half my money back if it is for a console, or am just screwed if it isfor the computer

[Cpt. Winky]

im really picky. If its a game series that I love, and I have been waiting for it to come out and cant wait to get the next game (fallout 2 to fallout 3, RA2 to RA3, CNCs in general) I will shell out the 50$ for the game because it is a series I love. If its a game I like, but not a whole lot, I usually wait until the price drops. If its a game that I dont know if it will be any good or a game I know no longer exists, or one I know stinks, I usually go the torrent route. saved me $50 from buying LOTR Conquests. using $50 as toilet paper would have brought better results than someone buying that game for PC.

what I dont get is how a 45-50 dollar game for PC with FREE DLC, free mods, better graphics, and better support and actual patches is less money than a $60 version of the same game for a system, but lacks graphics, patches, mods, decent support, and DLC usually costs money. XBOX 360 games and PS3 games are horrendously overpriced. oh, and Riddle me this, Fallout 7 and 9 for the PSone cost more now than a new xbox 360 game because they are so rare. FF7 is maybe 90-100 i think on ebay. That is worth the money, new XBOX games are not.

[Yahoo!!]

[quote="CastleDoctrine";p="154655"]The article mentioned in the original post demonstrates that aggressive price cuts, regardless of current economic conditions, can increase sales and revenue. This doesn't mean that games are overpriced, just that customers ration their resources when judging the cost of an item versus their potential benefit from acquiring it.

Games and gaming equipment cost what they do because people are willing to pay for it. If developers/manufacturers charge too much, they will sell fewer units. If they charge too little, they're not trying to get the most buck for their bang, so to speak, and not serving their business's best interests (making money). With reasonably accurate market research, a manufacturer can find a range of pricing that gives the greatest return on their product without alienating customers. With temporary sales and price cuts over time, they can continue to generate revenue for as long as their product remains popular or comparable to what their competitors are producing. It would be interesting to know the detailed costs involved in developing a game, and detailed returns from sales (gaming company stockholders likely have access to this data).

TTHREAZ made valid points regarding the effect of monetary inflation on prices over time versus the ratio of entertainment content per dollar value.

As for me, I am not an early adopter in general when it comes to games. I'll try to research a game, play the demo if I can, and wait for a price cut, the deeper the better. Like others, I bought The Orange Box which has been worth every penny (Funny Story: I bought it for HL2, the Episodes, and Portal, completely discounting TF2). Other than that, I've only bought games used or at significant markdown. There have been two exceptions:

• Halo 2: Microsoft and Bungie totally suckered me on that one. I loved the first game and took it on faith and slick advertising that the second game would be just as fun if not more so. Negatory!
  
  Left 4 Dead: In hindsight, I should have waited for a 50% off situation and the DLC and SDK, and not paid full price. It's a fun game, but playing the same maps over and over again can become stale. In my opinion, it just needed the content we will soon receive when it was released in order to be worth $50.

[/my2¢][/quote]

We all make mistakes like this.

A. Buying Homeworld was a mistake. I hardly played it and was totally thrown off. I was not into this game despite the hype.

The worst though
B. I loved heroes of might and magic 2. I think Heroes of Might and Magic 3 is one of the best games of all time. I bought Heroes of Might and Magic 4 expecting more awesomeness. Instead, I got the biggest turd in my collection. That was game was HIDEOUSLY bad and I totally loathe it. It was a big waste of money and sits there collecting dust.

[MorbidJunkie]

yup.......and Heroes 5 sucked just as much as 4 in my opinion........I play heroes 3 just about every day still....I have 3 xbox 360's and only play Halo and Rockband/Guitar hero with them, I would never buy left 4 dead or orange box for it because of the console limitations on mods and upgrades..........I usually d/l a game via torrent before I buy just to see if I like it and if I do i buy it legitimately......on a different note......I play Halo 3 on Xbox Live with my 15 year old son and let me tell ya it sure makes you appreciate this place.....I can't understand the ignorance and assinine immaturity of the online community through xbox live.....TheVille is worth every cent to guarantee a spot on a server to play with people who, like me, appreciate the good clean fun that we have here........what I really mean to say is I love you guys......

THREAZ is right on target with his opinion too......I am 'older' and remember really being gouged for video games when I was younger.....my Vic20 and 2 games cost nearly $400 and 1 game had to be edited to work properly......my latest computer cost me $500 to build and compared to my first(the Vic20) is a bargain

[MrBlah]

[quote="Flobee";p="154656"]
In Australia, yes. The games are too expensive.

Brand new games are $100 in Australia.

I'm lead to believe that brand new games are around $50 in the US, right?

Keeping in mind that the online currency converter I used may or may not have updated to take the global economy crisis into account, $50 US is roughly $77 Australian.

YET WE ARE PAYING $100 ($99.95) FOR GAMES.

SO YES.

GAMES ARE TOO EXPENSIVE.
[/quote]

Flobee does however have room to bargain here... I know games oversees cost alot more money. But this is partially due tariffs and things like that. it is unfortunate, but there is nothing you can do about it.



As for Heroes 3... I agree, that game was beyond great. I had alot alot of fun playing and modding Heroes 3. I dont think I ever finished making a map for my self, but I always had fun doing it. I found it amusing to add a mob to the map and make set him so that he would like 100% join you... only make the mob thebest in the game

[Bakuryu]

Compared to other forms of entertainment I enjoy, games are cheaper and much less life-threatening.