Game Prices Tumble

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I can’t think of a single person that doesn’t like lower priced games. Let’s just hope this is a trend that continues because $60 for a game now is getting a bit ridiculous.

That was before the recession hit. With consumers increasingly worried about their cash flow, questions are starting to surface on how long publishers will be able to maintain the $60 price point. Activision-Blizzard made the most notable move right before Christmas, lowering the price of "Call of Duty: World at War" from $59 to $49.
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steam sale ftw!

alas, bad economy = buyer's market...so long as you have cash and a secure job that is ;)
 
I hope this trend sticks. 60 bucks is pushing it and since people are still buying them I was thinking "next-gen" games would be pushing 70-75 bucks!!! :eek:
 
Hehe.. YES!. I NEVER buy games for $60 anyhow. And $50 only on rare occasions.

My most recent game purchase was a new copy of Unreal Anthology for $5 at Gamestop.

I wondered how long it would take for publishers to decided to lower game prices.
 
Steam boxing week FTW!

Never thought a top teir game (like Bioshock) could ever hit the $5 bargain bin in one year. Games were getting a little overpriced though, too many companies really (as cruel as it sounds)

For every man who saw a crowded market segment and said "Me too!"
 
I remember paying $79.99 CAD for Harpoon2 and over $70.00 CAD for Longbow2 way back and that is before taxes were applied even. Those crazy prices stopped long ago and the lower the better. Why should a movie that cost 70 million to make sell for $20.00 and a game that cost way less to make sell for triple the price?
 
Come on guys. $60 too much for premium entertainment. Assuming you don't like to replay your games, a ten hour game equates to $6/hour. You're trying to tell me that $6/hour is too much for a game. Ridiculous. Sorry, I'd be a little more understanding if you didn't want to spend $900 for a water cooled video card. Games are a steal at $60.
 
VorpalBFG said:
Come on guys. $60 too much for premium entertainment. Assuming you don't like to replay your games, a ten hour game equates to $6/hour. You're trying to tell me that $6/hour is too much for a game. Ridiculous. Sorry, I'd be a little more understanding if you didn't want to spend $900 for a water cooled video card. Games are a steal at $60.
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I guess if you have a rich daddy who buys all your games for you, then the price doesn't matter.

Let's not mention how many crappy games we've bought at $60 per copy, nor all the ones we've bought but didn't work and not be able to get a refund for. It really does sting the wallet, and leaves a mental scar from getting ripped off.

My price point is $40 for a new game, with $30 being the sweet spot. I realized I buy twice as many games at $30 than I do at $40. When they are at $30 or less, it is easier to take a chance that a game may suck or not work at all.
 
VorpalBFG said:
Come on guys. $60 too much for premium entertainment. Assuming you don't like to replay your games, a ten hour game equates to $6/hour. You're trying to tell me that $6/hour is too much for a game. Ridiculous. Sorry, I'd be a little more understanding if you didn't want to spend $900 for a water cooled video card. Games are a steal at $60.
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That's like saying my $40,000 Jeep only cost 80$ an hour because I've driven it for 500 hours...and therefore the more I drive it the less I should say it ended up costing? In the end, I still paid 40,000 regardless of how much I used it/how much value I got out of it, and 40K is a lot for some of us.

You're entertainment per hour calculation still doesn't change the fact that the game is still 60$, which *IS* very expensive no matter how many hours you play it for. And let's not even bring into the equation the skyrocketing unemployment rate. I'm just going to assume you fall into one of the following two:

A) Make so much money that money doesn't matter to you (or your parents do so you don't recognize the value of 60$.)
B) Work for a video game company and might lose your job dur to shrinking sales since nobody is willing to spend 60$ on a game anymore

60$ per game (regardless if it was good or bad) is merely a sign that this economy had peaked and had nowhere else to go but down.

Regardless, calculating the cost of something in exchange for how many hours you use it is really fail. Honey, don't worry that purse costs 3,000$, just think of all the hours of use you will get out of it...in the end, it'll only cost 6$ an hour!

Stupid.
 
VorpalBFG said:
Come on guys. $60 too much for premium entertainment. Assuming you don't like to replay your games, a ten hour game equates to $6/hour. You're trying to tell me that $6/hour is too much for a game. Ridiculous. Sorry, I'd be a little more understanding if you didn't want to spend $900 for a water cooled video card. Games are a steal at $60.
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Get off your high horse and check into the real world, please. I certainly can't afford a $900 video card and I don't know anyone that can. I don't even buy them at $300 anymore. That's not even a sizeable percentage of the gaming community, so don't give us that crap.
 
g1tigi said:
steam sale ftw!
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Hell yeah! Honestly, I just don't buy ANY games at $60, no matter what. I buy many games at $30 though, so publishers need to realize that they'll sell a lot more copies if they charge less per game, especially for crap games with 4 hours of single player and no replayability.

Bioshock is a linear, SP game, but for 5 bucks, a ton of people bought it (even a lot who pirated it and already played it for free!). Other games on STEAM right now are $30 or less and they're fairly new games, and check out the "Top Selling" games...suddenly they're selling like hot cakes.
 
Tumble or just fall back to their original prices pre lets raise the price on cd media era?
 
When I was a teen in high school, with no job, I'd save my lunch money/birthday money/christmas money for a video game every few months. Eventually got used to the total coming out to $54.11 after CA tax, so I'd always show up to EB Games with $54 dollars, a dime, and a penny. Now shit's just more expensive... it will be a smirk to my face if I see the numbers $54.11 pop up on that register again. :)
 
SPARTAN VI said:
When I was a teen in high school, with no job, I'd save my lunch money/birthday money/christmas money for a video game every few months. Eventually got used to the total coming out to $54.11 after CA tax, so I'd always show up to EB Games with $54 dollars, a dime, and a penny. Now shit's just more expensive... it will be a smirk to my face if I see the numbers $54.11 pop up on that register again. :)
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Spelling error.

*It will bring a smirk to my face...
 
Klob said:
Why should a movie that cost 70 million to make sell for $20.00 and a game that cost way less to make sell for triple the price?
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I do believe someone needs to take a basic economics class! Now, maybe telling someone to go "take a class" is a bit of a cop-out, but, really...take a class. This isn't brain-melting stuff here.
 
I can actually tell you what game I bought for 60$. It was final fantasy III for Super Nintendo.

I bought it at toys R us with my gramma. I believe it was 65$ after tax.

I looked at the PS3 and game prices and when "psssssssh, no"

I'm just playing games on steam since they are the only ones with reasonable prices. May pick up an Xbox360 when one gets to about a hundred.
 
New games for any system console or PC should not cost more than $20.00. The piracy problem can be lessened if they would charge reasonable prices for software.
 
VorpalBFG said:
Come on guys. $60 too much for premium entertainment. Assuming you don't like to replay your games, a ten hour game equates to $6/hour. You're trying to tell me that $6/hour is too much for a game. Ridiculous. Sorry, I'd be a little more understanding if you didn't want to spend $900 for a water cooled video card. Games are a steal at $60.
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Dude, I can get blown for six bucks by a cheap hooker, and that's cheaper than the long term cost of a girlfriend. That doesn't mean its money well spent.

Sixty bucks for a game IS too much. Especially when you have no idea whether or not you're seriously going to end up disappointed by it. That is why games are often categorized by some reviewers as "worth a rental", "not worth the rental" and "you'll either love it or hate it."
 
120 aud for big titles in Australia, only about 80 usd at the moment, but the Australian exchange rate is the worst its been in a few years.
 
Part of the reason our economy is in such bad shape is because retailers have built their entire infrastructure based on insanely high prices... They've been gouging prices for the longest and now that we're in a recession, many big names that have been around for years won't be here next year... And we'll all be better for it.
 
trudude said:
New games for any system console or PC should not cost more than $20.00. The piracy problem can be lessened if they would charge reasonable prices for software.
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Yeah, the piracy problem would be reduced -- that's fairly accurate. Of course, the piracy problem would become a non-issue because no publisher on the planet could survive publishing the same games we have today at $50-$60 at $20, so there'd be absolutely nothing for us to pirate (d'oh). That is, of course, unless the number of PC games sold were to magically increase by a factor of at least three to four, which is obviously an obscenely ridiculous notion.

But, you know, good luck with all that.
 
I recently paid $5.99 for some shitty ipod game, and $10.99 for WTF: Work Time Fun on the PSP, and these are both shameless rehashes of 80's arcade games...they suck, they are mind-numbing, and I am terrified to spend any more money on these downloadable games.

As a guy who shelled out full price for both Doom III and Unreal Tournament III, $60 is WAY too much money for a game that I haven't already played and KNOW it's going to be awesome.
 
The price was $60 because people like VorpalBFG were buying at that price. I usually don't bite for $40 or less.
 
I was pretty disappointed when the price for games in the 7th console generation jumped up $10 to $60 before tax. $50 was a pretty reasonable price point as far as I was concerned, considering what goes into developing and publishing them, and the numbers in which they can be sold. When I was a younger lad who had to save up allowance for games, that kind of money was pretty rough, but it was worth it for the latest Mega Man or, later, Sonic the Hedgehog -- games that were known to be great.

These days $50 isn't too terrible, but then I'm debt-free so I have fewer financial burdens than most. $60 is pushing it, but I don't go for many console games, and the ones I do are ones I know to be great (good pedigree, etc.).
 
I remember paying $49.99 for Megaman IV for NES over 15 years ago. I think it took me a whole day, just to beat one level. Yet I kept playing cause it was fun. The prices of games haven't gone up, it's just the worth of the content that's gone down.
 
I remember paying $65 for Chrono Trigger for the SNES and that was a sale price. But I could probly make my money back if I were to sell it. :D
 
Games are a steal at $60 if they're good. Left 4 Dead's given me that kind of value (and it was $50 for me over Steam). The increased cost of developing for new more capable platforms is bullshit most of the time, because we can't notice any effort put into it beyond hype and graphics, and not where it matters. Gameplay that stays a while and remains fun.

Left 4 Dead GOTY 2008!


I'm going to start collecting arcade games again, because that was some freaking value for money right there. My most expensive arcade game was a shooter that cost me $300 US, I played enough credits to pay for the game and I was still enjoying myself. Not the latest graphics, not the best sound and just a 20" monitor in the cabinet I bought, you gotta sit on a high chair which is okay because I'm used to riding high horses, but eff it, good gaming, arcade gaming, it's like making love to someone you love, you do the same thing but there's actual feeling involved and it makes it so much better.
 
hl3395 said:
I remember paying $49.99 for Megaman IV for NES over 15 years ago. I think it took me a whole day, just to beat one level. Yet I kept playing cause it was fun. The prices of games haven't gone up, it's just the worth of the content that's gone down.
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Games have always been about $50 since as long as I've been buying them. The process of getting a game from the developer to the consumer has become so freakin' bloated. Marketing, large teams, huge art/programming pipeline, print, facilities, manufacturing and shipping, talent, research, Q&A, licensing and distribution. That's why you pay $60 a pop.

Who would have bought Call of Duty 4 if all you saw were banners posted on [H] and a couple of similar sites? No TV, next to no print, no IGN (or equivalent).. no videos. Like the day it was released is the day you found out it existed.

My take is that the cost of the development doesn't support the risk involved. I hope this makes room for the smaller independents to return like back in the day. Where the risk was if you didn't make a good game, you didn't eat.
 
hey dont forget what the game industry says..

"you dont actually own the game.. you own the serial key"

so 60 friggin bucks just to own the serial key.. yeah.. that right there stopped me from buying games for years..
 
I remember I paid $75 for Zelda: Majora's Mask back in the day, but that game was was so fun to play that I'd gladly pay that much again. Much more thought was put into previous gen games.
 
Games used to cost way more adjusted for inflation. Hell, SNES and N64 games could run up to $80 a piece back in the day. This is on top of a game running $50 a piece from the early 80s (adjust THAT for inflation...) until just three years ago.

Now, I'm obviously not saying that games are all worth $60, IMO most of them are total crap, but to complain that prices are higher now than they've ever been is just ignorance.
 
More than 50 is simply too much for a video game. I've got a back log of 20$ used video games to play already. Sorry, but the shit they call a "good game" these days, just isn't worth 60-70$.
 
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