Why are DD games so expensive?

[Tudz]

Well to be frank, is it any of our business to know how much it costs them? Our only legit concern is whether or not we feel the price they are charging for what we want, is what we're willing to pay. There are obviously costs, whether they're higher or lower I honestly couldn't tell you. I don't think they're raking in a vastly significant more than boxed distributions would at similar sale levels, but again, who cares?

These are video games not food/gas/medicine. If they're able to sell something for 10x what it costs to make them, well that's pretty awesome for them. I'm getting products that I feel are a value, so it's pretty awesome for me too.

Making money is not evil...I'm pretty sure we all want to be paid as much as possible for what we do as well. I'm willing to bet that if your boss walked up and said "Hey, we're overcharging customers so we're going to cut your paycheck a bit to give them a bigger discount" you would be pissed as hell.

Well I personally would like to know. If gaming developers/publishers are struggling, working long hours and not getting paid much, I'd be more inclined to support them by buying at launch for full price. But given my backlog of games and the fact games are dirt cheap within a year of release, if they're all sitting on $150k+ a year and laughing at the pathetic consumers paying through the nose for their DRM riddled games, I"m more than happy to wait until I can pick games up for pennies from the bargain bin.

I guess I dont consider any game "worth" $50-60, hence my questioning of whether they are charging that much because that's simply the cost associated with developing and selling the game, or are they charging that much simply because consumers will eat up anything that is marketed well.

I guess I see it a bit like giving money to charity, if someone walks up and asks me to give money to XYZ charity I probably wont give them my money, rather I'll actually research and find out what they do and where my money goes first.

But hey, that's just me.

That's not always the case though, a game like The Witcher 2 comes bundled with enough goodies for me to fall prey to the "oooo, shiny" part of my personality and preorder it for the extras

 

[ObiDamnKenobi]

lol, I think the last 5-6 people who posted here said something like: "I just buy games on sale later, for much cheaper.. Except for game X (BF3, portal 2 etc..) which I've totally preordered!!"

That's how they know they can still charge $60!

 

[tesfaye]

lol, I think the last 5-6 people who posted here said something like: "I just buy games on sale later, for much cheaper.. Except for game X (BF3, portal 2 etc..) which I've totally preordered!!"

That's how they know they can still charge $60!

We have a winnah!

 

[Tudz]

lol, I think the last 5-6 people who posted here said something like: "I just buy games on sale later, for much cheaper.. Except for game X (BF3, portal 2 etc..) which I've totally preordered!!"

That's how they know they can still charge $60!

You're putting words in my mouth, to be fair I never said I always buy games on sale later, I said "I'm more than happy to wait until I can pick games up for pennies from the bargain bin"

And this is a thread about DD anyway, I think the most I paid for a DD game was $40 for BFBC2 and (stupidly) Wings of Prey. Retail you can't really compare, as I'm in Australia and the RRP for most PC games here is $90-100, but there again I haven't bought a retail game for more than $70 in years. I'll preorder The Witcher 2 for $88AUD because it comes with a bonus mouse and mouse pad and I'm a sucker for shiny things

 

[limitedaccess]

Well I personally would like to know. If gaming developers/publishers are struggling, working long hours and not getting paid much, I'd be more inclined to support them by buying at launch for full price. But given my backlog of games and the fact games are dirt cheap within a year of release, if they're all sitting on $150k+ a year and laughing at the pathetic consumers paying through the nose for their DRM riddled games, I"m more than happy to wait until I can pick games up for pennies from the bargain bin.

I guess I dont consider any game "worth" $50-60, hence my questioning of whether they are charging that much because that's simply the cost associated with developing and selling the game, or are they charging that much simply because consumers will eat up anything that is marketed well.

I guess I see it a bit like giving money to charity, if someone walks up and asks me to give money to XYZ charity I probably wont give them my money, rather I'll actually research and find out what they do and where my money goes first.

But hey, that's just me.

That's not always the case though, a game like The Witcher 2 comes bundled with enough goodies for me to fall prey to the "oooo, shiny" part of my personality and preorder it for the extras

This always seems to be a common misunderstanding based on how most traditional goods have a significant per unit cost to produce. A good like a video game however does not, and so is not priced according to this criteria. They are simply priced to generate the maximum amount of revenue for the publisher (less distribution costs which are minimal). The majority cost of a game is essentially fixed in terms of development and marketing. Lets say a game had a marketing and development cost combined of $40m. The games sales revenue has to exceed that amount and be maximized, the individual unit prices do not matter.

Also the publisher and developer concept seems to be misunderstood as well. Publishers are typically large companies, from low entry level employees to upper management to people with ownership stake. This actually also applies to most developers these days, which aside from smaller indie teams are not a small group of a people all with ownership stake and earnings tied to sales.

Gabe Newell for instance is a developer, his financial stake in say Portal 2 doing well is considerably different than random valve employee #37, who probably makes a low fixed salary (average game developer salary is very low) with maybe only a small bonus depending on the games performance. Gabe Newell however likely pulls well in excess of the 150k per year you mention and actually earns more the higher revenue Portal 2 generates.

Also don't be so sure a game doing well means the common employee will see the benefits either. Rockstar for instance for Red Dead Redemption, a very successful game, still let go of a significant portion of its staff post release, a not uncommon situation. And before anyone blames the publisher, Rockstar is its own publisher.

Unless you buy a self distributed indie type game, I wouldn't concern yourself at all with actually supporting the developer, since those who actually need it will not see the money or benefits. A studios upper management and ownership will benefit, the average staff member not really.

 

[Starcrossed]

I remember Space Invaders for the 2600 being around $100 back in the 80's, when it came out, at our local Dept. Store. I'm not sure how you guys think the video games are too expensive, these days. Particularly, when you can wait a while to buy it for considerably less, it you are a patient consumer.

 

[limitedaccess]

There really is a difference between what people "want" to pay and what they are "willing" to pay. Game prices on aggregate for most consumers currently are not at the "willing" threshold yet, since overall industry revenue is growing yearly.

It seems to be past the "want" threshold, for some at least, judging by the vocal complaints.