Are games too expensive?

am i right when i say here that games are too expensive? can i make a comparison between games, dvds and music cds? there is a new jb hi-fi that has opened its doors this past week and i am finding that all along we were paying five or ten dollars more for our new release games at eb than what we can now pay at jb hi-fi. why are games so expensive? they can break the bank. i know they are breaking mine.

am i right when i say here that games are too expensive? can i make a comparison between games, dvds and music cds? there is a new jb hi-fi that has opened its doors this past week and i am finding that all along we were paying five or ten dollars more for our new release games at eb than what we can now pay at jb hi-fi. why are games so expensive? they can break the bank. i know they are breaking mine.

unwashedflyer

Yes, yes, and yes! Developers keep saying it costs a lot to make a game. They only need to make one game, but then they go and produce thousands which sell like hotcakes. And now they're raising the price of XBox live to $60? Ridiculous. More often than not, I find myself downloading Arcade games because they are cheaper and sometimes provide (in my opinion) a far more entertaining experience. Also, renting games has become a staple for me since I see so much hype in some games and then find out that they're not as what some people say they are.

They've gone up 10 bucks since the days of N64 if I'm not mistaken, I think the first game I payed over 49.99 was for Half Life 2 54.99 on the day of release which was a bargain to me. I am fine paying 59.99 it just means i research my games much more before I make my initial purchase, and it also means that I have alot less games, and I expect decent replay ability. I thinkI own a total of 15 games for PS3, I have the original 60GB release PS3.

What pisses me off is that the developers release a game, then add DLC that costs almost as much as the game itself yet only adds a couple extra hours of gameplay. Basically, developers these days are charging people for content that should be free. :)

No offense, but i pay $130 for new psp games, i don't find $60 expensive in any way...

PC games are cheap.

Yeah I find them too expensive. Especially since I have to buy them imported.

Most games I buy are pretty cheap. I shop online a lot and you can find some amazing deals. So, to me no they are not really expensive. You could say though they are expensive right when the games are released, but after that it's quite easy to find good deals.

No. Any well made game I'll gladly pay $59 for, to show my appreciation and gratitude for laboring hard to make something that I will get many hours of enjoyment out of.

No. Any well made game I'll gladly pay $59 for, to show my appreciation and gratitude for laboring hard to make something that I will get many hours of enjoyment out of.

Rekunta

It really depends on the game. But paying $60 for a new game, with hours of gameplay, and re-playability, is fine to me.

Hmm. You pay $20 for a movie that you watch for around 90 - 100 minutes. When you can pay $60 for a game of 80 - 100 hours.

What of the comparing number between game sold to something more mainstream like a movie DVD/Blueray?

Not if you actively seek deals. A lot of games I buy are >$20 U.S. Games drop in price rather quickly.

[QUOTE="Rekunta"]

No. Any well made game I'll gladly pay $59 for, to show my appreciation and gratitude for laboring hard to make something that I will get many hours of enjoyment out of.

warownslife

That's what reviews and renting are for.

As has been said, if you stay six months or so behind the curve you can get most games for half price (or less). It is the people who must have a game the day it comes out who pay the price.

60$ is okay but for A GAME LIKE TEAM FORTRESS 2 ON WHICH I AHVE SPEND 500 HOURS ITS WORTH A LOT MORE LLIKE 150$ OR MORE

People often compare the price of games to DVDs. The way I look at it, DVDs cost about £10 for 2 hours entertainment. Games cost £40 for between 8 and hundreds of hours of entertainment (game dependent obviously). The ratio seems right to me!

If they weren't too expensive we wouldn't have such a lucrative used game market, rental services, rampant piracy, and swift price drops.

You can save a tremendous amount of money on games if you have a little patience, i.e. don't have to have every game on day one, or, use a rental service to try them before you buy them.

I believe "jb hi-fi" is an Ausi retailer and I think in Ausi games cost more then in the US. Correct me if im wrong?

Diablo-B

Yeah JB Hifi is an Aussie retailer. I shop for some of my games there, though I do most game shopping online. Here is a wiki entryon video game pricing in Australia/PAL English speaking terrotories about the inflated costs.

As far as costings go I think they are about double what they should be worldwide. My reasoning is that they should be aiming to be far more competetive with DVD/Blu-Ray with a similar level ofinstall base. We have competetion between Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony within the video game industry, why not look at a bigger picture and try and become bigger then the movie buisness for peoples interest.

And now they're raising the price of XBox live to $60?

Well, I saw a copy of Guitar Hero: World Tour (just the game) for Wii at Gamestop yesterday for $60, and I was all like, "Yeah, right. Up yours."

Game prices need to go down. I thought 50 dollars was way too much money for a video game in the ps2/xbox days but in the current gen I'm now giving away 60 dollars a game I really want. Video games should be 40$ at most. There isn't that much coming out that I want but whenever I do I have plan ahead because my wallet is about to take a major hit. Video games are just not worth 60 dollars, I don't care how good they are.

Economics is a very complicated field. Its not as simple as saying, "games are too expensive, make them cheaper".

Its called supply and demand. Consumers are always gonna want to buy the cheaper product, whereas businesses want to sell for as high a price as possible. The result is "equilibrium", a point where the amount consumers are willing to pay and manufacturers are willing to charge meet.

As consumers we obviously want prices to be as cheap as possible. But if prices were lowered too much, then game developers would not be as willing to make games because they are not making as much of a profit. The combination of fewer games being made, and the demand for said games rising results in a shortage, where there is not enough supply to meet demand, so prices go up.

At the same time, businesses want prices as high as possible. If prices are high, more people are willing to make the product, however the consumer doesn't want to buy anything because its too expensive. The result is demand does not meet supply and there is an excess of the product, so in order to get them off shelves prices go down.

$60 is the equilibrium. Its the highest most people are willing to pay for games, and the lowest businesses are willing to charge. You may not like it, but thats how it is. And frankly, games are one of the best values out there, a 2 hour movie costs roughly $10, whereas you can get games that last 80-100 hours for $60, or even less if you get it used.

Yeah games are pretty expensive and you can compare them to DVDs, but only to a point. The production costs of a video game and a movie are similar these days, with some video games topping the movie industry.

So why are new video games $60 and new DVDs $20? Simple when ya think about it. Movies generate a ton of money through release in theatres to re-coup the money put into making them and even turn a profit before the DVD version is even a thought. Video games really only make money in one way, from the physical copy. So when you buy a video game, you're paying for the entire effort in one lump sum.

Music CD's are similar, record companies can make money off of the CD's themselves and through concert ticket sales.

$ 60 bucks for a video game is expensive. There are only 2 or 3 releases a year that deserve this price. Most of the games you can buy for half the price a month later after the release. Gamers are right that DLC also should be free, after all if they approved it to be release then it should have been in the game that you just bought for $ 60 dollars. I have a job and if i wanted to i could afford to buy any game i want brand new. But i much rather buy cheaper since most of the games are not worth the steep price.

games are only too expensive if you don't look for the deals like amazon having medal of honr with a 20 dollor giftcard or gears of war 3 with a 20 dollar gift card you just gotta look around or be patient and buy your games for 20 a piece. on another note i hate dlc and refuse to buy it

When you got value for your money, it wasn't so bad. But then developers started giving less and less, for more and more.

. Especially now - online games with 4 hour long single player campaigns, whose servers will be dead in a couple of years? - - - I'm not even going to waste my time with that kind of a con game.

I always wait for a sale now/ I got Gothic 2 for 99 cents. I bought the Stalker combo pack for $9.99, and I waited to play Fallout 3 until the GOTY version came out.

What pisses me off is that the developers release a game, then add DLC that costs almost as much as the game itself yet only adds a couple extra hours of gameplay. Basically, developers these days are charging people for content that should be free. :)

marcogamer07

True statement. I can't say more.

not really, I remember buying snes rpgs every week that were like 84.99-89.99, compared to now, that was expensive.Allicrombie

What pisses me off is that the developers release a game, then add DLC that costs almost as much as the game itself yet only adds a couple extra hours of gameplay. Basically, developers these days are charging people for content that should be free. :)

marcogamer07

I'm agree with u at point where Nowadays devs makes dlc pay to play luxury. What happend with free patch ect, with additional quest ,map or whatever story?! :cry:

Not really... just most games don't carry enoughvalue to be worth paying $60 (or $70 here in Canada) for. I don't have any problems paying $60 for some games that I really like and get hundreds of hours of entertainment from... but games that last for one playthrough and really aren't that entertaining? Some are barely worth the $5-7 for the rental.

Games are expensive, but they're cheaper than previous generations if you take inflation into account. I have some Genesis games that have $60+ price tags on them. The only thing that really bothers me now is companies nickel and diming us for content with DLC. If it's actually new content then that's great. If you're making us pay for an unlock key for content that's already on the frickin disk, then that's low.

In a way, I think $60 is a little too much for a game. But, that depends on what the game is, what it has, and how long the game is. I can tell that in the future, games could go as high as $70 or maybe even $80. But when it gets to that point, I don't think games will be worth getting anymore. But, as usual, I could wait for a price drop.

for what you get most of the time, yes. $40 would be a better price then $60

It's very rare that I find a game that is worth $70 CAD. That's why I don't buy console games that much, and if I do, I wait until they go to $30 or cheaper. It's a waste of money to get a game when it first comes out.

Are you kidding me? Of course they are too expensive.

For the better part of two decades this industry has released one title after another on the PC that was delibrately released unfinished or so broken that even the most technically gifted of us could not get the game to run. Some have been in such poor condition that even the patches did not help.

To make it worse, a lot of developers dump millions into HD and now movie style 3D graphics that seem to do more for increasing the number of things that can wrong than improve the gameplay of the title. Most of those titles would have been better experiences if they aimed for less"realistic" graphics if only because the game would have had better stability.

The"best" part is how the industry continues to cry about priacy while sticking with the same proven to fail copy protection mechanics while dumping millions into beautiful but usless hi rez trailers and gameplay videos. If anyone can teach me how to tell if I'll find a game fun by watching someone else play I'd like to know. Even the titles I am sure I'll enjoy leave me with a meh vibe after watching those gameplay trailers.

Are games too expensive? Sheesh. That is like asking if water is wet.