It's time for us to do something about game prices. (1 Viewer)

[Feng]

They charged $55 for Neverwinter Night. Now they are going to charge $60 for Warcraft 3. It's time for us gamers to do something about this outrageous prices. Let our voices be heard. If we continue to be sheep and buy their games at whatever price they set, then eventually every company sees that they can get away with high prices and the prices for all games will rise. We will hurt outselves in the long run. Don't let your urge to must buy a new game overcome your senses. Boycott those games with outrages prices.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

If we continue to be sheep and buy their games at whatever price they set, then eventually every company sees that they can get away with high prices and the prices for all games will rise. We will hurt outselves in the long run. Don't let your urge to must buy a new game overcome your senses. Boycott those games with outrages prices.

Boycott the games, there will be no games to boycott. The price of making a game today is about triple what is was 10 years ago, yet the cost of living has increased by a large percentage, and so the only people who will be hurt are those of us with no games to play.

Don't forget that like movies, successful games pay for the losses that companies take on the bombs

 

[Morgan Jolley]

I never get charged more than $50 for games. I don't but PC games, nor do I get them from EB, so I have not bought a regular, domestic, non-SE version of a game for more than $50.

I have paid over $50 for import games and both Lunar games for PSX, but those were special.

 

[Chris Bardon]

And just when it seemed prices were going down...

The obvious suggestion is not to buy the game at that price and send a message that way, but people are going to buy it anyway. If they can sell the game for that much, then more power to them.

Not helping themselves on the piracy case with this one though (and DON'T tell me that piracy is the cause for the increase-PC games are still breaking sales records, which says that MORE people are actually buying the games...)

 

[Andre F]

Sorry, but I remember paying almost $80.00 for SNES carts back in the day. I'm not much into PC games so I don't deal with that market very much. However, I think the trend in the consolse market is very good.
-Andre F

 

[Adam Tyner]

Sorry, but I remember paying almost $80.00 for SNES back in the day.

I'm assuming you don't mean $80 USD for a single game.

 

[Matt Birchall]

I paid $79.99 for SNES's Chrono Trigger at Best Buy in the spring of 1995.

-mwb-

 

[Camp]

I'll do something. I'll buy Warcraft the week of release at Best Buy or CompUSA where it'll almost certainly be deeply discounted.

 

[Matt Birchall]

I think usually, if anything, hot new software titles will be the regular, full price for the first week or two after the release, and then you'll see them on sale later. Happens all the time--a game will come out at $49.99, and then maybe two weeks later it will be on sale for $34.99. I'd think they'd want to charge the full price at first, to make the most from the gamers who just "have" to have the game, and then put it on sale later, to sell more to the more casual fans who might not have spent $50+ for it. Of course, then, betting that not everybody who bought it earlier at $50 will come in and do a pricematch to get their $15 back.

-mwb-

 

[Dave F]

SNES games were so expensive due to the cost of the memory inside & Nintendo's hefty production fee for each cartridge. The move to CD's went a long way in reducing prices.

The cost of developement has increased, but the market that buys the games has increased in size as well. There is no reason that a CD based game should cost $60 and up. If you don't like the price, don't buy it at that price. Buy it on sale, used, whatever. But don't set a precedent - once publishers know that a $60 game will be acceptible, we'll se more and more of them.

-Dave

 

[Chris Bardon]

I paid $79.99 for SNES's Chrono Trigger at Best Buy in the spring of 1995.

Yeah, I hear you there. For me, it was 109.99 for FF3 the year before (I think). Let's just say that I bought a lot of used SNES games...

 

[Trevor Harveaux]

Being in the biz i have to say just a few thngs.

• Games prices have been at $50 for more than ten years, while movie prices have doubled due to inflation.

• Game development costs have increased a hundred fold in ten years.

• Game profits for the most part are razor thin. People don't develop games for the money, but becasue they want to make a cool game for others to play.

• Less than a quarter of released games are profitable.

• Few developers manage to stay proftiable for very long. Even with the top selling Grand Theft Auto III, Take-2 had to file for bankrupsy last year.

• we are getting a great value for our dollar IMO.

There was an article about this in a issue of Game Developer that came out about 3 months ago, I dont have it handy. But if are really interested it goes into detail about this.



Think of this for a sec. Lets say a company wants to make a game that takes a year to make.

Here are some really basic costs off the top of my head, I'm not an accountant:

50k per person 15 people
$750,000

New computers every two years, and test systems
$45,000

Building rent,utilites & misc for a year
$60,000

IF, and a big IF, the deveoper gets $5 per game after marketing, distribution and licencing fees, they will need to sell at least 200,000 units to keep the doors open.

That might not seen to be that many units, BUT, it is. That is 3500 games a week. On a bad week, I've seen games sell 2-14 units in all of the US. On a good week, most will sell 500 units, and a few exceptions will get the big numbers. It's those big numbers that keep companies from going into the red.


My point is, we dont make games for the money, but because we love games. Asking developers to lower games costs will result in less innovative games and more rip-offs and sequels.

 

[Aaron Copeland]

Well said, Trevor!
Not only have game prices held fairly steady for the past ten or more years, but so have hardware prices. Suddenly when a couple PC games charge $5-10 more than what has been normal everyone freaks outs. Yet we now pay $7 or more for a movie when 10 years ago we were paying $4 or so. As I said in the other thread, I don't get the big deal.

I'm assuming you don't mean $80 USD for a single game.

I remember Phantasy Star IV launching for $90 USD.
Aaron

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Back in the day, "big" games, like Final Fantasy, Phantasy Star, and the other ones that took a long time to make, cost more. Average games cost the regular $50.

Trevor-

Just out of curiousity, who do you work for? If you can't say, its fine, I'm just curious.

 

[BrianB]

Few developers manage to stay proftiable for very long. Even with the top selling Grand Theft Auto III, Take-2 had to file for bankrupsy last year.

That is complete & utter hogwash. Where'd you hear that nonsense?

 

[Shayne Lebrun]

The cost of developement has increased, but the market that buys the games has increased in size as well. There is no reason that a CD based game should cost $60 and up. If you don't like the price, don't buy it at that price. Buy it on sale, used, whatever. But don't set a precedent - once publishers know that a $60 game will be acceptible, we'll se more and more of them.

Back this up. Prove it. Use real facts and figures to show this. Don't simply say 'there's no reason a CD based game should cost $60 and up.' Show us how, then I'll agree with you.

 

[Demetri K]

Man I got you all beat on prices of video games. I had a Neo geo when it first came out. NUFF SAID!!

 

[BrianB]

There is no reason that a CD based game should cost $60 and up.

You're not paying for the media. You're paying for what's on the media.

 

[Peter D]

What's frustrating to me is that with PC gaming, 'release-day' buyers are usually punished for their enthusiasm. NWN was at $55-$60 at CompUSA and Best Buy this past week, but I'll absolutely guarantee you that within a week or two it will be on sale for $40 or less.

It's a strange market compared to the consoles, where prices fluctuate a lot less but are generally higher. There also seems to be a much shorter shelf life for PC bombs than their console counterparts.

 

[Dave F]

Shayne, I guess I would put the onus of responsibility back upon you. You should show me the numbers and prove why it should cost $60. I'm saying we should stay with the staus quo. Since you are trying to justify a change, you should provide me with the numbers.

You're not paying for the media. You're paying for what's on the media.

My statement is in reference to the numerous statements where high prices are justified by mentioning the high prices of cartridge-based games. In the SNES, Genesis, and Neo-Geo days, we were paying for the media. Quite a bit. The more memory that the game required, the higher the price of the cartidge. Now that we are on CDs, the physical production cost has dropped dramatically, and as you stated, we are paying for the content, not the media (at least not very much).
The price of movies is a failed analogy as well. When stating that the price of a movie has increased, that is one small part of the price of a movie. Only the price of admission to a movie theater has increased. And the initial ticket sales is a much smaller percentage of a movie's overall take. The purchase and sales of movies has become more important with VHS and DVD, and the price of purchasing movies has dropped. As there really isn't a counterpart in the videogame world, this analogy doesn't hold up.
In the end, it will all depend upon what the market will bear. This person in the marketplace will not bear a $60 game.
-Dave