My old man was once just a single signature away from buying a computer game shop. Not a video game shop – back then they were computers, not consoles – but a proper, fully fledged shop – it sold monitors, keyboards, mice and – yes – games. He didn’t, and I can’t for the life of me remember exactly why he didn’t, but that’s history long in the past.
I often wonder how my life might have turned out if he had, it was a decent location and then, at the advent of the Amiga / ST era, things were really starting to kick off. The industry was maturing, the general public was staring to accept this whole new medium of entertainment and – crucially – the price of games was starting to rise to all new levels.
Gamers long in the tooth will remember, as fondly as I do, a game called Armour Geddon. Ignoring the rather ridiculous play on words, this was a game that featured 3D vector graphics and an almost entirely open-ended structure that invited the player to plan out their own research strategy and defense systems as two players battled against the computer AI.
[drop]It was also about twenty quid, and thus – at that stage – completely out of my price range. I remember, vividly, splitting the cost with a mate and picking the game up from John Menzies in town before rushing home to play it. Here’s the thing, though – as far as I remember the game supported two Amigas linked together – which leads me to remember we had to buy another copy.However, part of me thinks this might not have been the case. As kids could we have afforded another disk?
To get the most of out it you needed to team up and have an Amiga each – so the irony, looking back, of having a full computer / monitor combo spread over two rooms of a modest semi-detached, yet not being able to splash out another twenty quid, seems ridiculous, but then pocket money was hard to come by and whilst parents might have bought the machines in the first place, they certainly didn’t buy the games we played on them.
Are we as a public justified in ripping off a publisher because we can’t afford the games? Legally, no – of course not, but are games really worth the asking price in the first place? Nowadays if we see a brand new AAA title at that sort of price we don’t think twice – it’s a bargain – but then, that was a serious investment and one that we couldn’t make twice.
I don’t buy a lot of games these days – I’m generally done with a title after it’s been reviewed (and rarely return to it) and think seriously about handing over £40 for a game that I can’t help feeling is, in most cases, overpriced. It baffles me that people are happy to pay upwards of £50 for a game, but then it’s all just down to perception of value.
Take, for example, Call of Duty. Activision can charge what the hell they like next year for what would arguably be yet another iterative update on a franchise that’s surely well past its prime. And people will buy it – because, to them, it’s worth the money. They’ll play online for hours a day and – in some cases – won’t play anything else for months.
To me, an ageing old fool in his thirties who remembers panicking about handing over seven quid for Jet Set Willy to the man behind the counter in the shop my dad nearly bought, it simply doesn’t make any sense. I guess it all just depends on what disposable income you’ve got to splash on these things, but for me – with flashbacks of Armour Geddon – these things are damned expensive.
MICKY17
Are games too expensive? In my opinion, no. I only buy a few games a year and they are generally well chosen by myself, and therefore I feel the prices are justified. I agree that some games just are not worth anything close to £40ish they expect consumers to pay, such as NFS: The Run. I have no problem paying full whack for games such as Skyrim, GTA, Battlefield as they represent great value for money, IMO. This may seem odd but I would generally pay £2 for every hour of play that I get from a game. For instance I wouldn’t pay more than £15 for a COD game as the SP is short at roughly 6-7hrs, and I don’t like the MP.
Deathbrin
You say no and then you only buy a few games a year.
MICKY17
Reading it back I have contradicted my own point. I should clarify that I don’t buy a lot of games because the price is too high, but rather through choice. I don’t buy multiple games in a month for instance but would prefer to spread them out throughout the year. This is why I don’t have an issue with the price of games as I’m not buying them every other week, more like 1 new game every two months or so.
Deathbrin
But you wouldn’t have to have a tough choice if the prices were lower?
MICKY17
Admittedly If game prices were lower, it would probably encourage me to buy certain games that I wouldn’t even consider before. Take Vita for example; to me Golden Abyss or Wipeout will be worth the £40 or so that they will cost, but a game like Little Deviants, as great as it looks, IMO won’t be worth the same money. I don’t know if LD will be £40 but if it’s closer to £20-25 mark i would more likely take a risk and buy it.
Jacko
Yeah, I think they should all be free.
justboy
I occasionally buy games new, maybe one or two a year. But even then its taking advantage of a cheap preorder. Otherwise I wait till a game is less than 20 quid. So yeah I think games are too expensive, even though they seem to have held their price since the 90’s.
The Lone Steven
I generally don’t pay full price for a game mainly due to my situation in the past year. But when i come accross spare cash, i generally get a game that it very cheap. I refuse to pay more then £20 for a preowned copy of a game and £40 is okay for a new game but it had better give me a lot of hours of entertainment in return. :)
I don’t consider games to be overpriced nowadays but i’ve seen certain games asking for too much and not having enough content to justify the price. Although, yearly games should only have a RRP up to £30 as most of the time, it’s the same thing with a different skin. IMO.
However digital copies of games should be dirt cheap as in theory there should be no extra costs and in fact reduces the costs associated with physical copies but currently, they tend to be overpriced and make certain retailers seem very affordable.
Pitcher-T
I don’t think games are that expensive at all. Think about a decent price for a new film on dvd is about 10 pound for, on average, 2 hours of film. With a game such as god of war, uncharted or batman you get close to 8-10 hours of enjoyment out of it for 4 times the cost of a dvd. So I think the pricing is pretty close. And those are the games that are considered short, god knows what the equivalent price for a bethesda game would be lol. Plus with a film you can watch it multiple times and it will still be the same film. But with games, who knows what will happen the next time you have a go online. I think people are far too harsh on game prices, and I am more than willing to hand over 40 quid for a brand new game.
Deathbrin
You don’t get a minute of the directing and the effects of a film in a minute of a videogame. You just don’t.
damoxuk
I pretty always wait with the rare exception until price comes down to under £18 then I weigh up whether i’ll play it at that time and if not i’ll probably wait again until it’s under £15.
Games drop in price fast these days.
The days of digital only however will mean only 1 place to buy games live or psn and that day may become more expensive then ever.
Especially considering no competition making titles reduce in price and no resale value means less titles sold.
Sympozium
Not like they’re expensive or anything, I just find many of them to be over-hyped.All I go for is the less obsure of Japanese titles or any that actually looks interesting. High price tags doesn’t even work for them.
Sonic Generations was a nice price on Steam I wouldn’t have payed more, then you have Rayman Origins I just couldn’t be bothered since I knew it was a £20 game from the beginning, releasing it for like £40 on the Vita would be suicidal since by then it’ll be £20 everythere I guess, same for Marvel which is sad because I can’t be bothered to buy them on a Home Console.
I would really love prices to be different but that will never happen if these greedy publishers or developers just continue to be narrow-minded. There’d be no gaming in the future? everyone would’ve moved on to something else because theres nothing new that sells.
If games where less expensive it’ll help lower marketed games like No More Heroes, Yakuza, Armoured Core and the new and awesome Lollypop… thing from Suda51.
KeRaSh
“then you have Rayman Origins I just couldn’t be bothered since I knew it was a £20 game from the beginning”
You couldn’t be more wrong about the worth of Rayman Origins unless you are talking about your personal opinion. The production value of that game puts so many games to shame, it’s not even funny. It’s one of those few games in a console’s lifecycle I’d happily pay 100€ for without giving it a second thought.
Spence1115
To me it was a case of ‘I want it, but I don’t have the time right now, and besides it’s Ubisoft, the price will drop’. Which is a lesson I learnt from pass Assassins Creed games. Brotherhood was down to £20 before Christmas last year and it was damn recent then.
Deathbrin
Are there “less obscure” Japanese titles?
Sympozium
Mistake.
KeRaSh
I don’t havestrict rules for buying games. I buy the games I want when I want to buy them. If it’s a game I really want, like Final Fantasy or Rayman Origins, then I usually place a pre order just to make sure I get the game as soon as possible without missing the launch date. If I run out of games to play then I look up games I might have missed due to time constraints or because I couldn’t justify paying 40 quid for the game. Usually these games are around the 20 quid mark by then which is within my impulse buy range anyways. The only time I decide not to buy a game is if it’s above the 25 quid mark while I still have one or more games on my backlog. While this sounds like I buy every second game out there I only have around 25 PS3 games and I haven’t sold a game in ages. I also buy all my games new. I’d rather pay a few more quids than go for the cheaper pre owned game.
Deathbrin
They are damned expensive if you live here, seeing as there is no trading in/renting/buying used copies, the price doesn’t even fall down, a year after release you’ll find it might’ve dropped $10, it’s so slow and subtle you never notice, and the lowest price it gets to is often still outrageous, even for Platinum titles, so there’s barely any point in waiting.
I wouldn’t wish to anyone becoming a proper console gamer here as it just eats way too much money if you want to play the games you actually want.
I must admit Games on Demand have awesome digital prices though, often 2x less than a PSN version, or even cheaper. PSN prices even with a PS+ discount are a duckling joke.
In general, i don’t think they’re that overpriced but as it has been noted it harms less pretentious titles like original IPs, you don’t just splash that kind of dough on something you won’t be sure of. Or you would not just afford that as you’ve put all your stakes on the high budget titles. I often like the original titles though, but i guess i’m just not so drawn to many of the “big hitters” – FIFA, Assassin’s Creed, Rockstar games – couldn’t care less of those; i guess it’s down to the taste, if you know what you like you’ll know which big title you can drop in favour of a smaller one.
myps3broke
I think the sales that videogames generate answer this question. Clearly they’re not too expensive, otherwise gaming would have not seen such a rapid growth in popularity and surrounding revenue.
heedbaw
That could also be used as an argument that they are too expensive. As the user base grows and more games are being sold then the price should be dropping.
colmshan1990
I can’t think of an industry where increased demand leads to a reduction in prices, why should the games industry be any different?
heedbaw
The problem there is that the supply and demand concept something that seems to have been warped over the years.
I was taught that an increase in demand should lower prices, as there’s more of the product being sold it will cover the price drop while maintaining the same profit margin. Likewise if the supply is low then the price increases, again to maintain the same profit margin.
myps3broke
I have to agree with colmshan; you’re idea seems illogical (not saying it is incorrect though). If the demand is higher, it means there are more people will to pay more money for the product in question, therefore raising its price will generate greater revenue. If you lower the prices it’s just going to lead to a greater risk of the product becoming sold out, thus maximum profit isn’t generated.
heedbaw
That’s the reason I say it seems as if the concept has warped since I was taught about it.
The way I see it, if there is more demand and the price drops the amount of profit the company makes is kept stable. The flip side to the dropping of the price as demand rises being that as the amount of supplies lower, which could happen a lot faster with the cheaper product now being in higher demand, the price is pushed up again. I know it’s not quite that simple, but I’m digging this out of 18 year old memories.
Putting the price up on a product that is in demand, regardless of supply, just smacks of profiteering. Nowdays it’s unlikely that supplies will drop off, unless it’s a controlled production rate or there are exceptional circumstances that cause production to slow or stop.
colmshan1990
They’re not providing a public service- it’s a pure luxury industry, driven by pure profit.
And I’ve never heard your system before (did Business for Leaving Cert in 2010) but it makes a logical sense- if you were selling something like oil, but not for entertainment products.
heedbaw
Again, another reason why I think it’s warped as it shouldn’t matter what’s being sold. It’s about maintaining an equilibrium with the profit margin.
Going by a few comments on here, though hardly a great indicator, the amount of people that are put off by buying a game at £40-£50 and will wait until the price drops to £20-£30 would suggest that if the game was released in the £20-£30 range they would see more sales. Which in turn would mean that they would still be making the same amount as the £40-£50 range, but more people would buying the game on, or closer to, release day rather than waiting for it to hit the bargain bin.
As I said before, it all smacks of profiteering. Which isn’t the same as being profitable.