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.
colmshan1990
I reckon they’re about right. A blu-ray can set you back around €20 for less than 2 hours entertainment.
How many of us have bought a game and played it less than 2 hours?
Deathbrin
Again, no game is in no way a match of the image quality, directing and acting of a Blu-ray.
colmshan1990
You mean, some blu-rays right?
Because there are a fair few stinkers out there too.
shields_t
Mate, that’s pretty touching, I think I share your same feelings on how much gaming costs these days, and (hopefully without sounding too old) how much gaming used to cost and how much it engaged with its audience in a manner that felt far more personal.
I think maybe its like when we love a niche band then they hit the big time and become everyones favourite but over a long long career. Yet band X have a limited lifespan and gaming is only going to change further and further still.
Now, you’ve also just reminded me of Armour Geddon, I’m off to see if I can pick it up on Steam or failing that, eBay. Haven’t thought of the game since playing on my mate’s Amiga way back when and remember loving it, in all honesty I have no idea whether he bought it or not.
ron_mcphatty
I’d love to know what the retailer markup is on games, for example what must Amazon pay for a batch of Deus Ex games when they can slash the rrp price by 75% in the weeks leading up to Christmas? I bet the high street shops’ markup is tiny, tough times and all.
shields_t
I guess it is all down to how many discs are knocked up, how much is spent on development lown on marketing, and how much is blown on marketing.
I mworry that for the games I enjoy, it probably amounts to quite a bit.
ron_mcphatty
Yeah thats true about marketing. Plenty of other comments have alluted to the situation the gaming industry is now it, because its more mainstream the industry has become driven more significantly by profit margins and successful marketing. I guess this is a mixed blessing in terms of our enjoyment of the games.
bacon_nuts
I try not to pay too much. I think £40 can be too much. It just depends on the game. I would happily post Bethesda £40 for Fallout 4, right now. Or even more for a special edition.
fattyuk
Nope day 1 buyer regardless of price or the price of collectors editions,
Games these days are too good a quality of be worried about the price! This is the hobby I choose and I pay for, and I rememeber when n64 or mega drives cost £40 plus, 15 years in and I’m still paying that and even less!
Spence1115
See, the idea of having an idea of the price you’d pay per hour is about right for me to some extent, as that’s how I look at it. Am I certain I’m going to enjoy it and that it’ll give me dozens of hours of entertainment, or potentially hundreds? Then brand new price is not an issue. Am I uncertain I’ll play it more than once or even complete it? Then £10 seems about right for me, maybe even £5.
However, even then I have my limits. Even if I go as low as £1 per hour of entertainment, Final Fantasy X should have cost me close to a grand by now! And imagine how rich Sports Interactive would be if Football Manager was sold by the hour! Whereas to some, they’d have bankrolled the entire of Call of Duty’s development singlehandedly with the amount they play those games.
What a game is worth varies from person to person. I don’t think at all that they’re overpriced for the most part, but to me something like Call of Duty or Gears of War is never worth £40, as I just don’t care about the multiplayer. Gears of War 3, I picked up the other day from Blockbuster, preowned, for £14. That to me is about right, £20 maximum, because I enjoy the series, the single player is fun and the co-op is a laugh that makes it last longer. Same for the Halo series, I’ll pay for the co-op. Call of Duty World at War was fun, but in the end it was the £20 in Nazi Zombies maps that made it worth the money – thankfully I got the game free as I won it, especially with how much the maps cost.
Do I ever feel as though I’ve been ripped off? Yes, I have had times like that. But I’ve had more than enough good times with the 70 odd PS3 games I’ve got on my bookshelf to make up for it.
Oh and for the argument that a £15 blu-ray is about 2 hours entertainment? I’ve never once paid that much for a blu-ray! My average price is £6, and I don’t wanna start going over that limit too often! Hence why very few games also get bought for £40, I don’t have the time to guarantee that £40 would be well spent, when by the time I get to really playing it it may have dropped to £20 or even less. Fallout, Final Fantasy, Batman: Arkham Wherever and Uncharted are basically my only guaranteed first day purchases, and even that I think is quite a few to have!
heedbaw
I find the equation of value to the amount of time spent playing a bit strange, to be honest. Why does the amount of time you spend playing the game have more of an influence on value than the amount that’s been spent on development, production, and shipping?
For example if a developer spends about £50 million getting a game out there, makes £30 from each copy sold, and sells 10 million copies that’s £300 million they’ve made. If they were only making £10 a copy then they would still recoup the initial outlay and have another £50 million to spend on their next project.
I’d say that the £10 copy has the best value for money, and would be happy if it was £15 as they could use the bit of extra cash to invest in new tech, artists, coders, or whatever. The £30 copy is just taking the piss.
freezebug2
Yup, some games have an extended time-life due to the devs including grinding trophies for example, and for people that are going for the full haul that could add days or weeks to the time spent on the game, which has no real bearing on the games value…it could still not be worth anywhere near the value of a game that took half the time to complete but was on a different level.
Michael
In general, I think console games cost too much. Then again, I occasionally buy them on release thus making a liar of myself.
I would buy more games if they were cheaper though. For example, I’ve made a few impulse purchases on PSN/XBLA/App Store (lots on App Store), but I don’t make an impulse purchase of £30 games. I guess the powers that be figure they make more money with the current £40-to-£30-to-£20 approach.
If you don’t like the price, stop buying the games. This is, basically, what cc_star says all the time regarding launch day purchases.
lurch79
i do think most new disk games should be come down in price to about £30.00 for new game is about fair with online pass but preowned is the worst they will trade in a game lets say bf3 £15.00 online pass has been used and sell back to you £4.00 cheaper than new and you still have to stump £7.00 extra for a pass
gaffers101
I always shop about for the best price, either buying new online or pre-owned in Game or similar.
Although I’m always on the hunt for a bargain I do think most games are worth the money.