The prices of games

[bcheero]

The prices of games

Hello everyone, I have always been curious about the pricing for video games on any system, be it an Xbox, PS3, or PC and why they are incredibly high to begin with. I understand that the production of games is costly and requires much more than I think it does, however I disagree with this exorbitantly high value. Lets look at the Witcher 2, which is comparable to many modern RPGs released on all platforms and while I would say $60 is not worth it, I will make an exception as there is additional content provided in the box. The gog.com product contains many goodies which provide many incentives for potential consumers (I look at the artbook and the soundtrack very much). Most of the other games, lets say Skyrim cost $60 and I get nothing as a consumer (no artbook, digital soundtrack, or even a guide). How does that make any sense? The consumer gets absolutely nothing in this case (except, well, the game itself but besides that?). The industry complains about profit, but have they stepped back and said, "lets provide incentives for our customer to bolster the value of our product."



Lets discuss.

 

[phamvan94]

As a poor student, I always wait for sales. I refuse to play more than 30euro for a game.

If the goodies are good however, I am willing to spend 60-70euros for the Collector's Edition. Goodies mean more than the usual soundtrack, artbook, etc.

 

[bcheero]

As a poor student, I always wait for sales. I refuse to play more than 30euro for a game.

If the goodies are good however, I am willing to spend 60-70euros for the Collector's Edition. Goodies mean more than the usual soundtrack, artbook, etc.

I agree with waiting for sales and promotions. That's one way to spend very little relative to launch prices. I, falling into the hype and recommendations from friends, purchased a digital copy of Diablo 3 for 60 dollars. Isn't the point of digital distribution to eliminate the high costs of the retailer and lower prices compared to their retail counterparts?

 

[Blothulfur]

First playthrough of Witcher 2 took about 40 hours, the game cost me £35 as I remember, that's less than a quid an hour. Good value. All my playthroughs since have just added to that value for money, rpg's and rts's are tremendously good bargains. Even though I splashed out and got a collectors edition of Assassins of Kings, I still consider myself well up on that deal.

Now a ten hour shooter with a multiplayer component that i'll never touch, that's another matter entirely.

 

[wichat]

Not long ago, the prices of games for PC were more or less a 30-40% cheapper than console ones. I remember customer said that games for any other plataform was not PC were too much expensive... Results? The prices of GPC was ALL equalyted till get a 80-90%of consol games.

At first, one think made me suspect from that unknow CDPR was the price of its game... The Witcher. Also their DRM-free... Maybe it's hard to believe that a handful of devs dreamed of making the game which always wanted to play and never found. Regardless of not getting rich at the expense of potential buyers. And they still believe in their dream. But they seem to exist!

 

[Garrison72]

First playthrough of Witcher 2 took about 40 hours, the game cost me £35 as I remember, that's less than a quid an hour. Good value. All my playthroughs since have just added to that value for money, rpg's and rts's are tremendously good bargains. Even though I splashed out and got a collectors edition of Assassins of Kings, I still consider myself well up on that deal.

Now a ten hour shooter with a multiplayer component that i'll never touch, that's another matter entirely.

Bloth has it right, and this is why I bought the GoG version and a collector's edition of TW2. I've spent hundreds of hours between both Witcher games. Not good for a social life but oh well.

 

[Aver]

Average cinema ticket cost 8$
Average movie time is 1,5h
Time / cost ratio = 5,3$ per hour

TW2 cost 60$
Average play through is 30h
Time / cost ratio = 2$ per hour

So let's be honest - games are pretty cheap entertainment. For me games are fairly priced.

Also you have to remember that games are pretty risky business. You can make quality game and lose millions of dollars just because you were unlucky and there was no enough hype around your game (Syndicate). So as in every risky business investors expect higher revenue for a higher risk.

 

[wichat]

Average cinema ticket cost 8$
Average movie time is 1,5h
Time / cost ratio = 5,3$ per hour

Right, the same price for an independent movie or a superproduction multimillionaire... and the same for games, so a good company with an unexpected success MUST treat its costumers with a minimum of respect for keep them.

"It is not what you do but the WAY you do it."

 

[tommy5761]

Ebay is a decent source for getting some new games pretty cheap as is Amazon and yes prices here in the US are about the same for console as PC . Console games are 60 dollars and PC range from 50 - 60 dollars = 40 - 48 Euros
I recently picked up Hard Reset - Extended for 30 dollars and Deus Ex - HR for 10 so if you`re willing to wait deals can be had .

After first playing the witcher and when witcher 2 was announced i knew i had to have it on release day and is the ONLY game i have ever preordered .

 

[gregski]

60$ is so egalitarian.

I wish everything else was like that, too. But it ain't.

 

[Corylea.723]

Gamers are demanding better and better graphics all the time, and excellent graphics are INCREDIBLY costly to produce. A AAA title can cost $10 million and up to make.

We could make text adventure games for a tenth as much, but most gamers won't buy them. If you insist on fabulous graphics, then you have to pay a lot; that's just the reality.

Don't like that reality? Too bad, but that doesn't change it.

 

[Aver]

Gamers are demanding better and better graphics all the time, and excellent graphics are INCREDIBLY costly to produce. A AAA title can cost $10 million to make.

We could make text adventure games for a tenth as much, but most gamers won't buy them. If you insist on fabulous graphics, then you have to pay a lot; that's just the reality.

Don't like that reality? Too bad, but that doesn't change it.

Actually 10M$ is not that much for an AAA title. For example Red Dead Redemption did cost 80M$.

 

[GuyNwah]

Corylea and Aver hit it on the head. Producing modern AAA games is breathtakingly expensive. It costs millions to tens of millions in capital that you have to raise and spend over multiple years, before you make your first sale. If you want to stay in business, now you have to make all your costs back, plus enough profit to pay off your investors and seed the development of your next title, and you have to do it out of not $60 a copy, but maybe $30 wholesale.

If you don't do considerably better than make your costs back in the first year, you have a failure. If you're a small, thinly capitalized studio, one such failure may be enough to sink your ship.

A Polish studio like CDPR has a huge cost advantage over a Silicon Valley studio like EA. (Ever gone apartment hunting in Redwood City?) This doesn't mean they should discount their games. It means they can (and should, and do) take risks that an EA cannot afford to take.

 

[AsTheDeath]

Is it $60 for a PC game? In Europe, default price for a PC game is €50, so I just assumed it would be $50 over in the US... and I think the latter is a fair price considering the amount of work and money go into making video games. Besides, if you're willing to wait, prices will drop pretty significantly pretty quickly. I have more than enough games to play, so I generally wait for sales (I picked up TW1 + TW2 for $40 combined).

All in all, I would say anything over $50 is a bit too much for me, especially considering how rapidly prices drop. But I generally measure a game's value not by time/price but by quality/time - it's more of an 'is it worth my time?' thing than 'is it worth my money?'. But I speak from the luxury of having enough games and therefore always being willing to wait for sales.

 

[username_2093396]

I'm willing to spend $50-60 on a new game if I'm convinced that I'm going to love it and spend a lot of time on it. It's cheaper than going to the movies or most other forms of entertainment, so I don't think it's too expensive. The problem is that a lot of games are kind of crappy and a waste of time regardless of what price they are, so it can be a bit difficult sometimes to tell whether a game will be worth the time and money. That's why I usually wait for sales, especially if I'm not too sure about a game's quality and there isn't a demo.

Is it $60 for a PC game? In Europe, default price for a PC game is €50, so I just assumed it would be $50 over in the US...

It's usually $50 for a new PC game, but 360/PS3 games cost $60 so some of the bigger publishers have begun charging $60 for PC as well.

 

[Garrison72]

Supposedly TW2 was made with a 8-11 million USD budget. If true, that is nothing compared to AAA American devs. It's a pittance. It boggles my mind that one dev can create something so magnificent and another like Blizzard or Bioware can fuck things up so bad, despite all the funding in the world.

 

[tommy5761]

According to the article i guess this would be one reason why games are expensive
http://www.gamespot.com/news/us-game-devs-average-near-81000-in-2010-survey-6310472

If true i`m definitely in the wrong business lane .

 

[SystemShock7]

According to the article i guess this would be one reason why games are expensive
http://www.gamespot.com/news/us-game-devs-average-near-81000-in-2010-survey-6310472

If true i`m definitely in the wrong business lane .

That's low for coders. Can't imagine anyone living in Silicon Valley on that salary, unless they live in a cardboard box.

 

[DelighfulMcCoy]

Is it $60 for a PC game? In Europe, default price for a PC game is €50...

I think games like ME3 or Skyrim were even €59,99 at release. That equals about $75! I'm quite mad at this, but I rather import my games, anyway. I dunno about the US, but I think there's some kind of regulation of the release price of games in €uroland. That's why GoG gave away an extra game plus a voucher for more games, if you bought The Witcher 2 in €uro.

It's rather ridiculous, how that is regulated, while there seem to be no regulations to protect the customer. I've been complaining for at least a decade now, that it should be the law that the publisher needs to declare if there is DRM on a CD or a game and which kind. Could've saved me some grief over purchases of faulty media.

If that was not the case and the pricing would be more equal (I'm poor, too, you know), I'd be okay with a good product like The Witcher series costing $60. For everyone. Without forced third-party-maiming-software on top.

 

[username_2093396]

I think games like ME3 or Skyrim were even €59,99 at release. That equals about $75! I'm quite mad at this, but I rather import my games, anyway. I dunno about the US, but I think there's some kind of regulation of the release price of games in €uroland. That's why GoG gave away an extra game plus a voucher for more games, if you bought The Witcher 2 in €uro.

I think that was just part of the contract with Namco. Namco was publishing the retail version of the game and didn't want to be undercut by GOG.