$60 games vs. tiered structure

[Yantelope]

So there's been a lot of talk about how all games are $60 (and I thought we had a thread but I can't find it) and some games just aren't worth $60. Some are saying that there should be a tiered structure where new games launch with different prices depending upon their quality and content. I suppose we already have this a little bit with a system like PSMinis and PSN download games vs full disc games. Anywho, I wonder if this will change and I can't help but wonder if some games go down in price will some other games go up in price? You think the new Halo or COD could command $80 or $100? I remember when prices were less fixed. I bought Street Fighter 2 for the SNES for $83 from Software etc. I also remember Toys "R" Us asking $80 for Chrono Trigger at release.

[Strangelove]

They really werent "less" fixed back then. SNES games retailed for 79.99. All of them. Even the shitty ones like Clayfighter and DKC.

 

And honestly, people want to mess around with the 60 dollar system, then theyre the ones who are going to get fucked in the ass when publishers realize dumbasses will gladly pay 80 dollars for CoD, which will just push other publishers to charge the same by either spending more money on production, tacking on useless features, or elongating the game with menial shit. Half of that stuff is already the trend. Now theyll charge more for it.

 

I think companies already do a pretty good job on pricing their games. Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3 is priced at 40, as was SSF4. Those are great prices for an upgraded rerelease. In the SNES days you would have paid 80 for those. GOTY versions of western games retail for 60 a year afterwards with all the dlc on it. It works out great. You save tons of money if you wait. This is an industry where no one denies you anything if you lack the funds, as long as you have patience.

Aksys puts out shitty PS2 games for 50 bucks for the PS3. Beyond Good And Evil HD was 10 bucks, and the GoW Collection was 40 for 2 games. Its been nothing but fair.

 

Yeah, weve all been slighted by games we bought, didnt like and wish we hadnt spent 60 dollars on it, but do people really suck so much at buying games that you want to totally get rid of the entire system? Just wait a month and get 15-20 bucks off if youre unsure of a game. Problem solved.

Edited August 4, 2011 by Strangelove

[excel_excel]

Woah woah DKC wasn't shitty! anyway I'm fine with pricing right now. Whilst I believe games would be better priced according to quality or demand, at the end of the day price cuts come so soon these days that to us the consumers anyway there's no problem in waiting a few weeks after launch for a better price. Whether publishers feel the same way is up in the air, but for example Shadows of the Damned. Launched at a standard €50 price point, and its down to €30 on zavvi. Not too bad. In fact this is why a DD future on consoles is insanity right now because its such a good deal for us to buy from shops

Edited August 4, 2011 by excel_excel

[Yantelope]

Yeah, the price cuts come hard and fast for some games that need it. I doubt that any company is going to give up the early impulse $60 buys. I just keep hearing more and more journalists calling for a tiered structure. Now, I will say an advantage to an immediate $40 price would be that perhaps more people will buy the game initially which could spread word of mouth and you could possibly garnish better review scores (reviewers seem to care so much about value).

[umfk]

I personally think that no game is worth 60€, not even 50€ and I think that piracy would drop significantly if AAA titles were priced at 30€ - 40€ max. Since Steam and the huge number of great indie games especially, since there is no need anymore to pay 50€ to have fun for a long time.

 

50€ for me is a really large sum of money even though at the moment I could afford a lot of games I don't think I will spend that amount for a single game. It's hard to explain but for me no game feels like it's worth so much money.

[Yantelope]

It's really rare that I spend $60 for a game. Maybe with new releases I will but usually you can get some sort of store credit or preorder deal for better than that. I got MLB 11 the show for $35 because of a pricing error on Modells. LA Noire was $30 on GoHastings and I just preordered MW3 from Newegg for $48. Usually there's some way to get a game for cheaper than $60. That being said the vast majority of games I get for less than $20. That's my buy price.

[Thorgi Duke of Frisbee]

You already see tiered pricing in the PC game market. Think of how much you pay to play Minecraft or And Yet it Moves vs. some of the more mainstream titles.

[deanb]

Yeah the extremely flexible pricing structures and business models on PC in recent years just makes console games seem ludicrously expensive. It wouldn't surprise me if the reason for some PC games jumping up to the £40/$60 range recently is so people doing random googling don't find out that console games are kinda expensive in comparison.

[Thursday Next]

You already see tiered pricing in the PC game market. Think of how much you pay to play Minecraft or And Yet it Moves vs. some of the more mainstream titles.

 

The Console market is similarly tiered. As Strangelove mentioned. From cheap ($2 or less) minis to you $6-$15 PSN titles and then the "full" games.

[deanb]

Thing is thats $2----$6-to-$15-------then--------a-long-way-off----------the-full-$60-games

 

There's like 75% of the price range generally ignored. And that's a large and expensive gap. Especially when not all $60 games are created equally.

[Strangelove]

Arent the big games ALWAYS 50 or 60 dollars on pc too? CoD, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Witcher, etc. Theyre always in that same price range. I dont see the difference. I paid 3.45 for Braid on PSN. Before that, it was 15 dollars. Things on consoles are also priced appropriately.

 

Not to mention the 40 or 50 dollar games that come out, like the HD ports and shitty obscure Japanese games no one buys. There are games in that price range. Arcana Hearts 3 was 30 bucks too on PSN.

[AgamemnonV2]

There are already parts of the world in which gamers are paying exorbitant prices for games--sometimes $20 or $30 over the mean price globally. Case and point: Australia. No one should have to pay $80AUD for Borderlands. Might as well pay that much for a swift kick in the nuts.

 

Anyway, the trouble really isn't with the one-price option. Rather it's with the entire craze of DLC. More and more developers are wising up to the successful trend of being able to sell bits of the game for small quantitative prices. They understand the psychology of a consumer--small, singular digits often seem like good deals. Bioware has whored this to perfection--so much, in fact, that I now come to expect them to have no fewer than four or five DLC "campaign" in all of their future games. And who can forget the craze of selling "fun" and "unique" items for pack-of-gum prices as well? Sid Meier has found so much success with this in Civ V that I think we can all safely assume there's never going to be a proper expansion to that game. And to deliver the point home, all I need to say is: Team Fortress 2 hats.

 

Like Free-2-Play schemes in the MMO market, developers of single player games have found a way to continue to make a profit even after the first purchase of the title. I suspect in the future that every video game will have an online market of some sort, selling either fluff or content. They'll probably even manage to get away with not having to develop proper sequels just by releasing a slew of new missions and what not on the same game engine, just like Valve.

[Johnny]

I love australians bitching about game prices

Full price console game in sweden is 600-700 sek. That's around 90-105 us dollars.

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

There are already parts of the world in which gamers are paying exorbitant prices for games--sometimes $20 or $30 over the mean price globally. Case and point: Australia. No one should have to pay $80AUD for Borderlands. Might as well pay that much for a swift kick in the nuts.

 

Anyway, the trouble really isn't with the one-price option. Rather it's with the entire craze of DLC. More and more developers are wising up to the successful trend of being able to sell bits of the game for small quantitative prices. They understand the psychology of a consumer--small, singular digits often seem like good deals. Bioware has whored this to perfection--so much, in fact, that I now come to expect them to have no fewer than four or five DLC "campaign" in all of their future games. And who can forget the craze of selling "fun" and "unique" items for pack-of-gum prices as well? Sid Meier has found so much success with this in Civ V that I think we can all safely assume there's never going to be a proper expansion to that game. And to deliver the point home, all I need to say is: Team Fortress 2 hats.

 

Like Free-2-Play schemes in the MMO market, developers of single player games have found a way to continue to make a profit even after the first purchase of the title. I suspect in the future that every video game will have an online market of some sort, selling either fluff or content. They'll probably even manage to get away with not having to develop proper sequels just by releasing a slew of new missions and what not on the same game engine, just like Valve.

 

We could have avoided all of this if people just never bought it in the first place. =\

 

I'm cool with DLC mini-expansions though as it all ends up costing as much as an expansion anyways (except for crap like adding up the prices of COD map-packs.) It's stuff that are truly micro-transactions (hats) that bug me and I don't get why people fall for it.

[AgamemnonV2]

I love australians bitching about game prices

Why, do you know any?

[Johnny]

I love australians bitching about game prices

Why, do you know any?

 

Not currently. Used to know a few.

[Yantelope]

We could have avoided all of this if people just never bought it in the first place. =\

 

 

See, I used to think this too but the fact is that only 20% or so of people (last I heard anyway) buy DLC. It's just that the profit from those 20% of people more than makes up for it so the DLC march continues.

[Baconrath]

Ah, $40+ Gameboy games. Good times.