Should games cost less?

Maverick

Maverick

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So I was watching G4 (yes, I'm one of the retarded minority on this forum that likes the channel) and Cliffy B. was on G4TV.com and he had an interesting point about the cost of videogames. He thinks games should cost $20. And while I think 20 is a bit too low, I wholeheartedly believe in the main point. Not because I am a greedy gamer, and would love to be able to buy 3 or 4 games instead of 2, but because it really seams to make business sense to me. With all the talk within gaming companies about games maybe being as high as $70, their thought process is that people who want a 360/PS3/Revolution right away will clearly need the games as well so why not charge more because they have to buy them. I gaurantee most gamers will only buy 1 game at that price (2 at the most). But think if these next gen games where $30-35. I'll bet my kicked-in-the-face grandmother a lot of people would buy 3- 4 games. Hardcore gamers would be in geek heaven when their collection grows two fold, casual gamers could take more chances on games that look interesting which they know nothing about, and family/friends when buying gifts wouldn't be taken back buy price tags so much. Think about the cost of getting a new system (prices are just speculation): the system (300), the warranty (35), 2 controllers (40 ea.), the remote (35), and 2 games (70ea.), w/o tax that equals $590. I don't know about you guys, but to me, thats a lot of money. Game companies would clearly lose money on the individual games, but as long as they are good games they would make it back buy the boost in sales. A price drop could also motivate developers to make better products for fear of making an average game and not selling well. Obviously I love this concept, what do you guys think?
 
If games had a 20 dollar price tag, the games would have to be seriously downgraded to be allow the companies to make money. Otherwise, they'd either go broke or all games would suck. I like cheap games as much as the next guy, but $20 is just unrealistic.

It was on G4...what do you expect?
 
i'm not against $20 games, but it just doesn't seem realistic. The only reason dvds are $20 is because the movie companies already make a grip at the theater when the movie is first released.

besides, after a couple months every game becomes a 'low budget title' anyway. i just found metal gear solid 3 for under $20
 
games are costing millions and millions in production these days. it's just not possible at the moment.

i think we will see a ceiling while games are still becoming so mainstream. then they will cap off and taper back down when they figure out how to perfectly milk the market. but not by much, i would wager.
 
I think $20 is too low also, but I think if games cost $30- 35 there would be a huge boost in sales. But the main point for me is raising the price is the absolute wrong move for gaming companies. I just can't see sales rising or even staying the same with $60- 70 price tags.
 
ya, it will lower itself a little. the economy has been sliding slowly but steadily in the last several years and if they want to target the most people they will have to lower the cost.

on the other hand, a game that costs 60-70 dollars is not representative of the whole industry. they are farther and further between. they will be the Halo 3's and GTA's and other higher-production valued works. and people will still be able to find big game hunter VIII and naked workout games and the like for cheap. the high prices at the release of a new game is akin to the boxoffice with movies. people want to see the movie while it's in theaters, so they pay way more than if they were to wait to get it on video. and people, being the impatient children that we are, will go ahead and find a way to pay for it. if not, the games will be bought later. it's a system that works pretty well for everyone, so i don't see it changing much anytime soon.
 
yeah, and i think in some time, all the next gen games will settle down to the default $50 price tag. i remember when psone first came out, it was like the same kinda thing thats happening now with xbox360. i remember some of my friends shelling out $300+ for a sega saturn/psone that came with just a demo disc and one controller.

do consoles even come with demo discs anymore?
 
There are a very few games that literally have the budget behind them to necessitate a $50 price tag.

For those and most of the others, marketing is a huge budgetary concern. If companies cut down on marketing, games coudl easily initailly retail at $40.

Another factor is that game prices drop very quickly, as opposed to, say, CD's and DVD's. A DVD that retails at $20 maight be $15 a year later, but it will still be $15 for maybe the next five years. A game would be lucky to retail for $5 in five years, if it's even still being produced. The $50 initial retail has a lot to do with making "early adopters" fund most of the profit, while the $30 or $20 reduce priec within 6 months generates residual income.

This isn't mentioning the fact that games have been initially retailing for $50 for over a decade, and that means they're cheaper today than they ever were. I remember buying Super Mario 3 for $50, so the fact that game prices haven't adjusted with inflation means that compared to a $50 NES game on release, today's games cost maybe $35 or so. I'll have to look up the actual inflation index.

according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator, if games were priced at $50 in 1990 and rose with inflation, they would cost $74.41 today (click on "inflation Caluclator" under "Inflation and Consumer Spending"). $50 in 1985 is $90.38 today.

So, in terms of real dollars, games are cheaper today than they've ever been, especially considering many games are being initially retailed below $50.
 
$50 isn't the average price of games on release, either. Here's an uncientific breakdown using EBGames' new releases list (I'm sticking with non-portable titles, but including portables is even better since most of the retail at $30-$40):

Madden NFL '06 (multiplatform): $50
Ghost Recon 2: Summit Strike (Xbox): $30
Blitzkrieg Anthology (PC): $30
Lock On Gold (PC): $30
Codename: Panzers Phase Two: $40
Outlaw Tennis (XBox): $20
Delta Force: Black Hawk Down (multi): $50
Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life (GC): $30
Asheron's Call: Throne of Destiny: $30
Flatout: (console): $50
Flatout (PC): $40
Fullmetal Alchemist 2 (PS2): $40
Sid Meier's Pirates! (Xbox): $40
NCAA Fooball 06 (multi): $50
Killer 7 (multi): $50
King of FIghters Maximum Impact Maniax (Ps2): $40
Fantastic 4 (multi): $40

The average of these 17 titles is roughly $37, so I feel pretty conformtable stating that the average retail price for a new game is closer to $40 than to $50, while it's the big budget, big name games that are consistently $50.

There's also a significant trend for PC games to retail at $40, even when console counterparts are $50 as in the case of Flatout.
 
All those titles are either deliberately low budget, rereleases or PC games...which are inherintly cheaper....it's just the summer..... Come November, check it.

Anyway, you can't forget that companies dont make games for the sake of making games, they do it to make money. And dropping the price to 30 bucks or 40 bucks would make the games just NOT profitable, or not profitable enough. Independent game companies just lack the funds to create a good game (generally) on a console, never mind splurging on the license to publish on a console.

As for the $60 price tag reverting...I think it will if and only if it seriously hurts the sales. Most people, I don't think, will be very phased by it.
 
spudlyff8fan said:
All those titles are either deliberately low budget, rereleases or PC games...which are inherintly cheaper....it's just the summer..... Come November, check it.
Click to expand...

Um, yeah, that's kind of the point. The average game isn't $50. Big-name, big-budget games are. The average game isn't a big-name, big-budget game. So big-budget games will cost $60, perhaps. There will still be cheaper games.
 
Average price for a new game is USUALLY between 40-50, with the only real variable being the comp to console ratio. It was just pretty much a coincidence that the the games listed there were cheaper.

Madden NFL '06 (multiplatform): $50 --makes sense
Ghost Recon 2: Summit Strike (Xbox): $30 --Expansion pack....kinda rehash thing. Not a new game.
Blitzkrieg Anthology (PC): $30 --A collection of older games
Lock On Gold (PC): $30 --An expansion on Lock On: Modern Air Combat (I think)
Codename: Panzers Phase Two: $40 --A standard price PC game
Outlaw Tennis (XBox): $20 --Another low budget title, created simply to cash in on the mediocre series
Delta Force: Black Hawk Down (multi): $50 --Standard Console
Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life (GC): $30 --A pre-emptive attempt by Nintendo to play up its cheap console
Asheron's Call: Throne of Destiny: $30 --Expansion pack
Flatout: (console): $50 --Standard console
Flatout (PC): $40 --Standard PC
Fullmetal Alchemist 2 (PS2): $40 --A barely-changed sequel
Sid Meier's Pirates! (Xbox): $40 --A port
NCAA Fooball 06 (multi): $50 --Standard
Killer 7 (multi): $50 --Standard
King of FIghters Maximum Impact Maniax (XBOX): $40 --An enhanced port of a PS2 game
Fantastic 4 (multi): $40 --A cash-in.

It was just a lucky time. Almost any other time, it would've been higher. Summers are just often filled with cheap games and expansion packs. Though you are correct in how games are cheaper ATM, you can't forget, we ARE at the tail end of every single console, and with all three of them just over the horizon, companies know that people are already saving. But I don't really expect this to happen again until 2009. The only games that the companies can expect us to buy at full price are the major games, like Final Fantasy XII or SOCOM III. Plus, it isn't like the game companies WANT us to impoverish ourself right before what is probably the biggest console war yet.
 
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