Are video games too expensive these days?

[Guest]

No..I pay 12$ for a 2hr movie ticket. Hell no is 40-60$ AAA game expensive.

[juniordrfanatic]

Just now, ERGOPROXY-DECAY said:

No..I pay 12$ for a 2hr movie ticket. Hell no is 40-60$ AAA game expensive.

Now that's expensive

[Undead Wolf]

2 minutes ago, Satoshi Ookami said:

And how bad and broken they are  

And how they need day one patches  

And how they get day one content that has additional price  

 

Well, I agree with your second point. Pretty much every AAA game I know of gets a day one patch. That's no necessarily a bad thing though. As for the other two points, there are definitely certain publishers who are prone to doing that kind of stuff. It's a good thing I stopped buying their games on day one a long time ago. 

 

Japanese developers are often guilty of that last point too. I've played so many JRPG's with day one swimsuit DLC and what not, but hey, totally worth it. 

[PSXtreme_]

 

Paid $59.99 for it on launch day.

[juniordrfanatic]

1 minute ago, PSXtreme_ said:

 

Paid $59.99 for it on launch day.

 

Now that is a classic. Looks like they are taking it's strategy now. If this came out today, it would have gotten like 50 patches, and it would still be broken

Oh and i kinda feel sorry for you ahahaha

[Gaberdude]

1 minute ago, juniordrfanatic said:

 

Now that is a classic. Looks like they are taking it's strategy now. If this came out today, it would have gotten like 50 patches, and it would still be broken

Oh and i kinda feel sorry for you ahahaha

 

And depending on who made it, it would probably get some pointlessly elaborate story-mode that would just ruin the game...

[Property_Damage]

$150 for black ops 3 with all the maps

You tell me OP

[Natsuu24]

It depends on the games, but for example: Deluxes/legendarys/Complete s*** editions is the worst thing on gaming market, and the prices for that are really stupid. 120€ for a full game is just "UOUUU" and digitaly!! If you dont think this is not expensive, then... Atleast, a few years ago, we pay 50/60€ and got full games.

[Caesar Clown]

With inflation, the Atari 2600 remains the most expensive console ever sold.

 

The most expensive game I bought (non-CE) was a SNES game for $100 back in the day. That'd be well over $150 now, so no, they're in no ways more expensive. Also, you just have to wait a year in most cases and the games are 1/2 their original price.

[Asvinia]

59 minutes ago, g-bake_1986 said:

Video games have never been cheaper and that will get even better when we fully accept the digital switch.

 

I disagree with this. Once it is 100% digital, games will be a LOT more expensive, such as they currently are.

Sure, there are sales occaisionally, but how many times is a game you want in a sale? It's always the same titles that are reduced.

When it goes to 100% digital, there will be no competition, so games will stay at release price for years, because why reduce them? You're not going to get them anywhere else.

Nintendo is a good example of this, on Nintendo's e-store, Nintendogs (a 3DS release title) is still at £40. I could get a physical copy for less than £5. There are many titles on the PSN store that fit this as well. People think once everything is digital the digital market will be like Steam. But I disagree, Steam is the exception, not the rule.

This is partly why once everything is digital, my gaming habit is dead.

 

OT: I think games are pretty cheap in comparison to what they were. I mean, Prey has already had a 50% price cut here and I'm rolling along, adding more to my backlog as the days go by.

[GlennRhee]

Digitally, yeah. I'll admit, I like digital a lot for the convenience. Being able to switch games without having to stand up and walk across the room? Hell yeah! But I think that digital games should be a little bit cheaper than their physical counterparts.

[Morpheus__777]

I totally agree.  PS4 finally allowing an external HD has ben great.  I slapped 4 TB on that right away and it's half full already, in addition to my 2 TB internal.  But that doesn't mean I buy every game on PSN.  The sale has to come to me....I won't spend more than 40 bucks on a game.  But it drives me nuts when I buy the main game, then Season pass goes on sale later, but the Deluxe edition (including DLC) is cheaper than the main game plus the Season pass separately!  It's like getting penalized for buying/supporting the game early!  And in answer to the main question:  Yes, I think games today are overpriced!  Especially digital!  And I've been playing games since we loaded Space Invaders off a TAPE for 15 minutes, so we could play it on a green screen.  The price point on Sony's PSN is so outrageous that I may not make it to the PS5.  I've got the PS2, PS3 and PS4, as well as my desktop, and I gotta say, the sales on Steam are smoking anything on PSN.   I began playing consoles so I could sit on the couch and play games on the big screen, but now I can play my computer on my big screen TV, using an Xbox of Playstation controller.  Why bother with console anymore?  I think this is why Xbox is developing the Scorpio, and opening up the platform.  Because consoles are dying.  You want to talk about exclusives?  Think about all the games you CANNOT play on your consoles, including the Total War series, for example.  PC computing is winning out....and the high prices of console games are not helping their position.

 

                                       

Edited May 27, 2017 by Morpheus__777

[rdhight]

Systems I think are pretty reasonable. It's kind of dumb that going from the base system to 4-player couch co-op costs $120-150 for the extra DS4s, but... you know, first world problems. If you have 3 people locally to play with, don't complain too loud. Some of us are lonely.

 

Games are much too expensive if you buy new releases and deluxe editions. Often you might pay well over $60 for a game that's unplayable at launch, and your preordered season pass includes content that won't be ready for months. I know past generations were more expensive than they looked because you were paying in 1980s dollars, but back then at least you were getting polished, complete games! Seriously, don't pay $80 for a game that's broken and incomplete. But if you're patient, games become among the best entertainment bargains.

[broy300]

No and no. I wish I could elaborate more, but video games and consoles are dirt cheap in my opinion.

[diskdocx]

2 hours ago, Asvinia said:

 

I disagree with this. Once it is 100% digital, games will be a LOT more expensive, such as they currently are.

Sure, there are sales occaisionally, but how many times is a game you want in a sale? It's always the same titles that are reduced.

When it goes to 100% digital, there will be no competition, so games will stay at release price for years, because why reduce them? You're not going to get them anywhere else.

Nintendo is a good example of this, on Nintendo's e-store, Nintendogs (a 3DS release title) is still at £40. I could get a physical copy for less than £5. There are many titles on the PSN store that fit this as well. People think once everything is digital the digital market will be like Steam. But I disagree, Steam is the exception, not the rule.

This is partly why once everything is digital, my gaming habit is dead.

 

OT: I think games are pretty cheap in comparison to what they were. I mean, Prey has already had a 50% price cut here and I'm rolling along, adding more to my backlog as the days go by.

 

I agree with you. I don't understand why people think going all digital will make it cheaper. Digital prices are rarely competitive with retail right now, once they have a monopoly, forget about it. I will always support physical, retail releases if the option exist.

 

As for pricing, I would say indexed to inflation, gaming is pretty cheap overall compared to the past. I still have a lot of the old consoles and games, and the prices were pretty steep. In the 80s in Canada, there were also very few options for games. We didn't even have Toys R Us here back then, I remember crossing the border to Buffalo to get games. Now with lots of options, including online, there are some good prices to be had.

 

The biggest factor currently, for me at least, is the Canadian dollar. Due to our currency drop, games have jumped quite a bit here recently. Coupled with a significant pay cut over the past couple of years, it certainly makes games a lot more now, relatively speaking, than say 3-4 years ago. But overall, no, I don't think the price of gaming has gone up relative to inflation.

[Dead Weight]

As a Canadian, I have to pay 90 dollars after tax for a ps4 retail game at launch. So yes, they are expensive.

[DesmaBR]

I'm from Brazil, so yeah

[Bullstomp]

If games are too expensive you're buying them too soon after launch. Never before in history have games prices dropped so significantly in such a short time. Allow me to illustrate with some of my more recent purchases -

 

*Titanfall -released 10/2016 @ $59.99, bought it last week for $19.99

*Mirrors Edge - released 5/2016 for $59.99, bought it three weeks ago for $14.99

*Star Wars:Battlefront with all dlc, released 11/2015 for $120, bought it last month all on disc for $20

 

I could go on but I think that illustrates my point. Basically be patient, you can get the game you want at the price you want

[acasser]

I understand why people get upset about the steady drip of DLC and having to pay for each one individually.  I don't agree with it, but I can follow the intellectual argument around it.

 

I just wonder if those same people would be happier if the binary choice was "not buy the game at all" or "pay $150 for the full game including all DLC" without the middle option currently available, i.e., "pay ~$60-80 for the base game and buy a whole bunch of DLCs on top of that".  Because there isn't going to be a "Door B" that reads "pay ~$60-80 for the entire game, DLCs included".

 

It seems scummy, but that's how developers don't enrage subsections of the gamer market.  The optics are better when you aren't selling the base game for a significantly higher price, and it probably draws in more people who are willing to invest in the lower price point to "try" the game in the first place (and only buy the DLC afterwards if they want to or if whiny kids beg their parents until said parents throw up their hands -- and wallets -- in despair).

[ReverseLag]

Considering how expensive game development is, no. The game prices are actually very cheap these days.

 

[HellcoreFire]

Games themselves are still about the same price as they've always been. It's all the unneeded crap around it like DLC's, season passes, having to pay to play online or micratransactions that make them too expensive. Especially when the DLC is already on disc and you still have to pay for it to unlock it. Game developers can just do whatever they want, in my opinion there should be some international laws to restrict them to do this wild west stuff. And I know they're under a lot of pressure but they should at least give us finished products, I know most people don't care if they have to wait a little longer (delays), day one patches are the worst.

Edited May 28, 2017 by HellcoreFire

[PooPooBlast]

Are games expensive? Yes or at least for a new game in Canada which costs $90 with tax while earnings have not changed. Couple that with a deluxe edition or season pass you're looking at $130-160 .. 

 

What do I do? I wait like a year and buy them from $5-25 .  Yes I get to them play them later and is a problem especially for online games but this way gaming is affordable. Also, Theres a never a shortage of something for me to play. So for example by the time I finish something, a game would've dropped in price and a new one comes out. Rinse and repeat

Edited May 28, 2017 by poopooblast

[Alufeii]

I would say in the digital realm. Minus sales and deals, those prices never go down.

[hotdog_president]

With so many games out to play nowadays, I almost never pay full price for a game. Even when I do pre-order, it's on amazon where I get a 20% discount right away, so no matter what, I'm never paying $60 for a new game... $48 max. That along with the flash sales/weekly deals/PS+ free game offerings (at $50/year for PS+, three quality games more than pays for it in my mind), video games are perfect prices for me!

[damon8r351]

I don't really think games are too expensive. I used to pay between $39.99 to $49.99 for Nintendo games when I was a kid, and $49.99 was a lot more money in the early 90s than it is now. Consoles are definitely more expensive than they were, but they also do a lot more, and they have an actual hard drive memory. I remember the Super Nintendo costing $199.99 at opening day, which was an utterly ridiculous price back then.