Are video games too expensive these days?

[starcrunch061]

On 11/3/2017 at 3:15 PM, Jamescush147 said:

I spent 70 dollars for Final Fantasy 3 back in the day...

 

...and it was worth every single penny, and then some.

[Klart]

On 27-5-2017 at 10:05 PM, Death_Ninja said:

As someone that grew up in the late 80's and all of the 90's and read that title:

 

 

Games are pretty cheap to what they used to me. Not to mention all of the sales. Buying a game less than $20 was unheard of back then.

This. Also: games can drop in price real fast. Physical games can be bought online for half price or less a few months after release. This was impossible in the past.

Edited November 6, 2017 by Klart

[Feral]

Life is too expensive so why would games be any different.

 

Though if I compared game prices to rum then I could buy 2 bottles of rum for a bit less than a new game. The rum would be a day or two to finish compared to the game which could take a week or more. So games are cheap in the long run.

[BlackSquirrell1]

No, think they are about right for the enjoyment you get from them.

[DF007gamer]

If you buy them on day one it's expensive. These days it's better to wait for the game to iron out all their bugs and glitches with patches and then by that time it's on sale. Not worth buying games these days on DAY ONE. 

[Zenpai]

11 hours ago, Spaz said:

You're going to have to accept that $60 AAA games aren't the entire package anymore.

 

No.

 

11 hours ago, Spaz said:

 I just don't understand people hating DLC. If money is an issue I completely see where you're coming from. Doesn't mean the DLC is bad, I've played plenty of DLC in various games that turned out quite good.

 

It isn't DLC per se that's the problem, it's the fact that it's now almost imperative for every game to have a chunk carved up to be sold later as DLC. Not to mention, a lot of games have absolutely INSANE amounts of DLC packs. Are you going to tell me you just couldn't at the very least join them all together in one or two packages?

 

From the moment DLC starts going beyond a reasonable number, it's just outright greed, plain for all to see.

 

--------------------            --------------------------           ------------------------           ---------------------        ---------------------------          -------------------------------           -------------------------------------------

 

Anyway, just wanted to share a video from the great Jim Sterling that might just put some things from the thread into perspective:

 

 

[I need more BIOSHOCK]

Depends on how you go about it really. 

 

If you buy every game on release then hell yes it's gonna be very expensive. The only games I've pre ordered in the last few years have been the bioshock collection because they are my all time favourite games and the crash trilogy. Even thy were no more than £35 a go. 

 

If you wait long enough they will always become a hell of alot cheaper and have the good ol goty edition with all content included. 

 

Wait FTW! 

[AJ_Radio]

2 hours ago, jrdemr said:

It isn't DLC per se that's the problem, it's the fact that it's now almost imperative for every game to have a chunk carved up to be sold later as DLC. Not to mention, a lot of games have absolutely INSANE amounts of DLC packs. Are you going to tell me you just couldn't at the very least join them all together in one or two packages?

 

From the moment DLC starts going beyond a reasonable number, it's just outright greed, plain for all to see.

 

Well to be frank Activision and EA do take it too far.

 

Every Call of Duty game with the exception of Modern Warfare Remastered in the past several years have had a ton of DLC. I don't know if Activision still charges people for map packs which are really just the same kind of maps that are slightly different from the ones you've already been playing. $60 on top of the $20 - 60 for the DLC and miscellaneous fees, you're paying a lot of money for just one game. That ends up hurting a lot of peoples budgets.

 

EA often releases incomplete games that require a lot of patches and/or DLC. Mass Effect 3 had a terrible initial ending until the developers caved in and brought out another ending that was a much better one. I guess the Dead Space 3 DLC ending that was left on a cliffhanger will never be resolved. Shame.

 

I guess the point you're trying to get at is it's not worth the trouble of buying games day one and preordering them. I completely understand that. I usually try my best to get new games for under $59.99. I bought Horizon for under $50 just a few weeks after it was released. I bought Wolfenstein II and Assassins Creed Origins for both around $53 during the week of launch. I saved $17, not much but it adds up in the long run.

 

The video game industry is the biggest entertainment industry nowadays. Hollywood, the music industry and the television industry can't even compare to the sales and reception of video games, at least in the past decade. So obviously these giant corporations are going to take advantage of an industry that is thriving by offering expensive DLC and unfinished games. Money is all that matters to EA, Activision and Warner Bros. Monolith was probably pressured by Warner Bros to implement microtransactions in the form of loot boxes in Middle Earth: Shadow of War that require actual money to get.

 

I would say indie games fare much better in that they lack the large amounts of DLC that a lot of triple A games have. But there's a good share of bad indie developers too. No Man's Sky was initially charged full price and everybody quickly saw the game was nothing at all like the developers said it was. The backlash was so bad that Sean Murray himself refused to answer any comments as to why the game felt broken and why it was charged a high price. Today the game has received a lot of patches and it runs better, but that doesn't take away the fact that it was poorly received at launch, and damaged the reputation of the developers, most notably Sean.

Edited November 7, 2017 by Spaz

[starcrunch061]

17 hours ago, jrdemr said:

It isn't DLC per se that's the problem, it's the fact that it's now almost imperative for every game to have a chunk carved up to be sold later as DLC. Not to mention, a lot of games have absolutely INSANE amounts of DLC packs.

 

Spot-on. DLC is fantastic...when done right. Look at Witcher 3. That's DLC as it should be done (and do you really think that CD Projekt Red or Warner lost out on that)?

 

The problem is when a company leaves a game unfinished in hopes of bleeding more money out of fans. I'm not even sure it's that great of a policy, to be honest (did Capcom really profit from putting the true ending to Asura's Wrath in DLC?). Even if it is profitable in the short term, it feels unsustainable in the long term in a preimum market (and $60 for a game is certainly a premium market).

 

17 hours ago, jrdemr said:

Not to mention, a lot of games have absolutely INSANE amounts of DLC packs. Are you going to tell me you just couldn't at the very least join them all together in one or two packages?

 

From the moment DLC starts going beyond a reasonable number, it's just outright greed, plain for all to see.

 

Theoretically, I don't mind this policy. I would love the option to buy a la carte DLC for a great many games. My bigger problem is that the bundling that often occurs (even at this light level) puts together a bunch of crap I have no interest in, in hopes of luring me into overspending. It's like the new car problem all over again (for anyone who has bought a new car off the lot, you know what I'm talking about, but if you haven't, Thomas Happ describes it beautifully in his blog).