Thread: Lets talk game prices (And why they are too cheap).

DISCUSSION POINT:
Do you believe games are fairly priced as an entertainment medium in todays market.


This will be interesting. I want a legit, serious, actually think before posting thread here about something thats been in the back of my mind for a few years now (I may have even posted about this in a mini rant...).

I went to a bar to play pool last night. I paid approx $5 / drink, $20 worth of "rental" for the table and had a $6 poutine. When I got back to my place with my buddies we smoked a cigar and drank a good whisky. $7/cigar, $90 whisky. My evening lasted about 5 hours, the cost of that enjoyment was ((5x2)+20+6+7+5)=48) $48.

The week before I went to the movies. I paid $20 worth for ticket, popcorn and drink (ugh I hate paying this much!) for a 2 hr movie.

It turns out it seems my downtime when doing something costs me $10/hr.

I'd played a few hours of video games...

$29 L4D2 (821hrs) $0.04/hr - side note I am betting 25% of that is me in the lobby waiting for someone...
$49 BC2 (300hrs) $0.16/hr
$120 BF3 (353hrs) $0.35/hr
$45 Skyrim (275hrs) $0.17/hr

Now any hobby costs less than going out. IE I love reading a book - $10 (Takes me say 6hrs to read) thats an average of $1.70 per hour of my enjoyment. I also love photography but as its also my business I'll refrain from using that as the #s are far beyond obnoxious for costing...

My point is this: I paid $35 for sonic the hedgehog when I was a kid (If my memory serves me right) back in 1992. 20 years later a game is worth $30-60. Meanwhile my shoes (converse all stars) have gone from $12 to $65.

For the amount of entertainment you get from a game do you believe the cost is fair? I understand we all prefer cheaper games - trust me I don't want to spend more than $30 on a game. But really, if we think about it is the cost really that high, and would you be accepting if your next dream game arrived with a $79.99 tag?

It's an interesting question to be sure. And one that has come up more than once in my house.

To make an accurate comparison though I think it's important to look at per use across a single purchase (replayability, rereadability, rewatchability, and other made up compound words).

A book at $30 which takes 6 hours to read is of course $5/hr.
A movie at $10 which takes 2 hours to watch is also $5/hr.

A sp game at $50 (seems to be avg for new releases) which takes 10 hours to complete is also $5/hr.

Obviously not all games fall into this category. This is where replay and value cones in.

If I read the same book 2-3 times (not a stretch for good books) that makes it $1.67/hr.
The longer the book and the more times its read the math gets closer and closer to the "pennies" you're talking about.

Same comparison applies with movies and to be quite honest anything the is "consumed" more than once.

The obvious exceptions to this are subscription based games/services and/or those with microtransactions. This is, consequently imo, why many development houses are going the F2P+MT (and also DLC) route. Over time it is more financially rewarding to them.

The games, books, movies, etc the turn out bad or exceptionally bad (finished but didn't like or didn't even finish) swings this whole equation in the opposite direction. There the developers are getting a lot more of my $$ compared to time than in the reverse.

So, I think that the current pricing is not really out of line given this. And the developers/publishers seem quite aware that dlc, etc is the wave of the future (so bf3 in that instance cost a lot of ppl $120 not $60 for example).

I have 570 hours in BF2, and 887 in CS:S. Obviously I got more than my money's worth out of those if you only consider the cost of those individual titles. However, what if you add in the cost of the 3 computers I have bought/built for gaming, then add in all of the failed titles I paid for but rarely played like BF3? Considering I bought BF2 at least twice, maybe 3 times, I obviously think it was worth it, and I would likely pay $70-80 for BF4 if it were the true sequel to BF2.

Depends on the platform. I think PC games have been fairly priced recently, some maybe overpriced but on the whole fine. Most games I've bought at full retail have either been niche so cheaper wasn't much of an option, or the price seemed fair for the game (e.g. CiM, which to me was priced right at $20, if it was say $60 it would of been way to expensive and killed sales). With sales and such, games that are overpriced are available for a decent price and just overall most of the PC prices have never bothered me.

Console is terribly overpriced in my opinion though, $60 for pretty much every new games seems out there (e.g. NCAA Football 14 is $60, should be more like $40 imo) and there are 3-4+ year old games still in the 20-30 dollar range. Yet the publishers complain about losing money to used sales, and gee I just can't see why. I know on PC they often are in the 20-30 dollar range as well, but at least they'll allow them to go on sale for $2.50 or $5. Console it just sits at 20-30 dollars, fuck sales.

The original Kingdom Hearts is still listed at $20, despite being out for over 5 years, and for a system that has been well replaced by it's successor by now.

Lets be fair and assess cost of medium only - Civil bought up a valid point on cost of PCS etc, which is technically correct, however for this lets use a bias that everyone has a PC and it was free. I want to really look at the price of entertainment vs pricing of games.

Furthermore Civil broaches the if its worth it I'll pay more for it model. Freemium is becoming more and more popular - EA just dropped Plants Vs Zombies 2 and it was F2P, but you can unlock certain plants for $3 a pop. I was honestly enjoying the game, and felt the prices were too high. That being said if the plants had cost 0.25-0.50 cents I most likely would've paid it.

I like your comparison to consumer items Al but I do feel it limits us, based on the sheer amount of time a game can consume. I know people who have 2k+ hrs in L4D2. They have obliterated the cost vs entertainment times to lower than 1cent an hour, and that seems incredible.

Al also broaches DLCs (lets call them what they are - upsells). Upsells are great - again we fall upon Civils "if its worth it I'll buy it". I have all the Skyrim DLCS - I forgot to add those to the pricing, thats another $45 worth so the game went upto $90. I LOVED skyrim. Played it so much I had fusrodah as my ringtone. I happily paid $90, but I can honestly say if I was asked to buy it again to keep playing it I would.

Also to add to Als other thought : distribution - I'd argue the cost of digital distribution is similar to actual physical cost right now. Physical distribution has manufacturing, production, delivery costs and more. Digital has infrastructure, redundancies, staff to run those (white collar highly paid techs).

I guess it depends on the comparison though. Yes, I could go pay $10 to see a first run movie, or I can pay $1 and rent it from RedBox. Same movie, same entertainment time, much different cost per hour. By the same token I could spend say $1k every 3 years and play games on average or below average settings, OR I could be like HeavyG and kanati and always buy the latest and greatest to play any and all games at max settings. Speaking of kanati, I wonder how much he has spent on steam games that he has never even installed. Do those not count towards his personal cost per hour of video game entertainment?

For the record I am not complaining about video game costs, I am just saying if we want to make it a fair comparison we need to look at total costs divided by total time.

Originally Posted by CivilWars

For the record I am not complaining about video game costs, I am just saying if we want to make it a fair comparison we need to look at total costs divided by total time.

Problem is variables - I like Als perspective this book costs $10 and takes 5 hrs to read therefore its real cost is $2/hr. Issue is some forms of entertainment or nights out cost more than you think, to get to the bar I need a car, which costs $ to move, insure etc. I want to focus on your time actually having a $ value attached when being entertained. IE 15 minutes with a stripper may cost you $50 - spend that on Skyrim and you'll get 10,000X the time for the money. Not asking whether 15 minutes with a stripper is comparative to 300 hours gaming though... Thats a rabbit hole I'd rather not enter.

Yes, they are certainly fairly priced. Prices of games haven't gone up much in the past 15-20 years. I remember buying games for $40 or even $50 back in 1995-1996.

Sure, you got the box, a manual, a physical copy of the media, and every now and then some other collectible junk (anyone else still have the Max Payne Mousepad?), but in terms of overall pricing, it has remained fairly consistent. I even recall purchasing Command and Conquer: Red Alert for $40, then the following expansion packs, Counter Strike and Aftermath for $20 each. Those that played the expansions know that the content was rather limited and most people still preferred the regular game.

This is no different than what we see now. Base game costs X, but if you want more stuff, you pay more. Of course, if you waited a bit, the prices would come down, exactly like they do nowdays. When I was in high school, I remember taking all of my Christmas money and going to EB Games, Best Buy, and Comp USA and find the best deals on "older" games that have come down in price a bit. It was my own version of the Steam sale.

All of that being said, the thought of "value" in games is somewhat subjective, and I don't value a game specifically for it's sheer amount of hours I spent playing it, but rather the experience I went through while playing it. For example, I didn't pay a dime for Half Life 2 as it was included with my ATI 9600XT graphics card (along with a few other free games). I play through Half Life 2 once every two years. I enjoyed every moment of Half Life 2 (except maybe the stupid air boat level), and knowing how enjoyable it was, I would have paid hundreds of dollars to get that experience.

Then I consider Bioshock Infinite. I loved the game and feel it was totally worth what I paid for it upon release. I may play it again, may not... who knows, but I loved the game and thought the experience was worth what I paid for it. I would say the same for both Max Payne 3 and Deus Ex: HR.

Then there was Aliens Colonial Marines. Enough said.

Games are priced fairly. Value of content is subjective, and in some cases, opinions may be that the games were not "worth" what we paid. Other cases, the experience could be "priceless".

I think base games are sold at a fair price, while DLC packs are way overpriced. Makes it even worse when the company is advertising their next 3 DLC packs before the game has even released. But of course there is a simple solution; don't buy the DLC. Works well enough for me.