The death of the sixty dollar game.

[Blitzvogel]

I never remember PS1 games being over $40 US, the $50 ones being multi-disc titles like Gran Turismo and Final Fantasy. Price of N64 games varied wildly purely on how much ROM capacity is needed for whatever title but I always remember seeing them selling in the $60+ territory.

Full price mainstream games will always have a place as long as people are buying at $60, which is more a console than PC market dependent practice. PC is for the long term the platform for indie and small time developers. As a newly married man, who is both a part time student and part time worker, I rarely buy $60 games at launch anymore. I feel sort of like I'm missing out, but it's been a way to force myself to play the games I have but haven't completed.

 

[cmdrdredd]

That flyer is in Australian $. Even in Canada games weren't that expensive back then, mostly $49-59. Even 2 years ago games were $69, now $79 and the tax really hurts that (with BC tax = $90). I shop on Amazon and wait for dropped prices, or buy on PSN which yields tax.

I used to buy games all the time in the 80's and 90's and PC games were always cheaper than console games, I remember buying a Megaman and SMB3 game for NES and NHLPA for Super NES for $59 ea., and buying Tony LaRussa's Ultimate Baseball for $29 (yes brand new), and NHLPA '92 for PC for $39. Only expensive game for PC I've bought in that era was Return to Castle Wolfenstein (2001) for $90, and it was worth every single penny.

I remember when MK1 released my dad paid $90 at KB Toys in the mall for it. Cause it was my birthday and I picked it out.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Title is a bit misleading, it was always $59.99. Some Marketing genius' idea no doubt. But I digress...

The 60.00 game has become 130.00 up here in Canada now with the bundling of Season Pass and all the extra crap that eventually is worthless in game anyway. Right or wrong, people must be paying these prices otherwise they would be lower.

Or people are getting a discount if they buy all the stuff in a package vs paying for it later as a separate purchase. Plus you can always find the base game.

 

[linkgoron]

I haven't paid 60$ for a game in quite a while. I think that HL2 was the last game I paid full price for. There are only 3 games that I've paid more than 20$ in the last 10 years, and maybe 2 of them count as AAA. FIFA 16 (37$), DOOM (28$) and Life is Strange (27$). FIFA was great for playing with friends, DOOM was really great and LIS was so disappointing that I didn't even finish it. Other than that, I think I haven't paid more than 20$ for a game.

If I do buy a AAA game, it's usually from cdkeys or Green Man Gaming. Single player games will be fun ever 6+ months or even more after release, so I don't mind waiting for better prices.

I do buy "full" priced indie games, but those are usually cheaper (Wadjet Eye, Zachtronics etc.)

 

[b-mac]

I think the last game I paid $60 for was Diablo 3. The only reason is because it takes Blizzard forever to discount games. With steam sales and all the other websites that discount games and other tips and tricks, I will probably never paid full price for another game.

 

[Craig234]

I think the last game I paid $60 for was Diablo 3. The only reason is because it takes Blizzard forever to discount games. With steam sales and all the other websites that discount games and other tips and tricks, I will probably never paid full price for another game.

Yup - my concern here is that no one will increasingly, and so the game budgets that rely on some $60 sales will start to have to cut budgets, and the will give us only, say, $30 budget games.

I don't have information on how the $60 sales figures are going. Just seems like an issue.

 

[BSim500]

Yup - my concern here is that no one will increasingly, and so the game budgets that rely on some $60 sales will start to have to cut budgets, and the will give us only, say, $30 budget games.

I don't have information on how the $60 sales figures are going. Just seems like an issue.

Even if that happens, I think one learning experience AAA studio's will go through is a more efficient use of marketing (which eats up +50% of AAA game budgets). As a target audience, gamers are typically "active" rather than passive consumers, ie, they'll go looking / keep themselves up to date on upcoming games themselves with or without expensive TV ads. Kids at school typically copy their peers, whilst Steam / GOG's "games released this week" newsletters along with various gaming site's / Youtube channels / Twitch streams will also reach desired target audience with 100% accuracy for virtually no cost.

TV ads have their place, but the over-saturation marketing done by AAA publishers is often just wasted money. Sometimes "over-hype" can have the opposite effect, ie, pump something so hard for so long, and people can end up sick of hearing about it before it's even released (especially if it's another example of watered down "E3 bullshots"). Personally I think "trimming the fat" is the best thing that could happen to "the big boys".

 

[Craig234]

I think the cuts will come from the game development as much as marketing likely.

 

[Oyeve]

I used to pay around 50 bucks for Atari 2600 games. So, 60 bucks is really not bad at all. In fact, I paid 72 bucks for Super Mario Bros. 2 at release.

 

[dud]

I find a lot to disagree with in that article. I have never paid $60 for a release and (I believe) not paid $60 for all of the games that I have purchased in the last 5 years ... combined. I am a casual gamer and try to spend no more that 2-3 hours per day playing. I have found a rich plethora of games available for pennies-on-the-dollar compared to their initial release price. Free-to-Play (FTP) is also making a in-road into my playing life. I spend about half my time playing FTP games ... reducing the number of retail releases that I would have bought.

I might be unique but I doubt it. I haven't paid full retail for a game ($40) in 15 years and probably never will again. Why do so when there is so much rich content available so cheaply. If I see a new game that I really like I relax and buy it when it ends up in the Steam bargain bin.

 

[paperfist]

When I was a kid and went to the local video game store AAA titles were $40 and had 20 hour single player built right in!

 

[Fanatical Meat]

When I was a kid and went to the local video game store AAA titles were $40 and had 20 hour single player built right in!

agreed

 

[Craig234]

I used to pay around 50 bucks for Atari 2600 games. So, 60 bucks is really not bad at all. In fact, I paid 72 bucks for Super Mario Bros. 2 at release.

People forget how expensive gaming could be. I spend $500 for a 300MB (yes, MB) hard drive because it was an incredible bargain at a swap (yes, we used to travel 20 miles to go to a swap).

Probably the biggest purchase was $2100 for an NEC 21" top of the line monitor. I still have it though its power supply broke because it cost so much. Should get rid of it.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Even if that happens, I think one learning experience AAA studio's will go through is a more efficient use of marketing (which eats up +50% of AAA game budgets). As a target audience, gamers are typically "active" rather than passive consumers, ie, they'll go looking / keep themselves up to date on upcoming games themselves with or without expensive TV ads. Kids at school typically copy their peers, whilst Steam / GOG's "games released this week" newsletters along with various gaming site's / Youtube channels / Twitch streams will also reach desired target audience with 100% accuracy for virtually no cost.

TV ads have their place, but the over-saturation marketing done by AAA publishers is often just wasted money. Sometimes "over-hype" can have the opposite effect, ie, pump something so hard for so long, and people can end up sick of hearing about it before it's even released (especially if it's another example of watered down "E3 bullshots"). Personally I think "trimming the fat" is the best thing that could happen to "the big boys".

I agree, I feel there is a lot of poor planning, poor staffing and poor money management in gaming companies. I'll admit having them run like a bank might not be good because nobody will ever take chances but I guess that is what indie games are for.
Also in the past game companies would have to make their own game engine almost every time. This isn't the case any longer but we haven't seen a break on game prices other than steam sales/Humble store sales.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I used to pay around 50 bucks for Atari 2600 games. So, 60 bucks is really not bad at all. In fact, I paid 72 bucks for Super Mario Bros. 2 at release.

In the US? I remember 2600 games being in the $20-$30 range. I could be wrong.

 

[Craig234]

I agree, I feel there is a lot of poor planning, poor staffing and poor money management in gaming companies. I'll admit having them run like a bank might not be good because nobody will ever take chances but I guess that is what indie games are for.
Also in the past game companies would have to make their own game engine almost every time. This isn't the case any longer but we haven't seen a break on game prices other than steam sales/Humble store sales.

I don't know that there are big problems as you describe in gaming companies. And on the engine issue, games used to be a lot simpler also generally.

 

[DigDog]

title: Death of (something not actually dead)!

seen it before. click bait.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

What that article starts out by saying is that it's a lot to do with government meddling with things like min sale prices and stuff like that, it doesn't surprise me, things would be a lot different in a free and open market (you know, a moral one).

One thing to keep in mind with PC games and games in general is that they've not succumb to inflation nearly as much as everything else. As governments print more money and inflate the supply, the cost of all goods has to go up to compensate the devalued currency (basically a hidden tax on citizens) This natural price increase has made everything more expensive over the years but gamers seem almost unique sensitive to price hikes, what I've noticed is that since I was a kid games have always been £29.99 for the PC brand new and more recently £34.99 and £39.99, considering the time span this has occured over it's really not too bad.

Put this way in 1990 £30 was worth about £67.50 of 2016 value. So even with no increase in cost to make games you'd expect a normal/natural price to be nearly £70, yet they're not.

So that extra cash is coming from somewhere and that's DLC, micro transactions, merch, collectors editions and other side channels like related apps, 3rd party deals etc.

*edit*

I'd also like to add that the author of that article really doesn't understand economics very well, near the end they speculate about what would prevent price gouging without the laws around physical copies. What prevents that is competition between vendors, people tend to buy from the cheapest place possible, price gouging only typically happens in a free market when there's a limited supply of an in demand good/service, for example high end video cards when they first launch and there's only a handful.

There's really nothing stopping supply of digital content, at least nothing that won't scale with sales (e.g bandwidth, storage etc).

 

[Staples]

Besides COD games, I rarely play games online so I do not need to count on games being fresh when I buy them. I wait until their price becomes cheap (which happens on most PC games).

 

[Regs]

The reason why it's 60+ now is simply because they have not found a way to make them any cheaper. If they did, like some one already said, competition would come in and sell them cheaper. Over simplifying it - but that's the way of the world.

You are being charged the time of developing the game, the marketing, and other non-fixed costs. Price gouging is BS. If you are willing to pay those prices and there are its a luxury item, then its not gouging.