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why does software cost so much?

xyyz

Diamond Member
the other day I could have bought a 1.4ghz Tbird with a fairly decent MB from fry's for $139... while thinking about how prices had dropped I waltzed to the software isle and picked up some application that had a price of $500, and was over a year old.

what's the deal here? why the hell does software cost so bloody much? yeah I know alot of time and effort goes into them... and i'm no software developer, but didn't as much time and effort go into the quake and unreal engines? how come you can buy those games for $50?

I mean I buy all my games... but I wait until the price drops to about $30... maybe if the prices for software were ALOT less people would actually go out and BUY the titles instead of ripping them off... and these software companies would make more money on many purchases instead of make less on a smaller amount of purchases.


This is the place to discuss the latest computer hardware issues and technology. Please keep the discussion ON TOPIC, and covering computer hardware ONLY.


Anandtech Moderator
 
I guess the reason why software costs more than games is games appeal to a wider audience so game software houses make more money off games even though the prices are lower than applications.

Also in the case of Quake and Unreal, I guess they make a large pot of cash by selling the engines to other software houses...something I guess you cannot really do with applications.
 
yeah but how much can they make... considering those that use their engines charge about $30-$50 for their games.

also, you can't tell me that Msft doesn't have a large audience for their products... almost everyone has at least one system that runs a MSFT OS... and I'm sure that almost everyone uses Office. They outta' charge $50 for Office XP and $50 for the full version of the OS... people will have to buy it anways.

OR... offer like MASSIVE... and I mean under $50 for products for students... I mean comeon... when the students go out in the world... they'll have expertise with your product and they'll really advocate it in their workplace.

I don't have XP now because I can't afford it and I missed out on all the special offers (through no fault of my own mind you).
 
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