How much is too much $ for games?

[rainless]

NO game is worth 70 bucks. Never was... Never will be. People have just gotten really good at making excuses for greedy corporations.

Four or five years from now they'll try to charge a few car payments for a game... three or four hundred bucks and they'll be those of you running around: "TOTALLY worth it dude! We're already spending 36 bucks a day for coffee so..."

Well whose fault is THAT?

Yeah I remember when they charged $120 for Street Fighter II. In retrospect... it seems completely stupid. We were had. Like whatever chip they had to throw in there was worth another (hey... wait a minute...) SEVENTY BUCKS?

Sigh... History repeating itself.

"Peanuts are TOTALLY worth 96 dollars a bag, Dude! Think about all those elephants have to go through to make 'em..."

 

[Janus67]

NO game is worth 70 bucks. Never was... Never will be. People have just gotten really good at making excuses for greedy corporations.

Four or five years from now they'll try to charge a few car payments for a game... three or four hundred bucks and they'll be those of you running around: "TOTALLY worth it dude! We're already spending 36 bucks a day for coffee so..."

Well whose fault is THAT?

Yeah I remember when they charged $120 for Street Fighter II. In retrospect... it seems completely stupid. We were had. Like whatever chip they had to throw in there was worth another (hey... wait a minute...) SEVENTY BUCKS?

Sigh... History repeating itself.

"Peanuts are TOTALLY worth 96 dollars a bag, Dude! Think about all those elephants have to go through to make 'em..."

Nobody said you have to pay full msrp. There's a used market and sales. I got my copy for $40

 

[rainless]

Nobody said you have to pay full msrp. There's a used market and sales. I got my copy for $40

What I'm saying is that the MSRP is pure BALDERDASH.

We were absolute FOOLS to pay $120 for Street Fighter II back in the day. You can't even get anywhere near that for it now on the collector's market. I see boxed copies in decent condition going for 20 bucks.

It was Microsoft and Sony who got together and decided that they were going to start charging 70 bucks for games (how this isn't "price fixing" is beyond me...) And not for the first time either. "Oh this new technology costs so much to produce, blah, blah, blah..."

Then what the hell is Nintendo's excuse? Their system has been out for six years.

Same cartridges... Same technology... And I don't see Tom Holland and Zendaya stepping into the roles of Link and Zelda... So what do they need the money for?

Pure mass hysteria.

 

[Janus67]

While I do agree with you overall, we should be at least remotely happy that game cost didn't go up with inflation like many other products have.

I remember when PC was $50 and console was $60 until (the first) modern warfare 2 came out and boom almost all PC releases were also $60.

The only increase I can understand is that the cost to develop games is/can be magnitudes more than it was 30 years ago

 

[dfonda]

NO game is worth 70 bucks. Never was... Never will be. People have just gotten really good at making excuses for greedy corporations.

Four or five years from now they'll try to charge a few car payments for a game... three or four hundred bucks and they'll be those of you running around: "TOTALLY worth it dude! We're already spending 36 bucks a day for coffee so..."

Well whose fault is THAT?

Yeah I remember when they charged $120 for Street Fighter II. In retrospect... it seems completely stupid. We were had. Like whatever chip they had to throw in there was worth another (hey... wait a minute...) SEVENTY BUCKS?

Sigh... History repeating itself.

"Peanuts are TOTALLY worth 96 dollars a bag, Dude! Think about all those elephants have to go through to make 'em..."

I think games are worth way more than $70...300+ hours on TotK...I'll do twice that on Starfield...

To put that in perspective a round of Golf on my favorite course is $ 45 (3.5 hours). Plus $ 20 for lunch (1 hour ) and I pay a nurses aid $32 an hour for 6 hours so I can play. 6 am to 12 PM...When I game I do not need an aid since I am home.

and although I love golf more than gaming it is a close 2nd. $70 for Starfield is a bargain....It cost $200 million to make.

I don't go to movies but $11 for 2.5 hours is much worse.

 

[rainless]

I think games are worth way more than $70...300+ hours on TotK...I'll do twice that on Starfield...

To put that in perspective a round of Golf on my favorite course is $ 45 (3.5 hours). Plus $ 20 for lunch (1 hour ) and I pay a nurses aid $32 an hour for 6 hours so I can play. 6 am to 12 PM...When I game I do not need an aid since I am home.

and although I love golf more than gaming it is a close 2nd. $70 for Starfield is a bargain....It cost $200 million to make.

I don't go to movies but $11 for 2.5 hours is much worse.

Well everyone's entitled to their opinion...

...yours is just based entirely on misconceptions and false equivalences.

I mean what's your criteria for determining how much games should cost? How much it cost them to make it? How many hours of gameplay?

So Zelda cost 200 million to make and you get 300 hours of gameplay out of it. That's worth $79.99, you say, because of that. Should independent games like Retromania... which probably cost less than $10,000 to produce and features about 1 hour total of entertainment be free then?

And you didn't just seriously compare going to a store and buying a video game to paying for usage of a GOLF COURSE did you??!

Nah... I must've misread you. Because that's exactly the same thing as saying: "Gee... I think 70 bucks is a deal considering how much it would cost me to put together my own space federation and prepare for interstellar travel and build my own ray guns... Why... the power source ALONE would cost.."

Do I need to delve any deeper into the problem with that comparison?

You aren't buying "entertainment" when you're buying a game. Nor are you funding the production of said game. Most of the time you're not even purchasing a physical good.

What you're doing is buying a software license. That's it.

That is ALL.

You're no more responsible for covering the production costs of that game than you are for covering the production costs of a film when you pay the 11 bucks for your ticket.

The production costs are the game company's expense which they should hopefully recoup through the volume of sales... not through the price per unit.

Joker could not have made a ten billion dollars instead of one billion dollars if they just told everyone "Gee... This movie is going to be $110 instead of $11 because we really worked hard on this one..."

That's absurd.

Street Fighter II cost no more to make than any other video game of its time... They just charged $120 or whatever it was because they knew they could get away with it. By they time they got to Super Streetfighter or whatever, the price was back down to $49.99 or whatever it used to be back then.

Shameless price-gouging in the video game market is HISTORICAL. They ALWAYS come up with some B.S. reason to try and jack-up the base price for games. And you vote with your WALLET.

They only reason games don't cost as much as systems is because they already tried that... and they couldn't get away with it.

So don't be so quick to follow their Uncle Fester/Always Sunny/"Pepe Silvia"-logic. The worst argument in all of recorded human history is the "You spend that much on a cup of coffee" argument. What does the price of your coffee have to do with how fast a duck can swim in Indochina?

"GEE! You can get 300 hours of gameplay out of this!"

Oh yeah...? What about CHESS?

You can get about 3000 years of gameplay out of that. How much should Chess Ultra cost?

 

[dfonda]

Well everyone's entitled to their opinion...

...yours is just based entirely on misconceptions and false equivalences.

I mean what's your criteria for determining how much games should cost? How much it cost them to make it? How many hours of gameplay?

So Zelda cost 200 million to make and you get 300 hours of gameplay out of it. That's worth $79.99, you say, because of that. Should independent games like Retromania... which probably cost less than $10,000 to produce and features about 1 hour total of entertainment be free then?

And you didn't just seriously compare going to a store and buying a video game to paying for usage of a GOLF COURSE did you??!

Nah... I must've misread you. Because that's exactly the same thing as saying: "Gee... I think 70 bucks is a deal considering how much it would cost me to put together my own space federation and prepare for interstellar travel and build my own ray guns... Why... the power source ALONE would cost.."

Do I need to delve any deeper into the problem with that comparison?

You aren't buying "entertainment" when you're buying a game. Nor are you funding the production of said game. Most of the time you're not even purchasing a physical good.

What you're doing is buying a software license. That's it.

That is ALL.

You're no more responsible for covering the production costs of that game than you are for covering the production costs of a film when you pay the 11 bucks for your ticket.

The production costs are the game company's expense which they should hopefully recoup through the volume of sales... not through the price per unit.

Joker could not have made a ten billion dollars instead of one billion dollars if they just told everyone "Gee... This movie is going to be $110 instead of $11 because we really worked hard on this one..."

That's absurd.

Street Fighter II cost no more to make than any other video game of its time... They just charged $120 or whatever it was because they knew they could get away with it. By they time they got to Super Streetfighter or whatever, the price was back down to $49.99 or whatever it used to be back then.

Shameless price-gouging in the video game market is HISTORICAL. They ALWAYS come up with some B.S. reason to try and jack-up the base price for games. And you vote with your WALLET.

They only reason games don't cost as much as systems is because they already tried that... and they couldn't get away with it.

So don't be so quick to follow their Uncle Fester/Always Sunny/"Pepe Silvia"-logic. The worst argument in all of recorded human history is the "You spend that much on a cup of coffee" argument. What does the price of your coffee have to do with how fast a duck can swim in Indochina?

"GEE! You can get 300 hours of gameplay out of this!"

Oh yeah...? What about CHESS?

You can get about 3000 years of gameplay out of that. How much should Chess Ultra cost?

Someday time left is more valuable than money....If I enjoyed chess then that would be a good analogy....

Your analysis of what a game costs seems to be based entirely on what you can afford. So I suggested that the hours of fun one gets...out weigh the cost of the game....Since companies stay in business maybe their products are worth more than you think. IMHO

I am personally glad game companies exist and sell games at any price.

 

[rainless]

Someday time left is more valuable than money....If I enjoyed chess then that would be a good analogy....

Your analysis of what a game costs seems to be based entirely on what you can afford. So I suggested that the hours of fun one gets...out way the cost of the game....Since companies stay in business maybe their products are worth more than you think. IMHO

I am personally glad game companies exist and sell games at any price.

So wait... You think game companies will cease to exist if they don't charge $80 for their games? Is that the problem with the gaming industry?

I thought it was the release schedule, overworked developers, and budgets booming out of control because of delusional directors and greedy, crooked executives promise the public the sun and the moon between now and Christmas and often fail to deliver, resulting in FAILURE, after FAILURE, after FAILURE... so they have to rely on one big hit to cover their losses.

And are YOU the guy who keeps bringing up how much money I make?

My take on the game industry has nothing to do with "what I can afford" and everything to do with what the temporary rights to a software license that could disappear at any second are worth. Rarely does anyone even have a physical disc anymore. So when they finally decide to shut down the 360 store, or the PS3/PS4/PS5 store or the eShop for Switch... you'll be left with either an extremely convoluted work-around...

...or nothing.

And online services for games shutdown all the time now. I love Killzone for PS4... but they've shutdown. And with no way to setup your own servers... I guess I'll just have to never play it again.

The product is more than likely worth even LESS than I think. And companies should adjust their budgets to what games actually sell for, not jack up the price to cover their budgets. Especially on titles that they KNOW are going to sell millions of copies whether they're any good or not (looking at YOU "Call of Duty: Ghosts"...)

It's a backwards way of thinking and I truly hate how the industry turns fans into corporate apologists.

 

[EarthDog]

You aren't buying "entertainment" when you're buying a game.

and everything to do with what the temporary rights to a software license that could disappear at any second are worth.

Sorry.... but we're not??? 'Ownership' and playability nearly TWO DECADES later (killzone - not chess with the game already made ~1,500 years ago and not changed since...) is not a reason I ever bought games. I buy games because of the perceived entertainment value... I'd venture most users are the same.

We can all sit out on the front porch with a shotgun after it's all over and say, 'get off my lawn' (El Camino), but I'm just not that person with games and ownership. I huffed and puffed when this started happening well over a decade ago (hated Steam/EA/Ubi/Epic/Rockstar and all of these 'repositories'), but am all out of breath and accepted our fate. Making an active choice not to buy a game because I may not be able to play it in 20 years (10?), isn't a concern (of mine).

Just remember, 'worth it' is in the eye of the beholder. You don't find it 'worth it' to buy a game at $79.99, not have a disk/ownership, and not be able to play it at some point several years down the line. That's just as OK as saying, '59/69/79 dollars is worth the hundreds of hours of entertainment this game gives me over its lifespan....however long that may be'.

And companies should adjust their budgets to what games actually sell for,

Games are actually selling for $59/69/79.99+. Like, hand over fist, they are selling at those prices (and higher for the super-gold-premium-have-some-skins-early-early-access versions, lol). It's the going rate. I don't like it any more than paying $4 for gas when 19 years ago it was $1.60, either. But I can't stress myself out (read: mention it) every time I go to the pump or berate others because they buy it at that price without the same discontent.

They only reason games don't cost as much as systems is because they already tried that... and they couldn't get away with it.

A serious question... when has a game cost as much as a video console? SF2 came out at $70 in 1992 (right?). Nintendo was $180, and SNES was $200 IIRC...

 

[Janus67]

Or, you know, just wait until a game is on sale? You can semi-regularly find TOTK for around $40-45 now. That's about what my average price point is for a new game. That or I wait for a Target buy 2 get 1 sale and get 3 games for around that price point (and physical copies, imagine that).

But yes, SF2 was $70, not $120, which is an enormous hyperbole in that regard (almost 60% more for exaggeration purposes).

Gaming, sports, TV, movies, hobbies, etc are all part of my entertainment budget. I don't like to put a number on $/hour as things are all different, and the last thing I want is games that should be 10-15 hours stretched to 100 hours because they wanted "better value" -- aka the Assassins Creed games.

 

[rainless]

Sorry.... but we're not???

No. You're not. You might be buying games to entertain yourself... but you're not buying "entertainment." That's the difference. If you were buying pure entertainment... then the hell with it... $90,000 a game. But that's not what they're selling. They're selling a software license. And you get less with that license now than you got 20 years ago.

At least back in 2003 you still got box art, a manual, hell... Sometimes even a poster. Not to mention a fixed media that would allow you to continue playing the game long after they stopped selling, or caring about, the system.

The "entertainment" you're talking about comes from you... not them. All they're doing is selling a software license.

We can all sit out on the front porch with a shotgun after it's all over and say, 'get off my lawn' (El Camino), but I'm just not that person with games and ownership. I huffed and puffed when this started happening well over a decade ago (hated Steam/EA/Ubi/Epic/Rockstar and all of these 'repositories'), but am all out of breath and accepted our fate. Making an active choice not to buy a game because I may not be able to play it in 20 years (10?), isn't a concern (of mine).

Just remember, 'worth it' is in the eye of the beholder.

Apparently it's not. You surrendered. You quit. I didn't. They actually wanted to do $70 and $80 games last generation. (And I believe the one before that). But they had to back-off it because the backlash was too-heavy. But that was just sticker shock. They flash the "We're gonna raise games up to $99 each" at you... the people come out with the pitchforks and torches... and they go "Okay, okay... We've heard you loud-and-clear... That's way too much. We're only going to raise the price to $59.99."

That's not "the eye of the beholder". That's market manipulation and consumer conditioning.

I'm pushing back because someone HAS to push back. Otherwise it'll be $200 a game... then $300 a game...

You don't find it 'worth it' to buy a game at $79.99, not have a disk/ownership, and not be able to play it at some point several years down the line. That's just as OK as saying, '59/69/79 dollars is worth the hundreds of hours of entertainment this game gives me over its lifespan....however long that may be'.


Games are actually selling for $59/69/79.99+. Like, hand over fist, they are selling at those prices (and higher for the super-gold-premium-have-some-skins-early-early-access versions, lol). It's the going rate. I don't like it any more than paying $4 for gas when 19 years ago it was $1.60, either. But I can't stress myself out (read: mention it) every time I go to the pump or berate others because they buy it at that price without the same discontent.



A serious question... when has a game cost as much as a video console? SF2 came out at $70 in 1992 (right?). Nintendo was $180, and SNES was $200 IIRC...

https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/2paz03

Price gouging. EVERYWHERE. I got my copy from either Funcoland or Gamestop (whoever they were in 1992). Ridge Mall in Chicago. Pre-ordered of course. $120.

As you can see in that thread... The MSRP was SUPPOSED to be $69.99. But in big cities like New York (where the average price was closer to 80) and Chicago (I told you what I paid)... people were charging whatever they wanted.

I might've gotten a better deal at Montgomery Ward or Sears or Kohl's or somewhere that they were selling it for $69.99... but none of those were game stores. They might've gotten 3-4 copies in max. And they didn't do pre-orders. So gone before I would'eve even gotten out of school that day.

And let's not forget the other problem with your theory (and the place where $80 games comes from in the first place). This all started because Call of Duty, and a couple other titles decided they were "Premium Products"... so they SHOULD cost 20 or thirty bucks more. But if you make $79.99 the new base price... then they next time they decide to charge a "premium price"... then we're right back at $100-$120 a game. And that ain't right.

If push came to shove... I could buy it... but for the kids my age? Who came from the poor part of the south side of Chicago like I did? Forget about it.

Hell I JUST bought Diablo IV... which no one is playing anymore... They wanted a premium price for that. Then Baldur's Gate 3... a vastly superior game in every way... came out for $59.99.

So HOW are you judging a game's value again? Why aren't the developers of BG3 going out of business?

Because it's all B.S.

Or, you know, just wait until a game is on sale? You can semi-regularly find TOTK for around $40-45 now. That's about what my average price point is for a new game. That or I wait for a Target buy 2 get 1 sale and get 3 games for around that price point (and physical copies, imagine that).

(Already explained how ridiculous SF2 pricing worked.)

Let's take Diablo 4, for example... Blizzard owns the game and the store that sells the game. So there is no Diablo IV sale. Here in Europe (where I almost never buy games) they charge an ADDITIONAL 10-30 euros over what you guys pay in the States. (Which is why I use U.S. accounts for all my games. Even with the tax it usually comes out cheaper).

Generally speaking I do wait until games go on sale. But that's become a longer and longer wait each time.

It's a damned minefield. (Though some stores here run crazy pre-orders, like I got SF6, pre-ordered, for 49.96... a price unheard of anywhere for that game. And on console at that...)

I just don't want to sit here and make excuses or find workarounds for the game industry. They've been making money hand-over-fist since the pandemic. Ubisoft was on the verge of financial collapse pre-pandemic for pulling this same kinda crap. (And the games they released during the pandemic were straight GARBAGE too... I'm looking at you Watchdogs: Legions.)

But ohhhh what a difference a lot of people stuck at home with nothing to do and brand new game systems with no games can do for your bottom line...

The last time anyone stood-up to the game industry was the X-Box One launch. And what happened? Microsoft changed their ENTIRE BUSINESS STRATEGY.

That needs to happen at least once a year. I'm not folding until that's a reality.

 

[EarthDog]

No. You're not. You might be buying games to entertain yourself... but you're not buying "entertainment." That's the difference. If you were buying pure entertainment... then the hell with it... $90,000 a game. But that's not what they're selling. They're selling a software license. And you get less with that license now than you got 20 years ago.

At least back in 2003 you still got box art, a manual, hell... Sometimes even a poster. Not to mention a fixed media that would allow you to continue playing the game long after they stopped selling, or caring about, the system.

The "entertainment" you're talking about comes from you... not them. All they're doing is selling a software license.

I don't like the splitting of hairs here when clearly you know what 'entertainment' means. It doesn't matter if I'm banging buttons and interacting with the product. It's still entertaining/ment.

Again, I agree boxes are cool...box art is cool. But I bought it to play the game inside. The fact that it looks cool is secondary and not a variable used in the decision to make the purchase (unless perhaps it's a collector's item that fetches more of a premium?). Again, I agree you get less (cardboard? instructions? wasted plastic CDs? )...but we still get the thing we paid for.......the game. Shrinkflation is a *****, eh? Nobody likes it. You aren't wrong!

(Already explained how ridiculous SF2 pricing worked.)

Sort of. You tried to sell us using details that aren't true.

That's not "the eye of the beholder". That's market manipulation and consumer conditioning.

Charging what the market bears is a normal for-profit business practice to me. They test the waters all the time. New or innovative products come out (customer loyalty plays a role) and see what the market will bear. We all encourage companies to focus on their target demographic to see what THEY are willing and ABLE to pay. They did/do that...and I understand you're upset at the outcome (again, people are buying 'software licenses' hand over fist). I'd love to pay $5 for an Atari cartridge in the bin at Target right now!

...but if you want a AAA title on launch day, you're going to have to pay the MSRP and potentially a premium if stores decide to gouge. I'm sorry you paid nearly double (yet still not close to the price of a console) for SF2 back in the day.

As you can see in that thread... The MSRP was SUPPOSED to be $69.99. But in big cities like New York (where the average price was closer to 80) and Chicago (I told you what I paid)... people were charging whatever they wanted.

Did I misunderstand who you're blaming? Earlier (in 2 posts, even) it was the greedy game devs... now, it's the stores causing the inflation? Where are you actually pointing your ire?

So HOW are you judging a game's value again?

Not by the disk, box art, and poster we don't have these days, that's for sure!

Being more serious, it depends wildly. I may not pay $70 for a SP game, but don't mind as much if I'm playing with friends as that is more entertaining to me. Not only am I gaming, but I'm doing it with an IRL friend...entertainment levels skyrocket for me.


Again, you're not wrong in some of what you're saying... prices are high... we are getting less than before. But others don't look at it the same way (same furvor) you do and that's OK too. It's not absurd, nor a backward way of thinking... it's just different than how Team Rainless believes things should work. We value what pleasures the purchase brings us....... and not lament on the fact that we don't own the box/disk/poster/game, it may not work several years down the road, and costs more at the get.

 

[rainless]

We're just going in circles at this point. I think I made my stance clear since I explained it seventeen different ways to three (four?) different people.

You're not paying for the game anymore. You were all the way up until the PS3/Xbox 360. A handful of PS4/Xbox One games you could play without ever connecting to the internet.

All that is DONE now.

Like I said the first seven times: It's a software license. It's less than gamers have ever had before. And they want you to pay more.

You're somehow fine with this. I, definitively, am not.

We'll just leave it at that.

 

[Janus67]

Pretty sure you can play almost (if not all) Nintendo first party games without connecting to the internet (including Zelda: TOTK, which this thread is about)

Fairly certain I could do so with ratchet and clank, God of war Ragnarok, and FF7:remake on my PS5 as well.

All of which are physical copies.

Now if you only buy digital games that is your choice, but it is/has been obvious that those are just a 'license'. PC releases have been digital only (for all intents and purposes) for almost 20 years with the advent of steam and when it grew to what it is now.

I'm fine with continuing this conversation, but figure it should probably split away from the Zelda discussion.

 

[dfonda]

Rainless you absolutely are the very best at placing folks in a conversational cul de sac...

 

[Niku-Sama]

yea i agree i'd like to get in on this if it was in its own thread.

as far as tears of the kingdom is concerned it is still TLOZ:Nuts and Bolts to me

 

[EarthDog]

I'm fine with continuing this conversation, but figure it should probably split away from the Zelda discussion.

+1.

I'll try to figure out how to move the OT posts from where it started (post #25) and clean this up a bit.




EDIT: Done.

Continue on, @Niku-Sama @Janus67

 

[freeagent]

I have a hard time wanting to spend more than 50CAD bucks on a game. I have a short attention span so I really dont get into many of the games that I buy. And they get wasted. And I end up folding on my GPU so I dont feel like I just wasted a thousand bucks on a piece of hardware that I hardly use.

 

[Kenrou]

The games I buy, I tend to play over hundreds of hours, so $80 doesn't really sound so bad overall if you know what I mean, but I do agree that for the vast majority of them, the ones that will only give you a handful of hours of enjoyment, it is way too much regardless of 4k hd textures, RT, insane good story, etc etc etc... But at the same time it really depends on what YOU as a consumer is willing to give, and that's also how companies exploit you. Double edged sword type argument?

 

[JLK03F150]

It does seem a bit odd to me that you can buy a physical copy with a case/box and cover art or buy a digital license for the same price. IMO the digital should come at a somewhat lower price than the physical. The majority of what I buy is well after original release and usual a pre-owned copy.
I've been PC gaming since the late 80's and got upset when game prices went from $19.99 up to $29.99 (damn you Roberta! j/k).
Even though I wasn't happy paying $70 for Zelda totk on release day, I know how many hours I'll put into the game and I'm okay with it.
On another topic: the game worked perfectly on release day, which can't be said for many AAA games on release day.