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Game Pricing Trends Examined
jvm writes "Over at Curmudgeon Gamer, there's a new article, 'A Preliminary Game Price Study', that tries to address the question 'How does the price of a $50 game drop after its release?'. Data, graphs and discussion are provided for almost fifty games across the three big consoles (PS2, Xbox, GameCube) over a span of nearly six months. Among other observations, two price drop periods are noted since the beginning of 2004, and for this data set it appears that Xbox games were discounted more on average than GameCube and PS2 games."
The short- and medium-term price of games is examined, but I'd be interested in the long term. Nominal prices have been in the $40-60 range for as long as I can remember (1980's for NES), and there was a period in time where SNES games were much, much more expensive (Mortal Kombat clocked in "on sale" for $69.99 IIRC).
Now, in the past 10-20 years, inflation has taken a bite out of prices, so real prices have gone down significantly. That $50 example (let's call it Marble Madness) costs about $81 today, accounting inflation! The Mortal Kombat cartridge would be almost $90! Can you imagine shelling out $90 for a cartridge game let alone one as awful as Mortal Kombat for the SNES? (This doesn't include you, Neo-Geo home system owners).
Of course, over time, the real price of video game software approaches zero as most games that are 10-20 years old command $1-5 in the bargain bin. Video games just need to sell extremely quickly and expensively to make vast profits... other profits are eked out slowly over time as nominal and real prices are reduced.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
The symbols used in the graphs are very nice. The Xbox line has what resembles an X, the Gamecube one has a square and the PS2 has a triangle. This denotes a well thought out legend. I applaud the efforts of this fine website.
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I have to say that this study doesn't say much.
EB issues "price changes" across the board every few weeks. This accounts for the drops that are seen.
As for Xbox games being discounted more, I would say that this sample size is way too small. Also the focus on "top tier" games shows fewer drops for PS2 games.
Let me explain. From working at EB, I know that there are an unbelievable number of "trash" PS2 games that are released. Most of you have never even heard of these games (RTX Red Rock, Seek & Destroy... etc.) these games run at $30-$50 for about a week and then plummet in price, often to under $10 in a month. Had some of these been included, the results would be different.
Also, microsoft's extremely agressive pricing of it's first party games CS and PGR2 also has an effect on the xbox graph.
As for gamecube... well. You folks at slashdot seem to want to always focus on the fact that the GC is hanging in there on the hardware side. Which is 100% true. Unfortunately, the GC get's KILLED in software sales. The average PS2 owner has 9 games, the average XBOX owner has 13, but average GC owner has only 5! (Gamenews daily, Feb04)
One last comment about the bargain bin, the reason that they are full of xbox games.... surprise! Because they sell! Everyone is sick of seeing all the old PS2 games (*many* of them sports games). So the bins are about 50% xbox 40% ps2 and 10% GC.
I find it rather interesting that E3 doesn't apparently show any effect on pricing. Perhaps this pricing change is more commonly shown in hardware though, but I would nonetheless expect games to drop in price.
The lack of PC data though is rather odd. PC games and console games are increasingly existing in the same space. The major difference being that the used market for console games seems to be rather large while the PC used market is much smaller. As well PC stock tends to be available longer. From my own informal observations (i.e. I just bought a Gamecube a few weeks ago) console games seem to hit the shelves, sell, and are then either discounted down, start showing up used (possibly forcing a decrease in price?), or re-released at a cheaper price (e.g. Nintendo's "Player's Choice" line). I really wonder what the effect of the used market is on new game prices. Some, more recent titles, show very little change (perhaps $5 cheaper for the used product) while older games are offered either at modest or serious discounts depending on total price and general popularity. Super Smash Bros. Melee is still around $25 with the new title selling close to the $30 mark, while the slightly newer (and critically acclaimed) Eternal Darkness has dropped in price to ~$13 or so. I was unable to even find new copies for sale.
Demand thus seems to be the likely factor that drives many of these price cuts. Yes, popular games will drop with time or in order to snare the last few holdouts by making a popular game available at a lower price. On the other hand older games that are still popular command relatively high prices in comparison (IIRC I paid $40 for the Diablo II Battle Chest about a year ago, a relatively high price for a game that's four years old).
You point to Skies of Arcadia Legends for GameCube. Do you know its price history? For the sake of those that don't:
In the U.S., this game was released in a limited print run last year. It sold out at $50 within months, and shot up to around $85 max for unopened copies on eBay, because of its newfound scarcity. This is why you see $40 used copies. Two months ago, a reprint was issued, and all retailers (who had been out of stock for months) - including GameStop, Amazon.com, and outpost.com (notable among collectors for having sporadically restocked first-print versions over the course of weeks leading into last November), restocked new copies, selling it at its new retail price of $20-$25. Selling out and warranting a reprint implies exactly the opposite of your assessment of the market's readiness to accept GameCube RPGs, and sites have already started granting good scores to Tales of Symphonia.
If you want to point at a game that has devalued due to market pressures, look no further than Beyond Good & Evil for all three current consoles. It sank to $20 within a week or two, and the GameCube and Xbox versions promptly sold out at most retailers. The PS2 version is now the only remaining version that is commonly available, although scarcity has not caused the collectible value of any version of the game to rise.
If you want another example, ask Visual Concepts about what they think of Madden, then prepare to avoid a few punches to the face.