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$60 Games Are Here To Stay
Next Generation explores the price jump for 'next generation' titles, looking into the success of the $60 price point for videogames. They have a copious number of graphs and charts to support their findings: "Even without Guitar Hero II, prices in 2007 are still at historically high levels. In January, fully four of the top 10 games sold for $60 or more. In February, that jumped to five $60 games, and the average rose accordingly. While there were four $60 games in March, they shared the top 10 with two Nintendo DS games which brought the average down sharply. This happened again in March -- the month of Pokemon -- and also in May."
Inflation and rising development costs result in both a higher price tag and acceptance of a higher price tag. News at 11.
$20 games that were $60 games last year here to stay too.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
....modchip sales are brisk.
I modded the firmware in my 360. True, I don't have Live access anymore...then again, considering I have burned roughly 20 games, I have saved about $1200...I think I will go buy a core system and spend a hundred bucks on Ebay to buy used version of the games I want on live...I've saved enough to make the purchase warrented.
Still. I refuse to pay 60 dollars for a game (unless it is something like Bioshock or Mass Effect or Fable 2...I intend to purchase those.)
Am I a criminal? Perhaps. Is what I'm doing morally wrong and illegal? Perhaps. Do I give a fuck? no.
Living With a Nerd
$50 is a sweet spot for me for regular video games (PC games and Console games). $20-30 is my sweet spot for mobile games (DS, PSP). Will I pay $60+ for a game? Sure, if I really wanted to play it. But if prices start going for $60, I won't be buying as much as I use too or I'll be waiting for games to get old or become used before purchasing.
One of the benefits of this 'new' user created mods for games, like Warcraft/Starcraft Maps, Counter-Strike, Flash Games (like ones from AddictingGames.com), I have lots of other options for games. Also, while I know lots of people who are 100% against subscription games (like MMO's), I'm pretty happy with games like LOTRO's whom I've gotten a special "pre-order" subscription price of $10/month (or $200 lifetime, which I didn't take as I generally have never played an MMO for almost 2 years straight). I'm happy with that kind of pricing. Much more happy than $15/month. Such that I'm willing to keep my subscription active even if I'm going to be MIA for most of a month. The amount of entertainment hours I get for my $ are amazing... if you considering spending $10 to see a 2-hour film at the theater and another $10 for popcorn and soda.
Likewise, the DS is proving to be a super fun system and games prices are often very awesome at $20 for things like Brain Age 2, etc. I'm also a fan of loading Warcraft 3 back on my PC and playing some MOD games, for no monthly fees or download prices.
With developers and gaming companies seeing the benefit of downloaded content (Wii, PS3, 360 are now all offering DL-able games, while the DS allows you to temporarily download the game from a friend to play multi-player), I hope to see future systems continue to allow more and more user created content that will give players a much cheaper option of games to play. I know there are plenty of flash games I'd enjoy just picking up and playing for a short time.
I guess there has become a big 'casual' trend in gaming and I know I enjoy it, despite having been 'hard-core' at times (non-stop multiple day MMO gaming, Counter-Strike competitions/tourney's, etc). Probably why Nintendo's Wii strategy is really hitting the mark today.
Cheers,
Fozzy
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
Are You F**KING NUTS?
The dot com bubble happened because of INFLATION? The dot com bubble made Many Many Many people wealthy, and kept the economy going for quite a few years. Then the charlatans became too common and the economy corrected. Inflation had ZERO to do with it. Over eager investment in stupid ideas is why the bubble burst.
House is the exact same thing. Stupid investors bought bad investments because they thought they could. Good for the sellers. Good for for me who fixed up and flipped two houses and then got the hell out of the market. For a while the cheap money helped a lot of people. Then people got stupid and it had to stop. That has absolutely nothing to do with inflation. That has to do with human nature and emotional purchasing.
A boom/bust cycle is NORMAL and HEALTHY. Every thing in the world is cyclical. If you have no cycle, you have no growth period and no correction period. If there is no cycle, the economy becomes stagnant and unless you already have money there is no way to earn good money. Sitting on my cash in the hopes that deflation will cause its value to grow slowly is a great plan to avoid risk and an even better plan to avoid reward.
In a cyclic economy the bulls make money, the bears can make money and the pigs get slaughtered.
In a flat non-boom/bust economy only the pigs who already have money can make money and anyone who wants to make money either through working hard or through buying smart has no opportunity to do either.
Don't be a dogma-quoter. Use your brain about what caused something to happen.
Meh, teleport back to the late '80's, then use your paper route money to buy a Zaxxon cartridge for Coleco for $50, or a Pole Position cartridge, with steering wheel and pedal, for $70, then get back to me.
Adjusting for inflation, it's like $200.
Adjusting for my buying power as a kid, it's like $34 million.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Call me crazy, but the grandparent poster doesn't mention the gold standard once in his post.
He does mention that our economy is inflating somewhat rapidly, which can be very easily verified by taking a look at some graphs plotting the exchange rates for US dollars.
Whether or not this is an explicitly bad thing is a subject of debate. From what I understand, inflation is generally considered to be a good thing in small amounts, and that the US is on the brink of passing the cusp of these "small amounts".
Take a look at what happened in Argentina. Their currency became worthless almost overnight due to poor economic practices (nothing to do with the gold standard).
The grandparent poster then draws a bunch of conclusions from the assumption that the dollar is inflating, all of which appear pretty sound in the context of other economic inferences. If the dollar's worth less, as in any economic disaster, the people with the least money are obviously going to be the most affected. Because people have to eat, wages will then hopefully rise to try and catch up.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Understood, but there's a lot less value in that $60 then there were even a few years ago. You want to put in a code to enhance your game? You can't just put in a magic code anymore, or even unlock it in some cases, you have to pay $5 - $10 for a microtransaction from a place like XBox Live (this is highly prevalent in EA games). And cheat devices have more or less been locked out (and if they're not, just wait for the lawsuits). If you want to play on XBox Live, you have to pay a fee (as opposed to what the PS2, Wii and DS do). Furthermore, some games charge a monthly fee just to be able to make them useful (Final Fantasy XI, WoW)
I'm not against a $10 if it's JUST for the game. But when you take all that into consideration, and remember that a lot of these $60 aren't "new" games so much as "updates" (EA also comes to mind here, too), then the price increase gets worse and worse and worse.
So yes, even though a $50 game in 1985 costs the same as $96.82 in 2007, once you take all of that into account, the price difference dissipates to the point of being nearly irrelevant.
Let's stop dilly-dallying and just change "-1: Overrated" to "-1: Disagree" or "-1: Doesn't Subscribe to Groupthink".
I pay $5 or less for my games. No hurry to get the latest, so wait until the price drops to what I'm willing to pay. "XIII", "Max Payne", "Oni", etc. are suitably entertaining, engaging, and cost less than lunch at McDonald's.
You want the latest? You are willing to pay $60 for the latest? Then, supply-and-demand, retailers will charge you what you're willing to pay for what you want - and that, for the collective "you", is working out to about $60.
Go figure.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?