Cost of video games becoming absurd

[Lazuli]

G2A.com is the best place to get games. The prices are absurd but have rising with each new console i remember 30-40$ for n64 era games.. Then the xbox came out and everything was 50.. then 360 and it was 60 and now x1 and ive seen some 70$ but ya its stupid as hell.. Leave them at 50$ since most arent even worth that

I think the last physical copy game I remember buying in stores was FFIX for the PS1 and that was $50, that was the best bday I ever had... game changed my life xD

[markos82]

Do like me, avoid paying for a stupid console and buy a computer, enjoy the best graphic possible and download all your stuff for free.

Considering Chinese cracking team decided ( was payed ) not to crack games in the near future likelihood of getting a new cracked game on torrents are very slim. I am still waiting for Farcry primal....

[McNeil]

I've always found video games expensive, no matter in which era. So I get very critical of which games I buy that can give me atleast 20+ hours of entertainment for full price, they usually end up being open world games with a lot of optional stuff to do. Playing WoW for so long has actually given me a cheap gaming experience so far, despite the monthly sub.

[Shawken]

In this case, using Doom as the example, it is worth every penny of $60.00. If you have no interest in the multiplayer (which I personally don't), don't buy the season pass. If you like the multiplayer, wait until closer to time to release the new content and see if you still want to make the purchase.

Doom's single-player campaign is easily the best shooter in over a decade by a wide margin. I haven't had this much pure fun playing a game since I can remember.

[Teebone]

I don't recall them being that high, but I fondly remember Super Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat 2 for SNES both being $70 when they came out (1994). Adjusted to today's costs, they would've been well over $100 now, so your point about game prices (especially during the 16-bit era) is very valid.

I don't care to pay out the nose nowadays for games, either, which is sort of ironic coming from someone still subbing to a MMO (FF14).

I find it amusing how people complain about game pricing now in an era where we have things like the upcoming Steam Summer Sale, where you can get games from a year or so ago on sale for damn near nothing.

I do wish more games (namely on PC) offered free demos a la 10-15 years ago, rather than leaving people to resort to picking up rated arrrrr versions of the game just to try it out, or leaving their judgement at the mercy of game reviews.

Both of these I paid $89.99 for. Both of these were absolute must-haves of that year.

They weren't the first:




Were actually a couple years ahead of that.

[SodiumChloride]

I was just gonna say, cartridge based games got very expensive in the late SNES and especially N64 era. I remember third party N64 titles were often $80, sometimes up to $100. It was absolutely bonkers. Once discs became the norm, prices decreased dramatically. $60 for AAA games has been the standard for a pretty long time now. DLC is all extra stuff and isn't completely necessary. If it's story based "day one DLC", like with Mass Effect 3, that really sucks, but that isn't usually the case. I couldn't care less about skins, OP and broken armor/weapon packs and other such nonsense.

That because those cartridges are hella expensive.

Some SNES games even have helper chips in the cartridges which drove up the cost even more.

CDs/DVDs/Blurays on the other hand are dirt cheap in bulk.

Unfortunately while media cost has fallen and stayed low, development cost has continue to raise as graphical fidelity increases.

PS1 game probably took 6 people + a few months to make. PS4 game ... years and an army of artists.

[Schmilblick]

People keep paying, so why not.

[Kazgrel]

[IMG]

Both of these I paid $89.99 for. Both of these were absolute must-haves of that year.

They weren't the first

I never remember the games being that expensive. But I'm taking your word for it, because I do remember SNES being $500 USD when it first came out stateside. Just tried thumbing around looking for a pic from Sears catalog where it was advertised for that much. But hey, at least it came with a game and two controllers.

[Lotus Victoria]

In my country, it's even worse. Here we pay 250-300 "money", most of the price being taxes. 300 bucks for a game. Yep. This is just as fucked up as it sounds.

[Varitok]

The logic of it being expensive back in the day thus it being okay to be expensive now is bullshit, considering the printing of game disks and digital downloading completely nullifies the old expensive prices. Don't forget there is flash memory inside a cartridge anymore which cost a lot of money to produce and you were at the whims of local shops.

Game prices are ridiculous because:

A: Games became popular and the company's that want to screw you out of every dime in every other area of life realized they can make massive money from the hugely popular game market. (its why you have things like a chinese investment bank owning Riot)
B: They decided to make marketing budgets million upon millions of dollars so they up the price to offset a cost on themselves.


There is no reason that games shouldn't cost 40-50 dollars nowadays but they don't cost that much because of Greed and Inflated and ridiculous marketing budgets.

The ease of new game engines is amazing, Anyone can make a game now and a lot of companies don't use their own engine anymore and just modify an existing one, eliminating the cost of making an engine from scratch.

[unholytestament]

Phantasy Star 2 cover
Strider cover

Were actually a couple years ahead of that.

Good God did Sega put out some awful and inappropriate box art for their games back in the day... I mean, Nintendo did it too (EX: from this cover I doubt you could tell this was a game about ninjas and samurai!), but GOD DAMN.

[May90]

I still don't quite understand why people think video games are expensive. An average cost of a movie ticket today is, if I'm not mistaken, around $9, usually for a 2 hours movie, that is $4.5 per hour. Apparently you get many times more than that out of what you spend on video games. Buy Doom for $60, and you can play through the campaign as many times as you want, tinker with the level editor, play multiplayer... Easily can pack hundreds hours in these $60, making it dozens times cheaper than movies.

Yet I don't see anyone complaining about high movie ticket costs. Weird.

[glowpipe]

No. you access the full game for 59 bucks and then additional extra shit for the extra 100. Completly optional

[Deleted]

Even bigger reason to pirate games, eventually Denuvo will be annihilated.

"Life finds a way" and all that.

Downside: if all game companies go bankrupt, who will develop new games?

[Sentynel]

My only advice is not to buy shitty AAA titles. Search Steam for Indie & Early access games. They're relatively cheap and last for hundreds of hours /played.

[Pull My Finger]

I still don't quite understand why people think video games are expensive. An average cost of a movie ticket today is, if I'm not mistaken, around $9, usually for a 2 hours movie, that is $4.5 per hour. Apparently you get many times more than that out of what you spend on video games. Buy Doom for $60, and you can play through the campaign as many times as you want, tinker with the level editor, play multiplayer... Easily can pack hundreds hours in these $60, making it dozens times cheaper than movies.

Yet I don't see anyone complaining about high movie ticket costs. Weird.

How do you know that nobody thinks that movie tickets are too expensive? I think you'd be surprised.

But most importantly: games have become significantly more expensive in a relatively short period of time.

[Orange Joe]

How do you know that nobody thinks that movie tickets are too expensive? I think you'd be surprised.

But most importantly: games have become significantly more expensive in a relatively short period of time.

Examples please. I've been paying the same for games for about 20 years now.

[May90]

How do you know that nobody thinks that movie tickets are too expensive? I think you'd be surprised.

But most importantly: games have become significantly more expensive in a relatively short period of time.

Then, again, if we account for inflation, we will find that the game prices are about the same as before. Same goes for movie tickets. Books have become much cheaper recently though, since the demand dropped. There were plots and numbers earlier in the thread confirming that games nowadays are even a bit cheaper than they were in 90-s. Are they more expensive today compared, say, to 5-10 years ago? This I don't know.

[dope_danny]

I just buy less games myself. Games are by and large buggy and insulting to the point anything called "AAA" is suspect to me at best.

I tend now to focus on things i know have longevity or replay value like Dark Souls or Monster Hunter. You pay once and gets over a hundred or even a thousand hours of out of it for £40, the ten hour season pass day one dlc mainstream stuff can do one.

[Deleted]

Downside: if all game companies go bankrupt, who will develop new games?

Take Dice, they have there office in central Stockholm, lake/archipelago view and over the "old town" must be one of Sweden's most expensive office... they might as well have the office in the suburb of Stockholm and save loots of cash in rent, but they do not have to becuse peopel are ready to pay premium price for there games...