£60-70 for Games just do not make sense in 2020...

[fonejacker]

Think about this....

£70 for a single piece of entertainment in 2020.....

Think how ridiculous this sounds...

You can access hundreds and thousands of hours of quality entertainment online either for free or a tiny monthly fee on like Netflix and youtube etc....
Yet gaming in the only medium that demands this stupid premium. WHY? For games that have lavish graphics loads of cut scenes and very little 'game' in them.
'Gaming is not a passive entertainment though, it is interactive' you may say, I agree but it is still entertainment that competes for your free time. how long can this model be sustained?
I am amazed, staggered, that the AAA industry has not had a crash by now. surely it is richly deserved though.

Times have changed, the industry never seems too though.

 

[Agema]

Think about this....

£70 for a single piece of entertainment in 2020.....

Think how ridiculous this sounds...

Sort of.

A smash blockbuster game is going to flog about 20 million copies or more. At just $50 (I'll use dollars for ease of comparison) that's $1 billion, which is fairly similar to a big movie blockbuster box office. And the development costs are similar to movies as well: easily over $100 million for a major title these days. To put this in further context, a movie blockbuster is going to come in up to about 3 hours (bloated nonsense many of them are) and cost ~$10 cinema ticket. So you could get about fifteen hours entertainment for $50, which is way less than you'll get out of the average computer game. So, I would argue, movies should die before computer games.

I am aware you stated £70. Outside maybe some indy games that are very miche with low sales, I have no idea how the hell anyone justifies that sort of price. I'd pretty much refuse anything over £40 on principle. If we include microtransactions, there's a huge logic in pouring huge sums into online gaming. You're not just buying gameplay (and often not buying gameplay at all), you're buying personal image. A Ford Fiesta will get you from A to B as well as a Mercedes C class, but you might want to look a damn sight more stylish in the latter. Although personally, I think the main achievement of driving a Merc, BMW or Audi is that I'm about twenty times more likely to assume you're both a twat and a dangerous driver.

 

[Shadyside]

Which is why people need to stop buying games when they come out. You should already know that it will only take a couple of months for it to drop in price and have all the dlc and bugs fixed.

 

[Breakdown]

The last game I bought on the release date was Dark Souls 3 in 2016.

 

[Griffith]

It is a hell of a lot of money. I've been so used to buying second-hand games that full price games baffle me, especially finding a PS2 game with a £30 sticker on it from release then buying it for maybe £1 (thank you CeX).

 

[Chimpzy]

Doesn't matter if it makes sense or not, only whether the industry can get away with it. And they likely will get away with it, because they spent a lot of energy and resources into ever more sophisticated methods of converting consumers into accepting their bull, which they on the whole have been more successful at than not.

 

[Ezekiel]

Is this thread only for the English? Because 70 pounds is 90 dollars. Our games don't cost that much. They are currently 60. Sony's will be 70 next gen. Which I agree is too much. I can't even remember the last game I bought at 60 dollars. The prices go down so fast anyway. Actually, no, some of my Nintendo Switch games were 60 or close to that. But I usually find them more fun than the AAA western stuff, so I accept it.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Think about this....

£70 for a single piece of entertainment in 2020.....

Think how ridiculous this sounds...

You can access hundreds and thousands of hours of quality entertainment online either for free or a tiny monthly fee on like Netflix and youtube etc....
Yet gaming in the only medium that demands this stupid premium. WHY? For games that have lavish graphics loads of cut scenes and very little 'game' in them.
'Gaming is not a passive entertainment though, it is interactive' you may say, I agree but it is still entertainment that competes for your free time. how long can this model be sustained?
I am amazed, staggered, that the AAA industry has not had a crash by now. surely it is richly deserved though.

Times have changed, the industry never seems too though.

1. Netflix doesn't have to create the vast majority of it's content. It simply hosts a streaming service. So the comparison to Video Games falls flat.

2. Individual creators on Youtube make things, but that effort is far less than a full on Video Game, and again Youtube itself creates very little so there is no comparison to be made here either.

Both 1 and 2 also fail because neither thing is an interactive medium. You click, you watch, that's it. A video Game is far more engaging in it's content, thus making that engagement more valuable because you directly affect it.

As for the modern day cost of Video Games. The price has been gradually increasing over time. Either through the actually up front cost of $60-70 dollars, to the completed price of $100+ to get the version with all the bells and whistles.

Except for the fact that video games suffer price drop faster than any media on the market. You go and buy a printing of a 20 year old book and you'll still pay full price. But it's rare to see anything Non-Nintendo made by the AAA-industry for full price after more than a month or two.

Video gaming is a hobby that benefits greatly from actually waiting a while before picking up any new releases. With the only exception being (maybe) massively Multiplayer driven experiences. Unless those experiences become smash hits like Fortnite.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Think about this....

£70 for a single piece of entertainment in 2020.....

Think how ridiculous this sounds...

You can access hundreds and thousands of hours of quality entertainment online either for free or a tiny monthly fee on like Netflix and youtube etc....
Yet gaming in the only medium that demands this stupid premium. WHY? For games that have lavish graphics loads of cut scenes and very little 'game' in them.
'Gaming is not a passive entertainment though, it is interactive' you may say, I agree but it is still entertainment that competes for your free time. how long can this model be sustained?
I am amazed, staggered, that the AAA industry has not had a crash by now. surely it is richly deserved though.

Times have changed, the industry never seems too though.

CriticalGaming nailed the points of content creation and its associated costs. Also MS can afford to do the game pass thing because...they're MS.



A wave of consternation flows over me with what their new business model might end up doing to the industry, if it means everyone and everything has to go through them first.

Anyways, considering preorders of PS5 sold out in minutes I'm pretty sure there will also be enough people willing to spend $70 for whatever games it has at launch. The flip side is people don't own any content on these monthly services, which over the course of years adds up to hundreds of dollars to rent access to. Quality and reliability of these services is always hit and miss at best. Remember how many people complain about the always online world and all that? Getting rid of physical media, even if it's offline games on HDD seals the deal there.

Another thing is even if something is released it doesn't mean everyone has to have it "now" either. Supply and demand will kick in; ie $70 games will eventually be half price or so. We also live in a world where millions of people seem to have no problem paying $800+ for new iPhones or Androids ever other year, so there's that.

 

[Dalisclock]

The last game I bought on the release date was Dark Souls 3 in 2016.

Disco Elysium for me. Well, not release date but not long after it came out, just because it took a moment for people to start talking about it. If I had know it was gonna be that good, I would have snatched it up immediately.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Last time I bought something on launch was RDR2, 2018.
Only game from 2020 I've played is Fall Guys and that was a PS Plus freebie.

 

[Dreiko]

So there's two way of looking at this. At 70 bucks, a game is a bargain compared to some modes of entertainment, and a waste of money compared to others, so the key thing here is looking at what you're comparing it to and if that comparison makes sense.

Say, for example, you go out for a meal or to the movies, the money that takes doesn't go nearly as far as the money you'd spend for a game, which will entertain you for a dozen times as long.

Now, compared to something like Netflix (or hell, even gamefly, which would let you get 2 games for 24 bucks a month and you can switch em around all you want) of course the value is not nearly up to par.


So, when is it worth it to spend money for games? Well, for me at least, the answer is "when you want more of them being made". I don't spend money for myself, I spend money for the game, the people making it, the gamer culture enjoying it, and also to make myself a part of its flourishing greatness and own a piece of that. I have gamefly for the other games, the ones I see as merely fun or cool but not important or life-changing (also gamefly is not for super long games like skyrim either).


So yeah, if it's a game like 13 Sentinels, 70 bucks is fine, absolutely worth it. Will that be true for most other games? Probably not, and that's fine.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Sort of.

A smash blockbuster game is going to flog about 20 million copies or more. At just $50 (I'll use dollars for ease of comparison) that's $1 billion, which is fairly similar to a big movie blockbuster box office. And the development costs are similar to movies as well: easily over $100 million for a major title these days. To put this in further context, a movie blockbuster is going to come in up to about 3 hours (bloated nonsense many of them are) and cost ~$10 cinema ticket. So you could get about fifteen hours entertainment for $50, which is way less than you'll get out of the average computer game. So, I would argue, movies should die before computer games.

I am aware you stated £70. Outside maybe some indy games that are very miche with low sales, I have no idea how the hell anyone justifies that sort of price. I'd pretty much refuse anything over £40 on principle. If we include microtransactions, there's a huge logic in pouring huge sums into online gaming. You're not just buying gameplay (and often not buying gameplay at all), you're buying personal image. A Ford Fiesta will get you from A to B as well as a Mercedes C class, but you might want to look a damn sight more stylish in the latter. Although personally, I think the main achievement of driving a Merc, BMW or Audi is that I'm about twenty times more likely to assume you're both a twat and a dangerous driver.

Not to mention a good chunk of movie budgets go towards all those celebrities paydays.

 

[Shadyside]

Most games should cost $40, especially if they have micro transactions and advertising deals. They will make more than enough money.

 

[Agema]

Not to mention a good chunk of movie budgets go towards all those celebrities paydays.

Well, that's an interesting point.

Tom Cruise gets $20mill or so a movie. But I can't help but feel you stick in a much less well known actor to do the same role for a fraction of the price and the film would lose nothing at all in terms of my enjoyment. However, I'm aware that Cruise is a "name" who carries an assumption of quality such that lots of people will go to see the film just because he's in it - even though probably most of them would also enjoy the film just as much with a far less expensive actor doing the same role.

In that sense, Tom Cruise's salary is smart investment for film-makers to get a film watched, despite providing very little added value to the quality of the film.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Well, that's an interesting point.

Tom Cruise gets $20mill or so a movie. But I can't help but feel you stick in a much less well known actor to do the same role for a fraction of the price and the film would lose nothing at all in terms of my enjoyment. However, I'm aware that Cruise is a "name" who carries an assumption of quality such that lots of people will go to see the film just because he's in it - even though probably most of them would also enjoy the film just as much with a far less expensive actor doing the same role.

In that sense, Tom Cruise's salary is smart investment for film-makers to get a film watched, despite providing very little added value to the quality of the film.

Well to be fair here, I’ll admit he’s one of the few who seems to earn at least *most* of what he’s paid, considering what we see on screen for those M:I stunts is actually him. But most celebrities certainly don’t fall into that category and have...body part insurance to opt out of stunt work a fraction as technical or dangerous and ridiculous riders for their movie trailers similar to rock stars. Someone like Cruise could easily take the easy way out too, but he has the star power to call his own shots which he puts to audience-satisfying use.

 

[gorfias]

It makes sense depending upon the audience and the game. I have friends that buy Madden every year and play online with people around the world. They'll pay the $70. For those unwilling to make the purchase at that price? We've seen good games drop to $20 new within a year or 2. Plenty of product out there for us.

 

[Dalisclock]

So, when is it worth it to spend money for games? Well, for me at least, the answer is "when you want more of them being made". I don't spend money for myself, I spend money for the game, the people making it, the gamer culture enjoying it, and also to make myself a part of its flourishing greatness and own a piece of that. I have gamefly for the other games, the ones I see as merely fun or cool but not important or life-changing (also gamefly is not for super long games like skyrim either).


So yeah, if it's a game like 13 Sentinels, 70 bucks is fine, absolutely worth it. Will that be true for most other games? Probably not, and that's fine.

I'd argue "When the price is matches what you think the game is worth". If the game looks like it's worth the $70 and you can afford it? Go for it. If the game looks like it's more like a $20-30 game? Wait for a sale or the price to drop. It'll still be there later, patched(possibly with DLC/GOTY edition) and cheaper to boot.

This also cuts down on buyers remorse I've found, because if the game wasn't good or did live up to your expectations, you lost $20/30/40 on the game instead of $70.

 

[BrawlMan]

I'd argue "When the price is matches what you think the game is worth". If the game looks like it's worth the $70 and you can afford it? Go for it. If the game looks like it's more like a $20-30 game? Wait for a sale or the price to drop. It'll still be there later, patched(possibly with DLC/GOTY edition) and cheaper to boot.

This also cuts down on buyers remorse I've found, because if the game wasn't good or did live up to your expectations, you lost $20/30/40 on the game instead of $70.

Or do this!


Not that I encourage it or anything.

 

[Shadyside]

Or do this!


Not that I encourage it or anything.

I do that with almost everything. Too many things are mediocre and not worth the price.