Games are certainly cheaper than were a few years ago. On the other hand, I bought a load of great games for £1.99 for my Spectrum. 25 years ago. Jeeez, seems like yesterday.
Cheer Up: Games Don't Cost You As Much As They Used To
- Thread starter Greg Tito
- Start date
Games, like most technology, have gotten cheaper, better and more plentiful. Of course, I'm talking about the entire range of them, so there are some expensive and bad games out there, no question about it. But there have always been bad and expensive games, and your selection used to be so very limited. Now there's a huge variety to choose from. I find the complaints about yearly titles to be especially confusing, since if it's a game you like, I'd think you'd buy it. If it's a game you don't like, I'd think you wouldn't. I can't tell you the number of games made over the last 20 years that I'd wish they'd made sequels or expansions to, and never saw the light of day again. Of course, if you don't want an expansion, there's always DLC. But, wait, that's evil too, right?
It's difficult for a big chunk of the audience here to really grasp 20 year price differences, I'm sure, because not everyone was here for it, or even if they were, they weren't saving up their allowance or working a summer job to try and pay for a $40-$60 game, or trying to buy a console, PC or piece of PC hardware during that time period. If you think PC gaming is expensive -now-, it was prohibitive then.
It's difficult for a big chunk of the audience here to really grasp 20 year price differences, I'm sure, because not everyone was here for it, or even if they were, they weren't saving up their allowance or working a summer job to try and pay for a $40-$60 game, or trying to buy a console, PC or piece of PC hardware during that time period. If you think PC gaming is expensive -now-, it was prohibitive then.
PC gaming has always been cheap if you had the hardware on hand and no scruples (which I had none as a child). I remember back when Winzip didn't maintain filefolder integrity, so I'd be on the my phone with my friend and he'd be telling me exactly where to put each file so that I could play some new game he had pirated. That was certainly fun, manually putting 250 files into their proper folders and if you misplaced one, the game wouldn't work.mattaui said:
It's sort of like what modding oblivion without the OBMM is like. IE - Impossible.
This skips right from the cartridge days to the 2010's, what about when the first disc based games came out there were huge drops in price? From the $60 average on N64 for $30-40 on Playstation.
OK, quick tip guys, if you want to calculate pure inflation, open up Microsoft calculator (Star Menu -> Programs -> Accessories)
enter 1.04
press the x^y button
then enter the number of years you want to measure over so from 1996 to 2010 is 14 years so
that's 1.731 or 73% inflation since 1996... daaaaaaamn!
then multiply that by the OLD PRICE to get the "equivalent" today price.
OK, quick tip guys, if you want to calculate pure inflation, open up Microsoft calculator (Star Menu -> Programs -> Accessories)
enter 1.04
press the x^y button
then enter the number of years you want to measure over so from 1996 to 2010 is 14 years so
that's 1.731 or 73% inflation since 1996... daaaaaaamn!
then multiply that by the OLD PRICE to get the "equivalent" today price.
When I was twelve my parent swere buying me xbox games.... But anyways who cares- we still pay too much for tangible copies of videogames
that's about right.. Final Fantasy 3 was 60 dollars back in 1996.. which according to that math is about 100 bucks... which seems about rightTreblaine said:
It gets funny when you apply it to older games though.. Atari games were being sold for 50-60 dollars in the late 70s, early 80s.. if you use that math, that's like 200 dollars today.
I remember Operation: Winback for the Nintendo 64 costing £80
Most new games for the xbox and ps3 can be got for £40. Sometimes cheaper depending on the merchant. And wii games tend to weigh in at around £30-35.
I'll agree with this study, i've definitely seen a change in the prices. I don't like Activision's sneaky bumping of the price up to £42.99 - £44.99 for Call of Duty: Black Ops, though. The industry isn't struggling, they're just being greedy. Even worse, trying to be greedy with a franchise that has lived long past its sell-by-date.
Most new games for the xbox and ps3 can be got for £40. Sometimes cheaper depending on the merchant. And wii games tend to weigh in at around £30-35.
I'll agree with this study, i've definitely seen a change in the prices. I don't like Activision's sneaky bumping of the price up to £42.99 - £44.99 for Call of Duty: Black Ops, though. The industry isn't struggling, they're just being greedy. Even worse, trying to be greedy with a franchise that has lived long past its sell-by-date.
I remember retailers attempting to sell PS3 games (when the PS3 has only just recently been released) for around £50, sometimes even £55! I'm pretty sure they realised nobody was gonna pay the kind of money and it eventually dropped around the £45 mark for popular new games max.
I usually buy new games now for around £37 average from online retailers like play.com and amazon. Otherwise Tesco and Asda sell under £40 usually. Which is a shame because actual video game retailers here like GAME and Gamestation cant compete with the big supermarket chains.
I usually buy new games now for around £37 average from online retailers like play.com and amazon. Otherwise Tesco and Asda sell under £40 usually. Which is a shame because actual video game retailers here like GAME and Gamestation cant compete with the big supermarket chains.
*shrug* I'm fine with being wrong.. 10 hours.. it probably is a bit longer then MW2 on average, but thinking of it as some sort of single player opus is just delusional. Once Microsoft got their claws into it, it basically validated their online gaming platform and became the posterchild for online console FPS's, and became the rosetta stone of console FPS design.The Bandit said:
And Microsoft got their claws into it early enough for "making multiplayer an emphasis" could have certainly been in the cards. The number of multiplayer options sort of shows that. Most PC FPS's didn't have the level of control over multiplayer options that Halo was sporting, at least out of the box (There were lots of great mods on PCs, I'll concede that). Multiplayer was definitely a core part of its design, even if it wasn't a major part of the original design documentation.
It's simple economics. People will speak with their wallets, one way or another. If you don't agree with them, and choose to speak by not buying it, try not to get sour grapes when millions of people choose to speak by buying it, even if it means that all games get more expensive.. feel free to complain.. This whole thing isn't about stopping complaint.. it's about enlightening the complainers so that they can complain from a more thoughtful position if that makes sense.Gralian said:
I certainly don't want to see games get more expensive, even though I argue that they are getting relatively cheaper for the consumer. I'm a consumer.. I want the best deal, and I look for it.. But I also like discussion, and I like that discussion to be well informed when it can be
the point is, the actual numerical value of the games hasn't risen that much in 30 years, despite the fact that our money was worth more dollar for dollar back then.Astalano said:
a 60 dollar game in the 90s, if bought with todays money, you'd need to spend 100 of our dollars to buy that 60 dollar game in the 90s... But we pay 60 dollars for the games we get today.. we don't pay 100 dollars, which would be keeping up with inflation and the devaluing of our money.
I don't even think Euros were around in the 90s, so it's hard to get proper valuation in regards to inflation, but generally, in america, games have been getting cheaper just by staying the same price for 30 years.
This is very true, however the gaming industry has to defend it's desicians given that a few years ago we saw a $10 a pop price hike, and it seems like the industry has been aiming to do another one.rembrandtqeinstein said:
It's interesting to note that for all the comparisons the game industry makes to the movie industry, they still feel the need to charge far more money. Paying to see a $100 million dollar movie in the theater twice, and then owning it on DVD or Blu Ray is liable to cost you about $40, which is still cheaper than video games and the movie industry is paying just as many people within those budgets. One of the many reasons I frequently "call" the industry on greed and am quite vocal in wondering what their human resources make.
To be entirely honest though, I'd be content if the goverment was to investigate the industry for price fixing, causing a panic (since that's what they are doing) and seeing the game companies compete with each other properly. Right now one of the problems with the industry is that it does things like modify release schedules so big titles don't come out simultsneously where they risk being overshadowed, and nobody bothered to undercut each other in terms of price. What's more despite all the arguements being made defending the pricing we're still seeing a situation where a game being made for say $10 million, retails for the same amount of money as one costing $200 million.
There are a lot of issues in the game industry, and it's gotten big enough where I am hoping that it gets enough attention to start some serious consumer advocacy on behalf of gamers, as well as getting some goverment attention (like the gas companies do) simply to ensure that all the proper rules are being followed and during things like the "Game Developers Conferance" nobody is doing anything akin to coordinating the polices of what should be direct competitiors so everyone can make more money, you know like a cartel. (whistles innocently). You'll notice that when gas and oil companies decide to get together for various kinds of meetings that people pay attention (or try to).
Very good point but gaming is still a relatively cheap form of entertainment if you count it as entertainment per hour. Granted some games are better with this then others. Some Indy games are really good deals when you look at it that way. (The cost divided by the amount of hours of entertainment you get out of something.)rembrandtqeinstein said:
Wow, $60 is cheap compared to the prices in New Zealand. To pre-order Black Ops here you will be paying around $140 NZ dollars which is equal to $105 US dollars, and even a normal priced new game sets you back $120 NZ dollars, equal to $90 US dollars. Gaming is pretty expensive here especially once you throw in the Xbox live subscription.
BAZINGA!Racthoh said:
OT: I had no idea games used to be that much (then again, I lived in a house where we only had one system (an SNES) from 1990 until the PS2 first came out (at which point we had a PSX) and got all our games from friends).
Thank god I buy my own systems now.