Games are too expensive

[Kair]

snip

Your comment is imbecilic. You seem to feel people should spend millions of dollars and not expect a single thing in return. This isn't food water or shelter. They are not making games as a favor to you or to be nice to you. Its a business.

Let's take a moment and think about what I just said. Oh wait, why not just ignore it and make assumptions instead?

People like you are the bane of social development.

 

[veloper]

Demand and Supply. Cost of manufacture is about 8 dollars on a $60 avg.

Haha. Not by a long shot. The disc costs almost nothing.

Here's the breakdown of a succesful $60 console game according to the Pach:

$12 profit for the retailer
$12 tribute to M$ or Sony for being allowed to sell a game for their console
~$10 to the studio (programmers, artists, etc)
~$9 marketing
~$17 profit for the publisher
=
total=$60

2nd half of the vid:
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/episode-111-pach-attack/64278


Ofcourse the money it costs to design the game is a fixed amount (like for example 2,000,000) regardless of how many you sell, so you can also have a game flop like this:

$12 profit for the retailer
$12 tribute to M$ or Sony for being allowed to sell a game for their console
$40 to the studio (programmers, artists, etc)
$9 marketing
-$13 loss for the publisher
=
$60

 

[LooK iTz Jinjo]

Ohh poor American's with your $60 games and R18+ rating's life must be so hard...
Welcome to Australia, where Fallout 3 is censored for "drug use?" an R18+ is actually designed to HURT people and the average console game these days is getting pushed up to $120. Yay for us.

 

[Katana314]

Hate to say it but that guy fails economics forever. Games are the bread and butter of the games industry, not the console. Even at the $60 range, those games are sold at a pretty good markup to what they may be worth. Selling at a higher profit margin, though he can pursue it, is highly doubtful. Really, who would pay $90 for a game with nothing but a manual, multiplayer and nothing else?

Sadly, I think everyone would if that were the normal price for games. They'd whine about it and boycott for a few days before giving in and wasting their money on it anyway.

I think there was a misunderstanding, this guy wanted games selling for 90 POUNDS STERLING.

Games initially retails for £40 here, so the mark up this manager is talking about is like games selling for 140 US DOLLARS ins the United States!!!

Who the hell do you know that would pay $140 for a 6 hour game?!?!? Who the hell is willing to spend $140 on anything?!?

That's more than the cost of an iPod Nano.

Well, you did write $90, not £90. I know the approximate value of the pound, and agree $140 would be ridiculous unless it were coming with some custom controller, like Guitar Hero.

 

[Daipire]

Man, they should use product placement in it so that they can sort of subsidise the games.

 

[Skratt]

Well, at least there is still used games.... until they start going full on digital. I'll have my shank in perfect condition by then.

Sad thing is, once they go completly digtal and tank the used game market, the sky is the limit and they'll find some other bullshit to explain the high prices.

 

[Gindil]

Man, they should use product placement in it so that they can sort of subsidise the games.

*Remembers EA Need for Speed Underground*

*Remembers Burger Kings on every corner*

NO... That game was just too blatant. If they could get more sponsors and diversify, or do without, I'd probably prefer that.

 

[Daipire]

Man, they should use product placement in it so that they can sort of subsidise the games.

*Remembers EA Need for Speed Underground*

*Remembers Burger Kings on every corner*

NO... That game was just too blatant. If they could get more sponsors and diversify, or do without, I'd probably prefer that.

If they just get a character (using Saints Row for an example), one that's super cool like Johnny Gat, and get him drink a coca cola.

Subtlety is key, less is more.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

4) This one wasn't aimed at you but whenever people talk about AAA game prices their is always one idiot who brings up the fact that either indie or 10 year old pc games are dirt cheap.

If this was aimed at my comment about ten dollar AAA PC games, it wasn't that ten year old PC games are dirt cheap, but that ten years ago, one year old PC games were dirt cheap, because companies actually cut prices after they made their initial profit. I still say that the reason games are so expensive these days is the monopoly Gamestop has on used games. Since they keep the used prices so high, publishers have no reason to really compete on prices.

Edit:
The relative lack of a used market for PC games adds to it as well, but do the current consoles even have an equivalent to the Greatest Hits releases of yesteryear? I haven't had a console this gen, so maybe I'm off base here, but it seems like games start out high and stay there a whole lot longer than they used to.

 

[The Rockerfly]

Let's take a moment and think about what I just said. Oh wait, why not just ignore it and make assumptions instead?

People like you are the bane of social development.

Why not explain it and develop on your original point rather then just insult people and not address points brought up
A game is not a living necessity, it is a luxury right?
Therefore it should not be free, however even necessities are rarely free

Games also take money to make, from employing people, transportation costs, software & hardware costs, fixed costs (such as electricity and land to create and distribute the game on)
There is also a demand for these and enough to supply this demand, therefore the developers can put the game at a price that competes with other game prices

The only way a game could be free is if it cost nothing to make, made for charitable purposes where the developer made a loss or it receives money from a different manner (such as adverts)
Even the lowest method of distributing games (online downloads) still has to keep severs up and running

So how can you justify making information free when it costs to make and distribute games?

 

[Treblaine]

Hate to say it but that guy fails economics forever. Games are the bread and butter of the games industry, not the console. Even at the $60 range, those games are sold at a pretty good markup to what they may be worth. Selling at a higher profit margin, though he can pursue it, is highly doubtful. Really, who would pay $90 for a game with nothing but a manual, multiplayer and nothing else?

Sadly, I think everyone would if that were the normal price for games. They'd whine about it and boycott for a few days before giving in and wasting their money on it anyway.

I think there was a misunderstanding, this guy wanted games selling for 90 POUNDS STERLING.

Games initially retails for £40 here, so the mark up this manager is talking about is like games selling for 140 US DOLLARS ins the United States!!!

Who the hell do you know that would pay $140 for a 6 hour game?!?!? Who the hell is willing to spend $140 on anything?!?

That's more than the cost of an iPod Nano.

Well, you did write $90, not £90. I know the approximate value of the pound, and agree $140 would be ridiculous unless it were coming with some custom controller, like Guitar Hero.

No. I always clearly stated £90, it was Gindil that came up with the "$90" figure.

 

[Brandon237]

Never buy new. Simple, the only game I have that was made within the last year was crap and a waste of money. If you wait long enough, the prices fall off a cliff. I recently got bioshock for $10. Crysis warhead only cost me $20. I got dead space for $12 and just cause for $5. Why? Because I got them ages after they came out (I got all of them in the last 6 months).

 

[Sephychu]

Hence why I buy used games but OH NO I'M KILLING THE INDUSTRY.

Though it's better than not buying games at all, yes? I really can't justify spending $120 on a video game.

That does sound like one hell of a price.

 

[Flames66]

I won't spend more than £10 on a game. Don't like it games companies? Spend your money more carefully and price your games reasonably.

 

[Daipire]

$50 seems reasonable for a game. If you can't afford that then buy indie games or wait for it to go on sale.

or pirate it

I agree

 

[Kair]

Let's take a moment and think about what I just said. Oh wait, why not just ignore it and make assumptions instead?

People like you are the bane of social development.

Why not explain it and develop on your original point rather then just insult people and not address points brought up
A game is not a living necessity, it is a luxury right?
Therefore it should not be free, however even necessities are rarely free

Games also take money to make, from employing people, transportation costs, software & hardware costs, fixed costs (such as electricity and land to create and distribute the game on)
There is also a demand for these and enough to supply this demand, therefore the developers can put the game at a price that competes with other game prices

The only way a game could be free is if it cost nothing to make, made for charitable purposes where the developer made a loss or it receives money from a different manner (such as adverts)
Even the lowest method of distributing games (online downloads) still has to keep severs up and running

So how can you justify making information free when it costs to make and distribute games?

I was not the one who insulted.

 

[The Rockerfly]

I was not the one who insulted.

Okay well never mind the insults, why not address my points? I would at least like to understand your philosophy

 

[RobJameson]

Well, with the PC it's fine since it's rare for a great game to be more than £20-25. You always get the douches trying to charge us more and give us expensive dlc (£10 for 3 small maps, ROFL) but thankfully we can actually pirate the game and protest unlike consoles who are stuck paying the ridiculous prices they charge.

Hell the companies are raking it in, just look at IW/Activision or Bungie; these are the companies founded on the console who charge utterly criminal amounts for games that cost a pittance to make. The consoles haven't got any more powerful, the Xbox 360 was released in 2005 for crying out loud, if my PC was running tech from 2005 I'd kill myself. What it means is that the engines powering the games and coding in them doesn't really change, they don't have to make it compatible with the latest GPU or CPU architecture or the newest Direct X release/OS. They put very little effort into their games and charge a premium price for them due to the fact they have a captive audience (console gamers) who don't seem to have a tight knit community like the PC does.

Maybe the developers will pop back to PC but I doubt it, they get easy cash from the consoles and the worst part is the PC pays for it, all the gaming money is in the console market so we get crappy ports from the console and our games get held back since the technology doesn't advance because consoles are just horribly inflexible. They have on control system and their hardware is the same for years so the gaming tech doesn't move forward. I just hope that this changes in the next decade.

 

[LordZ]

They are expensive, but take a look at how much it costs to make each individual game. I'm not talking flash based indie games, I mean cutting edge Triple-A titles. Games aren't cheap because it's super expensive to make them. But even Braid, a much vaunted indie game was reported to cost the developer $170,000 to produce by himself. That's nothing to scoff at.

For reference: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 cost somewhere between $40 and $50 million. Gran Tourismo 5 has already spent over $60 million, and still hasn't been released yet. God of War 3 spent $44 million.

The average game has a budget between $18 million and $28 million. Why are games so expensive? They cost so much to develop.

EDIT: All budget data was accumulated from Kotaku.com

Going over budget or simply setting your budget too high is not our problem. If you can't run your business in a way that is profitable that is your fault.

Personally, I think most of the so-called AAA titles are trash. They have a lot of pretty graphics and not much else. Yeah, some are almost worth their price but those are few and far between. It doesn't change the fact that these companies need to learn to go with a budget and a price that is reasonable, if they want to survive.

 

[Burst6]

That's why i rent. $60? what am i? made of money.

I only buy games that i know i will play for a long time ( super street fighter 4, team fortress 2, etc). Everything else is from Gamefly.