How Much SHOULD a Game Cost?

[Gudrests]

$60 is generally too much for me. I can't say that the price should be lower, since I haven't done any real research on the economics on the other end.

DLC prices are ludicrous. DLC is barely advertised at all and charging someone a quarter of the cost of a game for four multiplayer maps is just ridiculous.

lets put it this way......its been $50 forever now...if its at 60 now (which it might be idk)...think about it..something went up 10 bucks over how many years.....where everything else went up how much over that same amount of time...everyone STFU and leave it alone before someone trys to charge us more

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

$60 is generally too much for me. I can't say that the price should be lower, since I haven't done any real research on the economics on the other end.

DLC prices are ludicrous. DLC is barely advertised at all and charging someone a quarter of the cost of a game for four multiplayer maps is just ridiculous.

lets put it this way......its been $50 forever now...if its at 60 now (which it might be idk)...think about it..something went up 10 bucks over how many years.....where everything else went up how much over that same amount of time...everyone STFU and leave it alone before someone trys to charge us more

The problem with this is that the manufacturing costs went way down in the mid 90's, when companies switched from cartridges to discs, but the companies pocketed the difference, instead of passing on the savings like they promised. I'd imagine that $50 per game now would still net them more profit than it did in the cartridge days, even accounting for inflation. The only reason they charge $60 is because they can get away with it, and it makes the shareholders happy. It has nothing to do with rising costs.

 

[[Gavo]]

Digital downloads should definetley cost less...like $5-10 less? Please?

 

[Cazza]

$50-60AUD

Really why are they $90-$110AUD? Okay I can shop around they best I ever get for new releases for retail is $80AUD. With the exchange rate they can easily do $60.

 

[ADDLibrarian]

I'd say between $25-30, but that's only the price I'd LIKE to pay. Actually necessary price is usually $50, but I can't afford new games right now anyway.

 

[Bobbity]

Certainly less than a hundred dollars. Seriously, that's what they cost here in Australia, and our dollar is about level with yours.
At best guess, I'd probably say fifty/sixty for a hard copy and thirty/forty for a digital version. Just my thoughts though.

 

[coolkirb]

Well living in Canada paying $70 for a good Xbox360 game is not fun and $50-60 for a Wii is slightly less annoying espicially since our dollar has been high for quite a while, but as economics dictates we pay more, why distributuion costs, everything is more expensive at Wallmart because when you have less people in your country you have to sell for more

 

[sheic99]

I think the prices now are good.

^^This. $60 for most titles is perfectly reasonable. 25+ hours on average of entertainment for less than you'll find elsewhere.

Just to put current prices into perspective, (note: movies assume a 2-hour movie, and prices are based on my local area averages) to get 25 hours of entertainment in other places are:

Movies (theatre): $109.38
Movies (DVD): $187.5
Amusement park: $70+ (2 days, not including food, parking, etc.)
Concerts: $291.67 (assuming 3 hour show, $35 cheap seats)
Theatre: $416.67 (assuming 3 hour show, $50 seats)

Wow, does anybody else miss 25+ hour single player games? We get about 6-8 hours now. Also, $70 for a 2 day ticket at an Amusement park is an extremely good deal. Tickets for Six Flags is $60.

 

[Katana314]

I don't really pay the $50 price anymore. Occasionally, when I already know I'll love a game, I go for it, but that's hardly often. With digital distribution, and many games going WAAAAYY over-budget so they can have 400 different types of particle effects, I would not mind a massive price reduction.

 

[Sporky111]

I think that a console release shouldn't be more than $45. And handheld shouldn't be more than $40.

The games industry really would benefit from a lowering of prices. I myself have had an Xbox 360 for almost a year and haven't bought a game for it. Why? Too expensive. And they definitely aren't benefitting from my borrowing games from friends. Now if games were closer to the $40 area I'd buy my own. If they were closer to $30 I'd widen my range and buy things just to try something new or just for the heck of it.

As it is, games are too high. The highest production budget on a game is $100 million, but in comparison film budgets routinely go over $100 million. Yet BluRay and DVDs go for $20 - $25 usually, movie tickets are $10 or less, and video games are still $60. There's no need for it.

And another thing; digital releases of games. I can pre-order Portal 2 right now for $45, at %10 off on Steam. That is about 15 dollars less than I'd expect in a store, but digital is . . . digital. That game could be sold much cheaper. I know that packaging, disk, printing, and distribution of a game costs more than $15 per unit. How much of that $45 would you think goes straight into GabeN's wallet?

 

[Weaver]

Like... $10 dollars.
I rarely buy anything over $30 anymore due to steams crazy pricing.

 

[Katana314]

Actually Sporky, I'd be willing to bet that taking into account distributed costs, the packaging, disk, printing, etc, costs MUCH less than $15 per unit. Maybe it's close to $15 if you're taking into account the cost of giving it shelf space.

 

[infohippie]

They should stay $60.
Because they've been $50-60 since they started coming out, and changing it just because the part of the fanbase that doesn't recognize this complains is stupid.

Wow, you're a youngster, aren't you? I remember games costing $50 Australian. In the US at that same time, games cost around $30 to $40, or sometimes less. This was at the tail end of the 80's.

 

[ethaninja]

I'd say around 40 AUD tops. After all, when they don't plan on releasing a demo, we should be expecting a lot from the game. Nothing worse then spending 70 bucks on a game and have it being shit.

 

[Gudrests]

$60 is generally too much for me. I can't say that the price should be lower, since I haven't done any real research on the economics on the other end.

DLC prices are ludicrous. DLC is barely advertised at all and charging someone a quarter of the cost of a game for four multiplayer maps is just ridiculous.

lets put it this way......its been $50 forever now...if its at 60 now (which it might be idk)...think about it..something went up 10 bucks over how many years.....where everything else went up how much over that same amount of time...everyone STFU and leave it alone before someone trys to charge us more

The problem with this is that the manufacturing costs went way down in the mid 90's, when companies switched from cartridges to discs, but the companies pocketed the difference, instead of passing on the savings like they promised. I'd imagine that $50 per game now would still net them more profit than it did in the cartridge days, even accounting for inflation. The only reason they charge $60 is because they can get away with it, and it makes the shareholders happy. It has nothing to do with rising costs.

think about how many a AAA studio has to sell to make money tho...they drop the price..yeah you might buy some more...but..MIGHT is a big thing..and prices drop quick so you can find things easy

 

[Godhead]

around $50 for a video game.

About $40 for a PC game.

$30 for a hand held game.

Video game's are probably the most expensive to market, distribute, and produce, so I think right around $50 is a fair price.

PC games should be a bit less as they most likely cost slightly less to produce (I would assume something created on a PC for a PC wouldn't be as expensive as the 'console process').

Hand Held games aren't as thorough as full-fledged PC or Video Games, so they should consequently cost less.

Actually the reason why console games are $60 and PC is $50 is because the developer/publisher have to pay the console's maker just to put the game on. That doesn't happen in PC which is why a lot of gamers got up in arms about it.

OT: $50 across the board.

 

[Juventus]

Unless you have an intricate knowledge of the various costs associated with both a)Making the actual video game, and b)distributing/marketing the video game, I don't see how anybody here can actually claim that "THIS is how much a game should cost".

Obviously, the company is going to have to charge an appropriate amount so that, for one, the costs of actually making and marketing/distributing the thing are covered, AND enough of a profit is generated so that the company and its employees can stay afloat and live comfortably. I just think that there are a myriad of motivations behind charging people "X" amount of dollars for a certain game, and I think that very few people actually take that into consideration; instead, people do what people always do - complain about how expensive everything is.

another thing is games typically sell less than say a movie, which is what some people want to compare it to. a typical anticipated movie might have say at least a 300 to 400 million people will watch it, plus another 20 to say 30 million will buy the dvd/blu ray.

where is a game must sell at least a half a million to be labeled a success, in the cases of higher budget games, which is why most games cost so much.

 

[Gudrests]

I think that a console release shouldn't be more than $45. And handheld shouldn't be more than $40.

The games industry really would benefit from a lowering of prices. I myself have had an Xbox 360 for almost a year and haven't bought a game for it. Why? Too expensive. And they definitely aren't benefitting from my borrowing games from friends. Now if games were closer to the $40 area I'd buy my own. If they were closer to $30 I'd widen my range and buy things just to try something new or just for the heck of it.

As it is, games are too high. The highest production budget on a game is $100 million, but in comparison film budgets routinely go over $100 million. Yet BluRay and DVDs go for $20 - $25 usually, movie tickets are $10 or less, and video games are still $60. There's no need for it.

And another thing; digital releases of games. I can pre-order Portal 2 right now for $45, at %10 off on Steam. That is about 15 dollars less than I'd expect in a store, but digital is . . . digital. That game could be sold much cheaper. I know that packaging, disk, printing, and distribution of a game costs more than $15 per unit. How much of that $45 would you think goes straight into GabeN's wallet?

....$15 packageing?....the cost of 1 single game to get made put into a box wrapped and shipped....in mass....cant be more than 10...they do these things in mass...and its paper and a CD you can buy 500 for cheap

 

[Veylon]

Games are a luxury good; the companies can charge whatever they want. If you don't like the price, wait for a sale or buy it used.

 

[Zakarath]

I'd like to see games selling for $30 or so; with video games once the game is finished the supply is effectively infinite (DVDs are really quite cheap to mass-produce and digital copies do have an infinite supply), so the demand curve is all that really matters when considering their price, and I for one would definitely buy 2x as many games if they were half the price they are today...