Warren Spector Wants Lower Prices

[Echolocating]

I'm still not sure that price is actually what's preventing growth there, I think it's more the content itself being unappealing to the vast majority of people. Look at Wii Fit, that sold tons even at 90$ by being something people want.

I have to wonder though if a lower price tag would also make video game piracy less appealing?

I agree that content is key, but my question is then why do developers typically choose to create such juvenile hardcore games and ignore the larger adult market? And that's what I'm trying to wrap my brain around. The current price point seems to keep the market at the young teen generation (having the most disposable income). Is there another factor that I'm missing?

 

[Alex_P]

What can I tell you? I said games you "know" will fill your life with days and weeks of thrills and joy, not games you hope will do so. I don't buy games unless I'm as confident as I can be that they'll justify their price. Fallout 3? Collector's Edition on release day. Call of Duty 4? 50 bucks is still too high; once it hits 30, I'll be on it like Funk on a WoW-hater. I want "perfect products for free," but I also believe that some games are in fact worth their rather high prices. What those games are may vary from person to person.

I definitely see what you mean.

I don't have any sure things anymore.

BioShock, for me, was a letdown. I abandoned it after two hours.
Half-Life 2, for me, was a letdown. I still played through it to see what everyone else was raving about, but I definitely think it doesn't deserve half the praise that it gets.
Both of these could reasonably seem as "sure things" to, well, anyone who's played video games, liked Deus Ex, liked Half-Life, &c. Yet they just totally blew it. Blew it so hard they even made me question why I liked those earlier games in the first place.

I've bought quite a few games at the $30-60 price range recently, and I've had a miserable hit rate. The only game I'm at all looking forward to is Mass Effect 2, and there's like a 50% chance I still won't buy it. :/

I'm definitely a total outlier as far as the jadedness goes, but, well, that's basically why I'm not spending any money on video games right now -- despite the fact that I have money to spend.

Then again, I imagine that, for some people, the "sure thing" is only worth $20 and the "maybe" is just a product they don't buy.

-- Alex

 

[TsunamiWombat]

Mr. Spector makes a very good point. The only $20 games you can "go out and buy" are used, old or casual. None of which are really "good" for the industry.

Or Braid.

PS: I will buy most any game, but my rule of thumb is it isn't allowed to cost more then 50 dollars. 50 or less. I need to get 2 or 3 games out of a hundred bucks. So I get alot of used's.

 

[Andy Chalk]

I've bought quite a few games at the $30-60 price range recently, and I've had a miserable hit rate. The only game I'm at all looking forward to is Mass Effect 2, and there's like a 50% chance I still won't buy it. :/

-- Alex

Is it possible (and this is a serious question, I'm not being a smartass here) that you're just not a gamer? Or not a gamer anymore? If HL2 and BioShock couldn't turn your crank... not really sure what to say. Are you expectations too high?

But we're getting off track here. How about this: If BioShock had been 20 bucks, would you have come away satisfied?

I find it interesting that while Spector is calling for lower prices so the industry can experience "real growth," analysts are calling for yet another year of solid revenue growth in 2009. Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to nail down a definition of "growth" while we're at it.

 

[Echolocating]

I've bought quite a few games at the $30-60 price range recently, and I've had a miserable hit rate. The only game I'm at all looking forward to is Mass Effect 2, and there's like a 50% chance I still won't buy it. :/

Is it possible (and this is a serious question, I'm not being a smartass here) that you're just not a gamer? Or not a gamer anymore? If HL2 and BioShock couldn't turn your crank... not really sure what to say. Are you expectations too high?

I'm kind of in the same boat as Alex, in that I hardly look forward to much of what's coming out anymore. I couldn't finish Half-life 2; it just got too repetitive and boring.

However, I wouldn't go so far as to say someone isn't a gamer because they don't appreciate mainstream gaming. The people who participate on this site are all gamers.

As my taste in movies and music has matured so has my desires in gaming, but gaming doesn't really offer much for me now. It's not that I've stopped being a gamer, it's that the gaming industry is hardly diverse enough to fill my current needs.

I appreciate the question you're asking because I've asked myself the same thing before: am I not a gamer anymore? But the answer is that gaming is stuck in an adolescent mindset and is slowly becoming less appealing to me as whole.

Personally, I can't wait for Mass Effect 2, but I also accept that I'll have to be content with only getting truly excited about two or so games a year.