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General discussion (archive)And PC gaming is always cheaper, amirite?(118 posts)(118 posts)
(118 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted November 23, 2012
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anjohl: Lol, second hand sales on consoles are going NOWHERE.
Exactly my point. Next generation is going to have digital licenses just like PC games - and the industry really doesn't like how so many stores are getting a huge cut from the pie. Sales on eBay are at least about money moving from gamer to gamer meaning gamer A has more money to buy a new game so the money is kept in rotation.

However, look at the following when it comes to eBay:

Person A buys a new game. $50 goes to games industry.
Person B buys this game second hand for $30. Person A has $30 to spend on a new game.
Person C buys the game from person B at $25.

Now look at this picture: the games industry gets $50 and person A only recuperates $30 for his next sale. Persons B and C "fund" person A to buy future new games. It's not great since A, B & C got to play the full game for only half the price. Person B is the one who loses the least money, person C and A lose the most. The original cost of the game gets spread across several people.

Now looks at game stores:

Person A buys a game for $50
Game store buys said game for $10 and sells it for $40.
Person B buys said game for $40.
Game store buys said game for $5 and sells it for $30.
Person C buys said game for $30.

What do you see here? $50 gets spent, only $15 goes back in the hands of gamers, $35 gets soaked up by overheads and company profits which do NOT go back into the industry. Do you see why the games industry hates the second hand stores? Even with piracy, you still get a lot of pirates who use what money they have to BUY games. In second hand sales, game stores soak up money that could have gone towards games.
Posted November 23, 2012
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Heretic777: Yep, next year at this time, they all will be $30 normal price and $7.50 steam sale price.
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orcishgamer: Someone doesn't buy many console games, they'll be 5-15 on console and 5-8 used on console by then.
I know. But let's not try to destroy the myth of "PC = bigger, better and cheaper platform" that so many PC gamers take by heart.
Posted November 23, 2012
Why would they ever use a "used" digital system when a) it makes no sense and b) consumers have accepted the digital transition without it.

How does it benefit them?
Posted November 23, 2012
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Red_Avatar: Person A buys a new game. $50 goes to games industry.
Person B buys this game second hand for $30. Person A has $30 to spend on a new game.
Still, two people played, one person paid.

Industry hates that. And they will fight that all the ways they can. PC games are so cheap mostly because second hand market was very limited by DD and Online Passes etc.

It's gonna be no different with consoles.
Posted November 23, 2012
Over all, PC gaming tends to be cheaper long-term than consoles:
With PCs, you can build a rig that will last through 2-3 generations of consoles, for far less money than 2-3 generations of consoles (at launch prices) will cost.
/Generally/ PC games drop in price faster than their console counterparts.
PC games are frequently available for download, meaning no shipping or driving to buy the game.
-True, modern consoles have downloadable games too, but if you want to call part of the value of consoles the ability to have 2nd hand sales, you have to ignore the downloaded versions of games.
Services like Steam often have exceptional sales on digital downloads of games, allowing the gamer to get great prices if they're patient.

Is PC gaming /always/ cheaper? No.
Generally more cost effective over time? Yes.

Is the PC superior to consoles in almost every way outside of 2nd hand sales? Certainly. :p
Posted November 23, 2012
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StingingVelvet: The real reason to be a PC gamer remains though: open platform.
To be honest that's the ONLY reason I still game on PC nowadays. I have little interest in buggy mods or graphics tweaks for the most part. And with the rise of DRM, vendor lock-in and now the creep-in of iOS-style lockdowns, I'm spending a lot less money on PC gaming than I used to because most of my gaming money now goes to console gaming as there is increasingly no benefit to PC gaming.

Where I might have bought one or two full-price titles a month in the past and loads of budget titles, that's now been reduced to three or four full-price games a year (this year, Sleeping Dogs, Dark Souls and Dishonored - that was it), the odd GOG game, the odd €10-15 budget title, and the odd indie bundle.
Posted November 23, 2012
goddamn it never mind again . I misread something
Post edited November 23, 2012 by CaptainGyro
Posted November 23, 2012
What I see in the stores here for new multiplatform AAA titles like Black Ops 2 etc., the console versions seem to generally cost 10-20€ more than the PC version (e.g., www.netanttila.com sells currently Black Ops 2 for PC for 59.95€, and the XBox360 and PS3 versions for 69.95€).

I've always thought this is just normal due to the extra licensing/approval fees for releasing console games etc., albeit there are certainly other things too that affect the asking prices. PC has much more indie and old (GOG!) games pushing the expected price for all games down.

Comparing promo prices of different media is always tricky, because apples and oranges.
Post edited November 23, 2012 by timppu
Posted November 23, 2012
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anjohl: Console gaming will always be cheaper, since the console themselves are much, much, cheaper, and console games are ruled by the laws of supply/demand, which means the prices reflect actual market prices, instead of protectionist ones set by publishers in the case of digital downloads.
My PC cost a fair bit less than a PS3 did in 07, and just a tad bit more than an Xbox 360 (and I bought it in 07). It still runs modern games (though obviously not on max graphical settings). This argument is only true if you buy an overpriced brand name "gaming PC".
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Zolgar: Over all, PC gaming tends to be cheaper long-term than consoles:
With PCs, you can build a rig that will last through 2-3 generations of consoles, for far less money than 2-3 generations of consoles (at launch prices) will cost.
I would say that that is a big exaggeration. A PC bought at the price of a console on launch will last you through roughly one console generation. But no matter how much you pay, a PC will be really outdated halfway through the next.
Post edited November 23, 2012 by AFnord
Posted November 23, 2012
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orcishgamer: Why not? The existence of second hand games makes console games worth more. When I play a second hand game does it suddenly not work or something? Second hand games are part of the console economy and shouldn't be ignored as it's a way that people reduce the price of their gaming.
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Red_Avatar: Then pirating counts too. The existence of pirating makes PC games worth more. When I play a pirated game, does it suddenly not work or something?

*trolls face*

And actually, second hand games are not really part of the console economy which is why they're considering it a greater threat than piracy. Most of the money flows back to the game stores that sell with a huge mark up, you see, and that money doesn't go back in the economy.
If you consider the gamers not part of the economy then the money isn't in the economy, but the gamers are part of the economy, they're, you know, the "consumers" of gaming products. Used games are like used cars, pirated games are like stolen cars, they do affect the economy, but if you really want to pirate you're not "part" of the economy, you're outside of it.

Piracy exists on all platforms, btw, plugging in a USB dongle and an external hard drive hardly counts as difficult, now does it?
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Red_Avatar: Person A buys a new game. $50 goes to games industry.
Person B buys this game second hand for $30. Person A has $30 to spend on a new game.
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keeveek: Still, two people played, one person paid.

Industry hates that. And they will fight that all the ways they can. PC games are so cheap mostly because second hand market was very limited by DD and Online Passes etc.

It's gonna be no different with consoles.
I wish I had the link, but EA's done their own analyses, I've read quotes of Ritcello (or however you spell it) stating to his own board that second hand sales boost their first party sales and increase their brand, this as a result of their own studies that they funded.

It's not in typical gamer lit online, it was more of an investing type site. I've tried to find it since then but it's either now behind a paywall or my google-fu is weak.

Essentially the 2nd hand sales thing is merely a stick to beat us over the head with, they don't even consider it a real threat, what it is is a convenient guilt trip to encourage more of us to put more of our discretionary income into gaming. They're essentially trying to cannibalize other markets, especially other entertainment markets.

EA benefits when you play their games, even second hand, and EA knows it. They just won't tell you that.
Post edited November 23, 2012 by orcishgamer
Posted November 23, 2012
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Red_Avatar: Then pirating counts too. The existence of pirating makes PC games worth more. When I play a pirated game, does it suddenly not work or something?

*trolls face*

And actually, second hand games are not really part of the console economy which is why they're considering it a greater threat than piracy. Most of the money flows back to the game stores that sell with a huge mark up, you see, and that money doesn't go back in the economy.
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orcishgamer: If you consider the gamers not part of the economy then the money isn't in the economy, but the gamers are part of the economy, they're, you know, the "consumers" of gaming products. Used games are like used cars, pirated games are like stolen cars, they do affect the economy, but if you really want to pirate you're not "part" of the economy, you're outside of it.

Piracy exists on all platforms, btw, plugging in a USB dongle and an external hard drive hardly counts as difficult, now does it?
Did I not read some where that there are now more pirated games on Xbox 360 then on PC? could just be some statistical thing, but still. Might try to find the article again at some point.
Posted November 23, 2012
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AFnord: My PC cost a fair bit less than a PS3 did in 07, and just a tad bit more than an Xbox 360 (and I bought it in 07). It still runs modern games (though obviously not on max graphical settings). This argument is only true if you buy an overpriced brand name "gaming PC".
Sorta, I built my own rig and my core i7 CPU cost as much (more actually) as a XBox 360. My daughter's cheap-o gaming rig from Dell was on sale for 750 USD, it's a good machine, also with an i7, but hardly a "name brand gaming PC".

You can certainly scrounge up parts and run games, I did it for years on 4-5 year old components. My issue was more that I couldn't run anything else AND game and it was a serious hassle to make all that older gear behave when I wanted to play something new (it's not like the 4 year old nVidia chipset is top of the test list for the new driver).

So, yes, you can turn a PC into a gaming PC for pretty cheap, if you're really knowledgeable and willing to babysit it. The problem is most people aren't, even on PC. They need paint by numbers easy, and there's nothing wrong with that, and for them buying a package comp deal, like I did at Dell, for gaming is going to be easier, but also more expensive.
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Zolgar: Over all, PC gaming tends to be cheaper long-term than consoles:
With PCs, you can build a rig that will last through 2-3 generations of consoles, for far less money than 2-3 generations of consoles (at launch prices) will cost.
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AFnord: I would say that that is a big exaggeration. A PC bought at the price of a console on launch will last you through roughly one console generation. But no matter how much you pay, a PC will be really outdated halfway through the next.
Yeah, Zolgar is off the mark here, 2-3 generations? What the hell, that would be a gaming PC from 1998, how many of us are running one of those? At best it would be a "gaming PC" from 2004. Our current console generation is quite old now. If our cycle is now 7-8 years there's no way the average gaming PC is going to outlast that.
Post edited November 23, 2012 by orcishgamer
Posted November 23, 2012
This thread is pretty silly. Are we really comparing physical disks to digital downloads in terms of price? It would make far more sense if we compared digital downloads on consoles and PCs or physical disks on consoles and PCs, but mixing them up is just not the way to go.
Posted November 23, 2012
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orcishgamer: snip
But how exactly? Person B who buys used games, will buy used games, not new ones.

Person A who sells his games to others will probably buy a new game too. But not necessarily from company X, maybe from company Y.

Also, all DRM and online passes are used to stop second hand market, not pirates. They tell you they wanna stop pirates, but it's just a facade.
Posted November 23, 2012
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StingingVelvet: The real reason to be a PC gamer remains though: open platform.
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jamyskis: To be honest that's the ONLY reason I still game on PC nowadays. I have little interest in buggy mods or graphics tweaks for the most part. And with the rise of DRM, vendor lock-in and now the creep-in of iOS-style lockdowns, I'm spending a lot less money on PC gaming than I used to because most of my gaming money now goes to console gaming as there is increasingly no benefit to PC gaming.

Where I might have bought one or two full-price titles a month in the past and loads of budget titles, that's now been reduced to three or four full-price games a year (this year, Sleeping Dogs, Dark Souls and Dishonored - that was it), the odd GOG game, the odd €10-15 budget title, and the odd indie bundle.
This, the only issue I have with consoles is that they restrict me in so many ways, other than that, they are a better experience than the ones you find in PCs.
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General discussion (archive)And PC gaming is always cheaper, amirite?(118 posts)(118 posts)
(118 posts)