What do you think about that?

I see it all the time and, frankly, I cannot stand it.

I understand how someone might ask how long a game is, etc. to see if they are willing to spend the money on it, but that is a specific question with a specific answer to each person. My problem is when I see that seep into general discussions about a game.

I hate it when a review alternates between "it had a deep a story with very interesting gameplay concepts" and "but it costs X therefore you should not buy it", making sure it will no longer be relevant in just a few months when the price changes.

I hate it when people say "a game that costs X should last Y amount of hours", which is the mentality that leads to games full of grinding or endless firefights, trying to justify its price.

There are the experimental games. You're not fighting someone, or you're not doing this or that, therefore it's not worth its price.

Dealing with prices is a fact of life, sure, I don't want to take that away. But maybe that is something we shouldn't treat like it's an intrinsic quality of the game that it is or isn't worth a certain amount of money.

Understand that my problem is that I know that what I find worth something will not line up with other people's opinions (not to mention all the stuff about regional pricing that often happens), sometimes I just want to find out about the game itself, how good it is. Not about how in Papers, Please you just check documents so it shouldn't cost $10, or how Alpha Protocol has bugs and isn't all that polished so I should only buy it at 75% off for $5. Just how good the game is.

This is more of a rant really. I doubt people will glean some sense out of these ramblings. I just ran into way too many discussions lately that said nothing about the game and were just people saying "it's not worth this much" and "yes, it is" back and forth at each other.

I can't stand it either. I make sure to get good deals because I play many games but when I compare games with each other I would never take the price of the game in consideration that could tip the scale of one or the other.

Loosely related to this it also bothers me a little when people require a lot of gaming hours per spent cash like Skyrim for example can be said to be a great game because you can get 100+ hours of play time like it's an assumption that 1 hour of two different games is linearly comparable in terms of quality. This again can be divided into comparing games by strictly of their qualities or as a way to save money or make sure you get value for your games which the latter is fine but requiring a game to be long bothers me.

Mine was a rant too, don't know if this is going to lead to any discussion at all. :)

If I stumble upon a game that is ridiculously cheap, it may cause me to look at it a little more closely, so I'll read reviews, etc. But just because it's cheap doesn't mean I'll get it, or think more/less of it.

Conversely, I also tend to initially stay away from higher-priced games simply because of price. I no longer feel good spending sixty bucks on a game no matter how "good" it is. And after the slap in the face that was Skyrim (speaking only for myself), that has just been strengthened.

Anyway, I don't consider a game good or bad based strictly on price, but it does have an effect on whether or not I'm willing to do more research into it.

In my opinion price is also a factor when buying a game. Short title for 1$ is way more manageable than paying 60$.
For example the game Home - I have written text about it and praised it as really interesting experience thats worth admission price (around 3$) it would be hard to recommend the same game if it was 60$.
Maybe its different for other people but there is big competition on the market and I have to watch how I spend my limited amount of money.

Agreed, financial cost and software size have little to do with the actual product in terms of content quality. Though a hint not a standard.

Judging the price of games is completely reasonable, but it's also highly subjective. Therefor, just saying that you think a game is too expensive has no meaning whatsoever for other customers. Explaining the reasons why you think it's not worth the asking price can be of use to others though, no matter whether they agree with you or not.

It depends. A price point should never tie into the score of a game (because scores are useless enough as is), but it should be mentioned in the review because it IS an opinion piece at the end of the day. Let the review reader decide whether they agree with the review or not.

I judge a game by what kind of car it drives.

Games should only be judged by their content. Price is too ephemeral and personally subjective to be a basis for judgement. It's okay to make a note of it in a review, but it should be completely separated from any judgement about a game's quality.

A games value is only in the eye of the beholder.

I judge games solely on the basis of quality/entertainment value to me personally. I always consider bargain prices for them a bonus in that context but the price has zero to do with whether or not the game is good or how good it is.

I don't understand comments like, "well it is good for 5 bucks," etc. To me, either it is a worthwhile way to spend my entertainment time or it isn't. What it cost me has nothing to do with that. Again though, I always consider it a large plus when I get something good for cheap and I think, "Wow, when that was new people paid 50 bucks for it and it was worth it too but now I get to play it for only 10."

My main issue with this game would be a totally different one than the price, namely that it's not on GOG yet!

Gone Home was what made me make this topic.

I went to the Steam forums because I wanted to talk about something I thought was left unresolved, in case there was something I missed.

Instead, what I found was 20 threads about how the game is not worth its price, including one from a guy who flat out said he had not played the game, but felt he had to "warn" people.

Ooooh, that got added to my wishlist immediately! I've been waiting for this game to arrive ;-D


And speaking of gorgeous games, check this one out;

http://mcro.org/