GoG and Steam have spoiled people. Huge sales, and having the original on sale for a pittance and people say "I bought the original, why is this more expensive?"

In reality, they feel like they NEED the latest and greatest version of a game and feel like something that may as well have been a patch to the original in their eyes (often the amount of work remastering or upgrading these titles is understated by the consumer as much as it is overstated by the publisher) is more expensive than the version that they already own and they feel as though they are being forced to provide $15-$20 to upgrade. They don't want to miss out on "shiny new" but they don't want to shell out for it either because "I already did."

It's not a new phenomenon exactly, look at how many people own every version of Star Wars that was released, or how many people have their favorite album on vinyl, cassette and CD. In this case thought because of digital distribution, they don't feel like a better version is something worth paying for since the original can just be patched and the new changes "just mirror or imitate fan mods."

Baldur's Gate and Fable both come to mind for the uproar the new versions created.

I own BG EE from the Beamdog site and will gladly buy it again from GOG in the near future. Naturally I'm not a person that complains much but when it comes to the Fable remake I kinda sympathize with those angry people about it.

Fable Anniversary for me on Steam is 32 euro then 1st DLC: 9.99e, 2nd DLC: 14.99e and that's where I raise the middle finger.

As I said In my above post I would have been ok with paying 32euro for a remake but the DLC and their prices ruin the whole thing.

The DLC are just additional weapons and costumes. I understand the idea that they cost, but it's nothing anyone can't live without. I own both the original BG and BG 2 on GoG and I own the EE on Steam since they weren't available on GoG when I bought them. I'm not saying people are always wrong to be upset about the pricing on games, but they are often. Fable is practically a new game. They imported everything into a new engine and had to redefine how everything works. I gladly paid the pre-release cost despite owning TLC on Steam. It was worth it to me. Another game that comes to mind is Sleeping Dogs. Worth the price alone to me because of how they integrated the DLC into the game rather than dumping it on you close to the beginning and making you a level 8 everything and giving you over $500Kbefore you complete any missions. Just defeats the purpose of play.. LOVE the definitive edition. However, Tomb Raider, I didn't like it enough to spend even more money on the re-release of that.

The problem is people feel that the upgrades should be included with the original or at the worst be low cost DLCs, when in several cases, like with Fable, for instance, it was a pretty big effort to upgrade.

The only pricing of games that I dislike are from Blizzard-Activision. Simply because they continue to overvalue their products long after release. That's their right to be like that, but other companies will get my business and they will not.

You can also convert your free time into games instead. Money's just the faster way.

I don't understand that either. Some people are willing to pay for butt ugly pixel art and even argue that they're better in some way that high fidelity 3D art.

Edit: Sorry, I'm being facetious. It just bugs me when people complain about someone else's taste, especially when their own is the minority one.

Yes. Gaming has become more mainstream, so while the production costs have skyrocketed, so have the profits, with or without the prices of games going down or up. I guess GTA V was a good example, as it apparently broke both records (production costs, and money made).

I personally think both the whining from publishers about "too low prices", and whining from customers of "too high prices", are both irrelevant. Publishers set any prices they want, and customers either pay up and play, or not. (Leaving piracy out of the equation for now, it can certainly skew the market too.)

Too much competition in the market, pressing the prices down? Can''t make an AAA game without using trillions on marketing, licensed pop music, Kevin Spacey and Taylor Swift as voice actors, photographing and modelling the whole Los Angeles to the game etc?. Awww, too bad, in that case listen to this guy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZPb3_CYr-0

As for the whining customers, there are lots of options in different price brackets for gamers, so if you can't or don't want to buy a more expensive game, buy a cheaper one instead.

I think you simplify reasons of other people for not willing to buy any game day 1 for whatever price or even reaching lower price.

For example, I visit cinema rarely, usually paying between $6-8 for a movie. I don't pay it cash but using something like a bonus coupons from my employer who gets tax relief in exchange (simplification). I view paying $8 for one-time cinema visit with no option to get a comfort of home viewing (pause, delicious own snacks, etc.) too much.
You can pay 2 lunches for that sum in the capital city.
I view the activity as a luxury I mostly use as a way how to spend time with my friends.

There are titles I pay for full price but what really made me stop and say "Wait a minute" was to realize how ridiculously low Russian customer gets its game even freshly released and their average income is in same lower class as Czech average income; same can be said about Poland (705 euros vs. 542 euros and 681 euros). For comparison, average German salary is 2054 euros.

So when I hear the BS how VAT is ruining a publisher when they don't have any issues to sell the game for half a price in a country with similar economic standards, I really don't see a reason why I should waste not an exactly portion of my salary to buy a game at the price point I don't think has the potential I expect from time/enjoyment/money combination.

Don't forget you can buy various amount of goods for $60 at different corners of Earth.

Why pay full price unless the game is special is my rule.

For me games are less special these days. Back in the 80s and 90s it was about pushing the technological curve ever further because computing was advancing so rapidly. Sid Meier said in an interview that every Microprose release tried to take advantage of every new technology development, pirates being an example. This allowed Microprose to develop new forms of play even. So literally, when a new game came out it was really like nothing you had seen before in some fashion. Whether that was in a new genre being created, a new graphical standard or the design being special in some way.

These days game developers are a fan of computer games they played in there youth so they are imitators by nature and make only iterative improvements to play (refinements) in well known and cast in stone genres. (with some exceptions) Back in the day the notion of genres was not as important, you just made what worked and you pushed the technology. Sometimes that resulted in a bad game here or there but even the bad games introduced something new, even if not successful.

TLDR;

Basically games today have overly familiar mechanics and genres and fail to push the technology curve. ie all the numerous sequels and cookie cutter games with familiar mechanics but one new innovation slapped on top for the sequel. It is getting boring which is why I'm mostly into indie games now.

In 1997 I paid £29.99 for Outlaws (Lucasarts). I vividly remember buying this, as it was with my birthday money.

Looking at the price of the pound, in 2013 (2014 data is not available) , the relative value of £29.99 from 1997 ranges from £41.95 to £57.23.

If we take the current price of a modern day First Person Shooter (I will use Gamestop as the retailer), Call of Duty Advance Warfare, a brand new game, costs £33.97 on the PC.

On the Xbox One it costs 44.97, which falls at the low end of the relative pound pricing scale.

So in fact based on this, games are cheaper today than they were in the 90s. Modern gaming is a such a mass produced thing, with millions more players than in the past, that they can afford to sell them for cheaper.

Realistically? Infaltion is 100% real. Each year that passes your money is worth less and less, or put another way, your able to buy less and less with the same amount of money as time passes. This isn't debatable, its an undeniable fact and it effects everything from food prices to the Lego sets people will buy this holiday season. So the fact that new game releases are priced at the exact same level that they were 25+ years ago is absolutely MIND BLOWING, especially given the fact that games today are VASTLY more expensive to make, VASTLY larger in size, etc. So gamers should absolutely be jumping for joy over the fact that the gaming industry has basically been completely immune from inflation. If it wasnt, new games prices right now would be at least $79.99, and thats definitely an estimate on the low side.

Just looking at the last console generation on its own (PS3 and Xbox 360), which started in 2005 for the 360 and 2006 for the PS3 and had game prices of $59.99 at the start of the generation, the price of games right now would between $70.83 and $73.12 if game prices rose to compensate for inflation. Basically $70 and thats just since 2005-2006. Go back to the N64 era, which actually had many games that were more than $59.99 and your well over $100 bucks a game today.

Inflation is 100% real and the fact that it really has no bearing on short term or even long term game prices is something to be EXTREMELY grateful for. Yes, even to the level of jumping for joy. The US inflation rate is usually around 1.5% to 3% per year. So basically you would need to spend 1.5% to 3% more to get the same amount of goods. Again, when it comes to inflation, I don't know another retail market on the entire planet that is like the gaming market and again that is something to be EXTREMELY grateful for.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with being a bargain shopper or waiting for prices to drop before buying games. I do it all the time myself. Bitching about the pricing in the market.....well, that is a different story entirely. In my opinion, people that complain about modern game prices, especially in the $15 to $20 range, just have zero pespective on this industry as a whole and as such, they just have no clue just how fortunate they really are to be paying the prices we have today. As much as I hate to say it, Its really the very definition of ignorant.

If there's no costs to make a game physically (via CD, DVD, Blueray, cartridge, etc) is there any reason there should be inflation even if the value is less?

The value of physical items fluctuate; And for collectors or rare items their value gets much larger than originally. I bought FF7 and other games for PS1 back in 2003 for about $20 each before they stopped making the game; Now those limited copies and their value have blown up, some by 10x or more. This is MUCH larger inflation than you're talking about.

But when you can have infinite copies of something... it shouldn't inflate, not really, because there's no stopping it from being infinitely avaliable in one form or another.



End line, DD is a different beast, and needs to be treated as such, especially in today's economy until it gets back on track.

I'm not 100% sure when it was, but I very clearly remember paying £49.99 for my copy of TIE Fighter. Didn't even know it was coming out, just saw the box on my way in to Virgin Megastore. I believe at that moment I first coined the phrase 'shut up and take my money'...

25 years ago you didn't had Steam with tens of millions of customers, I have no idea how many console users or cheap programmers from India or Eastern Europe. In fact 25 years ago you couldn't get a PC with 1/4 of your income (entry level PC / average income in most developed countries).

Now I feel old...