It wasn't the companies that "devalued games", it was the market. Do you really think these companies want to "devalue" (charge less) their products? Nah, they would be happy charging more if they could get it but fortunately the market doesn't let them do it.
This a sign of a healthy competing market and this is a good thing for us, the consumers. Getting cheaper games is very good and its a normal thing and we dont have to be "grateful" for it.

Not really, the amount of money the gaming population will cram into gaming is a finite resource, which occasionally (but rarely) expands when a company comes with with a new genre that interests previously non-gamers.

As more and more game companies compete for that resource, the lesser the expected share per company.

For a new comer especially, offering a lower price compared to the competition isn't as much devaluing the market as it is muscling their way in the market to begin with.

Personally, I think it's better for the economy and society overall if, say, 1000 guys make a liveable income out of gaming rather than just 10 guys getting ultra-rich. Fitting as many players in the market as possible is a good thing.

I think the gaming market is more diverse nowadays. You may still have commercial games made by one or couple of people, e.g. indie and/or mobile games.

So it is not like you can't make a relatively successful game nowadays with pretty low investments. But you need a big team and lots of investments, if you want to make a cutting-edge AAA title with Hollywood actors and licensed music. Something that was not made back in the day.

Games can also nowadays be sold for a much longer time as you don't need to produce new shipments of physical games all over the world, or care for the limited store shelf space.

Also with digital games there is no second-hand market for games either, which also increases the tail which brings delayed profits. I always considered the retail game prices to include a "second-hand tax", ie. the price took into account that the game may be resold many times. One of the reasons I expect digital games to be cheaper than retail games.

Anyway, considering how GTA V, Minecraft, Clash of Clans and such are breaking the all-time gaming profit records (despite there being nowadays far more competition and fragmentation in the gaming market, e.g. the aforementioned indie and mobile games), I am unable to shed a tear to the hardships of contemporary AAA publishers. Boo hoo, you are making too much money...

Ps. Rather than comparing how much individual games used to cost compared to today (inflation taken into account), I think it is more useful to compare how much people are using money for games total nowadays (per person, and overall). While I am buying mostly cheaper games now than I did in e.g. early 2000s, I am still probably using more money on them than back then. I guess I'm just buying that much more games nowadays, and what is more, I don't buy second-hand games anymore, so all those dineros are going at least partly to the publishers too.

I'm nowadays supporting the game market more than back in the old days.

...yet
But I expect this to change in the future when this market will probably get more regulated/legislated.

No, thanks. The only thing which ever balanced second hand market was the fact that goods wore down over time, you got a new product in better quality than the second hand one and there was no easy way of replicating the original copy. It sort of kind of remained that way with DVD resale, altho data on a DVD did not degrade, and it's way too easy to restore one. All-digital resale means a second-hand product is precisely in the same shape as the original, which does not bode well for anyone.

Seriously, there's no point in having second hand in a digital market, aside from feeding leeches - if you want to get your game early and expensive, you can, if you want to wait and get it cheap, you can. You can't sell it to regain the money spent, true - I suppose you'll just have to wait for the price to drop to 80% off like everybody else does :-P

Digital resales are way too easy to exploit, and won't work without heavy DRM anyway. It doesn't even make sense as there's nothing to resell. There's no finite amount of licenses availible in digital.

^^^^This +1.Wow you made sense for once ;). But your right. Not real such thing as second hand in digital. Its a virtual product not physical. No wear or tear. And considering how prices of digital games drop naturally, the prices drop to low prices most people can afford anyway within 6 months of a games launch (roughly).

Pfff, I always make too much sense, that's the problem, see ;-)

At any rate, I think we can see just how well that experiment went for GreenManGaming - their games had to be so DRM-riddled that the store basically became a Steam key reseller later down the line.

It didn't get like this until digital came along and was seen as "free money" because you didn't pack and ship anything. It's a somewhat recent development to have a new $60 game routinely be half that price in a couple months.

And since a few people responded this way, let me say: I'm not saying it's a bad thing. What I am saying is I wonder if they will regret it, for a variety of reasons. If it ever gets to the point where the majority are waiting for a sale on games they normally would have bought full price, well, that's a tricky thing. Also most indies are finding it hard, even on PC, to charge more than $20 on release and see any sales. This has been debated on business focused sites like Gamasutra with more than a few indie devs wondering if they're truly better off getting most of their sales at the $5 level.

It's a debate with no clear answers.

Reminds me of the time I was reading a controversial argument from years back, when suddenly I found a post that I could agree with completely. When I checked who wrote it, turned out to be me.

Still trying to decide if that's good or bad.

Well, it seems like digital distribution is here to stay and it will probably push the physical distribution down the drain in the (near) future. It's a logical market evolution.

Well, the thing that you mentioned is already happening as we speak:
There are lots of people paying the day0 release price and there are lots of people waiting for a sale in time. If the latter group will become the majority then probably this will drive the day0 releases prices down until the supply meets the (new) demand.
After all in the end the consumers and their habits make the market ;)

ps. it seems to me that they don't and won't regret it because they are making money out of it, otherwise they wouldn't be in this market.

Oh yeah, I find my forgotten posts extremely agreeable as well. And yes, it is very bad - it means I've got a rubbish memory :-P

See the charts here:

http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/images/wealth/Actual_estimated_ideal_wealth_distribution.gif

http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/images/wealth/Net_worth_and_financial_wealth.gif

http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

It doesn't follow that lowering the initial price will bring in more money. If even just 10% of people buy at the full price, that's still money in the bank. It's not like the people who wait for sales won't buy because of the initial higher price.

That said, things will likely go in the direction they're already going: sell the games piecemeal. You will be able to pay less, but you will get less. You'll pay more money to unlock more features and content.

Well, at least it is better than accidentally arguing with your own earlier message, not realizing you had written it before.

Keep in mind that kids are by far the most vocal group in the gaming community, with Steam being their chief domain, and they throw tantrums over absolutely everything. So whenever you hear or read something exceptionally dumb or irrational, assume its a kid somewhere.

I think most people complaining about pricing are kids who confuse triple-A titles with Indie games.
They buy games like Goat Simulator and wonder why Call of Duty costs so much more, a game is a game.

Many of them also seem to think that all Indie games should cost the same simply because they are 'Indie games', regardless of the complexity, time, effort and talent put into the game.

Or maybe its because Steam games are on sale so frequently now that kids expect these kind of prices all the time.Besides Steam themselves there's also Humble Bundle, Bundle Stars, GreenManGaming, SimplyKeys,GamersGate etc.