Phantasy Star: Fringes of Algo

A former developer for Bulletstorm made this claim and tried to justify it in the following article:

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/60-for ... 0-6419971/

He brings up some good points, and I think it's hard to charge $60 for a game and get the market penetration that you desire with a lesser known game. I rarely, if ever pay $60 for any game. I wait for price cuts and then when they are $20-$30 I will consider buying them.

I don't think devs charging $60 for a game is "insane", but I think that a lot of games don't deserve to the priced that high, and I think devs use the market standards to try to squeeze more money out of consumers. However, I think it usually ends up back firing on the devs, since people will feel cheated in paying $60 for a game that doesn't last very long, or a game that doesn't have a lot of content.

What are your thoughts on this?

It really does seem high to me. Of course I remember when N64 games were up to 80 bucks a pop, and I know Jaguar and other insane platforms like that had some crazy expensive games, but $60 for a disc and a bit of plastic seems a little excessive at this point. At least N64 games were carts and they still last to this day.

I think $60 for a game is way too much, however, I have spent that or almost that much for a few popular games that were out recently. They were gifts, otherwise I probably would not have spent that much for a game I wanted for myself. As long as people are willing to pay that much and more for a game (and a lot of people/gamers are willing to do so) then I don't see the prices coming down that much for a long time. Gaming is about the only hobby that a lot of people have these days and some are willing to put their money into it as long as it makes them happy, and the gaming companies and stores know this, I think, so the prices don't come down very much.

So, I went back and ran the numbers, and it seems that while $60.00 is a scary sticker price, in terms of real dollars it's actually at the lower end of what new console games have cost over the years, and that's not even taking into account that there are a number of console games that cost that much if not more in prior generations. Chrono Trigger was definitely $60.00 when it was first released, and PSIV regularly retailed anywhere from $90-100.

Personally, I have no problem handing out cash for a game I'm looking forward to, heck just recently I forked out quite a bit of cash for the Watch Dogs Limited Edition with season pass, which set me back by a bit more than I'm proud to admit.

What I don't like though is that I'm starting to see games at the $70 rather than the $60 range. I don't like that. It just makes you question at what point are they going to start at $80, or even $100? At the current rate we're going, I'd say within the next decade.

Well maybe it's just me, but I don't feel the urgency to play new games like I used to. When I was younger, I would pay anything to get the latest games and I couldn't wait. Now, I have so many unplayed games that buying another game for full price just feels foolish to me. I have enough games to keep me busy until X game comes down in price. So why blow the $60 if I can get it for $20 when I will actually be ready to play it.

Another problem I have with the current pricing is you just don't seem to get much for your money these days. Like Bragatyr said, you get a disc, a flimsy case, and MAYBE a few page instruction manual.

Does anyone remember the company Working Designs? They used to make JRPGs back in the PS/Saturn generation. They used to give you so much crap with their games that it really felt like you were buying something. They would give you fold out maps, hard cover instruction manuals that were foil embossed, art books, soundtracks, and extra discs with "making of the game" videos. You don't even see this much stuff in collector's edition of games now, which cost a lot more than standard editions.

Working Designs games are the kind of games I would have no problem paying $60 for, but guess what.......back in the day they didn't cost any more than a standard game. Sadly Working Designs is no more, but I will say that Working Designs games were probably the last time I spent full price for a game, and felt completely satisfied in doing so.

I'm with VistaBlade on this. I generally don't feel urgency with getting new games, as my backlog is so huge, and I'd rather pay for it when A) I feel like I'll be playing it soon and/or B) I just manage to find it at a really good price or with a really good deal, whether I'll get to it soon or not. As a PS Plus subscriber, if I wait long enough I can even get a lot of games I want to play free. Recently Puppeteer went free for PS Plus subscribers, and that was one I was interested in. By waiting, I downloaded it free. Waiting also can get you Game of the Year editions with additional content - I recently got the first Borderlands GOTY for $10, so it's the base game plus all the DLC.

I also don't really make a distinction between used or new. Used games don't bother me, and really, I consider it a form of recycling. As long as it's in decent condition, I'll happily get a used game over a new one as it's usually a bit cheaper.

That said, I'm not sure $60 is "insane". Games have gotten so huge now, and it takes time, resources and a LOT of talented people to put a big-name game together from the initial creation to the box on the shelf.

60 dollars is way too much ! 60 euros is too for me ! I've not bought a game this expensive for many years now...

It's 50/50 in my case. $60 sounds like a lot, but I remember paying $50 back in the early 90's for the typical Genesis game. If you figure in inflation, $50 back then was a lot more than $60 is nowadays.

On the flip side, a good chunk of the $50 you forked over back then went towards manufacturing costs. Cartridges were quite expensive to make, even if all you got was a flimsy case and black-and-white manual with it -- the cartridge itself (ROM chips, circuits, and even co-processor chips on occasion) was where the bulk of the cost went.

Nowadays, manufacturing costs are far less of the overall cost structure of a game than they used to be. If you're buying physical media, you'll probably looking at $5-$10, if that, for the cost of a disc, manual, and case. If you're buying digitally distributed media, then there is essentially no manufacturing cost involved. Note that I'm separating out manufacturing cost (i.e. the cost of actually making copies of the game) from the development cost (the cost of programming, artwork, testing, etc., the game). While manufacturing cost has gone way down, development cost has gone way up, with the typical AAA game costing a few million bucks to develop.

As far as my own game purchasing habits (and it's been a while since I have a huge backlog that's only gotten bigger since I became a dad), I'll almost never pay full price for a $60-ish game unless it's something I really, really, really want. A lot of my games I've picked up later after they've been discounted or I even purchased them used (I have a habit of checking out the used game bins at game stores every time I have time to kill at a mall or shopping center).

Waiting for a lower price also offsets the cost of the inevitable DLC prices which bigger games almost always get now. Like Wolf Bird said above, waiting often gets you an updated version of the game with the DLC bundled along with the game for cheaper.

I really don't think it's an isolated line of thinking either. There are a lot of gamers now a days that have the same line of thinking as I do. Waiting to play games also lets the developers work out bugs and add additional fixes.

I honestly do wish that the gaming industry enticed me like it used to. I would love to be getting hyped up for the latest games and counting down the days to the next big game release, but the fire is just gone for me. It's hard for me to throw the maximum amount of money possible at companies that are just trying to force their latest game down my throat and are constantly trying to find ways to cut content from the games and charge me for it later and call it DLC.

Look at the bigger game companies now. Ubisoft, EA, Capcom, etc. If you go to forums and see people posting about the companies, a large portion of the gamers hate these companies and hate their practices. Do they buy their games? Sure they do, because they are gamers and want to play the games they like, but they can feel less guilty about supporting a company that they don't like if they are buying a game for a discounted price.

For example, I didn't think Street Fighter X Tekken was worth $60, but I did buy it for $20, and I feel that it was worth it for $20. I still like Capcom as a company, but I'm not going to throw three times the amount of money down on a game if I don't have to.

Am I cheap? Not at all. In fact I just bought a new car. I see game purchases like this to be smart purchases, and not purchases of a cheap person.

The gaming companies I love are dwindling, and Blizzard games are really the only games I will spend full price on these days, but when it all comes down to it, I'm a gamer, and I honestly don't care what company makes the games I want to play. If it looks good, I will buy it. Simple as that. When I will buy it, and what I will pay for it is another story.