The Price of next gen games.
Discussion
I was looking at the exclusives for each of the next gen games and noticed they are considerably more expensive than the current gen. Anywhere from £7 to £15 more for some titles and this is not just exclusives but cross platform, some being PC/current/next at £30, £40 and £50 respectively.
Are they just taking the piss, will prices drop after launch or are they gouging? I can't see a reason why they would cost more to produce, they just seem to be looking to charge more.
Mind you I always remember PS3 games being about £40 so prices haven't changed and maybe they should. 37% is a bit excessive though.
Are they just taking the piss, will prices drop after launch or are they gouging? I can't see a reason why they would cost more to produce, they just seem to be looking to charge more.
Mind you I always remember PS3 games being about £40 so prices haven't changed and maybe they should. 37% is a bit excessive though.
Bullett said:
I was looking at the exclusives for each of the next gen games and noticed they are considerably more expensive than the current gen. Anywhere from £7 to £15 more for some titles and this is not just exclusives but cross platform, some being PC/current/next at £30, £40 and £50 respectively.
Are they just taking the piss, will prices drop after launch or are they gouging? I can't see a reason why they would cost more to produce, they just seem to be looking to charge more.
Mind you I always remember PS3 games being about £40 so prices haven't changed and maybe they should. 37% is a bit excessive though.
I don't buy many games but I'm pretty sure that the majority of games sold in supermarkets and other big stores are marked down from the RRP.Are they just taking the piss, will prices drop after launch or are they gouging? I can't see a reason why they would cost more to produce, they just seem to be looking to charge more.
Mind you I always remember PS3 games being about £40 so prices haven't changed and maybe they should. 37% is a bit excessive though.
For example, GTA V is £49.99 RRP but the price in Tesco was about £40.
Bullett said:
I can't see a reason why they would cost more to produce,
I thought GTAV was the most expensive game ever made? Games are constantly getting more and more expensive to produce.Having said that, I haven't payed full price for one in ages, steam sales for me....(or occasionally aplha funding)
Edited by motorizer on Thursday 17th October 12:29
Steve Evil said:
It was the same story when the 360 and PS3 launched, prices soon tumble.
This, they haven't even launched yet, they'll no doubt come with the same £49.99 rrp as current ones and be actually sold for about £35 once the initial excitement has died down - I'd bet inflation corrected games are cheaper now than that any time since they came on cassettes. motorizer said:
I thought GTAV was the most expensive game ever made? Games are constantly getting more and more expensive to produce.
Having said that, I haven't payed full price for one in ages, steam sales for me....(or occasionally aplha funding)
It was, but it also smashed $1billion is 3 days, 2 weeks sooner than the previous record. Having said that, I haven't payed full price for one in ages, steam sales for me....(or occasionally aplha funding)
Edited by motorizer on Thursday 17th October 12:29
There will be significant costs by the game makers gearing up for next gen. Ubisoft are looking at loosing $54mil this year.
Doesn't matter how expensive a game is to develop if it's spread over all the consoles and the PC say. You actually spread the costs thinner so there is no reason for a £10 price difference between versions, except they can get away with it.
I think the pricing will drop, but it never likely to drop as low as current gen. Something called anchor pricing as I understand it. Set an anchor price and that is what people will expect to pay. So when it drops a fiver people then think bargin even though its still £5 more expensive than the last gen.
PC games have been around £30 for years. There is no sea change in the market to more this established price.
I think the pricing will drop, but it never likely to drop as low as current gen. Something called anchor pricing as I understand it. Set an anchor price and that is what people will expect to pay. So when it drops a fiver people then think bargin even though its still £5 more expensive than the last gen.
PC games have been around £30 for years. There is no sea change in the market to more this established price.
mu0n said:
For example, GTA V is £49.99 RRP but the price in Tesco was about £40.
It was £33 delivered on launch day (from Tesco)...No reason to pay full price, just shop around, and then see if you can buy via quidco for additional savings.
I have a PS3 but now I have GTA5 im in no rush for a PS4. I do most of my gaming on the PC and love the fact games are so cheap. I think they have to keep them at a realistic price because its so easy to get the game off torrents.
As a BF3 fan I laughed when it came to ordering the forthcoming BF4 game direct from EA. £45 for the physical disc. Ok. Now the PC download version? £45 too. Riiight, so it costs you nothing to make the discs, manual and ship the product? So I ordered it from Amazon for £31 delivered. (I see they have dropped the price of the download version to £40 now, and amazon price has actually risen to £35)
130R said:
This is one advantage of PC gaming, I can't remember the last time I paid over £30 for a game. The flip side being the cost of a gaming PC vs a console.
The flip side is also DRM, Whilst they are cheaper, with most PC games these days you can't sell it on once registered on steam or equivalent. There is still a market for second hand console games. (I don't know if the new consoles will have this type of DRM, I'm sure sony and microsoft would want it)Games (and gaming PCs) are one of the few things that haven't massively increased in price..... wasn't elite for the BBC micro around £15 30 years ago?
Edited by motorizer on Thursday 17th October 19:16
You are right. I had to save up for ages to buy Elite (for my Electron) it was £15 in 1984! That seems to be the equivalent of £41 in todays money. Pretty close to what we pay now but also most games were £10 or under.
The effort is of course much greater now but then the customer base is also larger.
The effort is of course much greater now but then the customer base is also larger.
motorizer said:
with most PC games these days you can't sell it on once registered on steam or equivalent
True, steam "family sharing" is in beta at the moment though and with that you can share your entire steam library with up to 10 devices at a given time. This will probably save a fair bit of money assuming you know other people that use steam: http://store.steampowered.com/sharing/
DoctorX said:
An Atari 2600 game was 30 quid 30 years ago, pretty sure a lot of N64 games were >£40. Suppose we can't complain. Much.
Also when you think about the amount of time you can spend playing a game - you can easily put 100+ hours into a game like Skyrim, Battlefield and CoD multiplayer (for example) even more.Rick101 said:
I grew up with sonic and mario, games were £30 back then.
I really don't see the minimal increase over 20 years as much of an issue.
Mega-drive and Super NES games were regularly £40 back in the early 90s, yet probably cost several orders of magnitude less to develop than todays titles. If anything we should be rejoicing how little (if any) they have gone up over the past 20 years.I really don't see the minimal increase over 20 years as much of an issue.
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