Video Games Price Rise at CNN Money

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CNN Money has posted an article on the incoming rise in game prices. Here's a snip:

"There's been a lot of hand wringing going on because of what the cost outlook is for game development for the next set of platforms," said John Taylor, an analyst with Arcadia. " I think there's a growing feeling that in order to build and launch a game you're going to have to start at the $20 million mark - $10 million to build the game and $10 to launch it with a big splash. In order to be able to make any money on that kind of investment, you either have to assume some substantial unit numbers, which are hard to do in the first year or two of a platform's existence, or you've got to raise prices."

Taylor said he expects AAA game prices to jump $10 to $59.95.

Banc of America Securities' Gary Cooper isn't expecting quite as high an increase, but he'd like to see one sooner. In an August analyst note, Cooper called on publishers to raise prices on top-line games to $54.99 or higher by as early as this fall.

Well, I would expect the prices to fall rather than rise, but this was perhaps true when more and more people were buying computers and now it seems that everyone who would have it, already has it. It's not like the arguments are convincing and I'm somewhat inclined to fear that the difference in prices will not be just the difference in costs compared to what was before.

Read the whole thing at CNN Money.

 

Oh, quit beating around the bush, Tal. If you have an opinion to express, then do so, and stop being so wishy-washy.

 

Don't temp them Tal. If they want to, they'll find away.

But really, I get what you're saying. Everybody except the gaming execs get what you're saying. The question is, how do we (ie the general public) get them (ie the idiots making all of these decisions) see all of this?

 

They obviously know how to increase the piracy rate.

 

That's because they need it high.

Instead of making it worth buying, which, oh surprise, could make people want to buy it, they prefer to get anti-piracy laws passed and raise the price as high possible. Why bother making the product worthwile if they have such an easy solution at hand?

The way they treat customers is a shame. It's downright insulting. Blatantly recycled paper (and it's not to save rainforests, trust me), thin booklets, crappy cases. It shows they're saving on the target buyer and it's quite insulting, if you ask me. Then the idiotic protections. Pirates and hackers will always find a way around them and it's the legitimate customers who get screwed.

I'm fairly convinced there is a link between copy protection and low (lower and lower) quality of CD media they use. They want you to damage your CD beyond reading and buy a new copy of the game as you're unable to make your rightful back up copy. And, of course, the CD is required to run the game even if all data is on your hard drive, so you'll quite surely damage the CD sooner or later.

The thing with patches is also a downright insult. It's good patches come out when needed, but the product should be tested before selling.

[ October 02, 2004, 03:01: Message edited by: chevalier ]

 

Pardon my naive perspective, but why can't we do anything about this? It just is not fair.

 

Well...they've got us between a rock and a hard place, and they know it. That's where all the trouble starts.

Its outrageous, but we can't really do much about it, except shell out the extra bucks.

It DOES suck though.

 

10 Million to launch it with a big splash ?

I don't know how many of the games that I play fall under this category, but I assume this is for crap like Fable that requires a ton of hype to even get off the ground.

I'm hoping that this won't affect PC games as much as console games, because it's easier to jack up the prices to an audience that's considered the lowest denominator and trapped with a simple console rather than one that can just warez games or something. Looks like I'm gonna need to get bittorrent now or something. This news sucks.

Edit: Tal, I completely agree with you about everything. With Gaming as a big market, the conglomerates are ruining everything just as in every other aspect of life. Seriously, with those F***heads at Atari with the rights to DnD, good DnD games are effectively prevented from being made because a good one would be "unprofitable".

Luckily, there are still some good games that aren't rushed out to make the most money possible.
Prelude to Darkness looks very cool.

 

This is one thing I will not stand for, period.
They raise the price of games, and that is when I stop buying full priced games, period. I'll wait for the price reductions.

 

I already never buy full-priced games. Can't remember the last time I bought a full priced barnd-new game. The last 6 games I have bought have all been second-hand. There's now way I can afford to pay current brand-new game prices.

 

Yeah, same for me.

 

I either warez, get freeware games or (as in the case of KotOR) wait for the price reductions. No way i'm paying $60 for a game. We always have higher prices, so that price increase will rise the price to somewhere around $75. That will pretty much mean buying new CD-R's, i can't afford those prices.

 

I have patience when it comes to buying new games. Let that idiot who wants his game now pay $60 or $70 for a game, get bored with it, and then sell it to a game store. Then I'll pay half that, or less.

But it will never end like that. As long as there are enough idiots paying full price, then it won't matter what the rest of us do. And that sucks. But I complain, and there is nothing that I know of that I can do.

Anybody else have that 'I want to rip out my hair in frustration' feeling right now?

 

Freebies

I just downloaded System Shock 2. When good games get too expensive, it's always fun to relive the classics.

 

Like others, I never buy a game when it first comes out. My main problem is that, given my limited playing time, and given that I seem to use a substantial portion of that time re-playing BG2, I'm always a year or three behind playing the games I want to play. So not only do I save money when I finally get around to buying the games, I also can get by with lower-end hardware (or, if I get something higher end like I recently did, it should last me for quite a while).

 

Same here, Splunge. I never need high priced cutting edge hardware because I'm always playing games that are 3-5 years old (e.g. I have spent most of this year playing BG1 and have only just started on BGII - don't need any fancy kit to play those!)