Are games overpriced, or are gamer's expectations too high?

PC Aficionado: "The fact that a developer like Creative Assembly or Paradox continues to make content for games that people love instead of leaving the game to die is admirable. The least PC gamers could do, especially considering we don’t help keep the servers live, is pitch in a little for DLC that isn’t essential to the experience, but enhances it."

[Sciurus_vulgaris]

Games are generally priced to a standard,not by there cost to produce. I personally think several “remastered” game, which were priced at $60 US, were overpriced.

[jdaboss]

Gamers are setting their expectations to match games that are currently out and awesome.. If you dont at least meet that bar you are going to get criticized.

[uth11]

Considering how little content i used to get for more money, i'd say in many cases expectations are just too high.

Not in all cases, some things just arent worth the money. But a lot of the complaining i see is from people with no sense of historic context and dont realize how good they have it now

[freshslicepizza]

People say back in the day games were complete and so on. Great, go buy Shovel Knight for 25% of what that game would have cost you back in the 80's. Those games are still here. Oh, you want highly polished games that take multiple years with hundreds of people employed for $60 and still want to whine about loot crates that for the most part are completely optional?

[nitus10]

The concept of loot crates is a form of gambling although you really do have to look at this in more detail.

If you play say an RPG or an MMO loot drops from enemies and chests are normally random and the more random in relation to the protagonist or party the more replayable the game. Even in some games, you can find mini-games that are to all intensive purposes gambling (e. Zelda1 (yes really) and Dragon Quest 8 to name two) but with in-game money, however, you could skip them or save, play, restore and so on.

Fast forward to microtransactions. These are in-game purchases normally done with real money and for all intensive purposes are not a form of gambling but cater to the crowd who like what I would call vanity items.

Now for loot boxes. Yes, they are gambling but in their simplest form are not that much different to randomized treasure chests in an MMO even to the point of paying for them with in-game money. Once you have loot boxes which you can purchase with real money then they adopt full gambling status. To get around this issue which would definitely bring them under the gambling laws of most countries many games allow you to purchase loot boxes with in-game money as well as real money.

With loot boxes, the contents normally appeal to randomized vanity items for the player however lately the push is for extra buffs or better weapons and protection which you as the player can get with just playing the game However what we are now seeing in games like for example EA Star Wars Battlefront 2 (I had to put in EA for emphasis) is that a normal player is being forced to unnecessarily grind whereas someone who makes a real-world money purchase has a much easier time. IMHO there is no skill in playing games like that.

[agent4532]

Agree nor disagree, I respect your opinion but today's games especially on console are as expensive as the 80's games but are more expensive than PS One and PS2 games. The reason why I say that is today's console games are sold in pieces (DLC, Microtransanctions, Pay to play online, map packs, etc.); therefore, is not $60.00 plus tax is more like $100.00 dollars plus tax once DlC and microtransanctions are factored in. In contrast a PS One and PS2 game would cost $40.00, $50.00 , and even $20.00 plus tax but it came with map editors, free unlockables, alternate endings, mini games, lots and lots of offline multiplayer modes, etc.

[Artemidorus]

Tim but dim here also doesn't tell you that video game sales have risen over the years due to popularity too so it balances out. You also didn't point out the many other companies who worked hard and offered a full game with no dlc had no problems.

Companies also expect extra because gamers have accepted this pay to play culture. You have yourselves to blame if the demand gets higher.

[admiralvic]

"Considering how little content i used to get for more money, i'd say in many cases expectations are just too high. "

Yeah, but standards change and so do other considerations. It's impossible to deny it costs less to produce something like a disc as opposed to a cartridge.

"But a lot of the complaining i see is from people with no sense of historic context and dont realize how good they have it now"

Ignoring the fact some of what I said above comes into play here, we've moved past the "good" and are back to another dark time. For instance, loot boxes are at an all-time high and becoming a new standard. Like Destiny had no issue launching without microtransactions, where as Destiny 2 has roughly the same amount of content, with the majority of cosmetic items behind Eververse. Even if you don't pay, something you can do, the idea of paying for things is much worse than the PS2/early PS3 days when things either had it for free or didn't have it at all.

There is no denying things like television, electronics and even games are better than they were in the '80s, but just because 19" inches was considered a good size, doesn't mean buying a 20" today is considered good. Likewise, regardless of how much better games are from the old arcade days, it's also quite true that we hit a point where more things were included via unlockables that are now paid, part of a complicated paid RNG system, require something like an amiibo or something else entirely.

[agent4532]

I disagree for back in the day during the PS One/Two era the games looked awful compared to today's games but those games offered:

Map editors
Free unlockable game content
Alternate Endings
Mini games
Cheat Codes
Maze like levels or game maps
Offline splitcreen multiplayer

It was also the era that gameplay mechanics changed a lot by introducing:

Destructible environments
Ability to move in 3D space
Stealth mechanics
Run and gun

Really to this day there has not been a revolution of gameplay mechanics since the PS2 era.

This generation of consoles blows for its pay online, pay dlc, pay $60.00 plus tax for PS3 games in pseudo 4K or native 1080p lol, pay for microtransanctions, pay for map packs. Where does the paying stops seriously.

On PC it has gotten better; yes there is microtransanctions and DLC on PC but thanks to mod support and map editors, there is no reason to buy DLC or microtransanctions. The online is free. For PC gamers is great for console gamers not so much.

[KwietStorm_BLM]

I always found it kinda strange or interesting that the vast majority of retail games cost $60. You can probably count on a couple fingers how many industries there are that have a flat price across the board for every product, regardless of content, quality, length, etc. It's even more under a microscope in this age of games with season passes and cut content and DLC . The more cinematic these games get, the higher the budget gets, and a lot of these publishers feel like their games *have* to have this and *have* to have that, so they end up saying things like game A isn't a sustainable model.

[CorndogBurglar]

But at the same time, the $60 price is 100% decided by the company. There are definitely games that release for less, like the Lego games. They are generally $50 when they launch.

So it is interesting that $60 is a price that MOST companies decide to stick to.

[agent4532]

Yeah because they have no idea how to price their games or the retailer forces game developers/publishers to sell it for $60.00. Funny, PC exclusives are.less than $60.00

[gangsta_red]

You and corndog made some great comments.

I think a lot of companies know that the price point of 60 is what a lot of gamers are willing to spend. Anything higher and they'll start backing away.

This is why we see Live and PSN give or take in the same ball park area of price point. I'm sure this industry has thousands of analytics and surveys letting them know the breaking points of the average gamer.

[agent4532]

True but there is too much focus on making games pretty but the facial.animation, body animation, and even running animation is pretty much the same as the PS2 era except for L.A. Noire. Why is hair still plastic when tres fx and NVIDIA hairworks exist. Gameplay mechanics have not changed at all since the PS2 era. I see a problem with poor management, poor budgeting, and wasting time and money on game engines, glorious technical demos, too much time and money wasted on game expos. Yes, I get it marketing a game is critical but why market a game which is not going to look like nor play like the glorious technical demo. ....

[chaos-emeralds]

Game prices are still good. They were £40-£60 in the 90's, so all good.

[AntiZeal0t]

That's how I feel in the US also. I remember paying 60-70 USD for PS1 games, now we're paying 60 flatout for most of them.

[agent4532]

US or .Australia. I never paid $60.00 dollars for PS One games. I always ended up paying $20.00 for PS One greatest hit green label games. The best selling and popular games after 6-9 months in retail. It was a flatout $40.00 US dollars for every PS One launched.

[DarthSocio]

Games were never £60 in the 90s let alone the early to mid 2000s. It's only with the PS3/360 did the price increase ridiculously

[TheVetOfGaming]

Actually, I remember paying £59.99 for streetfighter 2 when it first came out on the SNES. There were games that were around that price back then. Not many, but there were some.

[Mikefizzled]

I vividly remember opening an Argos catalogue not long after the PS2 released in Europe and seeing Gran Turismo 3 as £65.

[CorndogBurglar]

Games in the U.S. were always $50, going all the way back to the original NES days. They went up to $60 when Xbox 360 came out.

Can't complain though. Almost 30 years there has only been one price hike. Thts pretty damn good!

[chaos-emeralds]

They were even higher when the N64 came out. I think Mario was even close to £80.

[KwietStorm_BLM]

Games were $50 when I was a kid, from NES all the way through PS2. It's only been in recent times that the price went up by $10. The thing about it is all games generally cost the same price, regardless of how different they are or how much gameplay you get for your money.

[agent4532]

So never heard of the PS One greatest hits green label, the PS One crappy $10.00 games program by the end of the PS One. PS One games were $40.00 flat during game launch. The PS2 games were flat $50.00 dollars during launch. It too had the greatest hit red label for $25.00 PS2 games. There were PS2 games like the 2K sport games for $20.00, Everquest for $30.00, etc. Those are the facts for US PS One and PS2 prices. The rest of the world could of been cheaper or expensive

[KwietStorm_BLM]

Why are you bringing up greatest hits and special cases? We're talking about new retail games, and the average price was $50 for the period I mentioned. I don't know why people always come with these other prices when this topic comes up, but that's what the prices were for games I owned from everyday retail chains.

[BrianOBlivion]

At $90 with tax here in Canada... YES, without question they are overpriced. "Deluxe" editions with a few crappy skins can run $130 - $140.

[Sciurus_vulgaris]

The full retail price is still equivalent to $60 US. I usually have to wait for sales, for games to be affordable as a Canadian.

[BrianOBlivion]

That's a virtually abstract equivocation when it comes to our everyday lives. We don't make more money than americans and the prices NEVER tip in our favour when our dollar has more so-called value than theirs. Games cost us 20-30% more. It's the same for almost all media across the board.
My girlfriend and I are both dedicated gamers, so we spend a lot of money on games every month, but since the prices skyrocketed, we also either wait for sales or buy used. By gouging, the industry only ultimately screws themselves out of the money they would have otherwise made from us.

[ruefrak]

I don't think games have ever been cheaper. You can get games for $100 or you can get them for free. You can walk into a Gamestop and pick up games for the X360 for just a few dollars. There has never been so many ways to play at so many different price points. And if you think $60 is too expensive, wait a few months and it will surely be much cheaper.

[DJ]

Games are dirt cheap compared to the 90's. Considering the US dollar has lost its value by about 50%, it makes sense that "season passes" bring the total retail price of a game up to $100~120.

Is it just me, or were old games a lot shorter as well?

[ShaunCameron]

Old games were shorter artificially lengthened by the relatively high difficulty curve.

[CorndogBurglar]

I don't know why yo guys are getting disagrees. You are 100% correct.

Back in the NES days games were actually pretty short, if you were good enough to play through in one sitting. (Many games didn't even have save functions or codes to pick up where you left off, so one sitting was all you had sometimes.)

MOST NES games could have been beaten in an hour or so. But they were also ridiculously hard and took an eternity to master, and some were still impossibly hard. I'm looking at you Ghosts and Goblins.

[nitus10]

I am definitely aware of the high difficulty curve by some games (Battletoads comes to mind) however many of those games had ridiculous difficulty spikes. You also have to remember that games which were based on an arcade mentality had "lives" where if you lost them all you started from the beginning.

I have always liked RPG's as well as the odd Action/Adventure game and from the NES days through to current times, RPG's have normally been at the very least 15 hours to many tens of hours long with A/A games (at least the ones I like) I have normally found them to be from 10 hours upwards.

Note: The hours I am quoting are for a normal player without a walkthrough or cheating. Obviously, a skillful player could finish these games sooner than a normal or novice player.

With games like Oblivion and Skyrim (to name two) you can easily spend hundreds of hours and you would still not find everything or do every quest. Of course, you can get games like Souls/Bourne that you can finish fairly quickly (ie. speed running) but for normal play without looking at a walkthrough or cheating these games will take from 40 hours upwards.

[agent4532]

True but PS One and PS2 games were lengthened by free unlockables, mini games, alternate endings, map editors, maze like levels , etc. The JRPG games were very long games clocking at 60 hours or more. ..

[agent4532]

The 1980 and early 90s games yes they were shorter. PS One, PS2, etc. were just as long or longer than today's games. On PC yes the games are dirt cheap on consoles the games are just as.expensive.as the 1980 games

[Fist4achin]

I think they're priced about right. I just don't like seeing extra costs like microtransactions

[Gamist2dot0]

For a great game, $60 is not. Crappy? Yes.
The problem is that the value in games drop so soon after release makes me hesitant on buying certain games day one.

[DarthSocio]

Overpriced. PS2 games used to cost £20. Granted new gen games have bigger budgets/staff but a 6 hr campaign doesn't justify $60

[CorndogBurglar]

NES games were $50 and that was back in the 80's. I think its quite reasonable to be charging $60 20 years later.

[agent4532]

PS One and PS2 games were cheaper than NES games with more content to boot. JRPG games were pretty long. It was a time that online only multiplayer games like Quake franchise, Unreal Tournament Franchise, Tribes, etc. offered 6-8 online only game modes, LAN support, map editors, mod support, 10-20 maps, bot matches, etc. Today's online only games offer:

2-3 game modes
4-6 maps
No map editor
No mod support
No bot matches
No LAN support

For $60.00 plus tax what a joke.

[CorndogBurglar]

Maybe where younlive PSOne and PS2 games were cheaper than NES games. But in the U.S. they were the same. $50.

[LIGATURE]

No old generation games should be 60$ especially on switch😂.maybe the price should be based on the resolution and fps😂

[opinionated]

I think the big market should match the indie approach in pricing. There really is a benefit to pricing your product accordingly. Indie ranges from 5 to 10 to 15 to 20 and 30 dollars. Why can’t the big market accept a 40 to 50 to 60, 70 and 80 models? Games like agents of mayhem would have sold much better at a 40 dollar price range imo. Games like gta and cod can get away with charging 80 dollars, love them or hate them nobody can deny the content given.

[kevnb]

Many games are way too much and the total price is masked by the publisher claiming you need a season pass... even for day 1 content.

[blvdnights1414]

I've notice consumers tend to complain about the general price of games as a whole not being worth the standard retail price but at the same time there are so many games out there now and coming out that are worth more than the $60 price tag but consumers have this entitled outlook on the world that they fail to see they have it pretty good overall.

[Hedstrom]

I think games are trying to much. You dont have to be that ultra mega commercial success. Sometimes a game can be a short single player game, sometimes its mp only, other times its a small fun 4 player party game. Not all games have to have a 20 hours single player campaign, a mp that draws you in for atleast a year and on top of that a survival horde mode, and of course dlc and loot boxes.

Bring diversity in games and prices.

[zerocarnage]

Previous generations games by now when first released would of dropped by a tenner, so yeah I'd say yes they are at the moment. Not only that were paying 50-90 quid some even higher for the bigger pack games, then devs expect you to buy season passes, micros and now the damned loot boxes. It's obvious it's only going to get worse come next gen and publishers and developers have lost touch in alot of way with customers and gone all greedy money whore mongering.

It's like there out to Viking everyone , yeh know, rape, pillage and plunder there customers in any way they can, it's pure torture more so than medieval style..

[Posterboy39]

I remember when some games where 70$ snes

[agent4532]

This article is laughable when modders can make better content for freeee than any DLC made by the game developer why should the PC gamer pay for it.

[Artemidorus]

Games are priced fair it's the hidden content on a disc that gets charged extra or any other methods like season passes, creates etc I have a problem with.

You end up paying more than what a console is worth if you want 100% content in some cases and no game on this planet is worth that.