People are complaining more and more about the cost of gaming. Be it the $60 price tag for a new game (more overseas) or the price of DLC people seem to expect more for less.

Let's use BF3 as an example, if you do not buy it new you must pay $10 extra to play online, some will argue that this is an outrage because let's face it, you don't purchase such a game for the single player experience. Some would argue that this is justified in the fact that they are supporting a whole host of backside tech to let people play online and they are assuring some profits through the second hand market which otherwise they wouldn't see.

So weather it's DLC that has supposedly been cut from a game to gather more profits or extra charges for buying used, do you think companies are just tryin to milk gamers? Or do you perhaps think that they should stop those practices and just raise the price of the games overall? Do you think they should just provide the entire package for cheap and damn the profits? What are you thoughts on the price and cost of gaming today?

I don't mind DLC as long as they put some effort into it. Not just put a bunch of random items up for sale at launch, which have no plot relevance and appear in your inventory from the beginning.

I'd say the prices of games is fair though, considering that NES/SNES games cost about the same (or more) over 15 years ago.

-Shrug- I complain about the price of games, but tbh, I'm willing to pay it if I really want it, and my game archive is VERY little. I probably have about 9-10 PS3 games, I usually pick a game if it looks interesting and stick with it for the long haul.

I think people complaining about $60 USD games are completely ignorant of the prices outside of America and also don't realize how cheap games are compared to practically every thing else on a "price per hour" scale.

I'm tired of the complaining about DLC. Sometimes it seems legit as the DLC files are actually only the disc but usually the DLC is something completely optional or, even if released on the game's launch, created after the game went gold.

It's a business. Businesses need to make money. I'm not sure what else there is to say.

EDIT - Actually, I got a bit more. I think a lot of people don't realize everything that goes into producing a certain product and making it available. I don't know anything about the gaming industry or their practices but I know a good bit about running a restaurant. I can make a plate of spaghetti for around 34 cents (USD) but I sell it for around 8 bucks. That's an insane profit margin on each item I sell, and looking at it like that, yea, I'm ripping your mouth out.

Then I factor in electricity, gas, property etc. etc. That's a LOT of my profit margin going to make the food available. If I have any hope of turning a profit, I actually need to sell around $2,000 of spaghetti...A week. And this is the object that gives me the largest profit margin by a long-shot.

Of course they are. Not as any sort of commentary on the game industry in general, but because that's just the way business works. One of the main goals of any corporation is figuring out how to get people to pay as much as possible for as little as possible.

The first game to carry a $60 price tag on the PC was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Since then, more and more games have followed suit. Once upon a time an advantage of getting a PC game was that they were significantly cheaper. Now, games get more expensive and PC gamers are left with low quality console ports with too many bugs to count. My point is, how high will prices get in the very near future? Are those prices fair?

:shocking: Did you copy me or did you come up with that on your own? I've been using the same, exact phrase for quite a while now... and I thought I was being original... :sadvaultboy:

Online passes are a scam. If the game has already been bought once as a new game, whoever was responsible for it has made money from it. With online passes, they want to make money from it a second time. I hate it. It's why I've stopped buying new EA games for example, and instead wait until there's a sale, and a buy a new one at the price of a used one.

iPinion? Apple has started selling opinions now?

It's simple

Rather than complain I let my money do my talking

I don't like DLC. I haven't really had a pleasant experience with DLC and thus have decided not to purchase any. Free DLC I will, quite obviously, take.

As far as the extra cost added for buying a used online multiplayer game I don't care as I don't play those types of games.

I think the complaining is done by people that remember cheaper, more involved games and/or those people that thought it was cool to d/l free games.

What most of the complainers don't realize is how much time, effort and money go into making great games.

I for one don't mind paying for games and I think $60 is at the high end. Having said that, I've got my $100 copy of Skyrim Collectors Edition reserved and I'll probably buy that. I like CEs and have some cool swag to go with the extra cost (as I look over at my 1 ft high Ezio from AC.

To all you youngins that can't afford all the games you want, figure out how to make money. Mow lawns in your neighborhood, go around washing cars, rake leaves, do odd jobs for the elderly. You can make some sweet cash just in your neighborhood if you work hard and do a really go job when you're working.

It's an awesome feeling when you work hard then go out and buy something you really wanted.

Oh and if I really like a game, I'll buy it, the sequels, all the DLC and can stand and any other goodies I can get my hands on.

I've given up putting an opinion out about DLC because, frankly, the only DLC I've bought are the Borderlands DLCs and those feel more like free standing expansions than DLC.

As far as charging $10 for online if you buy used, I used to be morally opposed to it, but then I thought about it more. If you buy the game used, that's a sale that the developer is losing. That $10 is for them to get something out of it. And really, the only time you should complain about the $10 is if "Cost of Used Game + $10 = More than the game New" and at that point, spend the extra couple bucks and support the developer.

i expect the same amount of content i use to get 10 years ago for the same price, it use to be any game you could find would give you at least 100 hours of game play

So because places such as AUS pay nearly 100US for games, that everyone else should just tolerate the price? No. Some games can actually justify the 60.00 price tag such as Skyrim. However, 7/10times that is not the case and I also think that game publishers and developers are targeting the wrong people to find ways to make profit. This new deal that has been going around with SD releases and then released a HD texture at extra cost is another money grab. I think it's criminal to release a product by either A. intentionally stripping content from a game to profit from DLC which was the complaint when DLC was starting to come around more often. Then just slowing people started to tolerate it. B. Now this SD and HD release, but thank god I don't game on a console. Unfortunately, like gas prices around the world have slowly crept up, people will fold and think 2.75 a gallon for gas is a steal. Where as 8 years ago, 2.75 was highway robbery. This could be said for any country who pays what I call excess. (using that as a example, don't take this literal)

I understand developers and publishers need to make money. It needs to justify the cost. Not be a default value and release pretty much "crap".

I think it's the stigma of video games being for nerds or losers that still sticks around. We all love to game, but the moment you stand up for gaming you're slapped with the stigma, making any kind of advocates or potential leaders quit before they start. We're not going to stop being milked by doing what we're currently doing - nothing - but we can't do anything because of our own insecurities.

I don't mind paying € 50,- for a game (which, according to google, is 69,59 USD), as long as publishers don't bother me with their [censored] up drm schemes.

Well, fact is, as Rhekarid's already said, gaming is a business these days, and in business, companies have to make money. The more they gain, and the less it costs them, the better. The ethics in the gaming industry are seriously questionable (and have been for a while), but fact is, a product is worth as much as its purchaser is willing to pay for it. You think €60 for Battlefield Whatever is too much? Don't pay it. It's not right, that much is true, but what business is, these days? That's the price you pay for living in a free market economy - prices are regulated by supply and demand. As long as demand stays or rises, prices can keep going up.

Now, the recent plans to convert all game business models (including single player) from pay-once-own-forever to pay-per-month is criminal - but that's just plans for now.

I, personally, still prefer shelling out €50 for a game that keeps me entertained for over 20 hours, than paying €10 for a Michael Bay film that I suffer through for an hour.

Damn you, got to it before I could.

If I think a game (or DLC) is worth the money, I'll buy it. Skyrim is a day one purchase for me, seeing as I know I'm getting bang for my buck. With most other games though, I'll wait for a significant price drop and/or get it preowned.
Yes, buying a new game might buy you more hours of entertainment than the equivalent amount in cinema tickets or whatever (although it might not), but I've got other financial responsibilities outside of amusing myself.
If companies are in the business of getting as much money for as little as possible, I'm in the business of paying as little as possible for a quality product. Sometimes we meet in the middle (imo buying Skyrim brand new on the release day is a good deal for what I'm getting), and that's fine by me.

Gaming has always been a business. Sure you have indy developers and people doing stuff for free but the major studios and AAA titles have always been big business, including Bethesda and TES series.

I remember way back in the 90s paying $50 for games on the Sega Genesis that were 16 bit games with limited graphics and shallow depth of gameplay. Now, I pay $60 for games and sometimes get hundreds of hours of entertainment.

The price hasn't kept up with inflation while the quality of games has skyrocketed. This really isn't a bad thing for gamers. So the revenue hasn't gone up but salaries for game makers have. Where does that extra money come from? Profits so they try to make more by introducing DLC.

I can't really say I blame them and we've all been burned by bad games that were released WAY too soon.

Sigged, that was awesome :icecream:

I bought Fallout 3 GOTY for 10 euros, then spent over 100 hours on just one character.

Great value for money. As was the Baldur's Gate 4-in-1 boxset.

I don't mind $60 for new games (I was paying just as much or more for SNES, Genesis and N64 games), but most DLC comes off as being horribly overpriced. I'd much rather go back to the standard expansion pack, both in terms of price:content and how that content is delivered (I hate the bitesize, self contained nature of DLC, especially for story-driven add-ons).

I though this was what the topic was about to start with

The average game price here its something like ￡37.50 but some games are starting to peak ￡50+, thats were I draw the line TBH and would start waiting for pre-owned games, I rarely buy them, think I have like 4 out of 70 games and really I think there starting to look worth the wait until someone takes it back to the shop.
But with this switch to digitally buying games looming the trait of buying games on the cheap is sure to vanish and companies ill still be pocketing those ￡50 from the digi downloads.