It's really not. $50 is the average price for a PC game in the US that isn't some kind of special or collector's edition.

hahaha... its funny that you left out that part where todd also says that he does NOT put them in the same boat, because he believes their game is definitely worth the $60 price tag, even offering more than $60 worth of game content...

so, maybe you should get the whole quote before trying to use it against bethesda?

besides, $60 is the base price for the game... i highly doubt a CASE and a MANUAL really have any effect on a game's price. :rolleyes:

You obviously don't get it. Physical distribution doesn't just cost $2 extra it costs that for the disc then add packaging, manuals, shipping, warehouse fees, the retailer's cut, now multiply that by each disc manufactured and sold...that means after all of your fees you make a few bucks less per game. It may seem like a small amount but when you sell millions of games the difference in profit is very large.

With digital distribution you just have to pay for the server space needed and the service's cut of your profit. You make a much larger profit when you don't have to factor in all of those other things.

I pre-ordered from GameStop and I like having the game in a box. I've gotten one game from STEAM (ME1 for $5) and while the game works I still have not been able to register it at the BioWare forums so I can post in the game owner sections. It will be the last purchase I do like that.

I have the GotY box for MW and OB and I'm sure will add the GotY Skyrim after it's released. In the mean time I'll just have the regular Skyrim box with the special map.

the PC gamers here are never going to stop complaining that they have to pay full price for a game for once, are they?

i just dont get it... you guys spend hundreds, thousands of dollars just upgrading your PCs every few months to keep up with the games, and you're complaining about a $10 difference in game price?

not to sound rude, but you're giving PC gamers a really bad name. :shakehead:

maybe the mods should take care of this thread? i dont see anything good coming from it...

aww is $60 really tough for all of you ): i feel so bad.... wait a minute.. I'm Australian, my steam copy is $90! but that's ok i'll just got to a store... $120! skladhdfasfanfasjhdsa, wish i could complain about $60

I'm going to use this as an intro to what I was trying to figure out how to say, until I read this.

PC gamers automatically get the option, and some would call it luxury, to maximize their graphics, download and create mods, a couple of things which console gamers do not have the option of doing. While I don't want to start a console war conversation, or rather argument, I would like to point out that there are those of us who just cannot afford nice gaming computers or new computers capable of playing games that require better graphics cards. I mean, I've owned Sims 3 since the day it released but hadn't been able to play it up until this last Christmas when I received my new laptop as a gift, and not a day before because neither I, nor my family, was able to afford a computer that could.

There's trade offs to everything. If you can't afford a brand new computer, but you can swing a console and a $60 pre-order that comes with a paper map and a cloth map. That's it. We still have to buy the DLC if we want it when it comes out, we can't maximize our graphics no matter how new our console or television is, and we can't access the modding community. PC gamers, on the other hand, have computers with the ability to max graphics, download mods, etc. Frankly, the price is fair because of the trade-offs. Console gamers get what they get, PC gamers get what they feel like having (including bug fixes) at no cost to them but some disk space.

Now, one thing I do think is that, for the price, people should be sent a hard copy of their game... but then again, that would render Steam pointless because then you might as well have just pre-ordered your game for PC, got your maps, and STILL had access to max graphics and the modding community.

inb4, you're a butthurt console gamer. No, I'm not, I just prefer things on console. My boyfriend tried to get me to play Oblivion on the PC, and I really did try for a couple of hours, but my hands just can't... do that. I do play some games on the computer though. Things like Heroes, League of Legends, Sims, Age of Mythology, the Tycoon games, etc.

It always puzzled me why downloaded games are priced the same as hard copy... I mean they at leas should extract the price of the DVD, case, and actual manufacture... Strange. And I still don't get why so many people buy them anyway... I'm probably just old-fashioned - I take a box with the game over a download every time

Buy a real copy for ￡30 from Amazon then you dolt.

I don't get why people would want a downloaded version when they could get the real deal.

I've pre-ordered my PC copy for around ￡25, that would be $40. Quite a good deal.. with free shipping too.

Ok fine I'll give you that. It costs ten dollars to distribute a physical cd. So why then are we not paying 40 dollars for pc copy why is 50 acceptable?

A console game is 60 right. Ten dollars to sony/microsoft. So a pc game is ten dollars less because they dont have to pay royalties.

And your saying that ten dollars is an acceptable price for packaging, manuals, shipping, retailers cut and warehouse fees.


You wanna know whats worth ten dollars. Five years from now I decide I want to play oblivion but cant find my game disc. I have to buy it again, but same senario I want to buy skyrim I just punch in my password and bang dowload it.

Your arguing very illogically you try to take into account every aspect of disc shipping with complete disreguard for every other aspect of making the game. The way I look at it is the game company is takein a bite with the consoles. So thw money they make on pc is profit deserved.


Thw problem in the industry is games that are low quality that slip through as full releases. Duke nukem forever for example. Would have been a decent game for 20 dollars but we have been convinced that it is an acctual full game.

We can argue semantics all you want but the fact of the matter is that the value of currency is going down and inflation is going up.
by this time next year all mainstream pc games will be 60 dollars no matter the distrobution.

I just reread yoir first paragraph. Your talking bout profit loss. If some arbitrary force was biting into your income at home and you found a way (less than 1/4 of your income) to try and make a little back wouldnt you.

Man, US$ 60,00 is a regular price for a game that you finish in 20- hours.

In Skyrim you can have 300+ hours of gameplay!!! :rock:

I′m sure Skyrim worth much more than US$ 60,00, so stop complaining!

An ingame item for pre-order would be fine, yes. But i already pre-ordered my Skyrim via Steam regardless any extra - just because i can′t wait 1 second to play this game! :tes:

Yeah really, if it were you i'd understand but holy poo they're complaining about a whole $10 difference!! :facepalm: Again price per hour is insanely low for as long as you'll spend with the game.

I would say the Construction Set alone is worth $60, nevermind the game itself. If Skyrim holds up to Morrowind and Oblivion in plot and gameplay, it'll easily be worth $60 for all the game time you'll be getting. Even if you play a *mere* 60 hours, $1 per hour of entertainment. I challenge you to find entertainment that cheap elsewhere.

It is assuming that you will have Internet connection and the company you bought the game form is still running, and they did not decided to remove it form their server... And that they did not ban you :shrug: Lot's of "ifs" isn't it?
It think it's their who need to give you a discount for taking the risks.

You need an incentive to buy SKYRIM!! ARE YOU MAD!?!?!?!?!

I'll never pay $60 for a standard edition PC game. There's a valid logistical and development reason console games are priced at $60. When BGS makes PC lead platform again, maybe then I will consider paying $60 for a standard single DVD PC game. No way in hell I'm doing that now, especially after removing spell making and other rpg elements from the game to "streamline" it for casual console players.

Or if my house burns down or if the government shuts down or a miriad of other things. But thats also ontop of the already free creation kit. Wich odly is a point that noone wants to dispute.

why should bethesda have to pay the "convinience fee" for you to buy the game online? Its for our convinience. Do you think they enjoy the arbitrary fees tacked on to every form of distrobution.

This thread boils down to a bunch of kids who only have some form of a summer job, or someone who is taking economics classes and thinks they can explain capitolism in a few sentences on a forum.

And im just as big a tool for giving the argument validation.

I'll give you a scenario... keep your games organized/clean/in their cases and you'll be able to find it in 5 years. And play it again regardless of whether you're at a computer that has an internet connection or not. bang whatever.

Really? A post teaching me the art of organization?

Ok ill bite. It wasnt an example of my clenliness or organization skills it was merely an example of the usefulness that the purchasers money goes too.

Well, then... in under a year, you won't be buying any big company games, most likely.

Prices go up. That's life.

(We can't get $0.05 coffee or $0.25 Big Macs anymore. We can't get $1/gal gasoline anymore. We can't get $50 console games anymore - they went up to $60. PC games have held the $50 price point for a good number of years now. The price was due to go up at some point. :shrug:)





Just the way it seems to work here. Even Amazon.com US doesn't really discount new releases. (X360 is$54.5, PC is $59.5, PS3 is $59.5)

(There's probably some level of collusion between the chains, a "friendly agreement" to not get into a price-cutting war and destroy their profit margins. Plus, there's the part where most small stores have died out, so it's just the big chains left in the first place.)

THANK YOU its not fun paying more but expecting games to follow their own economic path separate from the rest of goods and services is borderline crazy.

Well, that isn't the case RIGHT NOW. When that does happen, I'll be picking them up from the sale and clearance bins.

From the sounds of it, you're already doing that. :rolleyes:

Games, like movies, aren't really priced based off on how much money it cost to produce them. The disks, labels, cases and distributors would effect the costs more than the game development. There is a reason why a cheap spongebob game can be labeled as 60 dollars too, because people will pay for it.

PC market has been more competitive I think so I highly doubt most highly sought games are going to be 60 dollars for awhile.