I'm not a frequent buyer of games, and compared to some friends my shelf of games is relatively small. About two years ago I discovered my computer could run some recent titles such as Left 4 Dead and CS:S, and because of that opted to start playing some PC games.

Now then by the time I bought my games, they weren't at their new price, I was lucky to purchase my main game, Left 4 Dead 2 for only $20 during a sale (the regular price at the time was in the $30s). But nonetheless everytime I log into Steam I see new deals, including new gaming titles. But for the past two years I've seen the price tag at $50.00. I recently noticed however that COD: Black Ops is at $60, and thought this was just Activision's greed. However today I scrolled through some more and saw other big name titles, including Dead Space 2 also at a $60 price tag. At least to my knowledge, this seems recent.

So does anyone know the reasoning behind this? Is this just greed, or has Valve also taken a (higher) taxing system like Microsoft and Sony's? Keep in mind however that these price differences are ONLY in Triple A titles. Anything below that (i.e. the new game coming out, Homefront) is priced at $50 maximum.

VALVe doesn't choose the price the publishers choose the price of games.

It's definitely exploitation by the companies who know that sales will not drop at all due to a higher price tag. For example, Black Ops is $60 not only on Steam, but everywhere. Because at this point it's such a big title that sales won't and didn't fall because of it. Dead Space 2 is gaining a large following and critical acclaim, and after the first one there is a lot of excitement for it. Same [censored], different day.

Increased price to cover high oil prices

Which doesn't explain why it is a higher price for digital distribution services or for smaller games.

It's just because people are willing to pay $60. An item is worth what people will pay for it, and people are willing to pay $60 for big-name titles. I really don't see a problem with it as long as I get my $1/hour ratio I try to achieve. I wouldn't classify it as "exploitation", it is simply a business method for acquiring money. I also wouldn't call it "greed", considering every business has the goal of generating more revenue. If that is greed then you are using a very broad definition of the term. Do you think of Bethesda figured out they would make more money by charging $100 for Skyrim, they wouldn't?

It's a combination of inflation, and the growing popularity of videogames. "Because they can".

You will pay $60 for a video game.
But 90% of Coffee sellers (such as Tim Hortons) Don't pay fair trade prices for coffee, and families starve due to this.

Now, which one of these sounds like exploitation?

You are paying $60, because the cost of what it is to PAY employees, and labor costs, as well as help the company grow to a more financial stable, and better company. If you REALLY can't stand paying a measely $60 for a game, then why bother playing games? Since the 80's, the cost of gaming has been astronomical. It's never been a "poor mans" hobby. It's been expensive since day one.

They want to stay competetive with console games which are at $60. Some PC only games may be slightly cheaper but it wouldn't be much. Its not that consoles are to blame but since the publishers seem to be targeting them the price for PC does suffer so there is no outcry from the console players.

This is why I stopped really buying games except for Steam sales unless I am really into the game.

I didn't mean to make it seem as if I wasn't willing to pay a measle $60. Some games I would be willing to pay over a hundred dollars for. What I was asking was simply why the sudden jacking in the prices. I always knew it as console games being $60 because of payments to Microsoft and Sony to run on their systems. Since PCs can be any amalgam of parts, they're their own console, and thus only costed $50. It simply seems like this is an act of the company rising the prices because of a reason they're losing money, or they're testing how much the people are willing to pay for these games.

I hate the increased prices, I really do. But consider this: how much did an NES or SNES game cost at launch? Now how many voice actors, texture artists, symphony composers, 3D animators etc. did NES/SNES games have?

with the exception of games like deus ex, skyrim, the witcher 2 which i will pay full price for......the rest of the games i plan on getting including dragon age 2 and mass effect 3 i wont get till they are around $30.

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You gotta pay the price. They have what you want, you gotta give them what they want.

With enhanced technologies and higher demand from customers, developers are bring more to their skills and gadgets when it comes to making games. They deserve a pay raise when everything else are going skyrocket expensive.

This.

Especially considering how intense game development, concept art jobs are to get. I got no problem supporting the people who put thousands of man hours (or woman hours) into them.
Especially since people keep wanting "better, better, better", they need to work harder, learn newer engines and programming. It gets intense. I couldn't even IMAGINE having to do the programming for games like ME and Fable, let alone how insane some games are getting these days.

Well you know, those digital distributors need to pay for the trucks and what not for shipping. The cost of fuel ain't cheap you know. Also it costs money, for those paper boxes, and manuals, so I guess the increase of price is to offset this. Also they have to pay the people who handle the games and pack them away.

No, I don't. I just gotta wait until the price drops or it goes on sale.

Patience is a virtue...and considering I own but have yet to get around to playing, for example, the first Dead Space or Dragon Age (owing to a massive backlog), I can wait for those sales a looooong time.

It's just $10. Get over it.

And from $60 to 70$ is again just $10 more

Doesn't apply here, prices are still 49,99€

Some games retail for $120 (don't tell Kotick, though.) They're mostly ultra-niche strategy games, but they figure on selling very low numbers at a higher premium to a discerning clientele, and their customers do get their money's worth. That's one thing. But when $60 is being asked for a game that's been copy-pasted from the previous version, with very little innovation offered beyond token gimmicks, and that game is expecting to sell millions, it's simply taking the piss. I don't buy many (if any) games at full retail price anymore, and that's more a statement about the industry than my growing stinginess with age.

That, pretty much.
I'm glad the UK market, being my most common source of new games, takes competition very serious. You can get new PC games at about 25 pounds, some even at 20. That's 32~40 dollars. Pretty neat, considering I would have to buy in Germany, were it not for this modern age, where new games are sold at about 50 euros, translating to 70! dollars.

Simply put: because they can, and they know their consumers are going to bend over and take it up the ass as usual pay it. And most of them will not complain.

I expect the increase to $60 is to take advantage of the fact that people have different amounts they're willing to pay for games. The ubiquity of digital distribution has already made it easy for game companies to take advantage of this on the lower end up things, with sales picking up customers who are willing to pay, say $20 but not $40 for a game. The increase of the initial price to $60 simply expands this strategy to the upper end of the pricing scale. The people willing to pay $60 buy it, then it shows up on sale at $50 after a couple of weeks to pick up the people willing to pay that, and after a few months the standard price drops to $50 with sales showing up at $40 or $30 and so on, thus basically extracting the maximum amount people are willing to pay for the game, market segment by market segment. Of course, the potential downside is that the initial high price can kill a game's marketing momentum, moving it off peoples' radar until they happen to notice it on sale for $10 eight months later (when they may have been willing to pay $40 if they hadn't been put off by the initial high price). This is especially true for games with a heavy multiplayer component, as a poor initial uptake will lead to a weak multiplayer community and word of this will likely get around and put people off getting the game.

As for myself I really couldn't care less what they set the initial price at as I have a massive backlog of games to play so I tend to be at least 6 months behind the release schedule and can easily wait until games show up on sale or prices have dropped to what I consider reasonable levels (it takes a very good game to convince me to pay over $20 these days, thanks to the massive number of interesting games out there competing for my time).

Well said! :foodndrink: I, too, usually wait for a full game to hit $20 before I'll buy it. Under $20 for small games like Trine or for games I'm not sure I'll like. I have a huge backlog of games I still need to play, so it isn't like I am wanting for entertainment.

Cynical:
Supply and demand. The person with the supply can demand what they want.

But, I have taken intro Micro and Macro Economics, so I know that there exists the sweet-spot price-point. Charge too much, and you'll discourage people (especially those on-the-fence about buying) to wait or to spend their money on something else.

I'll speak with my wallet: $60 is more than I am going to pay for a game (what with being a student and not making oodles of money) - especially when the game comes from a dev with a track record of releasing a game with bugs.

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I think the big question is why aren't the console games' prices jacked up, if it is inflation? The usual $10 difference 'tween console games and PC games is supposed to be due to the licensing fees of the console maker. This isn't the case for the PC. So, let's pretend the profit from selling a $60 console game is actually $50. And the sale of a $60 PC game is actually $60. Something about this doesn't seem quite fair.

I guess the excuse PC vs Consoles, is that PC games are cheaper, can no longer be used now. So now I am wondering if console games will be $70 now instead of $60.