Remember when PC games didn't actually svck and weren't straight ports? We dished out like 29.99 for them, reasonable.

Then, 39.99 ''Oh well its just 9.99 extra''
Then, 49.99 ''Oh well its just 9.99 extra''

In the meanwhile PC games hit bottom low, my favourite platform being ruined by straight no effort ports.
Then, 59.99 ''Oh well its just 9.99 extra''

Year 2025

Then, 79.99 ''Oh well.....

A store speculating the price of a game that'll be released almost a year from now? Excuse me if i don't light my pitchfork on fire just yet.

Dude, can you enlighten me on how the game price has ANYTHING to do with the game's quality? As far as I know, you pay for the game long after the expenses have been settled. And as far as I know, big companies like Bethesda are bound to get their expenses covered no matter the sale price, in fact, they make quite a lot of money. Plus, it's NOT a question of being able to afford the price at all. Unfortunately, consumers help shape the industry and too many people lack responsibilities nor care beyond the immediate or use their head a time or two. It's because of this we get overpriced DLC and expansions disappeared, yes the former is obviously a lot more advantageous to the producer, but ultimately it's the consumers who are buying and the ones who can state their lack of interest in DLC, or how it's overpriced. If there's no one to buy it, they won't bother making it and will try something people will. Unfortunately too many people are merely braindead fanbois who'll only jump headfirst to get anything related to their favorite game, making the whole thing more expensive for less quality. It's funny how you talked about quality over price, because, if anything, the more you give the cheaper you get. Video games are as expansive as ever, but are as shallow and lacking as ever, paying 60 bucks for a 5 hour game that lacks replay value, games like the TES ones are just an exception rather than the rule. You can repay a whole game with less content than an old-fashioned expansion, something which is already a fraction of the game. I think some people are still living in their bubble that everything in the world is as it should as it works well and is respectful.




Exactly. I'd say 2015 though instead of 2025.

A lot of people complaining about the price increase also assume that "a video game" is a static product, like bread. However, games change over the years. Games get more advanced every year, and need better graphics, AI, physics etc. to compete. Great games need more and more developers working on it, and I'm pretty sure bethesda has a lot more employees working on skyrim than they did on oblivion. So why is it so strange that games get a bit more expensive? Especially huge games like TES games.

Apart from that, bethesda also puts quite some effort in the construction set and making TES games very moddable. This is only really an advantage for PC users, yet you expect the PC version to be cheaper than the console version. Aside from that you get more bang for your buck with the mods that are created.

Of course if games can keep a steady price even though the product is more expensive to create every year, it would be great. But I find all this "it's about the principle" talk very weird. If everyone sticks to their principles, and developers get less money for their games because of that, they'll just make games with far less content, or make them console exclusives to not have to deal with the problem of piracy.

I'm guessing the same people who have the principle of not buying 60 dollar games will be the same people complaining that PC games turn out as console ports and that TES games are being cheapened.

Are you serious with this question?

Uh... all brand new PC games have been $60 for years now.

Obvious thread is obvious? :huh:

First, how expansive a game is compared to others isn't relevant. (almost) Every game are evenly priced, games that give you 5 hours of gameplay or those which gives you 200, it's the same thing. Second, as games cost more to develop, more people buy them as ever, there's more related products as ever, there's more advertisemant as ever and more DLC as ever. But I agree, it's a bit normal they're getting more expansive, but companies think of making more money BEFORE anything else. So while games may become more expensive to produce, we get disproportional price increase. Hey, just look how incredibly cheap it is to produce DLC, and how damn expensive it is. But thing is, producers use DLC money for their pockets long before using it to fund game development. Yes, games are getting more expensive to produce, but this happens and as we pay more for them, we also get consistently less (TES games being an exception). The whole industry is incredibly disproportionate. Money dictates everything, prices, price rises, everything is decided with making more in mind, not with following similar revenue and expenses. As games sell more and more (Black Ops), as DLC sells more and more despite price increases (MW2), it tells companies what to do to always get more money out of it.

And Oblivion WAS cheapened by the 360, they had the hardware only in the last 6 months and had to make sacrifices in order to release both version at the same time. It may not happen with Skyrim, but truth is, it did happen with Oblivion.

How about this? Beth fails to sell the game at the price they want -> they don't make as much money -> they stop making one.
Running a company is a very expensive deal. There are whole bunch of sh/t involved in operating in today's world where Union dogs, Insurance cost, and IRS trying to rip your flesh off your bones.
Frankly, I'm willing to spend extra money if I trust Beth to deliver a solid product, which I do.

you guys visiting the wrong shops

Of course. I just explained myself afterwards in part if you actually read. The game is already made when you buy it, be it 50 or 60, it doesn't change a damn thing about the game. Big developers like Bethesda obviously don't have to fear not covering their expenses, so the only thing a 60 bucks price tag would do is give them more money. Well, give Zenimax more money actually.




Beth has been making games for years and have a big wallet to support them. The normal pc price tag would be the last thing to make them stop making games because it was not profitable. They're bound to sell enough. Plus, it's about the PC version, the 360 and PS3 already have fixed prices, the PC version sales will only be a fraction of the overall sales. It can't have any important impact in future TES games. Again, we're talking about Skyrim here and not TES VI, Skyrim will be finished long before we'll pay for it. I'd bet they'd be able to cover their developing costs without a pc version.

The argument is that, traditionally, PC games were designed to accommodate current hardware to its fullest ability. Console ports typically required a bit of work to pull off, often breaking up levels or reducing textures so that they'd run better. Even the Xbox version of Morrowind, I believe, had roughly half the draw distance of its PC counterpart. Thus, console ports cost more, because the developers break their backs making them and they're expected to work "out of the box".

Of course, Bethesda more or less develops all of their current games with the lowest common denominator in mind, which currently means the consoles. This isn't a jab at the console market BTW - it just means that there's no real reason for any platform's edition of Skyrim to cost any more or less than the other. I just hope that Bethesda has additional goodies (DX10/11 rendering) for those who do have high-end computers.

To the OP: If it makes you feel better, the console games tend to depreciate in value more quickly than PC ones...oh wait.

EDIT: Oh and yeah. I don't care about the price either. It's an Elder Scrolls game! I was already thinking of someday rebuilding an old Win95 machine for the older games, anyway. For you Bethesda, expenses mean nothing to me. :hehe:

I didn't look at your answer because you want Skarain to answer which I agree with Skarain. You giving your opinion on this is not mine.

Then why the hell would you comment? As far as I know this is a forum and you can comment to whom you please. I can understand you don't want to state your opinion on my comment, but please don't comment at all if it's the case, particularly if you didn't even read the whole thing. He didn't even answered me yet.

Except that a $50 PC game brings in about the same profit as a $60 console game, due to sony/microsoft wanting a cut. Invalid argument.

But you see, most of your point is not about the pricing and buying/not buying TES games at all. It's about games at large charging more for less. To counteract that all people need to do is being more informed costumers. By buying a TES game for 60 dollars, but not buying other (crap) games for 60 dollars, you're giving publishers and developers a reason to make proper games because they know people will buy them. By not getting DLC if it's not worth the price you're giving incentive to properly price it. By not buying real quality games for 60 dollars you're not achieving anything. If anything, developers and publishers will focus on the casual market more, because that's where the money is.

To put it simply, spend money on quality, don't spend money on what's not quality. If you don't spend money on games wether they're quality or not, you're not influencing anything which gives more power to people who buy anything with a catchy title. Publishers will focus on making money, so it's a good idea to spend money on quality games. This gives them a reason to make quality games.

Also, my point about cheapened games because of consoles wasnt about the question if it happened, but about these principled PC gamers being part of the cause.

Yes it's true. But yeah, unfortunately we can only whine about price increases in such occasions. Unless I want to wait months for a price drop for a game I've been waiting for ages.

I would gladly pay $100 for a stable TES game release.

I don't like it, seeing MS and Sony are taking a $10 cut on their console version, where is the extra $10 for the PC going? (P.S. As long as Bethesda gets it, I'm fine with it really.)

Not that I wont happily buy Skyrim on release day, I just don't like the fact they are all the same price. (Change is hard, ok? ) The PC has no MS/Sony head tax, so it should be cheaper.

But I'll put it this way.....I payed $80 for Fable 3.....yup, I did. So $60 for a TES title is a steal!

And I would gladly punch you in the face for giving people an excuse to charge me $100 for a game

Adjusted for inflation, $50 in 2000 was almost exactly $60 in 2009, so to be honest that seems only fair. What's not fair is the fact that like with all other titles the Steam price will be €60, since neither publishers nor Valve realise that $1 != €1

They're already making their money off of everything else, the $10 just seems like something they'd try to get away with because console games are $60, but they don't actually GET that extra $10, that goes to MS/Sony.

And honestly, let's be realistic, if you think that Oblivion is the GREATEST GAME EVER RELAEZEED ZOMGZZ and that gamesas is the GREETAST GAEM DEVELOPERZ 4EVA then you need a reality check. Oblivion wasn't that great-it was a fast main quest with very little, if any depth. It couldn't speak for much of any choices and consequences, and that's just a few issues I had with it. It was a good game, but nowhere near a great game.

Fallout 3 was terrible, simply put. Don't get all mad at me because you think that main quests that are simple and straight forward make good games. I like a challenge, not a "where's my daddy?! OH THERE HE IS! *dies*" kind of game. Bethesda isn't the greatest game developer, and if their past two games speak to the future, then Skyrim won't be worth $60 for any platform.

And believe me, I hope it is. I REALLY do. But it's going to be a game that I won't buy on the first day, regardless of how much I love the TES series. Current industry trends show HUGE game boasting, then the product ends up being mediocre, and the companies are laughing heartily as you overpay for their decent game. Bethesda isn't some magical exception to the rule. I mean, all they've done is release a vague announcement trailer and you're all completely convinced that Skyrim will be the best game ever to be made for all time.

So I'm going to wait and see, read tons of reviews after 11/11/11, to make sure that it's okay for me to spend $60 (even $50, if that turns out to be the price) on a game.

And just so you can ALL understand, $50 has been an industry standard for a decade at least. I wasn't happy when console games shot up that high, and I'm not happy now. No, the economy is not very good, which is why $10 matters quite a bit to me. So really, grow up and learn how much a dollar is worth before you tell me all the random prices you'd pay out of mommy and daddy's wallet for a TES game, which is obviously world-class.

The $10 is for mods.

As I've said before, if I'm going to pay for mods, the money is going to the modders, not Bethesda.

Yea this is the one major issue I have with steam. For some reason some idiot at steam figured that one dollar equals one euro, meaning we're paying a whole lot more for our games

I have always wonderd why PC games were $10 less than normal priced games like for the PS3, why is that? I mean I sometimes find it unfair since you all get so much more than us in terms of Mods but than again you have to upgrade your computers every so often