You're paying extra for the markup that goes to the retailer.

Lol $60 is too high a price for some people? Gaming is one of the cheapest hobbies out there. I'm broke af right now and I'll still be able to get most of the games I really want. $60 isn't worth it for some games though, I'll grant ya'll that much.

Matter of perspective. For me, those extra $15 were spent on "merchandise", aka a neat box, a physical CD of the game, manual, possibly few extra goodies, and it looks fantastic on my shelf.

In my case I usually don't actually want the physical goods. For me, it's just clutter that will sit in a closet until I decide it's time to throw it away. I'd rather not create the waste. On the rare occasion that I want some physical memento of a game I'm excited about, I'll buy a collector's edition and keep it. I like digital distribution because it means that I have less clutter and throw less in the trash. I also have a strong dislike for malls and needless driving around (both are wasting precious time I could be using to do something else), so if I can get my games without driving to/walking into a retailer that's a plus. More time to actually play the game.

No, but I'm ok with that. I buy most games (aside from the ones I'm really excited about) after I can get them really cheaply via Steam or some other online 3rd-party. The lower price allows me to worry less about having access to the game in 50 years. I also rarely play through a game more than once unless I love it, as my gaming time is very limited (demanding job, kid, maintaining 2 houses, etc.)

Not to mention that 50 years from now contemporary hardware and OS's will be unlikely to run the games anyway without an emulator. Sure, you could keep an old computer around, but again, I don't want stuff I don't/rarely use sitting around taking up space, so... Just look at what's happened to games using many disc-based DRM methods. In Windows 10, Microsoft has patched the security holes that allowed much of that disc-based DRM to function (and these updates will soon hit other versions of Windows), rendering physical copies of those games nearly useless. That's actually a good thing, by the way. Not that the games will be useless, but that rootkits like Sony SecuROM can no longer work on the OS, as they represent major security issues in the OS being exploited.

In the case of Bethesda you're doing that. In many cases, however, the publisher has already paid the developers an agreed-upon rate for developing the game. The additional cost ends up going to the publisher in that case...not the developer.

I really have to take issue with this. You're obviously not broke if you can afford $60 for a game, or even more then one as you are implying, at least, not broke as how I would define it. True broke, which is what I am, means the only time you get a new game, is when someone buys it for you as a gift. The last time I personally bought a game that was brand new was Diablo 3 in 2012. The last game I bought period was earlier this year, Pokemon X for $20. $60? lol, I wish I could afford that. Hell, I pay less when me and my wife go out on our 1 date a year for our anniversary. We usually end up spending $50 max. That's broke. Being able to spend $60 multiple times a year on games is not broke.

No, it still is broke. You are just way more broke than I am. Sorry to hear it, but it isn't a [censored] competition so don't try to tell me what is and isn't being broke. I know what broke is. $60 reflects what is supposed to be a reasonable profit margin for a game. You're personal situation does not reflect on any sort of way on that not being a fair price point. Gaming is a luxury. It is a cheap one compared to the other types you'll find. Way more bang for your buck in terms of entertainment needs. I've blown more in a single night out than with two full price games. Easily. Don't have that kind of money anymore, but the point stands. Gaming is a cheap ass hobby and gamers entitlement to cheaper games is pretty ridiculous to me. We are lucky they kept it at a stable $60 for so long. Not too mention you can get soooo many games for far cheaper than full price.

I rarely do! I tend to get my games on sales aside from a few developers where I buy them in the first day like Divinity Original Sin and Wasteland 2. I learned my lesson with Skyrim and wont buy Bethesda games until the GOTY edition comes out.

That aside most games are not worth those $60 since you can usually beat them in a sitting, so I tend to rent, it saves a lot of money.

First off, there is no need for faux profanity, I said nothing offensive, or at least I didn't intend anything to be offensive. Secondly I wasn't trying to make it a competition. I just think you and I have very different definitions of the word "Broke". To me, broke means you can't afford virtually any "luxury" purchases. Certainly not $60 for a brand new game. To me broke means you struggle to feed yourself and your family, you struggle to pay your bills on time, you virtually never go out to eat. It means you live in a run-down apartment/trailer/shack and can still barely afford the rent for it. Obviously to you broke just means you can buy a few things outside of the necessities but not much more. I could be wrong, but honestly if you are having trouble paying your bills, you probably shouldn't be spending $60 on a new game, so I'm going to go with my first assumption on what your idea of broke is.

Just to put this out there, one of the official definitions of the word broke by Merriam Webster is: : not having any money

It's interesting to me that though the dollar price of games has not changed much in 30 years, the the value of the dollar has. PC games could cost $40-$60 even in the 80's... but the shifting money value means that that a $49.99 game bought in the '89 cost the equivalent of spending $95 today... so effectively games have gotten cheaper over time; despite development costs skyrocketing to absurd heights. 'Eye of the Beholder' (sold on GoG today bundled for $10 with two other games) cost $50 by itself when it originally shipped.

I have been saying this for years.. sure, $60 may seem like alot to some people, but by comparing the hobby to how things were in the 80s and 90s, gaming has never been cheaper..

Yeah, but don't you have to take into account that gaming was a much less profitable business back in the day? Nowadays when a triple A title releases it sells a million plus copies(and in some cases, multi-millions). When I was a kid, even the most popular games didn't sell nearly as many copies because the market was so much smaller, hence why the price was the way it was back then(I can remember plenty of SNES games selling for $80-$90 back in the day). Since there is such a much wider audience for gaming nowadays it only makes sense that prices have more or less stayed the same, or even gone down some since a publisher can expect to sell considerably more then they would use to just to break even.

Example: Back in the day Earthbound(snes) sold 140k copies in the U.S. From what I remember of the price it was nearly $90. Nowadays it would sell for $60 but would likely sell 5-7x that amount(assuming no-one ever heard of it. It has a monstrous cult following nowadays). It would make far more money nowadays then what it actually did when it was released, just because the market is so much larger. So to me, saying that games should instead be going up in price due to adjustment of inflation is a fallacy due to the much larger audience base. Even a crappy game is going to make more then an average/good game did in the 80's-90's.

however, your missing the fact that development costs and development times are both on average much higher than they were in the 8-bit or 16-bit days..


Concept Artists, Graphic designers, programmers, these are people that need to be paid and minimum wage is quite a bit higher than it was in 1987 (granted, they make more than minimum wage anyways).. it also takes far longer to produce most AAA titles these days than it did back in the day.. add in the fact we have entire teams now focused on Quality Control (which was a rare thing in the 1980s), it costs far more to licence someone elses or produce your own engine. its far more expensive and time consuming to create HD 3D models than it was 8-bit sprites, and alot of newer titles are far more script heavy.. and there are always going to be unexpected hiccups in any project that can potentially cost quite a bit.


Plus, dev teams are far larger these days than the team it took to make Super Mario or the Original Zelda. and even after all that, its not just the people directly involved in development that need to be paid throughout the years it takes the game to be finished.. the office Janitor, the tech support guy in the room at the end of the hall no one knows the name of, the receptionist taking calls all day, the guy in the mail room with the gimp leg.

these people need to be paid throughout the entirety of a products development. that alone costs a lot of money, even more so if the company in question provides their employees and families health benefits or their company policy pays money directly into their employees retirement funds or their children's college funds..

so sure games may make more money these days due to a wider audience, but on the other side of the coin it costs alot more to make that product.. its not like all those people work for free, and all the other development costs are somehow given on credit until the game launches at which point everyone gets their cut..




I see the point you are trying to make, but you just seem to be missing part of the bigger picture

I never pay on the day, because yes its a alot to pay out on the day, i always pre order and pay off my games, i had the last starcraft on pre order for over a year so gives me time to pay it off cant do that with digital.

Yeah, I wish we could find accurate stats for all of those things, but when I tried to google average copies sold for games in 1990, I saw wildly varying #'s. The best average I could come up with was about 250k. Nowadays 1million seems to be what defines "A good game". If we could find what the average cost for development then and now we could make a better guesttimate. I'm still more inclined to think that all told games really shouldn't be higher, but I could be entirely wrong I freely admit.

Though I will say, while PC games may have cost $60 back then(I really don't know as I didn't start playing PC until around 1992 with Arena and then Daggerfall and that was almost literally it), NES and SNES games were way higher then that. I clearly remember going into games stores(Babbages is what I remember the primary game outlet back then) and a lot of games were $70-$90, and some major ones broke $100. Hell, mega man 6 came out after the SNES was released, and I remember saving an entire summer to buy it, and it was STILL $60 brand new. That for a game that was for a by then "outdated" system.

on another note, while I certainly don't mind paying full price on a game (sure, I can't really afford it these days (or any game sadly) due to being between jobs for almost 2 years), I have seen an increasing appeal of the steam summer sale in the past few years..

not purely based off of how much cheaper I can get games (but that is a contributing factor), but because of the giveaways usually accompanied by them..
I think it was 2 years ago for example (may have been 3, I can't quite remember), they had that "team gimmick" where everyone was assigned to a team that gained points off how much members of it bought. random people on each days winning team were given free copies of random games on their wishlist.. sadly, I had only one game on mine the day I was picked as i never really bothered to click the "add to wishlist" button on games that interested me, so i didn't get as many freebies as the other people who were picked, I keep my wishlist much more stocked since
plus, the fact on the sale they give you free trading cards, which some people will pay a mint for (especially the foils), it can be pretty useful in keeping your steam wallet full in addition to the heavily discounted prices

As I get older, I have less time, so I'm even less inclined to spend money on games. I don't mind if I pay ￡5 in the Steam sale and get pulled away after six hours and don't finish the game, but I'd have been annoyed if I had paid ￡20 with the same result. Paying only ￡5-7 in a sale gives me freedom to take more risks - to buy games I'm not sure I'd enjoy, or not sure I'd have time for - but it does mean I have to wait a couple of years before I get to try them.

I have paid almost-full prices for games (￡25-30 on a new title), but that's only for games I'm absolutely desperate to play right away (Mass Effect springs to mind).

My physical copies have never spoilt (other than someone destroying them) but I'd imagine that there are plenty of more careless people who destroy their discs one way or the other. Besides, it's probably more convenient for them depending on the internet plan, to just click and download. Sure it's not much effort to put in a disc, but you know. 'All in one click!'

I only pay for games I know that deserves it, I would pay 1k for Fallout 4 if it was the price.

granted, I love physical copies as a collector, but as of late I am seeing ever increasing appeal of a digital format mainly because of storage space..

I have been collecting games since about the late 80s, its one of many things i collect.. however, these days I am starting to run exceptionally low on space. I have two sets of shelves full, a set of dresser drawers full and another half full (the other half consisting of various cables, and old keyboards and adapters for my older PCs), I've got a closet full of old consoles and their respective cables with a Rubbermaid full of my more older titles or games I will likely never touch again, and an old chest in the entryway filled with more.. add this to other things i collect (books and manga, anime and gaming memorabilia, trinkets and doodads from numerous countries brought back by family members from vacations and business trips, old computers and other tech) I really don't have alot of space left to store things, infact I have a small pile of games sitting in the corner of my bedroom because I haven't decided a place to stash them yet..


I remember quite awhile ago, a podcast done by the comedy group LoadingReadyRun, they said something that I am now really starting to understand and agree with "Physical is certainly better for Collectors, but digital is better for most average gamers"..



granted, i will admit a nice thing about Steam is not having to sit there watching the installs progress bar waiting to swap the disc.. I press install, go grab a bite to eat, come back and its all ready to play. when I can afford to replace my gaming PC, this will be very handy in reinstalling my entire steam library (considering I am sort of a "huh.. what am I in a random mood to play today?" sorta person, so its nice to have as many games installed as I can )



still though, I love having a physical version of a game in my hands, just so I can say i have it

the price of games, with inflation considered, hasn't changed all that much in the last 3 decades. looking at NES games at the time ~1987-89, it's like paying 50-70 dollars today. PC games were a little cheaper, then again sometimes not depending on the computer boutique. I remember Ultima 7 being around $75 or so new which comes out to $135 nowadays? and it was a jerk to get running right with that voodoo memory haha.

i guess i pay full price if i want to play a game immediately, which doesn't happen too often at my old age now.

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/Gizmojunk001/1992_EB_Games_zpswy8ek7i4.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/Gizmojunk001/inflation_zpszojnsn1j.jpg

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http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/Gizmojunk001/1991_EB_Games_zpsfwdsa8sn.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/Gizmojunk001/1992_EB_Games2_zpsytbdkds9.jpg

* http://huguesjohnson.tumblr.com/

Buying a game at full price on Steam is like buying furniture at DFS when there isn't a sale on.

I have been saying this for years.. sure, $60 may seem like alot to some people, but by comparing the hobby to how things were in the 80s and 90s, gaming has never been cheaper..