Is the price of gaming hurting the industry?

[abigsmurf]

While I am with you on the anime thing, been collecting for 12 years and not much has been out lately that's for me. CPM were amazing with Utena, Slayers, Lodoss etc.

I feel the gaming companies could go the same way though. If prices are going up (as new games from 40 to 50 quid on average), it's the same that happened with anime and could end up hurting the gaming market, even though it's essential as the cost to make games has gone up.

Prices of anime are actually coming down in the UK. MVM recently announced lowering the base RRP of DVDs from ?19.99 to ?15.99 (which means ?12-ish from play and amazon) and Manga Ent. are releasing Bleach and Naruto in a fairly cheap way.

The big difference between the videogame industry and the anime industry is the level of piracy. It's a big problem for games (particularly offline PC games and the DS) but for anime, Fansubs mean anime is pirated at obscene levels.

[Baseley09]

I don't buy any games because of the price, there must be more like me. But then again I probably wouldnt buy them if they were much cheaper either.

[charlesr]

Gaming is expensive if you want to have the latest stuff. If it was too expensive, no one would buy anything and prices would drop out of necessity. Not sure what I'm getting at here. Sorry.

[erhgiez]

I agree with the anime, some of the prices a few years ago were ridiculous, you be paying £20 for DVD with 2 or 3 episodes on it, totaling no more than an hour tops, and when your talking 26 episodes in a series you can be talking £200 or something ridiculous, no wonder its pirated so much

[Brats]

Gaming is expensive if you want to have the latest stuff. If it was too expensive, no one would buy anything and prices would drop out of necessity. Not sure what I'm getting at here. Sorry.

I know what you're getting at - the price that games sell for will be at the amount that companies can make the most money. Just to get all dull, this is the basic principle of a market economy.

So the argument that games being to expensive is harming the industry is wrong - the current price of games is at the point that is most beneficial to the industry.

I don't buy any games because of the price, there must be more like me. But then again I probably wouldnt buy them if they were much cheaper either.

I think you're not alone - most gamers buy a game because they want that game, not because it is cheap. The price sticker is irrelevant. It means that the demand for games is in-elastic, that as the price goes down, the demand increases by a only a small amount. This can be evidenced by comparing games like Guitar Hero with EDF. A game that costs ?70 can sell **** loads if people want it, whereas an obscure Japanese title will sell bugger all even when released at a budget price.

This in-elasticity means that game prices are unlikely to come down. The companies can get the most money at the current ?40 price bracket.

[Matt]

While games have gotten more expensive than last gen with the PS3 and 360, I guess it's down to the cost of making the games now. They're a lot more expensive to make than before.

That's more or less the typical publisher line I believe - HD gaming assets take longer to produce, so we'll charge a premium. I understand the increase in development costs, but then you look at the same game on the PC. Probably ?20 less, and with texture and model detail higher than the console versions....

[Brats]

That's more or less the typical publisher line I believe - HD gaming assets take longer to produce, so we'll charge a premium. I understand the increase in development costs, but then you look at the same game on the PC. Probably £20 less, and with texture and model detail higher than the console versions....

There's lots of things that reduce the price of PC games. One most people know about is the lack of a licence fee, but also middleware is often cheaper on PCs, plus you don't have to send your game for certification and budgets against having to redo bits. On the PC, you can just release it and patch it later (which does make a difference)

However, despite popular opinion all that doesn't actually make much difference. The main reason is that because the nature of the PC, prices are much more elastic. Many PC owners don't have the most up to date kit which mans that older PC titles have a market. These titles sit on the shelves at much lower prices for much longer than console titles, and the newer PC titles have to compete with that. Plus there is less breadth of genre and more releases in each of those genres, meaning each title is usually competing against a larger number of similar titles at any given time.

Which means the ideal price for publishers to make money is lower. However it's gotten so low that combined with dropping sales there's little money in PC gaming unless you are either making casual games, selling an engine that your game promotes or you have a successful MMO.

[egparadigm]

I know what you're getting at - the price that games sell for will be at the amount that companies can make the most money. Just to get all dull, this is the basic principle of a market economy.

So the argument that games being to expensive is harming the industry is wrong - the current price of games is at the point that is most beneficial to the industry.

This is not necessarily the case, though. If games had an RRP of £40 instead of £50, they might be selling in greater numbers. In fact, they almost certainly would be, but clearly distributors will make a trade-off between higher unit sales and higher profits.

I personally think more than £35 for a game is too high. To that end, I never pay more than £35. With the favourable exchange rate I rarely pay more than £25.

[MikeRox]

Compared to launch PS2 ?60 games they haven't. GAME and GS at the time charged ?69.99 for MGS2.

Edit:

Are you sure? I worked at Currys at the time MGS2 came out, and they charged ?44.99 for it. Which was going rate for new PS2 titles, Xbox was the same on launch, ?39.99 for MS software, ?44.99 for 3rd party. So really games havn't gone up "that" much if at all.

You certainly get a lot more bang for your buck now though, those ?45 PS2 games had no online play or anything, most 360 games that are ?30-40 inc an extensive online mode as well as the HD visuals, etc.

PS3 softawre is certainly more expensive than Xbox 360 software, in store prices for DMC4 for example seem to be ?30-35 360 ?40-45 PS3. But thats because the PS3 is a newer console with a currently smaller userbase. As the PS3 userbase grows, the cost of new release software will drop in line to that of the 360s (last year it was ?45 for new release 360 software).

[gossi the dog]

I know what you're getting at - the price that games sell for will be at the amount that companies can make the most money. Just to get all dull, this is the basic principle of a market economy.

So the argument that games being to expensive is harming the industry is wrong - the current price of games is at the point that is most beneficial to the industry.

I think you're not alone - most gamers buy a game because they want that game, not because it is cheap. The price sticker is irrelevant. It means that the demand for games is in-elastic, that as the price goes down, the demand increases by a only a small amount. This can be evidenced by comparing games like Guitar Hero with EDF. A game that costs ?70 can sell **** loads if people want it, whereas an obscure Japanese title will sell bugger all even when released at a budget price.

This in-elasticity means that game prices are unlikely to come down. The companies can get the most money at the current ?40 price bracket.

I'd argue that the sheer amount of discounting that goes on suggests that games are very price elastic as opposed to inelastic. Otherwise why would you slash the price of a game so soon after it's release? To be honest that's a generalisation as people are willing to pay a premium for certain games e.g. GTA Liberty City Stories sold for a fiver more than any other PSP game when it released and still sold by the buckeltload, but it depends on the game and in my opinion for the majority of games price is very elastic.

[Ratso]

I'm a card carrying geek, and I've been keeping a spreadsheet of purchases fo some years now. Here you can compare 2002 to 2007 if you wish - some prices may be online, import, second hand and/or with trade-in, but they're usually easy to spot.
NB: I have removed those where I've paid 50% or more with trade-in/vouchers or if they were a gift, oh and all XBLA and VC games. It doesn't look like it here but I bought more new games in 07 then I did in 02:

2002

£50 DC Ikaruga
£30 DC Phantasy Star Online Ver.2
£45 GC Star Wars Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron II
£40 GC Luigi's Mansion
£40 GC Resident Evil
£40 GC Super Monkey Ball
£40 GC Super Smash Bros. Melee
£40 GC Wave Race: Blue Storm
£37 GC Super Mario Sunshine
£35 GC Pikmin
£30 PC Medal of Honor: Allied Assault
£10 PC Kick Off 2002
£40 PS2 Final Fantasy X
£38 PS2 Burnout 2: Point of Impact
£37 PS2 Pro Evolution Soccer 2
£35 PS2 Ico
£35 PS2 LMA Manager 2002
£35 PS2 Metal Gear Solid 2 - Sons of Liberty
£35 PS2 Rez
£35 PS2 Virtua Fighter 4
£30 PS2 Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance
£30 PS2 PaRappa the Rapper 2
£30 PS2 Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3
£25 PS2 Virtua Cop: Elite Edition
£22 PS2 Project Zero
£20 PS2 Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy
£15 PS2 Mad Maestro
£15 PS2 Medal of Honor Frontline
£12 PS2 Gitaroo Man
£10 PS2 Freak Out
£19 PSone Final Fantasy Anthology
£12 PSone Castlevania Chronicles
£10 PSone Final Fantasy VI
£45 XBOX Dead or Alive 3
£45 XBOX Halo - Combat Evolved
£40 XBOX TimeSplitters 2
£35 XBOX JSRF - Jet Set Radio Future
£35 XBOX Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2003
£30 XBOX MotoGP: Ultimate Racing Technology
£12 XBOX Genma Onimusha

Average per game: £26.50

2007

£45 360 Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
£42 360 Virtua Tennis 3
£35 360 BioShock
£28 360 Orange Box, The
£25 360 Guitar Hero II
£22 360 FIFA 08
£20 360 Dead Rising
£20 360 Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy
£20 DS 42 All-Time Classics
£10 DS Puzzle League DS
£10 PS2 OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast
£20 PSP Metal Slug Anthology
£15 PSP Ridge Racer 2
£25 Wii Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

Average per game: £24.07

Ergo; gaming is getting cheaper.

Edit: if you include XBLA & VC games in 2007 the average drops to £6.78 per title (just under 800 MS points).

[Profit]

According to ELSPA, retail prices in the UK in 2005 were:

PS2: £22.64 down from £45.00 in 2000
Xbox: £23.80 down from £36.91 in 2002
Game Cube: £24.00 down from £36.48 in 2002
Game Boy Advance: £19.65 down from £31.25 in 2001

http://www.elspa.com/assets/files/0/20060505174657708_319.pdf

Disparity between say current PS2 prices vs current PS3/360 isn't really an issue.

[Welrain]

Ergo; gaming is getting cheaper.

Your figures seem massively skewed by the release of the gc and xbox. I only bought one game in 2002 for ?3.50 and a chestnut, I bought two games this year for ?30 and a bag of fresh limes! omg gaming is more expensive!!!

[ezee ryder]

I think prices are pretty fair tbh when you consider the work that goes in to developing/marketing new games. Developers, Publishers and Retailers all have to make a profit at the end of the day.

Totally agree. I don't mind spending ?30-?40 on a good game because I know the money I have spent will, for the most part, be put to good use by the developer/publisher. I don't however see the logic in spending ?30-?40 on some of the crap out there such as My Horse & Me, My Best Friends Cats & Dogs or other stupid games like that. Yet I see people doing it everyday, all that will lead to is more silly games like that being released by the bucket load. It really angers me, rant over. In short though, as long as the game or console is good value for money then I don't have a problem with handing over my hard earned cash.

[Pilotwings]

I remember paying ?45 for halo on launch. Well worth it!

Also remember paying ?35 for final fight on the advance. What was I thinking

Thinking about it now I could have used that ?35 to save up for some heroin and inject it up the ass. Definatly my fault for being silly and handing over 35 sheets for an ancient game but it shouldn't have been ?35 quid in the first place.