Akura''s pretty much on the money. Marketing and shelf space cost heaps, as do those nice boxes and manuals. If these people are just being greedy by selling at $40-50, then game publishers must be making an absolute killing. Usually when this is happening you can see it on financial reports, and you get more people entering the market. The fact that this isn''t happening should give people some clue as to whether games are being priced artificially high.

Are we done yet? Or are their a few more people who want to pound the pulpit and decry idiots?

Keep it at least somewhat civil, folks.

DavidRM
Samu Games

quote: Original post by Akura I swear I''m gonna beat the crap out of you with my mouse.

Now I remember why I originally didn''t want to discuss the issue of whether or not games are overpriced. I knew it would end up like this.

Ron Frazier
Kronos Software
www.kronos-software.com
Miko & Molly - Taking Puzzle Games to A Whole New Dimension

Sorry if I don''t think idiots [yes, idiots, I-D-I-O-T-S] should have freedom of speech... Or if not idiots, people that like to lie, know squat about what they are saying and are just pi**ed because their poor. Sorry... must be my lack of sensitivity... or maybe is because if games are sold at 10 bucks I won''t get the money I need to pay the rent, bills, food, etc.

First off, Akura, chill ;-)

Secondly, i''m not in the industry, and really just an amateur myself but I would like to clarify a few things that alot fo these messages touched on.

Let''s try talking about hours. Let''s round the price of a movie down to say 5 bucks, of course now even economy times are above 5 bucks but this makes it easy for me. That''s 5 bucks for 2 hours, now consider a game that has about 10-20 hours of play (we know some games have even more than that), you''re looking at anywhere from 25-50 bucks of play time. So that''s like going to 5-10 movies. I won''t even talk about dvd/vhs costs, and advertising, and developing, blah blah blah. The bottom line is that you get the same amount of time for the same price. Yes I know movies are non-interactive, and games are interactive, but if you look at the playtime involved it''s really not much different than movies. If anything it makes you start to realize that possibly movies cost alot more, and that you shouldn''t be paying 5 bucks a movie :-D (ps. A local theatre around here plays 2 older movies, read that : non-first run for 3 bucks for the both of them, and as far as I know they still make a profit). But that''s fit for another discussion :-)

Okay now another point here... What would happen if you "boycotted" the games industry. Well some people have said nothing will happen, while that''s not entirely true. If you got enough people, and they wouldn''t buy for a week, that would hurt the game industry in the pocket book (keep in mind we would need enough people to do this)... However... what happens after that week? All those people buying games... and what do you have, you have a HUGE burst in game sales that probably makes them more money than if you had never stopped buying. And guess what the games industry will LIKE it... and in fact would allow for more boycotts, just to drive up sales... And with that, they drive up statistics, not only that you may end up buying more games because you haven''t had new games for a week (now i''m not talking about those of you who look for bargin bin stuff first, and in fact you''re probably a more hardcore gamer, since obviously you buy alot of games, and want them at the cheapest price).. Anyways when they drive up statistics that shows them what? That they could get more money, and that may drive the price up even more.

So in the long run a boycott for this type of thing would actually hurt you possibly driving up game costs even higher.

Our goal should be convincing the consumer that you can get more bang for your buck if you try our half-priced games. More value for the money. Think of Dweep, I realize that Dexterity has brought the price down from it''s original and gave alot more levels with it, but Dweep Gold is 24.95, that''s half the price of a game from the big boys, and with 152 levels, how many hours of gameplay does that equal... i''d say a good 10-20 hours (I realize it''s probably alot more with that many levels since I have only played a demo version of it)... so what are you paying effectively, 2.50 an hour vs, 5 an hour for the big boys?

Anyways sorry for such a long message, just had to put my 2cents ;-)

Keith

I boycott E.A. games, not because of their pricing, but because of their business tactics and how they've treated some of their best development studios (read Origin). Now I know I’m not going to make a difference, and I’m not going to be able to convince anyone to join my cause, but darn it, it feels good to be principled about something!

It's very difficult to change an industry, industries resist change until they are faced with total annihilation and then they re-invent themselves to survive, not before. One guy like me isn't going to change anything, even if there were 50,000 of me, it still wouldn't affect E.A. enough to make them change. The only thing I can control is how E.A./"The Industry" affects me. If you think a company is un-fair, or games are overpriced don't support them with you hard earned dollars.

Instead invest your time and money in the independent game development community. Just in the past year or so there seems to have been something of a revival of independent game developers. Or at least a stronger sense of community between existing ones. I think that if this trend continues, if we work together as a community to improve our products and our businesses we may actually have something that forces the industry to take a closer look at the way it does things.

Look at the IGF this year, or over the past few years the number of applicants has almost doubled every year. I don’t know about you guys but I can feel something building, something changing, and I want to be there when it happens. I do know this though, that boycotting and debating aren’t going to change anything. It needs to be something bigger and better then that.

I don’t think we're anywhere near pushing the industry to a point of “total annihilation” but I do think we’re in good position to put a little bit of pressure on them in the coming years. What’s really interesting is that I’ve seen a number of interviews and examples of this recently, where people who have been in the industry for 10+ years are getting out and going independent because the industry just isn’t a fun place to work any more.

“Things are going to change, I can feel it” -from some movie, I can’t remember which one.






[edited by - Ironside on October 4, 2002 4:59:52 PM]

The 2 things this campaign seem to be trying to do is
a) Make independant game stores struggle
b) Make independant game developers struggle

either way indies lose out.

Help the industry, boycott the fair play campaign!

--
garfield

quote: Original post by GBGames

Original post by Anonymous Poster
And the point about movies you can''t compare them because when they get out to the consumer to buy they have allready made most of their money in the theatre and movie stores and merchentising <sp> so they can be cheap (compare it to a game that has allready been out for a year, it has allready made most of it''s money so it''s price drops).

I think I can make the point about movies.
It costs $8 at my local theater to see any movie there, whether new or out for a few weeks.

A new game out for a year is still $30 at least. Not all movies have merchandising arrangements. They still cost $8.


If you honestly want to get into this then lets go.

Differences between movies and games:

#1 A) A movie is a 2 1/2 hour non interactive experiance where you get to see an actor play out a role. You can go watch this movie over and over again and it will always end the same way.

#1 B) The shortest game I''ve ever played was 8 hours long, so lets take your $8.00 admition price and multiply it by 3.2 showings, which would roughly come out to $25.60, in retrospect the longest game I''ve played which is never winter nights had around 80 hours of game play which if you figure it out comes out to be $250.00. Now that doesn''t take into account the fact that no one goes to movies alone or they look foolish so if your taking a significant other with you you''ll be paying double per hour for the entertainment. So if we compare what your willing to pay on a per hour basis to have some fun I''d say you were getting ripped off at the movies. Not all, but a large number of games allow for replaying the game as a different character for a completely different ending or unlocking some quests. This also extends the replayability of a game.

#2 A) Movies hit the big screen, 4-6 months after they''ve been in the theaters they are quickly released on DVD and VHS for $20 or so a peice. This multiplies the "new" effect because just about the time the movie stops making money in the theater it''s then released on VHS/DVD and is considered "new" again, and purchased. 6-12 months after the initial release HBO and other premium channels licence the movie for viewing. The movie makes more money off of this licence. 2 or more years after the release the movie goes into sindication which means it''s viewed on regular TV channels, and again this makes money for the movie.

#2 B) Games on the other hand do not have a similar life cycle. Games are released 6-8 months after release if the game does well the price remains roughly the same, otherwise it''ll be in the bargin bin software at COMP-USA. The only time a game has the ability to multiply it''s "new" effect is by making the game work on multiple platforms such as PS2/Xbox/GameCube/ and PC. The problem with this is that unlike changing a big screen movie to DVD/VHS porting a game requires more programming time, as well as artist time, and possibly designer time. This requires placing more money into a product in order to hopefully rake in a profit. And 6-8 months after it''s release again we are at the cross roads for determining if the game will stay on shelves or not. There is no sindication process, no premium services offering to licence the game for playing…nothing of that sort.

#3 A) For the most part movie equipment hasn''t changed in the past years. Other than the recent use of digital technology which is usually outsourced the movie industry hasn''t had to pay to "upgrade" their systems on a consistant basis.

#3 B) Game developers on the other hand need to have machines that are pretty recent in order to put those pixel/vertex shaders into games. Or they need a faster CPU because they want to make the AI in the game better. Or they need a new sound card in order to create those wonderful sound effects people like to hear while playing games. That doesn''t include the number of test machines that need to be purchased in order to check for software compatability.

#4 A) Once a movie is shown on the big screen you don''t recieve future revisions to the movie for free. No when lucas released the revised starwars episodes a few years ago you had to pay $8.00/each to go watch them again.

#4 B) A game on the other hand usually has MOD''s released for the product, as well as patches which add functionality and fix bugs. This service is always provided free of charge even though developers need to pay the people to replicate and fix these bugs or add functionality. MOD''s on the other hand are a mixed bag most are free but some are pay.

In conclusion I''d say you get more than your money''s worth out of a $50.00 game. And that doesn''t take into consideration the fact that after you''ve finished the game you can take it to your local EB games store and turn it in as a "used" game to get credit towards your next purchase.

Let''s face it man, $50.00 just isn''t alot of money these days. What else could you buy for $50.00? Lets see 1 pair of GAP Carpenter Jeans, A nice pair of Levi''s, 128 megs of DDR ram, a 64meg flash card, Possibly a 5 hour lift ticket pass for skiing at a nice resort. Even still nothing on the above list gives you the enjoyment per hour that a game usually provides.

Do I think games are expensive? Well that sort of relies on the fact that I can remember when games used to cost $30.00. Sure they''ve gone up in price over time. However we''ve gotten better/more entertaining products as a result. So the decision your left with is would you rather pay $50.00 for a good game, or $20.00 for a bad one?

*chuckels* hey careful about who''s games you''re calling bad

Ok, some people need to settle down, and I won''t mention Akura''s name B-)

I appreciate doomhunk''s response, breaking things down nicely.
I completely understand that games cost money to develop, market, and publish. I had an idea that Fair Play might be a little to idealistic about things. I had no way of knowing how accurate their statements were, especially about the $10-$20 price possibilities. I figured they had to be missing something.

I know where doomhunk was going with the public''s idea of value vs price. People will not pay attention to a $5 game as much as they would to a $15-$25 game. That is why successful shareware is not as cheap as it could be.

No one is necessarily being stupid on the thread. Ignorance shouldn''t be confused with stupidity.
What happens if the only person talking is the one with the wrong ideas? Everyone hears the wrong ideas only.

So please don''t get upset if people see "stats" and quotes from industry "leaders" and think they are meaningful. They have nothing else to compare them to. I just spent a few minutes on Google, and I couldn''t find any stats or price breakdowns.
I remember PC Gamer Magazine had an article on it, but I can''t seem to find it on their site. I don''t know which month it was.

If anyone can post a link to actual facts about why games cost as much as they do, it might lend a bit more credence to your argument, and put Fair Play in their place.

One of the only arguments some people here are making is that the video game audience is smaller than the movie audience. Fair Play argues that it is because the prices are so high that the audience is so much smaller.

quote:
If those idiots are so smart as to plan games to be sold at 10 bucks and make a profit.. why dont they make games?? Those idiots are so smart that apparently they know better than thousands of researchers with degrees in marketing and sales on how to run development more efficently. 1 out of 10 big games that come out dont have a fu**ing profit you idiots! ONE OUT OF TEN. how the hell will developers have a profit selling their games at 10 bucks???

Well Fair Play claims to be made up of people from within the industry. I didn''t remember seeing any names though so it may well be some nobodies.
Still, their argument I think is that if prices were dropped, more purchases would be made, making million sellers more common.


I personally don''t think I like the idea of video games getting the same shelf space as magazine and bubble gum, in the impulse aisle. Still, parents and such would buy games more.