Even on AAA, "boxed product", as it's known, has huge overheads. Printing disks alone is about $20 once you take licensing fees into account, retail markup can easily be $10-$20, there's packaging, distribution, sales/publishing staff, etc too.

Publishers (or self-publishing devs) make loads more profit from digital, where you only lose around 30% to the middleman.

BTW, you lucky Americans, your US$50 SNES, PS, Xbox games were always sold for AU$100, and your US$60 games for AU$110-$120!!
When digital distribution came in, we were still paying ~AU$100 for games (~US$95), because they jack up the prices based on your IP address location or credit card address :(
The defense the publishers gave was that they "didn't want the brick and mortar retailers to go out of business"...

[edit] Also, 50 1993 dollars is equivalent to ~85 2013 dollars! Ain't inflation a bugger!
So a $60 game this decade is actually still way cheaper than a $50 game in the 90's :D

$ 20 cost for making 1 game with booklet and all + licence?, thats very much.

[edit] Also, 50 1993 dollars is equivalent to ~85 2013 dollars! Ain't inflation a bugger!
So a $60 game this decade is actually still way cheaper than a $50 game in the 90's :D

You know, i've always wondered why games haven't receieved similar price hikes as other markets as the budget for many games have increased dramatically over the last couple years.

You also have to remember that from a certain standpoint, you are paying $60, but not all of it is for the game. $60 is the total that they charge, but you are paying for the case, manual (printed material), cover insert, disc used, store percentile increase (usually 5%), and then the game.

I would have liked to believe this except for the fact that digital downloads are costing around the same price, which include no manual, no disk, no cover insert etc.

I saw this when the kindle books started to become popular. The big idea is that the ebooks were cheaper because of the shipping costs and such involved in the physical case of the game etc. Same thing with music cds. However, those prices are working their way (if not already there) to the price of the hard copy. And it is as if some people forgot the original explanation for the cost. The only advantage is the convenience of having several books on you without having to carry duffle bag of a purse.

So the most I can say for the price of $60 is to pay the people who worked on the game, and that would be it. In retrospect, I guess it is a fair price. But for me, I will just wait for the price to drop to $20 and get it 3 years later. If the game was ever worth $60, then it will certainly be worth $20 3 years from then (if the game is that good). I don't mind old games, as it seems each new game lacks substance more and more.

[edit] Also, 50 1993 dollars is equivalent to ~85 2013 dollars! Ain't inflation a bugger!
So a $60 game this decade is actually still way cheaper than a $50 game in the 90's

You know, i've always wondered why games haven't receieved similar price hikes as other markets as the budget for many games have increased dramatically over the last couple years.

Prices on mass produced IP producted goods are not set based on supply and demand and never has been (supply is infinite and artificially restricted) nor is it set based on production costs(the marginal cost of a digitally distributed copy is essentially $0 so selling 1000 copies at $50 is better than selling 100 copies at $500(the more customers you get the easier it is to keep sales rolling)), they are set based on what people are willing to pay(which varies between different regions), Development and marketing budgets will always drift towards the edge of what is profitable.

All AAA means is big budget, so essentially what you are asking is "are there any big budget games that don't have big budgets?" The answer is fairly obvious.

By AAA I have ment expensive stuff, yet I know of people who payed 2 bugs for Ferrari Enzo, so I insist on my question still.

Are there games that poses expensive solvent assets without enormous money invested?

By AAA I have ment expensive stuff, yet I know of people who payed 2 bugs for Ferrari Enzo, so I insist on my question still.

Are there games that poses expensive solvent assets without enormous money invested?

In AAA games, content is king.

In smaller games, the mechanics and gameplay are far more important. You can build creative systems and procedurally generated levels, but that is not what today's AAA games are about.

When I first started developing games there was a lot of programmer art. Sometimes the ratio was 2:1 or even 3:1 where programmers dominated the project. Now for major projects it is often the reverse of that. We now commonly see 2:1 or 3:1 where the art disciplines quite outnumber the programmers. Where even just a few years ago there was either one designer or producer building levels, there are today large teams of level designers.

Content. Lots of it, constantly revealing new and different and novel. Lots and lots of content. The mechanics and gameplay are still important, but they are quite distant behind content in a AAA game. Players demand enormous worlds with lots to do on them.

Players want to be able to explore the game world for hundreds of hours, even thousands of hours, and after all those hours still discover new unexplored content.

I don't know of any modern content-rich worlds that did not cost a fortune to develop, where a huge amount of that cost went to developing the world's content.

I would have liked to believe this except for the fact that digital downloads are costing around the same price, which include no manual, no disk, no cover insert etc.

Makes no difference, digital still has the same selling rules applied. You remove the physical aspect and that gives them a few dollars more to put in the developer's pocket to use for the next game, but the company that distributes the game for the developer (in digital form) will markup the price so they can get a profit off the game, then the game is high due to the marketing campaign run around it, etc. Removing the physical aspect will only mark it down a few bucks, and if it doesn't, that could mean either the distributer is trying to get those extra dollars or sending the extra to the company because the developing companies, from what I have found, have very little say in the price of the game (that is why some games come out and end up being $20 or less rather than $60 as I'm sure all developers would rather get the most out of their game to make a profit).

$ 20 cost for making 1 game with booklet and all + licence?, thats very much.

A lot of that is the publisher license fee that the platform owner exacts for the right to publish on the console.

You can build creative systems and procedurally generated levels, but that is not what today's AAA games are about.

Frob, I very stress that. Players really seek designed explicit creation from happening to visual and interactivity. Procedural tetris or Heroes 3 is just gambling. Games those days realy consume too much art, from all of the directions, to provide the experience. Like books, movies or theaters.