"The end of the $60 game" article

Lonehunter · 2012-04-19, 12:45 AM

Why the end of the $60 video game is near

Interesting read. I hate that games on facebook, tablets, phones are becoming mainstream gaming, but I'm fine with big companies losing money by having to charge less for that box. Could mean less staff and longer production time but the good companies will still be around.

Zulthus · 2012-04-19, 01:50 AM

I'm personally fine paying $60 for a good game such as TES, Halo, ARMA, stuff of the like. But there are some games out there that make you pay that much for way less content. Namely recent Call of Duties... all cookie cutter, they're just expansion packs and are worth maybe $10 each.

I also think it's horrible that shit like PHONES are becoming popular gaming platforms.

Boomrang · 2012-04-19, 04:43 AM

Personally if they lowered the prices of big titles like COD, Halo, BF, etc. to $30-$40 I would probably by a lot more games, and I'm sure many others would too. Especially with the recent trend of releasing a new version of the same game every year, I wouldn't mind it as much if it was half the price.

Goku · 2012-04-19, 07:13 AM

It just hit the PC market really. Its not going anywhere.

SniperSteve · 2012-04-19, 10:04 PM

Originally Posted by Zulthus

I also think it's horrible that shit like PHONES are becoming popular gaming platforms.

Agree, If it doesn't have a keyboard and mouse, I will never play games on it.

krnasaur · 2012-04-22, 12:29 AM

Originally Posted by SniperSteve

Agree, If it doesn't have a keyboard and mouse, I will never play games on it.

Thats just dumb narrowmindedness.

MB/mouse excel at certian things, and Game pads/controllers excel at others. touchscreen/phones do too.

hell, originally videogames didn't use mouse and keyboards

Elude · 2012-04-22, 12:35 AM

Originally Posted by krnasaur

hell, originally videogames didn't use mouse and keyboards

Maybe not the mouse, but keyboards have been used for video games since they came into existence.

Geist · 2012-04-22, 08:11 AM

I wonder why games on the phone and games on the console/PC are even considered in the same bracket. I don't know about other people, but if I'm sitting at a computer, I'll play PC games. If I'm outside the house, I'll use my phone to pass the free time. Do I even need to say they don't play the same kinds of games?

They're two different things and IMHO if you have to choose between buying Angry Birds and buying BF3 due to a budget, you have bigger worries.

Not saying games are too expensive, they are, I just don't understand why people think people think buying phone games affects how many full priced games they buy. I've always known since the 360 came out that $60 is far too much for a game and drives away many potential customers. If they're only figuring that out now, there may be a problem.

VioletZero · 2012-04-22, 06:26 PM

I disagree that the 60 dollar game is at its end.

However, it is going through a major change and the current stagnation in gaming will come to an end soon.

ITOS · 2012-04-23, 03:04 PM

Originally Posted by Geist

Not saying games are too expensive, they are, I just don't understand why people think people think buying phone games affects how many full priced games they buy.

Both low and high cost games fill the same basic need for entertainment, they DO compete with each other for your attention if not for your wallet.

Ailos · 2012-04-23, 03:06 PM

Originally Posted by Geist

I wonder why games on the phone and games on the console/PC are even considered in the same bracket. I don't know about other people, but if I'm sitting at a computer, I'll play PC games. If I'm outside the house, I'll use my phone to pass the free time. Do I even need to say they don't play the same games kinds of games?

They're too different things and IMHO if you have to choose between buying Angry Birds and buying BF3 due to a budget, you have bigger worries.

Not saying games are too expensive, they are, I just don't understand why people think people think buying phone games affects how many full priced games they buy. I've always known since the $360 came out that $60 is far too much for a game and drives away many potential customers. If they're only figuring that out now, there may be a problem.

How familiar you are with the iPhone crowd? (The Android users are a little more money-sensitive most of the time.) Most apple customers willingly throw away tons of cash on useless crap (starting with the apple device itself). I've seen people running out of space on their iPhone because of all the games they've purchased at the app store (some totaling more than $1000). Some people may not be interested in developing games for mobile platforms but saying that it isn't a lucrative, large and growing market is equivalent to saying that the Earth is flat.

I both agree and disagree with what the actual article says though. $60 is way too much for a phone time-waster (or even a tablet time-waster), but I see every justifiable reason for that cost for PC titles (read: not console), if anything simply due to the amount of artist man-hours that went into creating the high-res textures and high-polygon models that we expect of PC titles nowdays. But obviously, some games here suffer from popularity: MW3 isn't worth the price, but I do think that ME3 is. I think that what's really happening though, is a broadening of the gaming market in general. We have a lot of technology around us now and we're finding more time that needs wasting, so we'll be finding ways to waste it through PC games, and through Angry Birds while en route to our home supercomputers.

Geist · 2012-04-24, 10:22 AM

Originally Posted by Ailos

How familiar you are with the iPhone crowd? (The Android users are a little more money-sensitive most of the time.) Most apple customers willingly throw away tons of cash on useless crap (starting with the apple device itself). I've seen people running out of space on their iPhone because of all the games they've purchased at the app store (some totaling more than $1000). Some people may not be interested in developing games for mobile platforms but saying that it isn't a lucrative, large and growing market is equivalent to saying that the Earth is flat.

I never said it wasn't a lucrative and profitable market. I have an iphone, but buy very few things from the app store, and spend most of my time using safari. But I know that with the relatively simple and cheap process of creating a iphone app/game, there is a great deal of money to be made. You give out a free trial, explain that if they like it, you can buy the full version for just $1, and a combination of wanting to play more and the "it's just 1 dollar" mindset, the potential for profit is huge.

I both agree and disagree with what the actual article says though. $60 is way too much for a phone time-waster (or even a tablet time-waster), but I see every justifiable reason for that cost for PC titles (read: not console), if anything simply due to the amount of artist man-hours that went into creating the high-res textures and high-polygon models that we expect of PC titles nowdays. But obviously, some games here suffer from popularity: MW3 isn't worth the price, but I do think that ME3 is. I think that what's really happening though, is a broadening of the gaming market in general. We have a lot of technology around us now and we're finding more time that needs wasting, so we'll be finding ways to waste it through PC games, and through Angry Birds while en route to our home supercomputers.

I agree with this.

Rbstr · 2012-04-24, 03:55 PM

Yeah the $60 game is going to end, I'll be $70 when the next-gen hits

With hi-res graphics come people that have to make hi-res art. And it don't come too cheap. As others have said.
But there's also room at the bottom for quality titles that aren't Blockbuster-productions. Bastion and other indie stuff.
More good games out there now than ever before. You're kidding yourself if you think otherwise.

Infektion · 2012-04-26, 10:52 AM

Inflation's a bitch

Ailos · 2012-04-26, 02:04 PM

Originally Posted by Geist

I never said it wasn't a lucrative and profitable market. I have an iphone, but buy very few things from the app store, and spend most of my time using safari. But I know that with the relatively simple and cheap process of creating a iphone app/game, there is a great deal of money to be made. You give out a free trial, explain that if they like it, you can buy the full version for just $1, and a combination of wanting to play more and the "it's just 1 dollar" mindset, the potential for profit is huge.

What I was saying is that the market on mobile devices - especially on iPhone and iPads - is especially lucrative not just because of how easy it is to develop but because of the readiness of the average Apple customer to throw money down the drain. Many of the paid apps in the Apple store are available for free on Google Play (but supported with ads). Why? Because Android customers are much less likely to waste their money, so the developers make much more from the ads than they would from the sales.