Are the next gen games gonna cost 70$ standard on steam too?

[sotngames]

i hope not

[Muppet among Puppets]

After all, if the price increases,
you must be the one who makes the sell...... when there is not only competition about the users time but also when the money ships more concentrated.

Otherwise we hear very soon how even 70 is not enough. "Teh new game was so expensive, but where are the millions buying it?"

Erasing competition by decreasing their resource (user money).

[crunchyfrog]

Muppet among Puppets eredeti hozzászólása:

After all, if the price increases,
you must be the one who makes the sell...... when there is not only competition about the users time but also when the money ships more concentrated.

Otherwise we hear very soon how even 70 is not enough. "Teh new game was so expensive, but where are the millions buying it?"

Erasing competition by decreasing their resource (user money).

Oh don't worry - the triple A industry never fails to make daft baseless claims without evidence to support their anti consumer practices and greed. I fully expect once this next generation gets into full swing, the inevitable pre-pared excuses to come trotting out. From the tired old "games are expensive to make" empty nonsense to poor attempts to blame the consumers in some way.

The funny thing that gets me about greedy businesses is that how far they go. They will do shockingly stupid and short-sighted things in their hope of getting ALL the money.

Regarding this proposed price increase, thanks to Valve, there is substantial evidence that lowering the price gives you MORE money on the whole. When they experimented with Left 4 Dead (can't remember whether it was 1 or 2), they reduced it their deepest discount they'd ever done - I think it was about 90% - and this was afew years after release.

It sold GANGBUSTERS which surprised everyone as you'd think by that time everyone who wanted it would have it. Even though you need to sell more "copies" to make the equivalent amount in revnue it turned out that the AMOUNT earned went up 1400%!

Then later still, they gave it away for Christmas one year. AFTER the giveaway sales shot up too., likely because it generated more interest in it again.

All I can do is watch some of these crapper triple A companies fail yet and again.

[Gallifrey - CSSC Gaming Founder]

There's only one time I've spent that sort of money on a game and it was Sims 3 with virtually every expansion bought on Steam one year.

In Britain the Office for National Statistics about a year or so back placed the causation for an increase in the rate of inflation was partly down to an increased cost for computer games.

This is solid evidence that at that point in time computer game prices were rising faster than the rate of inflation (remember the British pound has been devalued against the dollar and Euro since Brexit - that may be a factor).

There is no doubt that costs for AAA games have spiralled upwards, as has the potential, I say potential, for mammoth profits.

What does $70 represent ? More than my food budget for a week, more than half my annual TV licence. I could buy roughly five new release DVDs for that money, or 12 or more older ones. Similarly with that money - Amazon Prime for a year, a basic subscription for Microsoft or EA's subscription service for a year.

I genuinely do not scorn those gamers who are willing to spend $60 - $70 on a game. My father once told me that something is worth what one person is willing to sell it at and what another person is prepared to buy it at. You gamers sustain the industry. It couldn't function in its present form without you.

Me, I'm part of the long tail. Whilst I could pay $60 - $70 for a game if I chose, I almost inevitably choose not to do so. Over my gaming life I suspect I've spent a sum in the region of $5,000 US on computer games alone. That might sound a huge sum of money but if you divide it down by ... multiple decades ...the weekly expenditure is relatively modest. But knocking around on Steam, on various other sites, in plastic boxes full of CD and DVD ROMs, tucked away in boxes containing obsolete systems like the Amiga and Oric I probably own, or have owned, in the region of 1,000 games. At $70 per game you'd own 71 and a small amount of change.

Whether you buy your game full price on advance order or buy exclusively on Steam discount you still support the industry. Your money counts but as I said it's the early adopters that keep the industry going. People like me are the raspberry sauce and sprinkles.

For the publishers it's a difficult decision. They want the sweet spot where sales multiplied by price gives maximum revenue. As the price increases or decreases beyond that sweet spot the value of sales drops.

They also have another major challenge. It used to be that publishers were competing for customer dollars against the other games released that year. Now, thanks to Steam, they are competing against most games released in the last 15 years, and some even older. And most of them cost far less than $70 US.

To answer the OP they'll sell at that price or even higher if the publishers believe that will maximise their returns. If the majority of customers won't pay then prices will fall. Against that companies will invest less capital in games if the returns will be less.

So ends Economics 101.

S.x.

[crunchyfrog]

That is certainly true, but there is one caveat you need to add into that, and it's what I mentioned before about Valve's deep discounts and their experiments with Left 4 Dead - digital distribution.

The beauty of digital distribution is that the overheads are almost nil. No storage, haulage, production of packaging and so on. Server costs are negligible. So this is why Valve could easily afford to churn out Left 4 Dead at 90% off and still make 1400% increase on sales.

You're absolutely right ( and so was your dad). A long, long time ago when I first started out rare record collecting and trawling round record fairs, I learned the basic rule of pricing - Value of an item is ONLY what someone is prepared to pay under that circumstance on that day.

That's it.

So, yeah, the decent publishers and devs are in that balancing act, but I don't have any real sympathy for the industry's bloated costs as much of it is unnecessary and of their own making.

You're right about the inflation of games though. As someone who also trawls religiously through used game prices on over 70 systems at any given time, there have been an increase first from the issues regarding Brexit, and recently regarding coronavirus (especially with retro stuff, consoles and games - Gamecube for example, has really started to climb unexpectedly. That shouldn't be happening for at least another 3 or 4 years).

But again, you can't really judge ANY market in accordance with it's historical data as it's a flawed argument (and often one scertain ♥♥♥♥♥♥ publishers love to trot out when they say "but games haven't greatly increased in price in decades"). The simple reason is again, that's not how pricing works. Many other markets have prices that don't go anything like in line with regular inflation too.

I guess the moral here is to be educated on things and as ever, not swallow some of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ some triple A publishers spout.

[mcc]

SeotN eredeti hozzászólása:

i hope not

Ofc not.
They know very well that the higher the price, the more ppl will buy from 3rd party key-resellers.
They want 2 make money & if they lose customers, this will not be helpful.