Computer Game Prices Fall by 63% since 2005

Rezident

Rezident

Rezident

Soldato
Joined
29 May 2007
Posts
4,917
Location
Dublin
http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/there-will-be-no-relief-for-the-squeezed-middle/

It’s based on Irish prices (when the UK is complaining that prices are higher than in the US, it’s even worse in Ireland!) but he is a well-respected economist so there must be data to support it. The old Steam 75%-off sales must have helped. But I was surprised by this since some games started charging up to £60 (€70) but I suppose a lot of non-AAA games are available cheap from digital distributors.

I had the feeling games were getting more expensive these days. Even the Steam Sales seem to have dried up and PES is charging £55!

What do people make of this?

It makes me want to buy a game this weekend (Must Not Buy Far Cry 5 ‘til the bugs are fixed…)
 
Haven't read the article but - lots more indy game and/or older games re-released at low prices are probably bringing the average down - plus quite a few games that have a low initial buy in price but you pretty much have to spend another £60+ subsequently on DLC and opening up additional content, etc.

The AAA titles generally have crept up a bit for the initial purchase price with some of them 2-3x what they used to be if you go all in with the premium variants.
 
As an average across the board, sure I'd buy that, but AAA titles seem to have gotten more expensive and their accompanying DLC.
 
Its a pathetic article and totally worthless, at no point in the article is there any actual statistical evidence presented. It simply touts "Games are down by 63%". It doesnt state whether thats Console games only, PC games only, both combined. Whether its based on RRPs or inclusive of sale prices, whether its digital prices or retail hardcopy prices only. Theres literally nothing explanatory in the article other than someone saying "Games are down by 63%" and anyone can do that...

Games are up by 175% since 2005.

There we go.
 
i think it's changed the dynamic a bit with digital platforms, now it seems that the aaa way to make money is to get enough hype going to get folks to pay a high entry price, get the game out quickly and pocket the money before everyone realises it's broken.

then a few months down the line it hits the sales with stupid discounts to mop up the sensible folks who are patient enough to wait.

tbh i think skyrim is the only game i enjoy that i paid full price for, everything else either sucked (i'm looking at you assasins creed unity) or i got cheap in sales.

atm i think the only mainstream titles i'd shell out day 1 money for are borderlands 3 and the next elder scrolls.
 
prices arent too bad apart from tripple aaa titles which most are garbage anyway.

funny thing is best game i played mp wise for years is pubg and cost £26 quid and earnt me £250 back . if only all games could do that. the funny thing is all games will go ftp at some point or many of the big played titles.its nice to see ftp coming in and working like fortnite even though i dont like the game much.it does shake up what can be done for ftp games and means that big studios need to take note or become relics.

maybe we just at the tipping point like when cartridges at stupid prices on consoles some above £100 a game dropped and cds took over.

maybe this will happen with ftp final getting a proper foot in.
 
I agree with Tombstone - There's literally no useful information in that article. What games is the article referring to? Does it factor mobile games, free to play games, console only, PC only, both? There's nowhere near enough information in it to substantiate any kind of meaningful conclusions about the state of pricing in the games industry.
 
It's a poor article but the point is somewhat valid. Game prices haven't generally moved with inflation over the past 15 years.
 
Rezident said:
http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/there-will-be-no-relief-for-the-squeezed-middle/

It’s based on Irish prices (when the UK is complaining that prices are higher than in the US, it’s even worse in Ireland!) but he is a well-respected economist so there must be data to support it. The old Steam 75%-off sales must have helped. But I was surprised by this since some games started charging up to £60 (€70) but I suppose a lot of non-AAA games are available cheap from digital distributors.

I had the feeling games were getting more expensive these days. Even the Steam Sales seem to have dried up and PES is charging £55!

What do people make of this?

It makes me want to buy a game this weekend (Must Not Buy Far Cry 5 ‘til the bugs are fixed…)
Click to expand...

To me my observations are.

Steam sales are very poor compared to several years back.
Full prices for games seem about the same, but the difference now is the costs of micro transactions, DLC etc. which has gone through the roof.

We used to get several single player AAA games from big publishers every year, now they are focused on limited franchises and maximising profits from those instead, which includes of course things like fifa box gambling.
 
I think I paid about £40 for Civilization for my first PC game, I think my m8 was paying about £60+ for N64 games. So yeah over the years prices have reduced.
 
I remember paying £15 for Eureka in 1984 on the ZXSpectrum.
33 years later Forza Horizon cost me best part of £80

I'll leave you to work out if that's inflation or not.
 
Rimsy said:
It's a poor article but the point is somewhat valid. Game prices haven't generally moved with inflation over the past 15 years.
Click to expand...

I would hazard a guess that's due to the increased number of sales.

The negligible cost of media aside (which itself is dying), because they are not a physical product, the cost of developing a game is not dependent on the number of sales, e.g. a game which costs 5m to develop is going to cost 5m regardless of whether you sell 10 copies or 10m. The market is far bigger these days, so they can set a (relatively) lower price and still make a decent profit due to volume. Also as games are a luxury item, setting too high a price would mean people simply going without (or pirate) how many on here would buy as many games as they do if they were 3-4× the price? I certainly wouldn't!!
 
Kutter said:
games are $60 over here
Click to expand...
TBH I've never paid full price for a game since GTA V, the only reason I did that was because I had some steam wallet from stuff I'd sold, with keysites being about with cheaper keys and captain sparrow I don't know why people pay full price.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom