Downloads would be cheaper they said.

eldergeek said:
The problem is that the same people dictating the price of these games, are the same people who dictate the prices of other media; they haven't understood yet that since the 90's, physical borders have started eroding, and that you don't need to ship disks across oceans anymore.

Oh well. Maybe if enough people pirate the product, they'll eventually get the message.
Click to expand...

Doubt it. They'll blame poor sales on piracy, not the price of their product.
 
Steam is by far my favourite platform for managing, storing and playing games. I remember when it originally came out, nearly 11 years ago while flawed with many bugs the fundamentals have always been there and have been improved immensely in the last few years.

It's just all too easy.
 
Who is to blame? The console peasants who moan about the price of a PC yet happily buy a HDTV, £350 box and games at £50 a pop? Or is it us by handing over the money when there are other routes to getting our hands on the games?

I wait for a year unless it has multiplayer and friends are playing. If not it goes on the wishlist and when i see the game for under a tenner i snap it up. GTA is the first game i have bought that was priced over £25. I picked up GTA IV for £5.99 yet GTA V cost me £39.99.


Da fux?
 
Rofflay said:
Who is to blame? The console peasants who moan about the price of a PC yet happily buy a HDTV, £350 box and games at £50 a pop? Or is it us by handing over the money when there are other routes to getting our hands on the games?

I wait for a year unless it has multiplayer and friends are playing. If not it goes on the wishlist and when i see the game for under a tenner i snap it up. GTA is the first game i have bought that was priced over £25. I picked up GTA IV for £5.99 yet GTA V cost me £39.99.


Da fux?
Click to expand...

I don't think I've paid full price for a game in almost half a decade - I refuse to. Usually I use a combination of patience, the steam summer sales and sites like nuuvem.
 
Don't buy near launch and steam is cheap. Rarely buy outside of sales, usually steam games have a 1/3rd of sale every month anyway.
Unless I can buy or add it to steam. I'm not very interested. I don't want to remember 10million logins or where I got stuff from. Lost several, games that way. For example purchased minecraft, no idea how I would get that now or even where I purchased it from, if it was on steam this wouldn't be lost money. So steam it is. If it comes with a key that can be added to steam then that's fine.
 
asQZ27o.jpg


Everything wrong with the gaming industry today.
 
Bane said:
I'm dreading the day we go full digital.

Never understood the zealot praise of digital services. Seems too short sighted to me.
Click to expand...

you should never go full digital

http://cdn.meme.am/instances/59375095.jpg[IMG]

[COLOR="Yellow"]**No hotlinking please**[/COLOR]
 
TheVoice said:
Physical games are cheaper largely because of the middlemen, not in spite of it. Distributors, retailers etc all negotiating cheaper unit prices on the basis of bulk orders, marketing agreements, long-term promotions etc. Plus there's the fact that physical products become a liability and lose value so the incentive is there for everyone involved to get the product sold and out of warehouses or stores rather than losing value.

Online distribution, on the other hand, gives a lot more control to the publishers over what the final price is.
Click to expand...

Haha. I've just gone back to copy & paste the same response i gave to the last person who came up with the same backwards thinking... it was you. Congrats. :D

PaulC2K said:
TheVoice said:
It's cheaper because more physical games are bought by retailers from suppliers so they can negotiate better deals. The retailers are also motivated to clear stock by pricing it lower because otherwise any leftover inventory becomes a liability; it loses value, it takes up space and it can be damaged, lost or stolen.

It's just the way the industry works, and it's why people who want to see gaming (or movies, music etc) go digital-only are rather deluded if they think it will lower prices.
Click to expand...
Its not though, is it. GMG hardly buy tons of physical copies, yet they always have it cheaper than digital.

The reason why its cheaper is simple - Its essentially price fixing, to satisfy the dinosaur brick & mortar stores, they'd be dead if Steam & co sold at the same price as GAME/HMV etc. Even now, people will pay about 30% more for the laziness of having it digitally, rather than save money and get the disc version which HAS to be activated on Steam anyway.

While brick & mortar stores are still relevant, there will be unwritten agreements between publishers and digital distributors to ensure the brick stores have something in the game, because otherwise whats the point of them stocking it, they'd just not bother and put something else on the shelf, not your game. So the DD lot are expected to sell at RRP, while the physical retailers can essentially do as they please. Theres nothing to stop any of the DD's selling cheaper, but it'll stir things up, and thats not going to please the publisher or the retail stores, and so thats not good for the DD's.

So, kill brick & mortar, and there wont be multiple prices any more, just the 1 extortionate price, cos anyone who thinks eliminating competition (which is what Retail Distro is to DD) is good for sensible pricing, needs their head examining. You look at the price of digital copies of Steamworks, Origin & Uplay games, from official retailers and they're still extortionate, full RRP.

Its price fixing, plain and simple, its just that theres absolutely nothing legally or contractually stopping someone from breaking that, but they wont have many suppliers for long.

Quantity has nothing to do with it, its purely about keeping the physical stores on-board, and even then so many people arent put off by paying 30% more. Retail is too big to brush them aside. The console market is probably to thank for this. They wont sell enough PC stuff, but if EA decide to screw retailers on digital, then the Tesco's and GAME's take their ball and go play with Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo etc.
Click to expand...

Tesco etc might be able to get stuff cheaper due to quantity discounts, but the likes of GMG are also magically able to discount the retail version significantly. When you go to GMG, you're not going there looking for retail copies, and i bet its a fraction of their business. So how can a digital storefront, which has limited interest or demand for physical media, manage to get better prices for physical content, while the majority of sales is for digital content which is priced considerably higher??
The answer has sod all to do with bulk commitment orders.

As soon as brick & mortar stores are seen as irrelevant for PC sales (and we're probably very close to that tipping point, if not beyond it) then the prices will continue to rise to the point where Origin/Steam/Uplay RRP prices will be the norm, rather than the exception that people like to get outraged over.
 
It's one factor among the many others that I mentioned. I don't disagree that there's some element of publisher influence on download pricing that perhaps isn't present to the same degree on physical copies (as I said myself) but you can't just dismiss everything I've said and then blame it all on "price fixing", that's just nonsensical.
 
Last edited:
I don't recall any developer or publisher saying that digital games would be cheaper. I do remember every gamer expecting digital to be cheaper though.
 
Mainstream multi format publishers are still heavily reliant on retail distribution, hence for the most part digital pricing not undercutting retail.

No doubt pc games shift more digitally, gta being a prime example, but rockstar still need the retails to sell millions of console boxes. There will always be exceptions, and im sure for the now that the publishers will keep quiet on the situation as many will buy at the full price digital, for the sheer ease and convenience.

The ones that are taking the pee, are the ones with no other distribution but digital, no excuse.
 
ShiWarrior said:
every time I log into steam and see a new game, why they want £40 for it I do not know, its cheaper to get the DVD version !
Click to expand...

Convenience, convenience, convenience.

Oh have I mentioned ? Convenience!

Just like I pay for Spotify premium ( as it syncs on all devices and even syncs offline mp3's to phone) even though I can easily download all music ''illegally''.

It's easy to have a game library in 1 place on multiple devices, and it's far less hassle and faster to download a game on steam than using slow and messy optical media.

The convenience is worth a premium!


Why steam charge 40 ? Because they can. People pay that!
 
Last edited:
Whilst digital PC games are expensive, they are still a lot cheaper than most console titles are on release! Let's enjoy that whilst it lasts! Also, as someone else pointed out: it's all convenience. And no one did ever say digital was cheaper. We just all assumed it would be.
 
The digital games have gone up in price just because they are pusher the boundaries of what we are prepared to pay.

GTA V is a prime example. Its priced at over £30 because its a most sought after game. People want to play it from day 1 so they will be prepared to pay a premium. If you waited 6 months to a year you will find it around £20 or less. Its not rocket science.

I paid £19 for it from Nuveem and it plays fine. The reduced price for me had a slight risk as it might have been (and still could be) region locked. Steam buyers paid £39.99 for it guaranteed it will work.

Night and day.
 
£40 for GTAV is still a bargain though, it's clearly pushing the boundaries of modern gaming and is an amazing experience. I'd probably pay £100 for a game of that quality.

Having said that there is plenty of generic tosh out there (COD for example) that seems to be available for years at an inflated price online.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom