Price of games is stupidly expensive

Baldbloke · 21 May 2023 at 14:01

sixty quid for a game? get lost.

I don't game much. Bit of sim racing and a wee bit Call of Duty campaign (Well, it has actually been many years since I played COD but I'll try to get back in to it).

I recently bought Call of Duty Modern Warfare (not v2, just the first one) for £16-ish quid on steam sale. Fair enough. Bit dear for my liking but what the heck, go for it I thought to myself.

Then, when I booted up the the game for the first time I was slapped in the face with offers of more expensive upgrades, download content and other stuff for some ridiculous sum of money. Eff off, I thought.

Ok, it's a business. I get that. I think it is ethically dislikable but the world is what it is. I am a 62 year old man who has a good idea of when to call a halt on stupid purchases. What about the young kids who are going to their parents and asking for more money to get the latest fancy dangling carrot? Must be a chuffing nightmare.

Rant ended (But not over

. Your turn.

Baldbloke · 21 May 2023 at 14:23

Andrew_McP said:
I've been gaming, on and off, since Pong. And it's a very long time since I bought a game at full release price... or anything close. I don't play online, so don't need a community around a new game (to me). So I wait, I play things at a price point I like, I let people subsidize my gaming with their full priced releases if they want.

I apply the same reasoning to PC hardware... though these days it's cheaper to buy a laptop than play the hardware game. We live in strange times. Lots of people have lots of money to waste. Lots of people have less money to waste. Fortunately games aren't important and we don't need to buy them at all.

Ah, good old pong. I actually built the game from components back in 1976. Etched my own pcb for it too. It worked after three or four troubleshoots and heartaches. Main component was the eprom. Cost me just as much to build it back then as it was to buy a ready made one. The experience of building it was invaluable though.

Baldbloke · 21 May 2023 at 14:36

BUDFORCE said:
Basically not getting Cyberpunk until it drops below £10.

With you there. I've seen it mentioned around the interweb so often I think to myself I ought to go find out what it is. But anything more than a tenner to satisfy curiosity about it just aint going to happen.

Baldbloke · 21 May 2023 at 17:13

ttaskmaster said:
Depends how far you're willing to drive... I hear the girls in Cowley are pretty cheap!

I don't quite understand the reference buit I get the gist. You are a very Ditty, Ditty boy

Baldbloke · 23 May 2023 at 06:46

OP here. You know what? You lot've changed my mind. I was having a rant about the price of games. I like a rant. It is one of the pleasures of getting older.

Having read your opinions it does seem, given the amount of hours some of you spend playing a game, then sixty quid doesn't seem so bad after all. It can work out at pence per hour if it's a game you really enjoy. That is, if you do play it. Otherwise spending sixty quid on a game just to find out you get bored with it pretty quickly could certainly be a little disheartening.

Hardware costs vs game costs: Yes I spent stupid money on a 3080 ti FE (a grand) so I could do some vr sim racing. Hypocrite, Moi?

. Then I spent just under a grand on the sim rig itself. I like my tech toys. So I really shouldn't be whinging about sixty quid for a piece of software. Mind you, I don't play that much. Too tired when I get back from work and have difficulty working up the enthusiasm for an intensive session. Half an hour then I get a bit yawny, promise myself I'll have another go at the game tomorrow and then get me'sen off to bed.

And, it seems, given that some of you paid sixty for commodore and snes games back in the day sort of puts things in perspective.

Converted and feeling better about the prices now.

Kind regards,
Victor (Meldrew).