The End of the $60 Game??

"Also: Video game sales are DOWN....."

Sales are down because Wii is at end of life. Nintendo owned such a huge chunk of this generation that when Wii sales dropped off sharply, it had an industry-wide effect. 360 and PS3 sales are doing just fine. Steam sales are through the roof.

I think this is more wishful thinking.

Very few new releases so far in 2012. People are backlogged with games from a great ending to 2011.

As long as there's a big buying spree from the public at a game's launch, they'll keep doing it. They can just do what they do which is offer more sales earlier. but no point in sacrificing money when you don't have to.

And to compare to the iOS casual market is silly. Those are simple Flash-like games that don't take much time to make. Toyota outsells Ferrari many times over, but that doesn't diminish a Ferrari.

Part of the high cost of games is the marketing. True that only the bigger titles get huge advertising but I think amount of money wasted in over marketing.

Another part is over hyping early on in marketing. That caused the developers having to try to meet up with the expectation. Worse is the game comes out not meeting the hype expectation and failed to sell.

It may not be the end but games rarely stay at $60 for very long any more. Most games are down to $50 or even $40 within a few weeks of launch. That says a lot.

This is no longer the case. It was true in the early part of 2012, but now software sales are down across the board. Hardware sales are doing great, but that's because people are only now entering the HD console market and there's a huge catalog of games to catch up on and not a lot of new games being released.

The early part of 2012 has had a bigger game draught than in the past 2-3 years--when it seemed like every publisher wanted to try releasing games in the 1st and 2nd quarter. They've apparently given up on that strategy, and the market stats are reflecting that. I'm not saying things are good (I also believe the $60 market is dying), but they're also not as bad as they might seem.

Rarely any games now can stay at $60 for a month before $10-20 off sale. Within 3+ months, the retail price also drops. It's quite easy to get the game for half price within 6 months.

$60 is for fans and those who can't wait. After that group, most of the remaining buyers wait for the game to drop to $30 or less.

For 95% percent of the games, I simply "assume" the game hasn't come out after 6 months later. It takes several patches before the game is less buggy.

Also the fact that the consoles are pushing the extra capabilities that aren't gaming.

The thing is that the product itself has widened in scope. Collector's Editions work to squeeze out another $10 to $20 or more. Day 1 DLC, services like CoD Elite, and "season passes" extract even more $.

In the past year, I have purchased three games at the full $60. Ace Combat, Battlefield 3 and Mass Effect 3. I have been lucky in that all three have no game-breaking bugs, and for the most part are complete games.

Aside from those, however, I have adopted a wait-and-see attitude as others have posted. It saves money, and the product tends to be better as well.

Well, I remember you got Ace Combat for $25 or $35 preorder (anyone that got Ace Combat Assault Horizon is aces in my book!!!). so you can't say that was a full $60...

Even "free" casual games on cell phones and the like are actually simple portals to pull money from the gamer. How many of us have free games on our phones that, in essence, require you to purchase something (armor, weapons, etc.) to actually finish the game? The good ol' "Free!" game on our cell phones/tablets are actually incredible revenue generators.

Even Xbox games haven't truly been $60 for some time know - or the moment DLC came out. From the business perspective, all game companies plan their sales strategy before the games come out, forecasting price drops and revenue stream contraction. Natural elements of the game lifecycle. With DLC, game companies are able to maintain their base price longer. For example;

$60 game on release date, price maintained for 3 months
$49.99 reduction at 3 months
$10.00 DLC released at 3 months
$39.99 reduction at 6 months
$15.00 DLC released at 6 months

And so-on and so-on.

We might see games drop from $60 on release, but that will only be when game companies can build in additional costs that keep that price point as constant as possible for as long as possible in the games life cycle. As "core" gamers on this site, many of us pre-order games for lower prices...but we also know that we're going to pay $15 for the map-pack the day it comes out, and $10 for the 2nd map pack the day it comes out... guess what? For the life cycle of the game we actually paid full price (or more) even though we as consumers "thought" we were getting a deal.

-JR

I haven't bought anything at the $60 price. Not a single game.

I too haven't bought a game this year.

I have purchased two games this year, neither or them at full price.

I really think that gaming in is a rut right now. Most games feel and play the same to me and I think there is a trend in gaming where either I am getting significantly better at games (not likely) or the difficulty is coming down. Even on the harder settings, it seems like I'm walking right through the games, which is taking away the challenge and the accomplishment of completing a game...

I haven't bought a new game at 60 bucks in a long time. Exception being Skyrim. Come on, it has an easy 100+ hrs of gamepay.

I refuse to buy a game with a 8 hr campaign for 60 bucks. Too much for too little. Multiplayer means nothing to me, And it never will. I hate the fact that I even have to buy a game with it included since I'll never use it.

The excuse that piracy and the used market justifies the 60$ price tag doesn't hold any weight imho and is a weak excuse. Piracy and used games have been around since day one. They have no way of knowing or calculating actual losses due to them and any numbers they provide is simple fabrication and lies. The only numbers they could provide is how much time,money, and resources are lost chasing piracy.Oddly enough, they never mention that.

If games were 20-30$ you can bet that piracy would be at the very least cut in half. Most pirates do so because of costs. If it doesn't make financial sense to pirate, download, copy or burn games chances are they'll just buy them.

Casual gamers rarely buy $60 games. You'll never tap that market with those price tags. 20-30 range can be a spontaneous purchase while getting groceries at walmart. Another opportunity lost

The days of trying to get as much profit off of a single sale are gone. Its about volume, has been for other markets for years. $30 off of each sale at 100 000 sales or 10 bucks off of 3 million? I am sure the actual profit numbers are far more complicated but you get the point.

I rarely buy at the full $60 any more.

I have noticed more and more a quick drop to $49 on Amazon and other sites within 30 days or so of release, and I don't recall seeing that as much in the past.

The problem now is that a few games sell really well at $60. Because of that, any other games that try to sell at a lower price inevitably suffer at retail due to the perception of lower quality. The only other option is to go digital, but that comes with a massive decrease in visibility (and sales). This, among many other reasons, is why mid-tier games are disappearing from the market.


That's a direct response to the used game market turning around and selling used copies of new releases at $55. Publishers are trying to undercut Gamestop.

Play Demon Souls and Dark Souls and you'll instantly know if you're getting better.

Every day I get just a little further in Dark Souls That game can be so frustrating at times, but then you get a little further in it and your coming back for more...

anyone have a bad feeling that next gen titles will actually go up in price?

Have you checked Max Payne 3? The game itself not even out and at PSN Store (didn't check Marketplace), Rockstar already wants you to blindly pre-order ALL the DLCs for $30. At least that tells you Max Payne 3 "Complete Edition" will be $90.

If the hype is false and you ended hating the game, not only you are out $60, you are also out another $30 on DLCs that haven't been made and cannot be canceled. Even you like Max Payne 3, you have no idea how many or quality of the $30 worth of DLCs will be made. Or, if Max Payne 3 selling poorly, there may not be many DLCs that are going to be made.

Just amazes me on how aggressive "pre-order" has gone. I wonder how may Max Payne fans already got sucked into pre-ordering this "vapor DLCs".

Preorder bonuses are getting outta hand.

at 33 years old living life and having responsibility. I just no longer have time to sit down and play a 20+ hours games anymore. Days of buying games at launch are far gone. Even though I really want to play Mass Effect 3, only time I will have is during the turkey day/xmas vacation weeks. Probably be able to pick up the game for 20bux then. Also pick up blop 2 with b2g1 deals.

For me, it takes a really soul-sucking game to get me through a long experience. I put 80+hrs into Skyrim. But when I picked up Xenoblade Chronicles, my interest fizzled at about 10 hrs. Not because it's a bad game, but because it's a really long game that isn't anywhere near as absorbing as Skyrim.

At 36, gone are the days when I could casually dump 60 hours or more into just any "good" game. It takes something really special now. Part of that is having less time. But part of that is also being a jaded old gamer. I feel like most games are just rehashing more and more of the same. My time is too precious to waste on games that give me nothing more than shallow "entertainment" in return. If I really wanted to, I could find the time to play through a long RPG or dump hundreds of hours into the latest multiplayer FPS. But it is rarely worth it.

I have grown to expect depth, intelligence, innovation, and smart design from my games. Without that, I just feel like I'm wasting my (increasingly precious) time. As a former games journalist friend once told me, "there are always more games." In other words, there's no need to get hung up on getting through something that's merely "good." I try to reserve my game time for exceptional games, not just good ones.

Some of the most exceptional experiences I've had in gaming have been in the $10-15 downloadable market. I just don't feel the need for most $60 experiences. A small handful are great. The rest are mediocre-to-good. Open the floodgates to small, cheap, independent games, I say!

Same here. Even though I frequently spend $10-20 for a lot of games, I find myself unwilling even to spend the time required to complete them if I'm not totally absorbed. I lasted about 3-4 hours with deus ex, maybe 5 with space marine. There are too many incredible games for me to waste my most precious resource on the games that are merely good.

Well, therein lies a whole different problem, doesn't it? If companies were willing to come out with truly great and innovative games, people wouldn't mind so much in forking over the cash. Sadly, bigger franchises like CoD and Halo want to simply rehash the exact same game over and over again, bilking you for $60 + countless $20 map packs each time. Sure, the graphics might be 3% better, but the games offer nothing new whatsoever. Any Halo/CoD game isn't worth more than $5 to me, at most.

Even at $5, I'm not going to put in more than a few hours playing that drek. Unlike most, I do have the time to play; but why spend even a couple of non-precious hours on garbage like that when other games are much more fun? I've poured in hundreds and hundreds of hours into Fallout 3 and Vegas, not a single minute seemed like work or tedium. Nearly a thousand more into Reckoning, Oblivion, and Skyrim. All fun. Yet another few hundred into the Dragon Age series, a few hundred more into Borderlands, and another 100+ into the Bioshock and Mass Effect series. Great games all, no regrets. All were well worth every penny. Paying $60 for 100+ hours of entertainment is an incredibly cheap no-brainer.

However, when we're handed games that offer a mere 10-15 hours of content and expected to shell out $60, all I can say is that the game had better be good...as in, ridiculously damn good. Typically, these games aren't a must-have for me, and I'll rarely spend more than a few bucks on them.

I don't think people really want innovation per se....they just want quality. Fighting games didn't fall off for lack of innovation....it just kinda languished for a while until street fighter IV, which was as uninnovative as it gets, but absolutely fantastic. There's really not much innovation in skyrim, its kind of a no brainer next step from all the work on oblivion and fallout. Even bioshock had precious little innovation, it was basically system shock 3. I wouldn't hold that against any of them though. People will fork out the cash for games that they feel are "must-haves", and that's almost always due to a history of quality, not a history of innovation. Great franchises often start when innovation and quality collide (borderlands the most recent example), but they generally tend to stick with their formula thereafter. There are SO many great franchises out there right now that are just iterating.

What there definitely isn't room for, is less than incredible games. Even if they're innovative. $60 games aren't going anywhere...but I think we might see a lot less of them. Who has the time, let alone the money to fork out $60 to play syndicate or the darkness 2, when you can put hundreds of hours into all the big MP releases? I don't even know why they even bother making some of these games.

The length of a game is almost totally irrelevant to me. I'd happily spend $60 on a fantastic game, even if it only lasted 2 hours. The price isn't a deciding factor, nor is the length. It's all about the quality of the experience. If a game makes me feel like my time was well spent, then I really don't mind shelling out $60, $5, $15, or $0.99.


Indeed. And it's clear that the $60 market is seeing rapidly diminishing returns. That's why they're piling on DLC plans, subscriptions, and anti-piracy/anti-used incentives. Those are the signs of a desperate industry. With very few exceptions, people aren't flocking to those big games the way they once were. And it's not because $60 is too expensive; it's because there are better (not just cheaper) experiences to be had elsewhere.

Length of game certainly matters to me. I'll gladly purchase and play any enjoyable game.

But if it's $60, I would hope I'd at least get 15 hours or so of use out of it. $30/hour isn't a proportion I'd find acceptable and I hope not many others would as well.

Publishers would love nothing better than for two hour games at $60 a pop to become acceptable. Development cost would be a fraction of what it otherwise would be and people would be more quickly buying something else to play.

But as a gamer, my limit would be about $10 total and even then the game would have to be an amazing two hours (Or require a lot of practicing before being able to actually play through it in two hours).