$60 for a Game in 2014 Is "Insane," Former Bulletstorm Dev Says

At least a digital copy should be cheaper, especially sold directly from the developer/publisher. No third party, no cost of distribution and no cost of printing.

Games were $60 back in the '90s, I've seen the ads so stop trying to say they weren't, with inflation games SHOULD be costing $100+... This guy is full of it and is just pandering to who he thinks are the "consumers"...

he also forgot to mention the fact that games were $60 in like 2006/2007. now with rip-off DLC that was made during development for the most part, or takes to seconds to write in like a weapon skin(call of duty), they are easily $120-200 per game. he needs to address that. i don't mind paying $60 for a FULL game with tons of maps weapons story etc that is originally developed. heck maybe even worth $70 or $80. but stop trying to make console games pay to play with every new map you cant access online gaming becomes more and more frustrating.

I'm not in favor of $60 games, but I understand the dilemma.

The problem any publisher has is that they basically have to guess at how successful a game will be before they invest 1 million or 20 million in the development. Then they have to set a price for the initial release hoping it will sell enough copies to make that money back. So if the initial price is at $30, they'll have to sell twice as many copies as a game priced at $60.

All games will have someone buy it within the first initial period. The trick is to hit the sweet spot on price where you get the most first period buyers before the actual price itself dissuades them. As a simplified example, say you created a game. You price it at $30 and get 200 people buy it, making $6,000. If you increased it to $60 would you cause 100 people to loose interest (still making $6,000) or only 50 people loose interest (making you $9,000). Finally you might even consider selling it for $90, but that might disuase 150 people causing you to only sell 50 copies and make only $4,500. At some point the price will cause so many people to pass that you'll make less than you would at even the lowest $30 price.

The trick of course if finding that sweet spot.

come to Canada the games after tax are close to $80, just bought murdered soul suspect on x1 $78 after tax. that is all new games unless I buy digital on ps4 because they don't charge tax like xbox or Nintendo on there digital products.

Just sell the crap multiplayer for 20$ and sell the single player/co-op campagin for 20$... stop ripping us off for 60$ when we only want 20$ worth of a game.

There's way too many collectible nonsense in games that I skip... Infamous is one of the worst culprits. Literally hundreds and hundreds of collectibles. But that wouldn't be so bad...

MAYBE they should just stop making sequels. You know? The yearly updates royally suck. Why don't you focus on some original games and give us the endings instead of tacking on DLC ripoffs.

I have felt cheated out of my money for a lot of games, Ghost Recon 2, Splinter Cell Blacklist, Watch Dogs, (never again Ubisoft...) Dragon age 2, Mass Effect sequels, Fallout sequels... These games are never worth 60$ and there are no refunds. Games are the only thing they can release poorly and we're unable to get refunds for the horrible let downs. That's pretty criminal if you ask me, it's a wonder nobody wants to pay for these things.

Thankfully we have Steam and we can wait for them to drop under 20$

I always wait for sales, discounts, used games, friend lending, whatever. Late adopter of almost everything, and damn glad to be one. This is just my way of being a gamer in a customer-unfriendly, greedy industry.

Developers should pay more attention to middle/late product cycle sales instead of just aiming for preorders and day-one sales. That way you know the whole worth of your content instead of just the effectiveness of your marketing department.

How about instead of crying that gamers want more from their games we focus on the quality of the game and what we are really offering. If you are offering a reiteration of the exact same crap then don't serve it on a gold platter and say its high quality.. call of exact same game over and over with a new story for 5 years for example..

If you say "oh well we didn't have as much content but our games are just as good" then you are a tool who hasn't seen the likes of games like fallout and oblivion, final fantasies up till x, If you are offering a solid gameplay and a hell of a fun time and perhaps some open ended-ness then your games would feel like they are worth more. Instead you give a mediocre experience of linearity and mundaneness..

Digital distribution is way less expensive than printing, packaging and shipping games. Now why is the digital copy the same price as a physical one? And why do we accept it? A digital copy should be $35 at the most when new. Soon the Disc is pretty much obselete, will we still accept these prices bought directly from the digital store? That is the real madness in game pricing.

Its funny how game prices are actually higher in less developed countries, (like here in Hungary) than in the US. I just saw the new nextgen console gameprices of the biggest retailer in my country (576.hu) and it was mindblowing!! 19990 HUF for a game . thats about 95$. (in a country , where minimum wage is 250$). So from a minimal wage income, you get to buy about 3 (actually less than 3) games / month. Now, thats how you get pirates!!! When a game retailer gives you no choice to buy the game from honest work, people are left with 2 other choices: 1., dont play videogames at all, since theres no money for that. 2., Get that console hacked, and give the middle finger to your difficulties... Its not like people dont want to buy the games, they cant! And these are hard working people with 9 to 5 jobs (actually 8 to 4) the very people who would need a little "downtime" or getaway from they daily routines... Its just sad really...

Honestly, I feel they should be focusing on creating the best games they can *anyway*. MSRP should not be in their list of worries.

What needs to change is the fact that gamers ( And a lot of critics ), for whatever reason, view games as a dollar per hour purchase. You aren't buying gasoline or a box of cereal here people. You're buying an entertainment product - not much different from a BluRay movie, or album.

You don't pay $10 - $11 for a movie ticket because you're going to get a 3 hour movie - you buy it because you're going to see something that you hope you enjoy. Same for a CD - you don't pay $15 because it has 30 minutes worth of music. You pay it because you like the music that's on the disc and will listen to it over and over.

Yeah, it sucks to pay full price for a game you didn't enjoy. It also sucks to pay $40 - $50 to take your family to a movie, and the movie sucks. It's called Buyer's Remorse - and it's why things like Gamefly or Redbox exist. You have an option there, that'll allow you to rent a game for a small fee - so you can play it and decide if you like it.

Gaming is about having fun. Games are cheaper in this era than they've ever been. Did we forget they used to cost a LOT more back in the day - and had far, FAR less content than they do now? Yet we complain about a $60 price tag on a game that's "only 10 hours long".

There's no happy medium. People are going to complain no matter what. Look at Ground Zeroes. People found out that 1 mission out of the 6-7 available was 2 hours long - and started to freak about the price. The game ranges from $20 - $40, depending on console and format. That's $20 - $40 for a game that offers, at minimum, 5-6 hours of playtime - not including replayability.

But it's too much.

People complain that a 30+ hour campaign is too short in a game like GTAV.

15+ hours is too short for a game like South Park: The Stick of Truth.

8+ hours is too short for a game like Metal Gear RISING.

We need to get rid of the entire "dollar per hour" mentality. If you enjoyed your purchase, then it was worth the price of admission. It shouldn't matter that it was a 3 hour road-trip, or a 100+ hour extended leave so long as you got the enjoyment you expected out of it.

You could start selling your games for $10 - $15 a piece..and people would STILL complain. Lowering the price on games won't have much of an effect.

Now - a place where a price change might actually do some good is on the DLC side of things. It seems to still be the Wild West when it comes to that - we need a standardized price set for that content.

And I'm still wondering why last gen console games(PS3/360) still cost $60 when the next gen consoles(PS4/X1) are out and the games cost $60. They should be dropped to $50.

Here's a solution I would love to see. Some players want MP only (mainly). Some SP only. Some both. If a company produced a game and said, "You can purchase just the SP campaign for $30, or the MP for $30, or both for $55" I would give a new game purchase serious thought. I like SP way more than MP, so paying $60 for a game that I'm likely to only use half of is nuts. I hate paying for content that I know I'm not going to use. It's the main reason why I buy used. It's also the reason that many of my game purchases of late have been XBLA games.

Every time the argument of current game prices come up, I have to wonder: what was the reason for the same prices back in the days of the SNES and Genesis? Depending on where you went, a new release could be anywhere from $50 to $70. There also seemed to be some sort of hierarchy, as you could kinda guess which games would be $50 based on the developer (there was a similar phenomenon on DS, where Nintendo and SE games used to sell at a premium of $35 while most other releases were $30).

Forget the games

I wanna know why the hell controllers are so damn expensive. No reason a new controller should cost more than $20-25.

I think his point is great, but either he is bitter about something or the article makes him sound that way. Games should just be made and then priced appropriately, but arbitrarily lowering the price point is just as wrong as the arbitrary $60. I found $60 a steal for Skyrim; no doubt others will say the same for GTA or BF or AC or any number of blockbusters. Sometimes the "fillers" give a game its appeal for its fans.

I don't understand his discussion of Bulletstorm. He specifically said it's a "$60 game for $60," so obviously he doesn't think it should have been cheaper. Does he think other games are too cheap? Too expensive? Too much content? Too little content? In the end, my only take away from the Bulletstorm example is that he's bitter because it wasn't more successful.

Yeah but games have always been expensive and have simply adjusted with the times. Plus, most go down to $40 in a month or so. Why not try to get as much money upfront? Yeah, I'd be good with a price cut but if not I'll just wait a few weeks and spend $60 on a game I really want (only did it with a select few games last year, the rest I waited, but I do the same when a movie comes out on DVD, they're always overpriced and go down to normal in a few weeks).

It really is. I beleive that most of eraly adopters sell their games to seconhand buyers and that's what they count on when they buy them full price. Usually they sell those games in a week only 5-10 eur cheaper, so i have to wait for 4th or 5th hands before those games reach 20 eur price. But once I get those games I don't sell them. So I guess I pay for games more than dude that initially bought it for 60 eur.

<< LINK REMOVED >> plus games had more of their own identity back then....now every game is trying to be something it's not....people bash Nintendo for trying to appeal to a broader audience...please! most of these so called mainstream games are all mutated and sublimely trying to become one another in hopes of earning more cash