Tell GR: Would You Pay More For Next-Gen Games?

Nah, I'd rather not.

I'd give up gaming if the prices go up again. Besides, I have yet to see a slew of games that are worth their asking price lately.

If I could play $29.99-$39.99 per title, I'd buy a lot more new games instead of waiting for pre-owned sales or trading in games toward an already-reduced price a few months after launch.

Of course I meant "pay."

I get games on sale when and if I get money in the first place.

It would be extremely harmful to the market if the price for games went up. A lot of people only buy one or two games a year so a game costing $80 isn't that substantial to them. Then you have your more dedicated and versed gamer who buys 5 or more games a year and that $80 really builds ups and makes the consumer to cut the amount of product they buy. I think that extremely big budget games such as halo 4,COD, etc could be whatever price they wanted to be and millions would still be sold. Then you have your spec ops and Shadow of the Damned which should be priced at lower so that it entice consumers. I could potentially go see all of the years best movies for price of two games/$120 (considering tickets are $10). Its a shame of gamers are having to chose which experiences they want to par take in due to such a large fee. The $60 retail standard is hurting the industry.

to me at $40 is the sweet spot, $60 is like cutting 4 of your 5 fingers while $40 is like only cutting 2 if that makes any sense. If i wanted to buy 2 games it would be over $100 and in the consumers mind anything over $100 is considered a big purchase while at a $40 price point you could go buy 2 games for less that $100. Companies need to have a price that makes the product seem reachable and not seem like an "investment'. Little Timmy is saving up for a new game, at a lower price point he maybe more willing to try to save his money and reach that $40 price point and buy that new IP than if it was $60. It may only be $20 less but it makes a lot of difference.

39.99$ sounds even sweeter! :D

Im trying to do the math but Ive lost a lot of blood... Im going to go lie down now.

who listens to patcher anyway?

I don't even know who the **** patcher is :D

I do. And i've been following him and his web series for years.
And i'm gonna be honest here. I REALLY hate GR stance on him. It mostly seems they are nitpicking his statements or carefully ignoring all his other articles coming true (like how publishers will enforce DLC content to developers to fight against piracy). I'm starting to think there's a conspiracy on him here. (Almost) every article mentioning him on GR either tries to show how silly his job is or how his assumption is based on a really dumb math equation.

Guys... he's an analyst! Not a witch doctor, not a dumb old guy who's rambling on cable news about the failure of youth, certainly not the guy who whispers in big major game companies CEO to increase/decrease game price. He is just a guy whose job is to reassure his clients (who are not gamers) by giving out stocks exchange strategies assumptions, not predictions! One of the reasons we see him everywhere in gaming websites is mostly because he is a gamer like us.

I concur sir. He is simply an analyst and he has made some valid points. I think GR does take the wrong perspective on the guy at times...his opinoins should be viewed as increased likelihood of an outcome rather than predicition...increased can even mean slighlty more likely than not.

I can't afford a new PC until next month, when I saved enough for it. Hell, it's pretty hard for me to purchase new games already. Thanks to the help of our community recommending games for each other, that's where my library is based on nowadays. Old or new, I'm the guy with the debit card. Also InB4 madster says how much he saves from pirating.

Oh, this comment was brought to you by PS3's internet browser. Suck on that Xbox 360. Waited how many years and no flash? C'mon!

Seeing that now I read almost as much as I play games (except Team Fortress 2 or Counter Strike) I could see myself buying more books instead of more games.

You are so un-American.

Each day I'm leaning more towards a PC for gaming seeing all those crazy sales. I don't even need anything too beefy. I'm more likely to buy stuff on gog than get the newest game on the market.

Come over to the PC side, Luke.

Thanks to Steam, there aren't many games that I buy for more than $10. I tend to stay addicted to a few games for a very long time, so it's pretty easy to let new releases pass me by and then snap them all up later on sale--sometimes I'm not even a year behind, AND I get to play the fully patched version with any game-breaking release bugs ironed out.

For those games that I just have to have at release (the last two were Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Dishonored), I could probably be convinced to pay $70. A fair amount of new PC releases are still $50, though.

From a price-to-value perspective, there has probably never been a better time to be a gamer. I picked up Braid, Limbo, and Hotline Miami as a gift for a friend over Christmas. That's a minimum of 12 hours of super high-quality entertainment, and I got the lot for $7.50. Oh, Witcher 2 for another $7.50? Sure, why not--I was looking for something to do with the next FORTY HOURS of my life.

Leave it to sliverstorm to say it best. You can get a better value by waiting.

No. No.

If they do raise prices, It just will make the PC and maybe even the Steambox that much sexier.

Paying $80 for a game would be too much. I'd skip the next gen and get a gaming PC, which is something I've been thinking about for a little while anyway. Just give me a reason, next-gen consoles... I'll do it. I swear I'll do it!

Come over to the PC side, Luke.

I don't even want to spend more than 10 dollars on a game unless it came give me 200. Hours of gameplay. The only game I would buy now new is monster hunter.

I rarely if ever buy a game at full price now. As much as devs seem to be milking consumers with DLC, I'd say the top end price should be 40. After you buy 2 to 4 9.99 dlc's to get the complete game you should have gotten for 40, you'recoming out even or only slightly behind. I don't agree with the prices or structure but this is the way I see it going.

Like other folks have said, if not for Steam I'd hardly buy games. I'm a patient man so I'm more than happy to wait a couple of weeks for a "new" game to be half off or a couple of months for a "newish" game to be 1/6th the original price.

That was my rational with Resident Evil 6. Wouldn't pay $60 for it because you know Capcom will screw you on the DLC. At $40 plus possibly two future DLCs at $9.99 I feel the price is right for a complete game. It's a consumer tango we have to do today for blockbuster games as you know DLC will inevitably show up in the coming months...and now you have collections...third tier of sales if not fourth. I wonder if they will start coming out with collections vs GoTY editions in order to then push old DLC for 2 or 3 old games at $5-$10. Rational being that you get 2 or 3 full games at a discount...when to the consumer the GoTY edition may be considered the full game. I fear to some extent for the GoTY editions...not nearly as profitable as collections + DLC That would be shitty!

I already won't buy a game at full new game cost unless it's something very special. I only bought two games last year for 60 dollars, and regret one of those purchases. The fantastic deals available from direct download services has spoiled me. I can't go back to regular retail now, and a price increase would just push me farther away.

^ THIS. Yes, I love Steam and GOG.com, too.

paying 70$ for a game is enough. (that's including taxes)

If It would stop developers from releasing half assed games and then releasing the other half in dlcs yes. But I know that it still wouldn't work out that way.

The most I would pay is $69.69. For some reason, that just sounds like a good price.

Damn it, I didn't want to reply to this particular comment >:0

It ok. I feel your unintended love.

Its interesting reading this. 40 usd equals 47 nzd but yet here in new Zealand we pay between 80 and 90 dollars for a new game. Id hate to think what its be if prices went up.

I bet we all just seem like a bunch of *******s with first world problems, then.

I like thinking of New Zealand as a 3rd world country after reading your comment.

Kiwis living in ramshackle huts, drinking dysentery tainted water.

We do get pretty shafted down in NZ. Even Steam tries to charge us more for sending 1 & 0s down to us. XCom: Enemy Unknown is still sitting at US$80 & Borderlands 2 is US$70, DLC for Borderlands 2 is US$17 instead of $10. Even though we pay in US dollars & have to pay an extra fee to the bank for changing the currency, publishers still charge us more, just because it's still a slightly better deal than buying a physical copy. I used to be limited to PS3 games & often they were NZ$120 on release, let's just say the rental stores got more of my money than game retailers.

...Having said that, Steam sales are still pretty good & I spend a lot more on games in a year than I used to. Lots of cheap games = game devs get more of my money.

I live in Australia, of course I'd pay more! They're ****ing cheap here :D

I figured people in Australia would be too busy being killed by its wildlife to play games.

Nah man, we play video games while avoiding the sun since we're 3 square kilometers from its surface. That doesn't stop the spiders and snakes being a threat though

I hear the native language in Australia is screaming

We make it work

I would since I love games too much. However, I would only buy a few games a year and would play alot more PC since Steam and GOG have so many well priced games.

Sadly, yeah, I'd probably pay more. But I'm the guy who buys Final Fantasy Tactics on every console and owns more unplayed games than there are days in a month. So I already may be spending my gaming dollars not so rationally.

Well...if the content match. Problem is it wont. I have the issue at the moment, that im having a hard time paying 50 euro for a game from a big developer when i can buy some indie titel for 10 euro and get the same amount of entertainment in it. Also alot of the indie titels seems like the developer had fun making them. Where as alot of the big titles doesnt really hide its a money grind.

If the prices went up above 70-80$ I would probably pirate even more.
I tend to download a LOT of games, but I try to buy all the games I spend more than 5 hours on.(yeah im kinda douchy I guess)
Exept for the Wii... I've never paid for a Wii game. Hate that console and the 87$ I spent on getting a softmodded one was 86$ more than it deserved!

Hahahaha,,, price going up to 70/80 bucks ?
Me just echoing the thoughts on here - that alienware system is looking hotter and hotter right about now.
Just try me gaming industry,,,, try me,,,, that ain't a threat that's a muthaf*ckin' promise

Brap !!

Echoing Silverstorm, it's about the value:dollar ratio. I don't know why they can't think to develop games cheaper to keep costs down... maybe less tacked on multiplayer across two studios and a more focused experience...

10 Thumbs up!

NO, I WOULDN'T

I agree with majorcoxsore's point. I've noticed the trend in myself to not have impulse buys with games anymore. The $65.XX price point (tax included) is a bit too much to experiment with. As a result, my variety has suffered. Some of that is my own fault, I'm not very patient and I refuse to buy (anything) used. So obviously a $40 selling point is preferred.

The same can be said for the consoles I play on. I was an early PS3 owner, plus I also got all the stuff you need to have a legit online experience. Put all that together and I spent an obscene amount of money on Playstation. So while everyone is getting excited about the new hardware, I'm not quite there yet lol. 6 years seems a bit rushed to me.

The problem is both sides feel hard done by: Consumers feel that $60 (or £37.88 which is less than British RRP) is a high asking price and for many games that's true but that price means more customers are turning to second hand and online which means less money for publishers. They in turn devise new ways to make more money (because raising the price of current gen games is insane) hence the rise of DLC, online passes, and season passes. But then gamers get all huffy about being forced to pay more money I'm a massive supporter of the second hand market. I also understand the need for supplementary charges when people buy second hand. Having said that if prices do raise to $80 (£50.50) then trade in prices would have to lift drastically before I'd consider buying a next gen console. Something needs to offset that jump in price.

$80!?! Yo, ho, ho, it's a pirate's life for me.

Arrrrrrrree you saying that you would do something illegal?

No f*cking way. I already have a problem with the $59.99 price tag. You already pay premium price and then get bombarded with DLC and other crap. It's almost like getting low-balled but without the benefit of a low entry fee.
At least Nintendo didn't raise the price for Wii U software past the competition's current price point, so hopefully MS and Sony at least keep the current price structure to remain competitive. Asking for a $39.99 price point would probably be too much but they should at least settle on $49.99, with $39.99 for non-AAA titles and $29.99 for shovelware.

I'm staying with PC until Brain-Computer interfaces come out. If the leaked specs for the new xbox are accurate, my 3 year old computer is better in all regards.