Why Haven't Video Game Prices Gone Up

[Bubzeh]

Games back in my day were 40 pounds. Nowadays they're 50-60 right?

But now you have the whole buying content. The amount of money kids pump into Fifa etc is scary pathetic...

 

[flashNsmash]

People are forgetting all the free games out there also.. you wouldn’t get games like fortnite back in the day free or rocket league . Games are on average much cheaper . You had to buy everything back in the day

what about shareware? first campaign of DOOM cost me $3 for a 3.5" floppy or two, same with all of the apogee games

 

[flashNsmash]

Games back in my day were 40 pounds. Nowadays they're 50-60 right?

But now you have the whole buying content. The amount of money kids pump into Fifa etc is scary pathetic...

but i need the limited edition joey barton!!

 

[Fuzzybabyducks]

what about shareware? first campaign of DOOM cost me $3 for a 3.5" floppy or two, same with all of the apogee games

dont know what that is but 3 bucks isnt free.

 

[Fuzzybabyducks]

 

[flashNsmash]

dont know what that is but 3 bucks isnt free.

well the content was free, you were technically paying some nerd at a flea market $3 for a floppy that happened to contain those files

 

[Fuzzybabyducks]

well the content was free, you were technically paying some nerd at a flea market $3 for a floppy that happened to contain those files

I mean u can kind of do that now, buy games off of people on craigslist or whatever for dirt cheap,. I think went I got rid of my ps2 I sold 20 games for 20 bucks. Gamstop has that bargin bin area.
PS4 lets you shareplay, so if I have a game and you dont I can click shareplay and it takes over your screen and you both can play it... its kind of cool doesnt work for all games but good for sports games

was the sharething legal? we are just talking legal ways. I mean you can get games for free illegally now too. MY buddy had every game for the wii, someone , somehow did something to it that added every game

 

[PaleMoonlight]

LOL'ing hard at the pissed off posters. Didn't know video game prices gets everyone riled up.

@Cheese - loving that old ad bruh - those were the good old days.

 

[Quinton Overeem]

Because kids don't work. Same reason why many services and various entrances are free for kids.

 

[IIIIIIII]

just use an emulator and download free games online. surely, there are emulators for the latest gaming platforms, and free downloads of games if you look hard enough. i'm not a gamer, so i'm only speculating.

 

[Don Quixote]

When PlayStation 2 came out all the games were $60 bucks. Before that they were usually $ 20 - $ 60 bucks depending on the games demand. If they jacked the price up anymore it would probably hurt sales; $60 dollars sounds like a good breaking point for most people.

 

[TheNinja]

They found a good price point for what people are willing to pay. It's better to sell 1000 units at $60 than alienate cheap asses like me and sell 500 units at $80.

Of course I'm the guy who buys Madden 2015 and FiFa 2003 for like $5 when they are 3+ years old and loads of them at a used game shop, so there's that.

 

[D3thr0n3d K1ng]

Look at the price of controllers.

 

[flashNsmash]

was the sharething legal? we are just talking legal ways. I mean you can get games for free illegally now too. MY buddy had every game for the wii, someone , somehow did something to it that added every game

yup perfectly legal, it was Apogee's business model. basically 'try before you buy', you'd get one campaign for free and could purchase some or all of the remaining campaigns if you so desired

 

[jimbob27]

Games back in my day were 40 pounds. Nowadays they're 50-60 right?

But now you have the whole buying content. The amount of money kids pump into Fifa etc is scary pathetic...

In the 16 bit era, £40 was the standard, but they started going up when bigger capacity cartridges became a thing. The games that came on 24, 32 and 40 megabit cartridges usually retailed for £50-60, although you could usually find them more competitively priced in shops like Our Price or Woolworths. I remember Virtua Racing had an RRP of £70 because it had an extra graphic chip inside it, and it's probably best not to even mention how much Neo Geo cartridges cost back in the day.

 

[MC Paul Barman]

When I bought the Atari Jaguar in 1996 I paid about $400.00.
Each game was about $50, if I recall correctly.

 

[method115]

like syct said, you’re basically paying $60 for like 1/2 to 5/8s of a game, then pay more money just to get the rest through micro transactions

Except this is completely false and only true in a very small # of cases compared to the amount of games released.

 

[method115]

just use an emulator and download free games online. surely, there are emulators for the latest gaming platforms, and free downloads of games if you look hard enough. i'm not a gamer, so i'm only speculating.

Nope emulators don't come out until long after the system is done. I think the WiiU emulator is the quickest I've seen it done and actually work well.

 

[jimbob27]

Nope emulators don't come out until long after the system is done. I think the WiiU emulator is the quickest I've seen it done and actually work well.

The hardware of consoles is practically identical to pc's these days so they're going to come out quicker. It's not like the old days, where in game parameters like character movement were inextricably linked to weird clock timings on the obscure chips they used to put in machines.

The lack of PS4 or Xbox One emulators is probably more due to a lack of need from the gaming community, as those systems have very few exclusives that don't come out on PC anyway. They're also really powerful so would need an even more powerful PC to run the emulator plus an operating system.

There was lots of desire for the WiiU emulator because they had unique games and I expect decent Switch emulators will also come out promptly as well for the same reason.

 

[method115]

The hardware of consoles is practically identical to pc's these days so they're going to come out quicker.

Yea I guess that's true but I don't think the lack of want is the issue I think it just takes a lot of time either way. These are people doing this for free it's a lot of programming.