it's a fair price if you can afford it and if that's what you want to spend your money on.

for me, it's too expensive. although it depends on the game. if street fighter 4 comes out at that price, i would be upset, but i would probably buy it anyways because it's a game i really want. most of this 59.99 price is to offset the cost of game development, since it is becoming increasingly more expensive.

now i remember when SNES games cost a lot of money too. however, it came in a beefy cartridge with a quality 40-50+ hours of gameplay (in the case of Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy II & III, BoF, Secret of Mana), box, protective hard plastic for the bottom of the cartridge usually, FULL-COLOR instructions, maps and more. i mean, overall, it was worth it and the packaging was part of the equation. today the prices are expensive because they are off-setting the cost of developing the game in the first place, because really all they do is print and press the information on CDs and that part of it can't be very expensive.

Price is a function of supply and demand. Monopolies unfairly control prices where they do not properly reflect the demand. The only way to counter a monopoly is to not buy the product as there are no alternative competitiors to patron.

If all PS3 and XBOX 360 games have the same price initially, they are not really based on the demand unless everyone demands The Hulk as much as Halo 3 which they do not. But Microsoft doesn't need to lower its price because you can't find a competitor's The Hulk for cheaper. It is effectively a monopoly. But then one can get a PS3 (if he can afford it after having already bought a 360). But hey the prices at Sony too are the same as XBOX 360 for just about every new game. The monopoly has been essentially extend to both companies. So one can go to the Wii if it is cheaper, but also if it is too expensive, one can insist that if the companies refuse to lower the prices, we will only buy those games for the price they are forcing $59.99 that is actually worth it instead of blindly assuming that this is a fair price for every game initially.

This is not only about selecting which games you want the most of those that are $59.99 to purchase, but also not purchasing those games that are not worth $59.99 even if you can afford it because for those particular games, they don't deserve the money. We know that we can't trust the company's price as evidence of its worth because to them their judgement is apparently (via the prices) that the Hulk is good as Halo 3.

These companies are banking on the fact that the average gamer is trendy and addictive and therefore unwilling to wait patiently until the prices drop significantly or decide to avoid the bad games altogether. Most of these gamers will gain credit card debt, put pressure on others, or be unable to save because their hobby is so expensive.

You can always buy the game used and save $5 which means that rather than paying $59.99, you only pay $54.99.

And by that time, the companies have already got the $59.99 from someone else.

Why in the world would you buy a game that isn't worth the price tag?

Seriously. I don't see how anyone can argue with a damn price tag for a video game. If you're not going to pay it, wait for it to drop. No matter what way you splice it, less than 100 bucks for a video game is cheap for entertainment unless you're nuts for free sh*t.

Either way about it, someone will buy it. The mere fact that some people will pay their tagged price justifies the price they give it, and there's really nothing anyone can do about it.

Also, what insultobot says after this post is truth.

With entertainment medias its not about supply in demand. If you don't buy the hulk but you buy Halo 3, all that means is that the next game made by the people who made the hulk will be a halo clone. Same is true for movies and books.

Hey did you enjoy Halo 3?

Yeah, it was pretty damn good.

Was it worth the $60

Sure.

Which means that they will initially price the clone as though it has the same value as the original.

That is my point.

Only because people bought it at the original price.

The last way that I will try to convey this is that the maker of a generic tool set which is a 'clone' of a Sears Craftsman set will not try to charge a given Sears Craftsman price even though people bought the original Sears tools for said price because they know they would never sell ANY of their product because these tool buyers would know better.

Gamers do not.

Gamers not only will buy crap for the same price as a classic just because it is new, but also they will celebrate a price drop of $20 and pay 'only' $39.99 a month or two later for some given game and think they got a deal when this particular game might still only be worth $19.99 to them personally.

It is analogous to when you make fun of your 'nieve' excited girlfriend for saving money on some clothes when they are on sale and you say, "You do realize they overpriced them in the first place so you'd feel like you got a deal!?" Gamers are just as guilty.

I am arguing for a more mature perspective toward the consumption of gaming because there is a tradition in gaming that you buy many games instead of 1 or 2 a year and this tradition is not on par with how much they are now charging for games. It would not be as much of an issue if the price refelected the value, but since the price is standard issue at $59.99 new AND expensive for the tradition of buying new titles frequently, I think gamers are letting themselves get taken advantage of and I want to bring their attention to it.

.. Once again, video games are actually a cheap form of entertainment if you weigh it against other hobbies that you could be doing.

But it's getting more expensive.

Are we still talking about this? I don't even see any opposing sides or advancement in discussion.

But if we are then I guess we can just wait till the market is over saturated with too expensive games that no one can afford cuz they just bought last weeks releases. Then the industry looses sales and drops prices or stops pushing the market down our throats.

Tales of Vesperia will be worth the $60.

http://videogames.yahoo.com/feature/ana ... er/1286173

Hey, if it wasn't for this effed up economy...

with the 30 million $ budgets some games have these days and so much piracy im surprised they arent back to at least SNES day prices

even gameboy games are over 50 dollars these days tho (squares final fantasies)

but some prices are going down. a lot of internet games just went from $20 to $6 or $9. check amazons game store. not really a lot there for people who are into beefier games unfortunately

It could be that the current system isn't even called Game Boy. But Game Boy was 8-bit for something like 10 years, so anything better is hard to consider anything like the original system. DS is more akin to N64, and we know how expensive those games were.