Game Prices

nesf

COYVB wrote: »

They don't. That hasn't been the target market for a long, long time

Yeah, it's been 12 year old's mothers for quite some time now, and the occasional 30 something. :P

Feathers

Ronan14 wrote: »

New titles these days are €60 and up, which is madness.

Donkey Kong Country was IRL£100 when it came out 10-15 years ago.

(But, it did have an FX chip to give 3D graphics, cutting edge technology )

nesf

Feathers wrote: »

Donkey Kong Country was IRL£100 when it came out 10-15 years ago.

(But, it did have an FX chip to give 3D graphics, cutting edge technology )

Cartridges were also a hell of a lot more expensive than DVDs for games to be fair.

penev10

dobman88 wrote: »

Bring back the Sega Mega Drive The good old days with Sonic and the lads.

I paid IR£60 for Hellfire back int' day. Allowing for inflation that's at least €80.

RobertFoster

penev10 wrote: »

I paid IR£60 for Hellfire back int' day. Allowing for inflation that's at least €80.

According to this calculator it'd be closer to €120.

IR£60 inflates to IR£96.32 between 02/07/1991 (mid-point of the year) and today. IR£96.32 is €122.30. It was the collectors edition of Hellfire, yeah?

Retr0gamer

Feathers wrote: »

Donkey Kong Country was IRL£100 when it came out 10-15 years ago.

(But, it did have an FX chip to give 3D graphics, cutting edge technology )

It had no extra chips and had no 3D graphics either.

Also it never sold for £100.

penev10

RobertFoster wrote: »

According to this calculator it'd be closer to €120.

Ouch!

The highest (non-import) price I remember was for Virtua Racing for MD. Now it did have an extra chip and was in 3D but that was only IR£70. Don't remember anything being £100. Starfox had the FX chip but it was 50-55.

farna_boy

Ronan14 wrote: »

I actually am a pc gamer aswell as console.
Prepare to be amazed..... Call of Duty black ops which was released in 2010 is selling for €59.99 http://store.steampowered.com/app/42700/ :0
But yeah I see where your coming from, it is a much more affordable platform with the summer sales etc. in saying that do launch titles are still pricey

Agricola wrote: »

Call of Duty is a law onto itself though. I havent played one of those games since the original Modern Warfare, simply because they do not drop in price. Lucky for me I dont really give a **** about military shooters or online MP in general.

I never buy new releases on Steam. But there are loads of Steamworks games sold on Amazon for £25 from release. The same games are usually £50 on Steam. So yeah lots of saving.

A simple look around and Black Ops 2 €23 on Amazon.com

I haven't bought a new release in years, I really don't see the point anymore. All you have to do is wait 2-3 months and you can usually get the game for less than half of what it cost when it was released (if you are a PC gamer). The newest game I bought recently was Hitman Absolution, which I bought 6 months after release for €3.75.

I'm not saying you should wait 6 months to buy GTA 5 but give it one or two months and you will save a fortune (which you can then spend on the DLC).

Sierra Oscar

I usually get a good bank for the buck when it comes to buying games considering I usually put in a lot of hours into the titles that I buy. All the same, unless it is a game that I really really want, then I will just wait for a few weeks until the price falls somewhat.

Feathers

Retr0gamer wrote: »

It had no extra chips and had no 3D graphics either.

Also it never sold for £100.

Never, eh?

Though we did pay £90 at least for it. Remember getting it around Christmas between myself & the brother.

Yeah, was thinking of Starfox with the FX chip. But it was "an incredible 3D adventure" :pac:

animaal

Deleted User wrote: »

Go back 10 or 15 years and the selection was generally crap and prices were considerably higher.

Why young man, back in my day we could buy the shiniest new releases (like Treasure Island Dizzy) for the princely sum of £2.99.

You had to travel by automobile to a "shop" to make the purchase. It was like Steam, but without DRM. Loading was a great laugh. You got to pray to the azimuth gods for five minutes while holding in a dodgy play button on a tape deck.

Ah, but the graphics were fantastic - sometimes with sound at the same time!

COYVB

animaal wrote: »

Why young man, back in my day we could buy the shiniest new releases (like Treasure Island Dizzy) for the princely sum of £2.99.

Common misconception actually. £2.99 games were rarely new releases, but new budget releases of previously £9.99/£19.99 games

[/pedant]

BeerWolf

I paid €130, I think, for StarWars: The Old Republic MMO when it was released ... What a BLOODY waste of money THAT was...!!

animaal

COYVB wrote: »

Common misconception actually. £2.99 games were rarely new releases, but new budget releases of previously £9.99/£19.99 games

[/pedant]

That was certainly the case later on, but to begin with the 1.99/2.99 games were often games that talented kids wrote in their bedrooms, and then sold to the likes of Mastertronic for a pittance. I don't think Mastertronic ever had developers employed. And Codemasters somehow managed to make a living at that price range for a long time, selling "Professional *** simulator" variations...

Twilightning

I bought Dawn of War II Retribution during a Steam sale for a tenner nearly 2 years ago and I have 1,300+ hours clocked in it, talk about value for money. PC gaming as a whole has had me spoilt when it comes to price. I'd be lucky to even go so far as fork out €30 for a game. The last time I did that was during a promotion GreenManGaming was doing for Bioshock Infinite, and even then I got 3 other brilliant games free with it.

Clover

Ronan14 , try to pick up new releases or pre-order games that you want by trading in your unwanted old games (if you have any) to get a new title for very little €€€.

I tend to use this method more nowadays to get my console games, as I can't justify to myself or afford to spend €50 - €65 on games anymore.

An example of this would be me pre-ordering GTA5 and trading in two old games and getting it for €9.99 not €50 - €65 , have done the same for Ghosts and BF4.

Best of luck.

COYVB

Clover wrote: »

Ronan14 , try to pick up new releases or pre-order games that you want by trading in your unwanted old games (if you have any) to get a new title for very little €€€.

Or, rather than lining GameStop's pockets, sell your old games on the second hand market to a fellow gamer directly. You'll get more, and they'll pay less, than would be the case at somewhere like GameStop.

Yes, the developers and publishers still aren't seeing any money, but you're not contributing to the billions made by those stores globally every year, or doing your filling shelves with second hand games costing a fiver less than new ones

murphyebass

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

€50-70 for soemthing that gives 100s of hours of playtime is good value in my opinion, some games can easily justify it some can't. What I can't stand is DLC, expansions and online subs, barely ever worth the money and should be part of the initial game.

+1 for the first part of this quote.

€50 - €70 for a game that gives you 100's of hours of gameplay is absolutely great value for money.

Think about the amount of hard work that goes into making a game that will give you that level of enjoyment. Progamming, design, etc, etc..

DLC's and online subs are really an optional extra lets be honest. Nobodys forcing you to buy either.

Personally I rarely buy DLC. I use online though for indie titles and online play of the likes of Halo 4. That said my online sub ran out last month and I have to clear some backlog so wont be resigning up I've played a few games through.

Speaking of backlog mine came from buying games when they were on sale or cheap. Definately not release buys!

Bought Alan Wake for example yesterday for a tenner in gamestop. I remember thinking of buying it at launch and didnt bother in the end. Then completely forgot about it until yesterday.

Grumpypants

Paying €60 is crazy for that price you would expect around a thousand people to be working for 5 or 6 years on it...............

Guyanachronism

Xkcd Cutting Edge

Being a lagging gamer saves a fortune and a boyfriend who is a dedicated gamer with a good job helps too

I know the OP is a slave to trends, but not bothering with being cutting edge is great. I just got an Xbox 360 a few months ago, games are cheap, there is a good selection, I have even got to borrow indefinitely games from friends who have emigrated and left their xbox games after them (silver lining I guess). You also avoid the majority of bugs.

The newest game I bought was Skyrim a couple months ago, second hand for €20.

ScumLord

Ronan14 wrote: »

I actually am a pc gamer aswell as console.
Prepare to be amazed..... Call of Duty black ops which was released in 2010 is selling for €59.99 http://store.steampowered.com/app/42700/ :0
But yeah I see where your coming from, it is a much more affordable platform with the summer sales etc. in saying that do launch titles are still pricey

Steam is only good value when they run a sale. Other than that they've terrible prices. the last COD I got was the modern warfare and it was less than €50 in smyths when I got it. I used to find that shops in Galway were quite reasonable for PC games, they just had a terrible selection.

Now you have the likes of g2play where you can get new games at a decent price. I still wouldn't pay new release prices for games.

Clover

COYVB wrote: »

Or, rather than lining GameStop's pockets, sell your old games on the second hand market to a fellow gamer directly. You'll get more, and they'll pay less, than would be the case at somewhere like GameStop.

Your Gamestop rant aside, I did not mention Gamestop at all in my post. there are other places to trade in games too.

Or as you say sell them on to a fellow gamer and get some money to put towards a new game that you want.

ShadowHearth

I know prices are high on games, but I blame this more on my own financial situation, then the actual prices of games. The PC low game prices really really spoiled me too.
Yes, games are great value for money. I dont blame retailers in Ireland pushing the prices back to RRP levels. They need to survive too. The good thing is, we always got a choice where to buy our games.

C14N

New release prices are often pretty high but I really don't think that's a "these days" kind of thing. Back when the Gamecube came out I remember seeing games for €70 and that's not taking inflation into account.

I think if you aren't bothered about getting it on release day, prices are actually very fair. Wait just a few months and most games drop to under €30.

nesf

nesf wrote: »

I remember nearly 20 years ago picking up cut price bargain packs of older games. I got some of my most cherished childhood games this way (the SSI bundles were particular favourites).

Those were more the exception than the rule. 20 years ago there were fewer game stores and no internet meaning that for anyone living outside of a major city the selection was poor.

animaal wrote: »

Why young man, back in my day we could buy the shiniest new releases (like Treasure Island Dizzy) for the princely sum of £2.99.

Treasure Island Dizzy was considerably more than £2.99 upon release. It took a few months if not longer for them to drop to that price and I'm fairly certain that I have a copy of it somewhere with a £14.99 price sticker on it. Must have a look in the attic next time I'm home as there's quite a few gems boxed away and I'll take any excuse to go and spend an afternoon playing Flimbo's Quest.

nesf

Deleted User wrote: »

Those were more the exception than the rule. 20 years ago there were fewer game stores and no internet meaning that for anyone living outside of a major city the selection was poor.

True, but one could be patient and get games cheaper 20 years ago same as today. It just wasn't as convenient and there wasn't as much competition (but also there wasn't as big an adult market so wallets weren't as deep).

nesf

nesf wrote: »

True, but one could be patient and get games cheaper 20 years ago same as today. It just wasn't as convenient and there wasn't as much competition (but also there wasn't as big an adult market so wallets weren't as deep).

The main difference is that these days you can get a game at a fraction of it's cost mere weeks after release and if you have a PC then you can get any title for half what you used to. Bio-Shock Infinite was 24 euro one release day. Go back a few years and you'd be waiting months for a price drop like that

nesf

Deleted User wrote: »

The main difference is that these days you can get a game at a fraction of it's cost mere weeks after release and if you have a PC then you can get any title for half what you used to. Bio-Shock Infinite was 24 euro one release day. Go back a few years and you'd be waiting months for a price drop like that

Bioshock Infinite is hardly normal in this regard. You normally see 5-10% or some kind of "free" DLC thrown in with pre-orders.

nesf

nesf wrote: »

Bioshock Infinite is hardly normal in this regard. You normally see 5-10% or some kind of "free" DLC thrown in with pre-orders.

On release day I paid 28 for Crysis 3, 40 euro for Saints Row 4, 6 euro for Blood Dragon, 26 for Far Cry 3, etc, etc.

nesf

Deleted User wrote: »

On release day I paid 28 for Crysis 3, 40 euro for Saints Row 4, 6 euro for Blood Dragon, 26 for Far Cry 3, etc, etc.

I don't own any of those. I paid full price or near it for SimCity (sigh), Rome Total War 2, Company of Heroes etc. I think I got 10% off of the latter two.