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PC Gaming, General & Off Topic Chat

Rebel Rebel

If a Mod feels this does not warrant its only thread go ahead and delete.

I was on Amazon(US) earlier today and saw that is up for pre-order GTA V is set for a PC release on the 27th of Jan 2015. It was priced up at $60 which probably means it could be on stream for €60 and cheaper elsewhere.

I feel the 60 mark is a bit steep for a game that will be 1 year and 4 month and 10 days old by the time a PC user can play it. I was expecting maybe it around the 40euro mark.

Saying that it will still sell like hot cakes and ill too pick it up.

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lmimmfn

theyre pulling the same crap with Dragon Age : Inquisition and Far Cry 4, trying to price PC games at console prices( even on GreenManGaming ), well good luck to them, ill wait a few weeks and pick them up for 25euro or later in a steam sale.

gizmo

Rebel Rebel wrote: »

I feel the 60 mark is a bit steep for a game that will be 1 year and 4 month and 10 days old by the time a PC user can play it. I was expecting maybe it around the 40euro mark.

Why so? Do you think the game will have aged so much in that time that it's worth 30% less on launch?

Personally I'm far more interested to see how well the game has been ported to the PC and will be using that as a metric to judge when I should pick it up.

As for it's current price, there's a high chance it's only a place holder for now and will be lowered closer to launch.

lmimmfn wrote: »

theyre pulling the same crap with Dragon Age : Inquisition and Far Cry 4, trying to price PC games at console prices( even on GreenManGaming ), well good luck to them, ill wait a few weeks and pick them up for 25euro or later in a steam sale.

May want to check again.

In the case of DA:I, on Amazon the prices appear to be placeholder again with all of them hovering in and around the £39 mark. On GMG the prices are staggered as per usual.

With Far Cry 4, at least in terms of the Limited Edition, the prices are also staggered as you'd expect.

nesf

Given Titanfall was €60 and so was Sims 4, I'm curious why you think it's a placeholder automatically. (Origin prices here, not Amazon ones)

nesf

lmimmfn wrote: »

theyre pulling the same crap with Dragon Age : Inquisition and Far Cry 4, trying to price PC games at console prices( even on GreenManGaming ), well good luck to them, ill wait a few weeks and pick them up for 25euro or later in a steam sale.

It looks to be Origin only, so no steam sales for you I'm afraid. EA have been getting better for sales though.

gizmo

nesf wrote: »

Given Titanfall was €60 and so was Sims 4, I'm curious why you think it's a placeholder automatically. (Origin prices here, not Amazon ones)

Simply because of the price parity between platforms and Amazon's tendency to do such a thing until pricing has been confirmed from suppliers. The fact that GMG prices are also currently staggered from varying base price points per platform is also a decent indicator.

No idea of Origin prices at all to be honest, last time I booted it up was for the free copy of Dead Space making it the third copy of the game I have lying around. :P

Kiith

Is there any reason why we expect pc games to be cheaper than the console versions? I know it's almost always been that way, and i'm not complaining, but is it reasonable to expect it to be cheaper considering how much more work is required to get the game running on a wide variety of machines?

GTAV isn't just a port of the already released version though, its the 'next gen' version that is getting re-released on the current consoles as well.

RobertFoster

PC games were traditionally cheaper because there was no platform owner to pay (carts, testing, marketing, etc.). Steam and similar do take a cut now, but I don't believe it to be as large as what Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo look for.

I have noticed that big console focused games, like Watchdogs and Titanfall for example, have been priced similarly when they make it to PC. It doesn't annoy me as there is such a wide selection of games to play, by the time I get around to buying these ones the prices will have dropped. I feel I miss out on the zeitgeist and launch hype, but I can live with that.

Mark Hamill

Kiith wrote: »

Is there any reason why we expect pc games to be cheaper than the console versions?

Because you usually can't resell a used PC game? Console game might cost €60, but if you finish it within a week or two then you can usually get €20 or €30 on a trade in.

gizmo

Kiith wrote: »

Is there any reason why we expect pc games to be cheaper than the console versions? I know it's almost always been that way, and i'm not complaining, but is it reasonable to expect it to be cheaper considering how much more work is required to get the game running on a wide variety of machines?

In my opinion? No, it's a completely unreasonable expectation for precisely those reasons. Keyword there being expectation though, I'd don't particular mind the disparity existing and when it comes to pricing I find there to be far more worrisome trends to consider anyway.

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Because you usually can't resell a used PC game? Console game might cost €60, but if you finish it within a week or two then you can usually get €20 or €30 on a trade in.

The difference in pricing between console and PC existed before the second hand market was really established. It was there alright but it wasn't nearly strong enough to offset the cost so much as it is now.

RobertFoster wrote: »

PC games were traditionally cheaper because there was no platform owner to pay (carts, testing, marketing, etc.). Steam and similar do take a cut now, but I don't believe it to be as large as what Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo look for.

On the contrary, the platform cut comes in at about 20% of the retail price whereas Steam's cut is around the 30% mark.

degrassinoel

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Because you usually can't resell a used PC game? Console game might cost €60, but if you finish it within a week or two then you can usually get €20 or €30 on a trade in.

There's a bookshop on Talbot street in Dublin that still buys and sells boxed PC games

Kiith

degrassinoel wrote: »

There's a bookshop on Talbot street in Dublin that still buys and sells boxed PC games

I miss game manuals

I remember always going to Dublin years ago to buy various pc games, and would spend the train journey home reading the manual. Some of those were massive, and had amazing backstory and art.

degrassinoel

I used to do that too, bus home for 20 minutes and know exactly what i'd be doing as soon as the game was installed

I did feel like a kid a christmas opening the big pc game boxes though and the manuals were pretty hefty - the fallout 2 one was epic! i think i might still have it too

Genghiz Cohen

gizmo wrote: »

On the contrary, the platform cut comes in at about 20% of the retail price whereas Steam's cut is around the 30% mark.

Retail is 20% but how much to print a disk, box it and ship to the store?
Steam can charge 30% because you FTP the Gold Master from your build machine to the Steam servers for free and then you get a huge profit margin per copy sold.

Shiminay

When you think about it folks, this €60 price point on games is hardly unfair. The cost of making games is in the tens of millions, maybe even hundreds if you're making over-hyped mediocrity like Destiny or Call of Duty. It's not cheaper to make it for PC when you're spending that sort of money anyway, so is it skewing the norm for PC to charge €60? Yea, of course, however, we're still getting major value for money because we're not paying for the supplementary things like online account etc.

Look at the world around us. 25 years ago, a bag of crisps used to be 15p (It used to be even less, but even that's too young for me and I'm 36). I remember Nintendo NES Games used to be £30 which is €38. In 25 years, that's risen to €60 which is almost double what it was, but at the same time, the humble bag of crisps is now €1 which is a proportionately much, much higher rise. The price of a pint, long established as a true measure of the cost of living has, in the same period seen a price jump from around €1.64 to it's current of around €4.50 another significantly bigger jump in price in comparison to our hobby of choice (source).

Now, we all know that the sheer volume of games sold today is on a completely different level to what it was back in my NES days, and that by and large, the industry has done well for itself. But that €60 price point has stuck around for a while now and there's not been a lot of movement past it with the exception of special editions etc. I do recall some games appearing in shops for €70 for the last round of new consoles, I didn't see that lasting anyway and it hasn't. €60 seems to be the price we believe games to be worth. €45 seems to be the price we PC people are willing to pay - but the nature of our platform means we have a far bigger variety of price and choice of vendor (and even country to shop in).

gizmo

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

Retail is 20% but how much to print a disk, box it and ship to the store?
Steam can charge 30% because you FTP the Gold Master from your build machine to the Steam servers for free and then you get a huge profit margin per copy sold.

Unfortunately the exact figures behind a breakdown of the retail price of a game will be pretty difficult to come by. Off the top of my head, there's been two pieces writen about it in fairly recent times, one based on an OnLive presentation from back in 2010 entitled Anatomy of a $60 video game and another on Forbes called Why Gears Of War Costs $60. I would take neither as gospel but, in both cases, distribution costs are considerably lower per unit than one might expect given the work that goes in to getting a physical release to the shelf.

As for the logic behind Steam's cut, I'd wager it's set at that level simply due to the precedent set by other digital distribution stores set up on other platforms before it.

If we were going to get into the nitty gritty of game pricing and how there are huge profit margins to be made via selling to Steam then we're inevitably going to have to factor in rising dev costs, fairly flat sales outside of the big hits and the always fun "back in my day Street Fighter II cost IRE£70".

EDIT: Hah, Shiminay is already there.

nesf

gizmo wrote: »

Simply because of the price parity between platforms and Amazon's tendency to do such a thing until pricing has been confirmed from suppliers. The fact that GMG prices are also currently staggered from varying base price points per platform is also a decent indicator.

No idea of Origin prices at all to be honest, last time I booted it up was for the free copy of Dead Space making it the third copy of the game I have lying around. :P

Amazon prices are not tracked very well by online store prices, the two will quite often be very different.

It's an Origin game (have a look for it on Steam, it's a no-show same as ME3 was), the standard edition is up on Origin for €60, it's not a placeholder. EA are better for sales than they used to be but EA here are getting both the publisher and retail price so it's hard to argue parity with brick and mortar prices (this may not be EA's idea though! It would not surprise me if there was some online/offline price deal with larger brick and mortar stores).

gizmo

nesf wrote: »

Amazon prices are not tracked very well by online store prices, the two will quite often be very different.

It's an Origin game (have a look for it on Steam, it's a no-show same as ME3 was), the standard edition is up on Origin for €60, it's not a placeholder. EA are better for sales than they used to be but EA here are getting both the publisher and retail price so it's hard to argue parity with brick and mortar prices.

Sorry, I meant to say the lack of price parity between platforms on Amazon. In the past that's been a pretty good indicator that they're placeholder with the PC usually being the one that drops in price closer to release. GMG, on the other hand, have the pricing differences you'd expect between platforms.

As for Origin, like I said, I'm not overly familiar with their pricing, especially when it comes to launch day ones. I do remember folk pointing to the higher price around Sim City time though so I can't say I'm overly surprised when it comes to their exclusive titles. As for the why, well that's the RRP I guess, they evidently see no reason to discount it regardless of whether it's available for cheaper from retailers.

Ubisoft seem to be doing something similar with Far Cry 4, it's currently £49.99 for both the PC and 360/PS3 versions whereas it's £54.99 for the PS4/XBox One.

nesf

gizmo wrote: »

Sorry, I meant to say the lack of price parity between platforms on Amazon. In the past that's been a pretty good indicator that they're placeholder with the PC usually being the one that drops in price closer to release. GMG, on the other hand, have the pricing differences you'd expect between platforms.

As for Origin, like I said, I'm not overly familiar with their pricing, especially when it comes to launch day ones. I do remember folk pointing to the higher price around Sim City time though so I can't say I'm overly surprised when it comes to their exclusive titles. As for the why, well that's the RRP I guess, they evidently see no reason to discount it regardless of whether it's available for cheaper from retailers.

Ubisoft seem to be doing something similar with Far Cry 4, it's currently £49.99 for both the PC and 360/PS3 versions whereas it's £54.99 for the PS4/XBox One.

EA are much better for long term prices these days. Sim City + (dodgy) expansion is €20 which is a fair cut over launch though you'd expect to be able to pick it up cheaper by this stage on other platforms in occasional sales. Sims 4 and Titanfall are both still €60 for the Standard Versions which shows EA don't rapidly chip away at prices (even though Titanfall is probably well past the saturation point at that price level).

I don't mind them double dipping in profit, I dislike not having the games on Steam but it's good for the market that there's some variety. What I'm really pointing out is that EA are taking a bigger cut on the PC Downloads versus say the Console sales with prices that are above the usual asking price for PC but as you point out they are hardly the only ones doing it.

Revoker88

Sweet,i think an Off Topic is well suited to this forum. Be nice to have one:)

Kiith

Anyone having issues with Steam? I can't seem to connect right now...

nesf

Kiith wrote: »

Anyone having issues with Steam? I can't seem to connect right now...

Working fine for me, browser and client.

Frisbee

Not working for me either. Browser is fine but client can't connect.

issteamdown suggesting it is widespread.

Kiith

Yeah, browser is fine for me too, but can't get onto the client.

Nevermind, it's working for me again.

fussyonion

I was considering buying The Sims for PC (have only ever played The Sims on my Nintendo DS) and I just have two questions:

1) What are the PC requirements for this game? I'm not very techy-minded so I don't want to buy it, only to find out later that I can't use it.

2) When I do buy it and insert the disc into my drive (I have a laptop), is the game then downloaded from The Sims website? Or does it load up straight away from the disc?

Reason for asking...when I insert a disc into the drive, it doesn't automatically boot. I had this issue when I was installing BullGuard AntiVirus BUT I was able to download that from their website.

Any advice gladly welcomed!!

Thecageyone

I imagine it'll install from the disc, maybe ask for a seriel code that you'll get along with, and then you sign up and sign in on the website once you're up and running!?

So long since i used an actual PC game disc, sorry

Revoker88

fussyonion wrote: »

I was considering buying The Sims for PC (have only ever played The Sims on my Nintendo DS) and I just have two questions:

1) What are the PC requirements for this game? I'm not very techy-minded so I don't want to buy it, only to find out later that I can't use it.

2) When I do buy it and insert the disc into my drive (I have a laptop), is the game then downloaded from The Sims website? Or does it load up straight away from the disc?

Reason for asking...when I insert a disc into the drive, it doesn't automatically boot. I had this issue when I was installing BullGuard AntiVirus BUT I was able to download that from their website.

Any advice gladly welcomed!!

Is there a reason you want it on disc?

EA,who publish Sims 4,have an online store called Origin. On there you can buy and download the game. The retail(disc) may even come with a code to download the game on origin instead of running/installing from the disc. So unless you just want the disc version for some reason i would buy the game online. The standard edition is €59.99 on Origin at the moment,how much is the disc version costing? There are also game key sites that should allow you to get it cheaper. In fact you will find its quite a bit cheaper on key sites. Kinguin has it here for €34.99. You can buy it on there using paypal to be safe. They would email you a code which you redeem on Origin,and can download it from there.

Secondly can you tell us the spec of the PC your looking to run the game on? Cant tell if it will run well if dont know the PC its running on.

The specs below are the minimum spec you would need,they are fairly low in fairness:

REQUIRED: Internet connection required for product activation.

OS: Windows XP (SP3), Windows Vista (SP2), Windows 7 (SP1), Windows 8, or Windows 8.1

PROCESSOR: 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, AMD Athlon 64 Dual-Core 4000+ or equivalent (For computers using built-in graphics chipsets, the game requires 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.0 GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-62 or equivalent) MEMORY: At least 2 GB RAM

HARD DRIVE: At least 9 GB of free space with at least 1 GB additional space for custom content and saved games

DVD-ROM: DVD ROM drive required for installation only

VIDEO CARD: 128 MB of Video RAM and support for Pixel Shader 3.0. Supported Video Cards: NVIDIA GeForce 6600 or better, ATI Radeon X1300 or better, Intel GMA X4500 or better

SOUND CARD: DirectX 9.0c Compatible

DIRECTX: DirectX 9.0c compatible

INPUT: Keyboard and Mouse

Gbear

I really am going backwards and forwards on the whole 4k thing.

I was all set to have this staggered upgrade of 1 980 over the next month or 2, then another and a 4k monitor in about a years time.

A lot of people are suggesting they just won't have enough memory (4gb) though.

As usual, I'm sure the AMD cards will have more memory than you can shake a stick at but although I had read rumours about the 300 series getting released in November, I've seen more recently that February is being mooted for their release dates and dammnit, February's too far away!:o

No doubt Nvidia will sit on their hand until then with their Ti cards because of the success of the 970 and the 980.

4k is tantalisingly close to being a reality. It's just not quite there.

fussyonion

EoinHef wrote: »

Is there a reason you want it on disc?

EA,who publish Sims 4,have an online store called Origin. On there you can buy and download the game. The retail(disc) may even come with a code to download the game on origin instead of running/installing from the disc. So unless you just want the disc version for some reason i would buy the game online. The standard edition is €59.99 on Origin at the moment,how much is the disc version costing? There are also game key sites that should allow you to get it cheaper. In fact you will find its quite a bit cheaper on key sites. Kinguin has it here for €34.99. You can buy it on there using paypal to be safe. They would email you a code which you redeem on Origin,and can download it from there.

Secondly can you tell us the spec of the PC your looking to run the game on? Cant tell if it will run well if dont know the PC its running on.

The specs below are the minimum spec you would need,they are fairly low in fairness:

REQUIRED: Internet connection required for product activation.

OS: Windows XP (SP3), Windows Vista (SP2), Windows 7 (SP1), Windows 8, or Windows 8.1

PROCESSOR: 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, AMD Athlon 64 Dual-Core 4000+ or equivalent (For computers using built-in graphics chipsets, the game requires 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.0 GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-62 or equivalent) MEMORY: At least 2 GB RAM

HARD DRIVE: At least 9 GB of free space with at least 1 GB additional space for custom content and saved games

DVD-ROM: DVD ROM drive required for installation only

VIDEO CARD: 128 MB of Video RAM and support for Pixel Shader 3.0. Supported Video Cards: NVIDIA GeForce 6600 or better, ATI Radeon X1300 or better, Intel GMA X4500 or better

SOUND CARD: DirectX 9.0c Compatible

DIRECTX: DirectX 9.0c compatible

INPUT: Keyboard and Mouse

Thanks a million for taking the time to post this helpful info!

No, there's no reason why I want the disc in particular..I just wasn't aware I could purchase it virtually, as it were...so that is fantastic to hear!

I have a Sony Vaio, but (and this is embarrassing), I wouldn't have a clue how to tell you the tech info you're asking about, except to say it's running Windows 7 and I'm using the touchpad, not a mouse. (Is a mouse vital?).
I also do have the free space required, but that's all I know...sorry!

Revoker88

fussyonion wrote: »

Thanks a million for taking the time to post this helpful info!

No, there's no reason why I want the disc in particular..I just wasn't aware I could purchase it virtually, as it were...so that is fantastic to hear!

I have a Sony Vaio, but (and this is embarrassing), I wouldn't have a clue how to tell you the tech info you're asking about, except to say it's running Windows 7 and I'm using the touchpad, not a mouse. (Is a mouse vital?).
I also do have the free space required, but that's all I know...sorry!

No problem.

Cheapest way to get games these days on PC is digital usually.

As its a Vaio im guessing its probably some sort of integrated graphics. Can you see a model no. anywhere? How old is it?

A quick way to get a rough idea is on this site,go to it on the Vaio and enter Sims 4 as the game you want to run:

http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri

Should give you an idea if the laptop will run it smoothly,requires the use of a plugin on your browser. Ive found it safe in the past so just let it run.

Also a touchpad would suffice but i would say would be far from ideal. Even a very basic usb mouse will give you a much better experience imo and which can be picked up for less than a tenner in the likes of pc world,power city etc

fussyonion

EoinHef wrote: »

No problem.

Cheapest way to get games these days on PC is digital usually.

As its a Vaio im guessing its probably some sort of integrated graphics. Can you see a model no. anywhere? How old is it?

A quick way to get a rough idea is on this site,go to it on the Vaio and enter Sims 4 as the game you want to run:

http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri

Should give you an idea if the laptop will run it smoothly,requires the use of a plugin on your browser. Ive found it safe in the past so just let it run.

Also a touchpad would suffice but i would say would be far from ideal. Even a very basic usb mouse will give you a much better experience imo and which can be picked up for less than a tenner in the likes of pc world,power city etc

Thanks so much again.
It says VGN-NW20EF (model number) and it's 4 years old.

I'll do a run on that site