The Price You Pay to Play
State of Play: Why should every game cost $60?
by Rus McLaughlin
March 23, 2010 - I'm a cheap bastard. Blame my traditionally tightfisted Scots/Irish heritage if you want, but you'll never see me spend $20 if I can get it for $19.99. When there's something I want, I arbitrarily decide how much it's intrinsically worth, then I wait and plot until I can nab it for that price. Or less.
That makes me the mortal enemy of the entire video game industry, because I don't rate every console release as worth the $60 price tag. Since nearly all console releases run sixty a pop ($50 for Nintendo titles), that standard applies to as many good games as bad ones. Sure, Bayonetta, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and Assassin's Creed II are arguably the gaming equivalents of required reading, and I played the hell out of them. But I won't be throwing down cash any time soon. Not at these prices.
It's not just a budgetary issue, either. We all went nuts when Metroid: Other M was announced at E3, and everything I've seen so far puts it high on my must-play list. The thing is, I've never shelled out fifty dollars for a side-scroller before and, minus a little stylistic sleight-of-hand, that's what Other M is. These days, for that genre of game, I kick out ten or fifteen bucks, tops. For a download.
Which is to say, a fixed price system makes no kind of sense when it comes to video games. Unless you really start thinking about it.
Value for money is major issue in gaming, and what you get for your sixty varies wildly. The campaign might be twenty hours, or six, or non-existent. Maybe there's multiplayer, maybe not. You tell me, friend... is a fifteen hour campaign equal to an eight hour campaign with online deathmatches? Or a ten hour campaign with local multiplayer only?
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State of Play: Why should every game cost $60?
by Rus McLaughlin
March 23, 2010 - I'm a cheap bastard. Blame my traditionally tightfisted Scots/Irish heritage if you want, but you'll never see me spend $20 if I can get it for $19.99. When there's something I want, I arbitrarily decide how much it's intrinsically worth, then I wait and plot until I can nab it for that price. Or less.
That makes me the mortal enemy of the entire video game industry, because I don't rate every console release as worth the $60 price tag. Since nearly all console releases run sixty a pop ($50 for Nintendo titles), that standard applies to as many good games as bad ones. Sure, Bayonetta, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and Assassin's Creed II are arguably the gaming equivalents of required reading, and I played the hell out of them. But I won't be throwing down cash any time soon. Not at these prices.
It's not just a budgetary issue, either. We all went nuts when Metroid: Other M was announced at E3, and everything I've seen so far puts it high on my must-play list. The thing is, I've never shelled out fifty dollars for a side-scroller before and, minus a little stylistic sleight-of-hand, that's what Other M is. These days, for that genre of game, I kick out ten or fifteen bucks, tops. For a download.
Which is to say, a fixed price system makes no kind of sense when it comes to video games. Unless you really start thinking about it.
Value for money is major issue in gaming, and what you get for your sixty varies wildly. The campaign might be twenty hours, or six, or non-existent. Maybe there's multiplayer, maybe not. You tell me, friend... is a fifteen hour campaign equal to an eight hour campaign with online deathmatches? Or a ten hour campaign with local multiplayer only?
continued in the link.....
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