PC game pricing is kinda funny. When I started buying my first CD based games back in 1995, they were actually more expensive than they are today. Most PC games sold for as much as $98 (note: the dollar is unusually low right now). Today, they retail at $65-$75. Considering how wages increased over the years, inflation, the increased VAT etc., it’s become far, FAR cheaper to buy games. But people complain about the prices more than they used to.
Additionally, game production costs have increased enormously, the internet + CD/DVD burners have eased piracy significantly… it’s a miracle the prices are staying as low as they do. This is, of course, mostly due to increased market. But the market can’t really get much larger than it is now, especially as more and more new consoles arrive.
Anyway, Nandemonai said “Games are valued not just with respect to other games, but with respect to other items as well, in general”. This is usually only true when it is in the customer’s favor. If people actually checked the number of hours a specific type of media could entertain them, games (some of them) would score really high compared to other stuff (like a movie ticket, a one-shot 1 hour experience). But a lot of people are too busy whining and complaing to actually see what that $50 are giving them.
This is what I’m talking about in ero-game sense too. Fine, you get three short, crappy games from the current GC herd. $150, thank you, please enjoy… (sucker). Or you could save (a foreign concept to many, I’m sure) that cash and get just one game, but one of a much higher quality and which will last longer. The added length and quality also makes future replays more likely, further adding to the value. But people are too shortsighted, they can only see the sum they must pay NOW.
A few years back, a law was passed here in Norway. It stated that all consumable products (most of what you find in supermarkets and such) needed two prices: one retail price, and one “unit cost”. Basically, any product also needed a cost per kilo or litre, so that consumers saw exactly how much they were paying for things, and to make comparisons between different manufacturers easier. One manufacturer might sell a bottle of ketchup cheaper than another, but the bottle might be smaller. Which gave the most value? Now it was easy to tell. If only it was that easy with games (as the number of hours it lasts isn’t the only important thing)…
[This message has been edited by AG3 (edited 12-07-2004).]