Power to the Payers
June 3, 2012
It’s release day! The day that you have been waiting for. The game that will change your life forever comes out today. I know that feeling, the same feeling you get as a kid when you see all of the presents under the Christmas tree. Today is your day and nothing can go wrong. The only thing that you want to do is get your game and go play!
You finally arrive at your local Game Stop, walk to the register and ask for your game. All of the signs are on the door promoting the new release, posters and all. The cashier says to you, “Hey what can I do for you?” and you respond, “Obviously I want the new game that just came out! Here is my $60, now give me the game!” The cashier responds back, “Did you reserve it?” and you reply “Heck yeah, of course I paid my $5 to reserve it, give me the game!” The cashier goes to get the game from the back, before he hands it to you he says, “Do you want to pre-order this new game coming out next month? or how about sign up for our reward system that you can get points and discounts? It will save you money on this purchase and future purchases. I really recommend it.” At this point you are furious, but the cashier still has your game in his hands and wont hand it over. You just want to go home and play! Giving in, you agree to sign up for the $15 reward program and pay $5 for a future reserve of a game that you will probably never buy. You then take your game, run out of the store and run home. Time to play right?
Finally you start-up the game and sign online. You get prompted that there is a new downloadable content pack with all of the new maps and new characters that you just have to get. This is another $20 that you just have to spend in order to get the full experience, so you just purchase the extra content. Finally, its time to play! About $100 spent on a trip to the game store.
Now I know how Sonic and Tails feel to lose all of their rings!
Between the price of the game and all of the add-ons, it is becoming a ripoff for the gamer. It is coming to a point where it is just about the money and not about the consumer. When a new game is released now, you can automatically count on their being a sequel and even a prequel. The video game company tries and to every possible penny out of a game that is released. There are rumors surfacing that there will no longer be used games for the release of the Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4. That all but insures that game companies only care about money.
When you walk into a store like a Game Stop, they pressure you into buying every possible add-on for a game. This includes a strategy guide, a custom controller for them game, custom faceplate and so on. It is insane how people pressure you whenever you walk inside of a Game Stop. Just guess who plays most of their video games? If you said young teens and kids you would be correct! It is so easy to show a kid a new shiny extra to a game so they could run to their parents and beg them for them to buy it. Going to a game store is just like trying to buy a new car. They will keep on pressuring you to buy something until you finally say no and leave.
What ever happened to the good days of gaming? Going to the store and getting a game, knowing that it will be a complete game from start to finish is a thing of the past. There are no extra characters, or maps that you need, everything is right there in the brand new game that you have just purchased. I wish I could say one day it will get better, but as new systems and games are released this problem is going to continue. Realize how much money your going to spend on a game the next time you buy one. Your probably only buying about sixty percent of the game with the other forty percent to come at a later time by spending extra money. Its just getting to a point now where its not fair for the consumer, but as Game Stop likes to say Power to the Player.
June 4, 2012 at 4:42 pm
There’s a lot contributing to the current way games are sold. Part of it is the cost of development, meaning that if it costs more to make, the more they’ll try to get out of the people that buy it. It’s done to help ensure that the game is profitable, which is both good and bad for the gamer. It’s bad because we don’t get as much as we used to for the same amount of money, but good in that it keeps our favorite franchises going.
Next, we have the means of distribution. The boxed disk or cartridge used to be the only way to get the game out there, meaning that they had to get it right the first time, and had to pack as much in as they could to ensure that you would come back for the sequel. Now that we have digital distribution, devs/publishers are no longer constrained by having to make only the physical copy. Games can now be sold in pieces and they’re doing their best to capitalize on it without pushing us too far. It’s a hard balance to to strike, and I don’t think they’ve gotten there yet, but that doesn’t mean they won’t.
Finally, I think that games becoming an acceptable, mainstream activity for adults has prompted this change as well. Adults have more money, and are therefore can potentially spend more than teens and kids could. They are businesses after all, and that means they’ll want to convince us to give them as much of our disposable income as they can.
It feels a little cold-hearted and even shady sometimes, but this is the way it is now. It doesn’t have to stay that way though, we just have to find the right balance between content and price to arrive at a level of value that is acceptable to everyone. Old games were able to do with the old methods, so new games should eventually get there too.
June 4, 2012 at 7:33 pm
How much do you actually think it costs to reproduce a game and send it out? All they are doing is taking a program and putting it on a disc and copying that same disc over and over again. Even back in the GameCube and PS2 days the games were $10 cheaper and there was no DLC’s, at least you got a complete game.
There isn’t too much difference between how games are made now and how they were made then. It’s just not fair that first you pay $63 with tax included and that doesn’t even assure you the full experience of the game. There are DLC’s and alternate endings released later online.
How about they make full games digital downloads and include all DLC’s. Save your CD and case and knock $20 off the price. It’s always nice to have the case and the game disc, but if it saves $20 at least it is more reasonable. Either way its just unfair for the gamer having to pay $60 for a new game, crazy.
June 4, 2012 at 9:44 pm
The cost isn’t so much in production as it is in development. It take millions of dolloars to make a AAA game. The cost comes from paying for a team of 100+ people, voice acting, licensing, tech, equipment, high end animation that often gets hired out to specialized studios, motion capture, QA, and so on. Making a top-tier game these days is a much much larger undertaking than it used to be. That being said, they could still find ways to give us more value for our $60 while still utilizing todays tools and methods to get more return on their investment. As for the $60 price point, that’s nothing new, games have always ranged between $50 to $60 dollars. It’s the only reason the haven’t tried to raise the price directly.
June 5, 2012 at 4:47 pm
Well I know making a game is tons of money, but video game sales are among there lowest ever and I wonder why. Expecting the consumer to pay almost close to $65 for a new game is crazy! When I play a game I want a complete game with everything included, maps, characters and an ending! No sequel, prequel or non of that!
June 5, 2012 at 7:47 am
Day One DLC!
Dohohohohohohohoho!!!!
June 6, 2012 at 10:47 pm
So this is a side topic maybe but I hate that games are for different consoles. Like you need a Wii, Xbox and PlayStation. I wish you could just have one console and play any game on it. I know they are through different companies but it’s too much money to have to buy a separate piece for a different game. I don’t play much anymore but that seems like a big money maker too. Drives me nuts! Good post :)
June 6, 2012 at 11:36 pm
Thanks!(: I totally agree, life would be so much easier I swear. They should make something like the Wiiboxstation 3 and they should combine all three of them! You could play Mario whenever you wanted and switch to a game like Uncharted, it would be epic!
June 7, 2012 at 1:14 am
Bahaha That’s what I’m saying…in a perfect world lol.