I don’t understand game pricing one bit, but as a gamer I sometimes get great deals, but others I just wonder why. Take for example Mario Kart for the DS which has been out for four years at the same price of 34.99. Now say you take a look at a console game that has been around that long with the same price and you won’t be able to do that because there isn’t one. Where is the value when there is no direct reasoning on how one should price things?
If you think about it most Nintendo First Party games do not ever remotely go down in price. However, almost every other game goes down within or just after the first six months after release. Alpha Protocol, Bioshock2 and Blur to name a few games that have gone down in pricing just recently. Each one of these games are respectively good in their own right. Are we gamers who can’t latch on to something before just shoving it to the side for the next big thing.
Most games that come out are about sixty dollars at release for something on the Xbox 360 or the PlayStation 3 right now. However these games only last about eight to fifteen hours at the most. Unless you buy a game like Modern Warfare 2 or Splinter Cell and want to play multi-player all day long. After a few games you beat it and then look into a news paper add and see the price has gone down. People really see this and curse themselves out that they should have waited.
Are Nintendo first party games more sustainable in today’s market for coming out lower and just staying the same price over time not to feel a pinch down the stretch? What is a hit triple A title came out at thirty-five dollar day one and surpassed sales expectations. Now I am not saying that every company would profit from this or even break back into the black. But I know if publishers are going to lower the prices in just four weeks why not give it to gamers that price up front and save people money for the DLC down the road. Then again there is a whole slew of digital content that also has a smaller cost that many people don’t seem to understand is good as any retail game.
With the release of XBLA and PSN games that can give roughly the same hour usage like a disc based game I am surprised more people don’t buy those games. As Castle Crashers, Deathspank and Fat Princess have taught me that you can spend many hours on a game that is half the price of disc based game. You may not want to save money and be a cool kid, but those who live on budgets may be doing this and having a better time than the person who bought a disc based game.
With technology growing and more people getting laid off by major companies. I can see small level companies do great things that will change how we buy games. For ever one sixty dollar game we can buy six ten dollar games that would give us more replay value. Activision sees this with their franchise shooter as to make it downloadable and then put out DLC maps to maximize profit. At least that is how I see pricing should go unless you are Nintendo with great sales for a game four years later like Mario Kart.
As gamers we may not understand these things, but as buyers we need to make ourselves aware of our spending habits. Then again we all splurge on our favorite game companies and I am no exception when it comes to this. Just be aware and hope that more people become aware of pricing.
