The Price is Wrong, Bob: Only a third of PC gamers pay full price

[RandomWAN]

I byy veggies in my shop on sale. Does it mean the price is wrong? No, 30 pct people buy games on release. So, the price is absolutely fine. Simply, for many people who aren't big fans of the genre buying on release have no sense, they are smart about money. I have a lot of games to finish and buying additional on release have little sense. I rather wait a couple of months to get all patches, some qol dlc, see more reeves to be sure I have a chance to enjoy the game. Last release titles I bought were tw Warhammer 3 and cities skylines and that only because I'm fan of those franchise and was happy to support them. For anything else, it's same as for veggies - I get them cheap if there is some chance I consumer them, and even if they end in trash im kinda fine with it.
And no. We can't expect games cost same as 10 years ago. Devs have to live as well.

Except the number of customers has grown exponentially (estimates put it at over 1B+ added over the last 10 years). Successful AAA titles make multiple millions while expecting us to test their not ready for primetime code. Their costs balloon without adding value to match that, and they expect us to eat it so they can continue to increase their stock valuation. All it takes if for a majority to refuse to pay that price and then they start learning the lesson.

"Before the Internet, the gaming market was pretty straightforward. Developers didn't ship a game until it was ready, DLC wasn't there to tempt devs to intentionally leave out content in hopes of an additional payday down the road, and games were sold as physical products that had resale value."

Missing the days when manuals and world maps (cloth ones too depending on game and edition) were a thing. Sigh

This reminds me of games like Frontier: Elite II and Daggerfall. I loved all the extras that were included with many box games.

Except for Bethesda; they were selling broken games before it was cool; like Daggerfall.

What was broken about it? I don't remember running into any significant or game-breaking bugs. Their broken coding didn't become much of an issue for me until about the time of Oblivion and Fallout 3.

 

[kira setsu]

And these comments everyone, are why rockstar put gta6 on the backburner for PC.

It's whatever for me, playing games is my main hobby so I buy whatever I want if it catches my eye, plus I use trainers so I probably churn through games a bit quicker than most.

it really is a strange relationship between game creators and gamers.

 

[RandomWAN]

And these comments everyone, are why rockstar put gta6 on the backburner for PC.

It's whatever for me, playing games is my main hobby so I buy whatever I want if it catches my eye, plus I use trainers so I probably churn through games a bit quicker than most.

it really is a strange relationship between game creators and gamers.

Rockstar put PC on the back burner because that's the model that works. They get people who buy it for the current gen console, then the next gen console, and then the PC. Their model plays into their customer base's propensity for being repeat buyers at full price. You can find plenty of comments about people who buy the same game 2-3 times to have it on multiple platforms. It's also the reason I don't buy any of their games when they're remotely new.

 

[VersedPerception]

Going on about 12 years now, I will only pay full price for a game if...

1. its an online game like an MMO and there are early start perks (or a group of my friends and I were planning on it)
2. if its co-op and friends and family are all going to par take.

Else, I (we) will wait for discounts/price drops and humblebundle promotions. The only exception are games like Zelda where there really are no discounts with the IP being single platform. But this is where we buy one physical copy and pass it around the family.

 

[Guillermo Belli]

I only buy games at gog.com, price is cheaper than and I get no DRM (at least most of the time). I may not get the latest, but at least I get a good deal on games I like.

 

[Darkfungle]

The only time I usually get games is during the massive steam sales or if there is something on sale in the shop I want to pick up like Days Gone for 18$

 

[toooooot]

This is something for game studios to think about.
Are they losing customers due to their prices?
Surely, people can wait.
But still, for a lot of people being able to play the game on release is important.
I would like to see someone make a test. A game for 45 bucks rather than 70.

 

[OortCloud]

I agree with all the comments. I never buy games on release now. Just ignore the hype then wait 3 months and they are a third the price and the worst of the game-breaking bugs are fixed. The crazy pricing is even more OTT on console. This is why console makers want digital-only and why we must vote with our wallets so this never happens.

 

[mrtraver]

The last game I pre-ordered and paid full price for was Battlefield 3. I even bought all the DLC map packs. Then the instant BF4 came out my clan dropped BF3 and I realized I had paid $110 total for something I would likely never play again. I didn't want to spend another $60-$70 just to play a derivative of the same game.

I don't do multiplayer any more so getting a game early in its lifecycle is not important to me. Now I have a hard limit of $30, with most of my purchases over the last 10 years being under $20. Or I play under a subscription, like EA games.

 

[FaTaL]

If a game is quality product at launch , I don't mind paying $70. Its the cheapest form of entertainment.... for $70, you can usually get 50-80 hours of entertainment....thats less than $1 / hour.... how much is going to movie theater now for 2 hours of entertainment? $20 ? Even renting a movie on fire tv.... $6?

 

[dangh]

Except the number of customers has grown exponentially (estimates put it at over 1B+ added over the last 10 years). Successful AAA titles make multiple millions while expecting us to test their not ready for primetime code. Their costs balloon without adding value to match that, and they expect us to eat it so they can continue to increase their stock valuation. All it takes if for a majority to refuse to pay that price and then they start learning the lesson.

Are you sure those are the same customers? From what I see, this is pretty much constant. Sales of ps5 are more or less same as sales of ps4 at the same time, similar to xbox and nintendo. Sales of gaming PC's are going up and down, but surely it is not by order of magnitude. Sales of the best titles are similar now and 10 years ago are not that different either (tlou 1 on ps3 sold 1.5 mln in first 3 week, tlou2 on ps4 sold 2.2 mln in first month and after reaching 6 millions still havent made a profit! -

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheLastOfUs2/comments/j1o44g

). Successfull AAA titles DO NOT make much more money - they cost much more to produce, but the gain is nothing to be crazy about... except, of course, if we go to titles like Fortnite and microtransactions - but those are usually separated from price of a game.
Of course we got billions more players, but - if the number of consoles and PC's stays more or les same... please make a guess what device has become very popular the last 10 years?
It is mobile gaming. This is affecting large statistical numbers. We have billions more gamers, who pay trillions more for diamonds in mobile titles.

If the majority of people stop paying the full price, then the studios will continue to focus on GaaS and MT, as well as simplifying the game to ensure any *****s can play it. You will get a cheap, mass produced crap. It is like going for food to mac or to a nice restaurant - and people now wants restaurant to have same price like mac's... sure, that would work, but then you would get same sh*t.

I am happy to pay a higher price to get a better game. 30% of PC gamers still buy game on release, and they are happy to do so. I don't want a half-assed product, or MT, or missing content. And I understand that prices for everything else has risen for the last 10 years. There are thousands people involved in creation of a AAA title, and they need to be paid well in order to create a best experience. New gta6will sure give me 100+hours of fun - how much are you willing to pay for a good time? 1 buck per hour? I don't mind if they sell the game for 100, it is still worth it.
In the end, the puiblishers will get the money back. From gamers. By either increasing prices, or reducing content, quality, or throwing a lot of MT and creating 'mobile experience' for Whales. I rather simply add the 10 years inflation increase to the prices of the games, as to any other prices around, and keep the quality and simplicity of a product.

 

[mistyrain]

Are you sure those are the same customers? From what I see, this is pretty much constant. Sales of ps5 are more or less same as sales of ps4 at the same time, similar to xbox and nintendo. Sales of gaming PC's are going up and down, but surely it is not by order of magnitude. Sales of the best titles are similar now and 10 years ago are not that different either (tlou 1 on ps3 sold 1.5 mln in first 3 week, tlou2 on ps4 sold 2.2 mln in first month and after reaching 6 millions still havent made a profit! -

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheLastOfUs2/comments/j1o44g

). Successfull AAA titles DO NOT make much more money - they cost much more to produce, but the gain is nothing to be crazy about... except, of course, if we go to titles like Fortnite and microtransactions - but those are usually separated from price of a game.
Of course we got billions more players, but - if the number of consoles and PC's stays more or les same... please make a guess what device has become very popular the last 10 years?
It is mobile gaming. This is affecting large statistical numbers. We have billions more gamers, who pay trillions more for diamonds in mobile titles.

If the majority of people stop paying the full price, then the studios will continue to focus on GaaS and MT, as well as simplifying the game to ensure any *****s can play it. You will get a cheap, mass produced crap. It is like going for food to mac or to a nice restaurant - and people now wants restaurant to have same price like mac's... sure, that would work, but then you would get same sh*t.

I am happy to pay a higher price to get a better game. 30% of PC gamers still buy game on release, and they are happy to do so. I don't want a half-assed product, or MT, or missing content. And I understand that prices for everything else has risen for the last 10 years. There are thousands people involved in creation of a AAA title, and they need to be paid well in order to create a best experience. New gta6will sure give me 100+hours of fun - how much are you willing to pay for a good time? 1 buck per hour? I don't mind if they sell the game for 100, it is still worth it.
In the end, the puiblishers will get the money back. From gamers. By either increasing prices, or reducing content, quality, or throwing a lot of MT and creating 'mobile experience' for Whales. I rather simply add the 10 years inflation increase to the prices of the games, as to any other prices around, and keep the quality and simplicity of a product.

You have a point mate, and yes, cheap thing can not be better than expensive one. But my problem here is tha teven the expensive games are not good/finished at day one. If you pay for premium, you shoud get premium. How many AAA games were better after 6 months or more - fixed bugs, added 60 fps, improved ... so at the end, who got the better experience? The people that played later did. And this breaks the model for the higher price.

 

[ZedRM]

I don't generally buy games until they have been out for a year or two. I make an exception once in a while, but that has become less common in recent years because devs don't take the time to properly complete games. Have no problem paying full price, yet I don't hesitate to take advantage of sales. I'm very much an ANTI-DRM guy, so unless it's on GOG, it's not being served to me.

 

[umeng2002]

PC games taking months to get fixed is nothing new. When I got into PC gaming in late 90's it was the same. You always knew it would take a few patches or even a year to get an expansion to fully play the game.

What is new is that this behavior has come to closed platforms like consoles. It's inexcusable on closed hardware.

Devs ARE lazy and don't do any QA testing for console releases - shipping a minimum viable product.

IE, people are PAYING $70 to beta test their games.

 

[maxxcool7421]

Nice happy gilmore reference [

 

[ddferrari]

What's the point of paying for a game that is free when anything you get is artificial...??? Games are meant to be fun, not meant to enrich your life, if you want to spend money on something, buy running shoes, find a few running buddies, make life good, spend money on investment into your future, games are nothing but a distraction of what you are supposed to be doing with your life... don't waste it, buy a burger for a homeless person

Games are a form of entertainment - just like movies and music. Are they a waste of time too? Having fun DOES enrich one's life, because having fun relieves stress and makes for a better quality of life.

Do what works for you, but please don't tell others how they should spend their time. "What you are supposed to be doing" is up to each individual.

 

[bviktor]

The only games I bought at full price in the past decade were The Last of Us (precisely 10 years ago, geez), and Diablo 2 Resurrected. That's it.

But make no mistake: if game prices were reduced to 30% overnight, I'd still wait for a discount before buying them. So I don't see a problem. If you wanna pay full price - be my guest. I'm good and have plenty more games in the backlog, so I'll wait.

 

[pencea]

I miss the good old days in the before the PS3 era when games comes complete. No internet nor online required, and none of this day one patch and such.

Games come with booklets and full instructions manual.

 

[ZedRM]

I miss the good old days in the before the PS3 era when games comes complete. No internet nor online required, and none of this day one patch and such.

Games come with booklets and full instructions manual.

100% with you there.