Topic: Shadows in the Land of Gaming.

[Ceric]

Peers:  Shadows in the Land of Gaming.

I enjoyed this blog entry and thought it made a point.

[KDR_11k]

I might have bought SOTC had it been cheaper than the standard 60€ but it didn't sound like a really great game so I decided to wait for a price cut. Probably never going to happen but oh well. Only the greatest of the great are really worth paying 60€ for and SOTC doesn't seem to fall into that category. If the next gen price of 70€ sticks instead of going away after a year they can forget about me buying anything (well, console games. PC games are still 40-50€) at full price.

[Nick DiMola]

Videogame prices are atrocious. I really hope Sony and Microsoft understand that $60 is just too much. I hope Nintendo keeps on their variable pricing promise where a game will be $50 or less depending on development costs and time.

The last full priced game I bought was Dead Rising on the 360 and I still regret the purchase. After taxes I paid nearly $70 and the game was definitely not worth $70 (don't get me wrong it was a good game just not $70 good). Hell, I am even hesitant to spend $50 on a game, really the only games I buy when they first launch are high profile Nintendo games. Outside of those I generally wait to play anything else I want because it is too damn expensive.

Maybe game sales will sink low enough that Microsoft and Sony will realize the bill is too large for gamers to foot and they will consequently drop game prices from $60 down to $50.

[KDR_11k]

The last full priced game I bought was Dead Rising on the 360 and I still regret the purchase. After taxes I paid nearly $70

So even with the next-gen price hike and taxes your games are still cheaper than our current-gen console games?

[couchmonkey]

Yeah, pricing is high.  I think Sony and Microsoft are in an interesting position because game prices finally started to budge over the past 10 years.  At least here in Canada, prices were very solid on NES and Super Nintendo.  I once found a cache of $30 SNES games at Radio Shack and I was ecstatic.  Nowdays $30 games are all over the place thanks to Greatest hits and the like.  N64 had the highest prices yet but they started to crumble in the face of Playstation's cheap games.  With everyone going disc this generation and the market being very competitive cheap games are easy to find on any console.

So just as console video game prices finally start to improve, Sony and MS go and push prices up by $10.  The reasoning is sound: development costs are up, up, up!  Consumers don't care how much it cost to make though, they care how much it costs them personally.

I'll add that on the topic of people buying games in spite of bad reviews or ignoring well-reviewed games, I recently heard a theory that previews matter more than review to a game's livelihood.  That's an interesting thought.

[UltimatePartyBear]

It sounds to me like Peer (who I've never forgiven for resetting my connection so many times) is overestimating the reach of his profession.  Mainstream buyers pay little mind to his opinion, and the gamers who do don't number high enough to make a noticeable difference on the sales charts compared to mass market games.  They do make a difference as far as that one game or developer is concerned, though, so it's not a lost cause.

Personally, I avoided both Shadows.  One was an obvious marketing ploy in a series I don't particularly care about, and the other was touted as the spiritual successor to a game I thought was insanely overrated.  

[Svevan]

Too bad Peer, like everyone, rated Shadow the Hedgehog too high. I don't understand 5s or 6s being "mediocre." That's dumb! 5s or 6s are passable games that could be appropriate for the right audience - Shadow the Hedgehog was autistic, and deserved 3s.

[Mikintosh]

Saying Goldeneye is a game that doesn't use violence or licenses to sell itself is hilarious.

I think $50 is a good price for games, but weren't games over $65 in the late 80s-early 90s? (I was too young to notice) Not that that was a great idea, but there is precedent, I guess.

[Ceric]

Yes... Sort of.  I remember PC games being like that.  (There where still dirt cheap ones mind you.)

[couchmonkey]

Quote
Originally posted by: Svevan
Too bad Peer, like everyone, rated Shadow the Hedgehog too high. I don't understand 5s or 6s being "mediocre." That's dumb! 5s or 6s are passable games that could be appropriate for the right audience - Shadow the Hedgehog was autistic, and deserved 3s.

True, but review scores in this industry tend to be inflated.  That's how people get the attitude that a game isn't worth buying unless it gets 9 or better (which is silly).  Actually, I think game review scoring is broken in general - why does IGN need a 100-point scale?  What is the difference between a 9.3 and a 9.6?  Pure opinion, that's what.  Both games deserve a 9.5/10.  In fact, that's too easy.  Reviewers should really have to decide "Is this a 9 or a 10?".  9.5 is what a viewer gives when they think the game is a 10 but they want to live up to some stupid ideal that there's no such thing as a "perfect" game.