(as an aside, I know prices are similar and probably more in Europe and Japan...I've always regarded Japanese prices on new CD's and games as being pretty overpriced, especially considering importers markups).

The other day, I went and got my preorder for Marvel vs Capcom 3. As I handed over my debit card and looked at my receipt, it kinda hit me that I was buying a game I have waited 10+ years for, one I've been cautiously hyped for during the past 6 months and one I will probably be playing the stuffings out with friends, online and at tournaments until they release a sequel. In that sense, 60 bones felt like a steal. But then, for the first time in a long time, I started looking around the rest of Gamestop and came to the following conclusion: It was the only game with a $60 price point that I would even consider buying. A few years ago, maybe the current Rock Band or Guitar Hero would have been worth it (the product glut killed off both of these franchises and the quality of Guitar Hero has gone decidedly south overall, to the point I did a fist pump when they announced its' demise recently) and the last current-gen game I paid full MSRP for was Brutal Legend, which has seen about an hour and a half of playtime, despite the cool premise. My friend had both Batman: Arkham Asylum and Bayonetta and while both were cool, I just couldn't see either justifying their full price tag. And originally, I was going to buy Blazblue when it first came out, but...that $60 price point made me try before I bought (totally non-related to price, I then went on to discover how much I would loathe that game, as Guilty Gear's bastard child and was thankful I didn't waste time or money on it).

In the NES/SNES days, buying a lot of games simply was not an option for me. However, there were many I rented that I would have gladly bought (and later, gladly added to my collection for fractions of their original price years). And yes, I'm more than aware that SNES game prices were sometimes far more than game prices are now, but one should also consider that many more people are actually buying games now and more copies are being sold. When I started taking the 32-bit era seriously, new PS1 games could be had regularly for around $40. When Dreamcast and PS2 came along, $50 became more the standard, but considering the upgrade in graphics and memory (anyone remember the animation hits and loading to 2D fighters on the Playstation? *shudder*) compared to the 32 bit era, the added premium was warranted to me. Even on the Wii, $50 for the new Donkey Kong or New Super Mario Brothers Wii sounds fairly reasonable. When I think $60, I think "rare, classic game off ebay in great condition" or "limited edition ala Working Designs", not "standard, new game that will probably be long forgotten and discounted in six months at Gamestop".

What is also added in are the costs of DLC and in some instances, the cost of playing online. Marvel vs Capcom 3 will likely be offering DLC characters, which if you're playing seriously, you will probably need to get at some point. So in essence, you can be doubling or even tripling the original cost paid. Again, I'm gonna play it seriously, but it's also the ONLY game I would feel compelled to pay up for the additional characters (although I'll keep my money in my pocket if one of them is just Frank West...bleh!) But I can't even fathom buying, say, a sports game, then having to pay a premium for the "privilege" of playing online. Even MvC 3, I would consider that a ripoff if they were to go that route (especially if it as lag-tastic as SFIV). And stuff like new costumes in Street Fighter IV...No, just no! They should be giving junk like that away. Even the DLC for Rock Band, outside of a handful of songs, is starting to feel like a total waste at about 2 bucks a song. Yeah, I'll pay up for my favorite bands and whatnot, but I must have been smoking something potent to actually buy junk from Disturbed on there. I want my money back for those (I think I bought them when there was basically no heavy metal available) >_<

So...Is a $60 price point+ a deterrent for buying new games?

Of course, I remember the SNES days. But even then, when I bought something at full price, it really had value, like Final Fantasy III or Chrono Trigger. Even something like Donkey Kong Country felt like a ripoff at those prices. When the PlayStation arrived, the cheaper prices of CD games were a boon.

These days, my primary game platforms are DS and Wii. $60 games, where? If I want an HD game, I can wait a couple of months until it's down 60 to 80 % in price. In downloadables, the price ratio is different. If your downloadable game costs 1500 points or whatever, I'll just buy something else interesting that fits into my comfort zone of 1000 points or less. Downloadables shouldn't cost the same as a discounted retail game.

One reason I never even bought a console after Gamecube.

Think I'm in the same camp as you, Goldfish.

The PS2 was like that a lot for me, too; buying $50 for a lot of games ended up being a stupid idea.

Final Fantasy X, I paid full price for, and it took about 2-3 years, before it began coming down in price; at the time it came out, it was the only PS2 game I had and played, and it took the course of 4-6 months for me to finish it, from December, to sometime in Spring.

Xenosaga, Episode I, I bought it when it came out in February, but by the time I got around to actually playing it, it had already been discounted to $20, sometime the following Summer.

Come Summer 2004, a lot of games I bought upon release then were significantly discounted the following Winter.

And when I began noticing pricing trends, I began holding back for discounts as a policy, unless it was something rare that would go out of print and become unavailable, before ever being discounted.

On the Nintendo Wii, the only game I ever got for full price ($50) was Super Paper Mario, and while I enjoyed it, I could only recoup $30 after finishing it, even though my copy was like-new.

All the other games I have for the Wii, I've bought for $20, brand new;

I'm just assuming that they're not bootleg copies made in China or Taiwan, of course, because theoretically, if you knew how, it's probably not hard to pirate this stuff, and pass it off as the genuine article. I haven't had any problems with any of these possibly discount counterfeits, but one can never be too sure.

I buy a lot of my games through nameless, third-party merchants, on sites like Amazon.com, and other eMarketplaces.

I mean, hey, I got a BRAND NEW copy of Sin & Punishment: Star Successor for $20, even though it still goes in store for $50! How do I know it was brand new? It had that tape with the game's title across the top of the game's case.

I mean, I'm not sure what the argument is here.  Games for the last 20 years have been 50$ a pop, going up 10$ isn't that bad (compare it to the price of gas...).  I remember 50$ for Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, FFIV, FF1 and I even remember 69.99$ for Breath of Fire 2 on SNES.

I think the larger issue is quality.  Paying 50$ for a shitty game you beat in 10 hours these days kind of sucks.  Paying 50$ for any of those old RPGs that took 40 hours to complete and had infinite replay value, now that's something.  I guess it's a problem if you're a serious gamer but I haven't really bought any games in the last 10 years, most of them just aren't worth buying or playing for that matter.   I do own Demon's Souls, which fits the 40 hours and infinite replay value mantra pretty well.

Back in the old days we didn't balk at paying $50-70 a game.  Consider inflation AND the fact that modern games cost WAY more to produce than they did back in those days and any sane person should realize that $60 isn't really terribly unreasonable.

That being said, given my current financial status and other time occupations, I have no problem in just waiting six months for a game to be less than $20 before buying it.  If I had the income and no horrible backlog, I don't think 60 would be horrific.

Thanks pal.

Like I said, gaming's audience is much larger than it was then, so it is much more of a mainstream product. Also remember that they are pressing discs, not assembling boards inside of cartridges. I believe I read somewhere that used to add nearly $10 in cost to a game's production. In THAT sense, I can justify the higher prices of the cartridges. Although I'm not sure how much it costs to manufacture a game or movie on a Blu Ray, I know Xbox uses standard DVD's.

Yes, I know all too well that the sheer costs of making the games has gotten larger (probably too large), but I don't feel this is something that should be passed down to the consumer. I think keeping the price high damages their overall sales, while lowering them would damage their overall gross margin per unit, but result in a larger quantity sold. If you offer DLC, the margin becomes a non-factor (more people buying the game = more DLC sales) I think that is why we are seeing the large amount of "casual" games making their way to the forefront, in terms of Facebook and iPad games: the cheap prices representing a bit of an alternative for some people. It is similar to CD's: Most stores cling to the $15-$17 price point, when the music is easily bought digitally or listened to for free (legally or not). And then people wonder why album sales are low. Lower the price and sell more units. It's not rocket science.

I guess the point I was trying to make was and the question I was trying to ask: Is $60 for a new game any kind of mental barrier when making a buying decision? We go from $40 (on average) PS1 games, to $50 for PS2/Xbox/GC to $60 now. For $40, I was willing to take a chance on a Playstation game that looked cool. $60 for a game represents a premium price point to me, not a standard one. At $60 (and the chances of the game's value dropping in a very short window)...um, I better like that demo of it I play A LOT!

Err... sorry, that wasn't really directed at you!  >_<

You do bring up a valid point about the fact that more people are buying games these days.  I hadn't really factored that in, and it's really something that adds weight to the argument that $60 is too much.

I would actually be totally okay with games looking crappier and costing less to produce.  The DS and Wii both started off with weird experimental stuff that companies were only willing to take the risk of producing in large part, I think, because it cost way less to try new stuff on those instead of on the PSP or HD twins, respectively.  It's also why I'm leery about the next generation of portable systems - are smaller, riskier games just going to disappear entirely when everyone expects every single game to be a graphical tour de force?

With budgets of game making reaching 20 to even 50 million dollars per game (for the really huge/long ones), what can we expect?  They have to make the money back somehow.  Some games probably don't ever probably make back what went into making them.  Why do you think we see so many sequels and the like, instead of originality?   Don't forget marketing costs either, that has to be made back too.  Stores want a cut as well.  Why do you think GameStop has such a big used game market - that's where they make their money.  None of that's going back to the developer.

It's all good, Joe. I figured that. I feel the same way about the next round of portables and I think it's quite possible that the cheap-o iPhone games will cut into their non-hardcore sales pretty nasty. At my last family gathering, I had to look at more 99 cent games than I would usually care to. >_<

I know what you're saying, that companies aren't wanting to take risks with development, but don't you consider adding a price premium over the entire previous generation to be equally risky? I mean, at any given time, there are dozens of cheaper games available that have been out longer and marked down (or used), so you're losing that potential audience that might take a chance on your game.

For argument's sake: The only console that has not jacked up prices since the last generation is winning this generation's console war by a LOT!

The whole used game business has not changed at all, in that way: Hated by developers, loved by game stores. That is more or less normal. As far as the developers goes, money collected from DLC goes right into their pockets, regardless if the game is used or not, and I can't see stuff like Street Fighter IV costumes having outrageous development costs.

I understand the logical argument (rising costs for developers = rising costs for consumers), but I'm asking, purely from a consumer's standpoint, if there is a breaking point. Would you pay $80 per game? $90? $100? Neo Geo justified their $200+ games with how many megs they crammed into their carts, but it was out of the range of most people, even if 1 Neo Geo cart had more megs than an entire SNES collection!

I paid $75 for the SNES version of Street Fighter II. I would've paid $200 (at the time) and still walked away feeling good. The only possible alternative was to walk or ride my bike to Cecil Whittaker's and use their arcade machine. The ability to play SFII at home was one of the most significant events in my life, in terms of the happiness generated.

Yeah I understand... price yourself too high - you risk pricing yourself out of the market and relegate yourself to history prematurely... case in point NeoGeo as you mentioned.  Business entails a certain amount of risk and it's basically a game - how much is the consumer willing to pay vs how much the market can bear vs still making a profit?  Usually the consumer loses out.  But we vote with our dollars.  That's who survives in the end.  Really just have to ask yourself... do I really want this game?  How bad?  Can I wait?  Can I afford it?  Unless you become part of some major consumer group I don't really think we can change things on our own, unless you want to start a movement haha.

For me, if I want it, I buy it, price be damned.  lol 

If I don't end up buying it, maybe I'll pick it up later at a lower price.  If I never end up getting it or forgetting about it... then I guess I never really wanted it at all in the first place.  oh well

I have no problem with this whatsoever.

I still remember paying exuberant amounts of cash for SNES and N64 games, especially since I often had to import to get the good stuff, so nowadays, $60 doesn't scare me at all. And as has been said, games are so much bigger and more expensive to produce nowadays that I really don't see this as much of an inflation at all.

The average new game here in Japan has a retail price of 5,800 or 6,800 yen, with 7,800 reserved for AAA and/or Big Budget titles (or, in the ridiculous case of FFXIII: 9,200, but pretty much every shop I knew sold it for 7,800), and it's been like that for a long time now. Prices were MUCH higher in the SNES days though. I seem to recall FFVI being 9,800 and some games even went for over 10,000, but that probably has to do with the whole bubble economy thing.

I don't mind paying 60 bucks for a game I know I'll be playing for awhile, and I only buy games new when I'm almost 100% sure I'll enjoy them.

I approve of this.  Also....

Wha...?  I can't ever recall seeing Chrono Trigger going for anything less than $60 back in the day.  TRU had the gumption to charge me $69.99 on the day of release.

I have no problem with the price of games. I get a huge amount from a good game and it's usually worth the asking price. And if cash is tight, I'll just hold off for a price drop (currently Dead Space 2 is on my price drop list).

And most (not all) games seem to drop very quickly these days.

Even for a quality game, if it's discounted 3 months after I bought it, I feel like a complete fool.

I bought Opoona brand new when it came out back in March/May 2008, enjoyed more than all get-out, more than any other JRPG on the PS2, but by the following Winter, the game was already discounted to $20, maybe $10 USD, at every Gamestop this side of the planet.

I'd bought it, thinking it'd keep its price, and that it was a rare print of a game, but damn, if I only could've waited...!

Just enjoyed the game TOO much, something would have to happen to make me feel like I'd still been kicked in the shins!

i think I got it for $69.99 as well. FFIII was also up there.

I just wait until a few months later, when it's been reduced.  I only buy 1 or 2 games a year though anyway.

The satisfaction of a game at half price overrides the desire to have it right away.

Besides, the wait is so short that it's not much of a delay, as new items get pushed into the discount bin at a very brisk pace these days.

I've been harping about this for awhile now, and I agree with Goldfish, but I'd like to add a few things to the argument.  $60 is too much for the combination of the following reasons:

1. Competition

Back in the SNES days, a good game came out once every six months, so paying $60-$80 wasn't so bad when there were only a few games worth playing.  Today, there are so many good games to play that you always have something worth playing and you don't need to buy the latest game right away.  We all talk about our backlogs, so it's not like we're hurting for stuff to play.

2. Availability

In the cartridge days, not buying a game on or near launch often meant not getting it all since lower selling games often had only one print run.  If you wanted it, you had to get it for full price at launch or wait forever in hopes of another run.  I remember when GoldenEye came out, Nintendo grossly underestimated how popular it would be, and it was sold out nationwide for over a month before the second batch came in.  The $70 I paid on Day One was well worth it.  Today, DVDs and BRDs can be run-off easily and even niche games are easy to find on the cheap months after their release.

3. Rapid Loss of Value

I can't be the only one's who's noticed how fast games for the 360, PS3, PC, and PSP lose their value (DS and Wii games seem to hold up much better for some reason).  Games that launch at $60 can often be found new for 50% off just a few months after their release.  This was unheard of back in the SNES days.  If I had confidence that a $60 PS3 game I'm buying today would still cost $60 three to six months from now, I'd be more inclined to buy it at launch, but since I know it'll get reduced quickly and I know I have plenty of other things to play, I can just wait.

4. So-Called "Game of the Year" Editions

For super popular games with large amounts of paid DLC, it often pays to wait for "Game of the Year" editions that bundle the original game and DLC for one price.  You get a less buggy version of the game with all the extras in one tidy package.

Due to the four above factors, I haven't paid $60 for a game since Resident Evil 5 back in March 2009, and technically I only paid $51 for that, but I got a non-public discount so we can still count it as the last time I would have normally paid $60 for a game.

At any rate, since making this change to my purchasing behavior, I haven't looked back.  I still get all the games I want, and I don't feel like a sucker when I see the game 50% off a few months later.  That said, if there was a game I absolutely had to have at launch, I'd pay up, but lately there haven't been any that fit that description.

Seems to be a Nintendo-published thing. It IS kinda silly that games like Mario Kart DS and New Super mario Bros. are still $30-$35 though, but I guess The Big N tends to get consistent sales even after a number of years.

These days I don't see much point in paying $60 for retail games because they tend to have price drops within months or even weeks. Especially for mainstream games. Different story for niche titles, though. The only times I buy games at the MSRP is when I think the game is going to rare or comes in a limited collector's edition. Or when I want to support a particular niche publisher like Aksys or XSeed; I recently bought the LE editions for all three Ys games and Trails in the Sky.