Price of games now!

Cycrow

uncreative wrote: »

£150 for 2 games though?

Surely a maximum £40 for a game is a decent return for the games companies. I remember when computer games were £1.99 on cassette.

The problem is, that the games companies wont see that £40, not even close. Once the retailer, distributor and publisher all take their cuts, along with Microsoft/Sony then theres only a small amount left for the actual developer.

besides, when you could buy games on cassettes at £1.99, there were also other games around that would cost much more as well.

I remember getting some pc games on single floppy disks for about £2/3 each. But there were the bigger games available as well which would be closer to £40

Nilrem

uncreative wrote: »

£150 for 2 games though?

Surely a maximum £40 for a game is a decent return for the games companies. I remember when computer games were £1.99 on cassette.

And were made by one or two guys in a bedroom usually...

The return on a lot of those old £1.99 (probably about a tenner allowing for inflation) was huge compared to the actual cost of producing it.

These days the average game like Fallout 4 will cost the production house something close to what a feature film does, and involve hundreds of staff for 2-3 years.

Nilrem

Cycrow wrote: »

The problem is, that the games companies wont see that £40, not even close. Once the retailer, distributor and publisher all take their cuts, along with Microsoft/Sony then theres only a small amount left for the actual developer.

besides, when you could buy games on cassettes at £1.99, there were also other games around that would cost much more as well.

I remember getting some pc games on single floppy disks for about £2/3 each. But there were the bigger games available as well which would be closer to £40

Aye I remember back in 95ish going into my local EB store and the games for PC ranged from about £2 to £50ish depending on how big/new it was.

Oddly enough the same is still true now, I can get games at prices ranging from £1 or less, up to £70+ for special editions.

d70cw6

real question here is why the !!!! are you pre-purchasing games?

custardy

d70cw6 wrote: »

real question here is why the !!!! are you pre-purchasing games?

If you need to ask.....

mustang121

If you just a wait about a week after the release the date the price usually drops a little and/or you could find a pre-owned version to buy.


Wait about a month or two and it will be reduced further.


Wait about three months and it will no doubt be in the 'bargain bin'.

techno12

Nilrem wrote: »

And were made by one or two guys in a bedroom usually...

The return on a lot of those old £1.99 (probably about a tenner allowing for inflation) was huge compared to the actual cost of producing it.

A friend of mine wrote a few Spectrum £1.99 and £2.99 'classics' and he told me that his 1985 royalty cheque was £30,000 ish. Not bad!

custardy

mustang121 wrote: »

If you just a wait about a week after the release the date the price usually drops a little and/or you could find a pre-owned version to buy.


Wait about a month or two and it will be reduced further.


Wait about three months and it will no doubt be in the 'bargain bin'.

I have Halo 5 on pre order @ £31
Its not always more expensive.

Nilrem

techno12 wrote: »

A friend of mine wrote a few Spectrum £1.99 and £2.99 'classics' and he told me that his 1985 royalty cheque was £30,000 ish. Not bad!

Aye some of those games made an absolute fortune, probably far better in terms of real return than most modern games due to the low production cost.

motorguy

uncreative wrote: »

I remember when computer games were £1.99 on cassette.

Rose tinted glasses there my friend

Back in the day Spectrum games would have had an RRP of £6.95.

Heres a review of "Ant Attack" from a mag at the time showing £6.95

http://www.crashonline.org.uk/01/antattack.htm

Dont forget you can get XBox One games from a tenner upwards, and PC versions are even cheaper. You can get a perfectly good PC game for a few pounds