WTF is going on with PC game prices?

[alienware]

Seriously WTF?

As we all know (well we may not but we will after reading this) console games have always been more expensive than PC games because there are licensing fees of around 30% per game sold by the owner of the console itself.

So for example a 360 game is £45, £15 or so of that goes to M$. This is why M$ got into the console business in the first place, as they are not allowed by law to charge a licensing fee for games released in Windows (they tried but failed).

Same goes for Sony, and Nintendo (however to be fair Nintendo charge a lot less).

So that meant that a PC game at launch here in the UK (because you Americans get robbed which is surprising but true) would be around £25.

However this year things seem to have changed. Now PC games are costing the same as console games. As an example I bought Crysis 3 for £35. I wasn't surprised at that as EA are greedy bastards. However, I just went to see how much Metro : Last Light was and it's £35. The Xbox 360 version is £35.

What winds me right up is that piracy in 2005 was really high. PC games were expensive then too, and after exhaustive argument and debates game companies finally dropped the price of PC games which to me any way reduced piracy.

I'll admit that in 2005 I stole a lot of games. I did buy quite a lot, but I stole a good few too.

Now I'll tell you that between 2008 and now I have not stolen a single game because I was more than happy to pay the £20-£25 a brand new title demanded. Heck, I even paid £30 at launch for GTAIV at Game and £55 each for two Fallout box sets.

But the way things are going? I'm not being funny but I'm not paying £35 for a PC game. They're simply not worth it.

/rant over.

 

[SieB]

Never buy full price games
http://www.cjs-cdkeys.com/

But as with everything, inflation.

 

[MrKambo]

Seriously WTF?

As we all know (well we may not but we will after reading this) console games have always been more expensive than PC games because there are licensing fees of around 30% per game sold by the owner of the console itself.

So for example a 360 game is £45, £15 or so of that goes to M$. This is why M$ got into the console business in the first place, as they are not allowed by law to charge a licensing fee for games released in Windows (they tried but failed).

Same goes for Sony, and Nintendo (however to be fair Nintendo charge a lot less).

So that meant that a PC game at launch here in the UK (because you Americans get robbed which is surprising but true) would be around £25.

However this year things seem to have changed. Now PC games are costing the same as console games. As an example I bought Crysis 3 for £35. I wasn't surprised at that as EA are greedy bastards. However, I just went to see how much Metro : Last Light was and it's £35. The Xbox 360 version is £35.

What winds me right up is that piracy in 2005 was really high. PC games were expensive then too, and after exhaustive argument and debates game companies finally dropped the price of PC games which to me any way reduced piracy.

I'll admit that in 2005 I stole a lot of games. I did buy quite a lot, but I stole a good few too.

Now I'll tell you that between 2008 and now I have not stolen a single game because I was more than happy to pay the £20-£25 a brand new title demanded. Heck, I even paid £30 at launch for GTAIV at Game and £55 each for two Fallout box sets.

But the way things are going? I'm not being funny but I'm not paying £35 for a PC game. They're simply not worth it.

/rant over.

im just pissed that i spent like £50 on crysis on preorder, then like 3 days later it was going for £25!!

i used to pirate EVERYTHING!! but last couple of years i been paying for my entertainment as i feel developers and stuff should be paid for the work they do

but games are kinda expensive across the board!

Never buy full price games
http://www.cjs-cdkeys.com/

But as with everything, inflation.

omg why did i not come across this site before!! im cancelling a couple of my preorders!

 

[Dario_92]

I have used cjs-cdkeys to buy most of my games, the only time i buy games on steam is when they have a big sale on

 

[alienware]

Inflation is hard to swallow, given that games are mostly just keys now. They've totally eradicated any media which would have cost them. So they should either ignore inflation given the money they've saved or just charge the same given they have negated the media.

This is greed. Pure and simple greed. The problem is that on the PC it will backfire on them because people will just turn to piracy.

Console games have not gone up in price so they're just gouging the PC gamers.

And for what? to put up with a load of DRM crap.

 

[MacLeod]

Probably because they're trying to recoup some profit on the backs of early buyers. Any Mass Effect, Dead Space or Batman games will always be a Day 1 buy for me. The rest of them, I'll just wait til they go on one of Steam or Origin's big sales. I'm sure most gamers do the same. So they throw the new releases out there at $60 to pick off the people that'll buy on day 1 to make up for all the people that'll wait a month or two and buy it for $20 when Steam puts it on sale.

 

[alienware]

It's probably because they're giving so many away with GPUs tbh.

Screw that I'm not paying so that Nvidia can make more sales.

 

[SuB]

Don't pre-order games, that solves 50% of the cost issues lads.

 

[alienware]

Don't pre-order games, that solves 50% of the cost issues lads.

The only games I pre order are boxed set limited editions as they sell out so fast you miss out otherwise.

 

[Kyze]

In germany you buy retail AAA-Titles for 60€. :/

 

[alienware]

In germany you buy retail AAA-Titles for 60€. :/

It's the same way in the USA but in the UK we were taken seriously when we argued that games were too expensive.

It's only recently that they have slowly started putting up the prices.

 

[jamesriley94]

Also don't forget that you can sell on games on consoles second hand, whilst PC games are generally nowadays linked forever to the steam/origin account.

But, games these days for consoles tend to retail at about £45 most of the time. I'd say £35 new on console would be finding an offer, or priced down because of the specific console demand for that game.
You mentioned Metro, which never really had a massive appeal on consoles - and it's only real fan-base is on PC, so that probably explains the pricing of that. Maybe the same for Crysis to a certain extent.

Recently though, I've only bought my games from CJS keys - or codes from ebay if I've wanted something out of the never settle bundle or something. I don't really game as much anymore though.

What you're saying hasn't really bothered me much because of the sites like CJS keys, and the Never Settle campaigns. If there's been a game I've wanted on PC recently - which tbh has only been Bioshock and Far Cry recently - did want Crysis 3, but just never got round to it - they've actually all been in the never settle bundles. This has meant massive supply, to people that half the time don't even want the games. I mean, Aria have been giving away copies of Crysis and Far Cry with cards that aren't even powerful enough to run the games. This has meant loads of people have just sold their codes on as soon as they've bought their cards, thus, driving the price down. I got Bioshock in the first week of launch for less than £15 iirc, and even second hand on consoles at the time they were going for upwards of £25.

Just imagine how cheap we could be getting games for on ebay if Steam/Origin did allow you to resell your keys!

 

[alienware]

Hear hear James.

It seems we're headed toward a world where less is more, IE we pay more and get less. Sucks ass tbh.

Certain countries do allow the selling of Steam accounts though but IIRC it's illegal in the UK.

 

[B3rni3]

I dont mind the price on some games. Like big titles which took a lot to develop like metro and crysis because of their visual aspect. Over here the price is around 50euro which is nearly always the most you will pay for a pc game in a shop.

What annoys me is when games companies ask 50e plus for something or if the game is not worth the asking price. Something like the new assassins creed game is a poor pc game and generally it is not fun. I played for like 2 hours and just havnt touched it since. I got a free copy with my gpu but to me that is not worth the asking price.

I never pre order and I rarely buy on launch because of a few reasons. Mainly the price but also bug and performance issues which later get patched out.

I really hate dlc prices though I mean 10 euro for a few maps or some guns for something is just stupid. Hell look at the sim city dlc 20 euro extra if you got the top edition and all you got was a few landmarks. Like seriously? I could get a whole game for that.

I used to pirate a lot of games and I still do to a certain extent. I mean I will pirate something to see if it is something I may like or if it will perform well because lets face it some games are just bad. I recently downloaded mars war logs and god that game is ugly. I played 20 mins before I just uninstalled it. Now I would have been pissed if I paid full price for that game but then I am happy to pay full price for something like Kerbal space program which I did recently as it is a fun game.

It really comes down to personal preference. Some people will happily pay the asking price and others will wait for it to go on sale. I am a sale kinda guy because I finish games very quickly and thus I feel like I dont get my monies worth if you know what I mean. Something like nfs I would finish in a weekend so I wouldn't ever pay full price for something like that.

Steam sales are the bees knees though. They have saved me a shit ton of money, oh and cjs cd keys too.

 

[remember300]

I know its only a couple of quid, but dont buy games in steam direct, some shopping around in necessary, i was gonna by deus ex through steam ... £20 in maplin but comes with a disk 8.49 but can still be put onto steam...
Another thing im sure you all do is places like GAME in the UK give points for every purchase, including steam points, so i got a couple of quid extra each time i buy £30's worth, so every couple of months you can get an extra tenners worth and im sure in US and the rest of the world there are shops that off loyalty points if you box even cleverer get a play.com credit card buy your points from game and pay the card off direct so you get play points and game points all worth real money that be used on more points

 

[One-Hand]

When the latest Devil May Cry came out here in Sweden it cost just around 70-75£ (that is ~710-760kr) and that's not for the special edition or anything fancy like that. After I saw this I lost hope in stores like Gamestop and are now waiting for the day when games are only accessible through sites like Steam and Gamersgate.

 

[Greenback]

The simple reason PC games cost so much is the developers got away with selling console games for £35-£40 and found ppl would pay that much. I remember before the mega drive and such you could get new pc games for £5-£!0 when Sega games started selling for £20-£25 the next lot of new pc games went up.
I don't buy many games these days but if I do I get them here

 

[Willock]

Just adding my 2p - I get my keys from G2PLAY.net, I've been shopping there for years and they always seem to have good prices (not quite as low as they used to, but still really good)

They also have a rewards program where you get points for every game you purchase, and its usually amounts to at least 10% of the value of the game off of your next purchase.

I got a russian BF3 key from them for £15 at launch, it still works and plays in English

Give them a go if you like!

 

[SeekaX]

there are only 4 times a year i buy games. steam easter sale, summer sale, halloween sale and winter/christmas sale. there are only very few exceptions to that (star citizen).