A CAG method for Game/Deal Reviewing (The CAG Price)

[andjuan]

I keep seeing posts in the deals forums that say things like "At $30, this game is a must buy." Or even CheapyD in the last CAGcast saying that he'd buy a lot of Xbox Live Arcade games at $5.

This got me thinking about the idea of using the economics idea of Reserve Price as the official way for CAGs to rate games and deals. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, Reserve Price is basically the maximum amount of money a person is willing to pay for a good or service. (Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_price) Better games or products would have higher Reserve Prices (See Halo 3 Legendary).

I figure if we can create some kind of discussion on what the Reserve Price of games should be, it would help people evaluate how good certain deals are. People could post in the deals what their individual Reserve Price for the item in question is. The greater the difference between the CAG community's reserve price and the amount for the item, the better the deal. That way potential buyers get a feeling for how good the CAG community thinks the deal is. I think this would be more useful than just seeing Thumbs Up or Thumbs down and would help CAGs make more informed shoppers, which is the whole point of this site anyways.

Let me know what you all think about this idea and if you have any suggestions.

 

[Dead of Knight]

That sounds cool, but I think the reserve price would really depend on if a person likes that type of game or not. Perhaps there could be a few reserve prices.

 

[msdmoney]

Actually I think that is a great idea, I wish I had thought of it. Sure you will people who undervalue a game, but hopefully it will average out with those who overvalue it for more polarizing games.

Maybe it could be built into the site, kind of like fatwallet has ratings for deals. The reserve price could be listed next to the game title and any user could vote for the price they think the game is worth. The really difficult part would be maintaining some sort of database for all the random games out there.

 

[Photomotoz]

This is a good idea but the price is very subjective. What we should do is take the MSRP and then multiply it by the average game ratingx10. So we would have a rating of 8/10 for a $50 game, therefore the game would be a must buy at the price of $40.

That method is flawed ofcourse. So it should be ((MSRP * .85)*(rating*10)).

The .85 represents a 15% discount, becuase no one wants to pay the retail price. So, in the end a $50 game with a 8/10 rating would come to $34 as a must buy.

One more factor is time, so we should replace the MSRP everytime the offical price goes down with the current price. That keeps the game up to date.

I still think that the whole thing is very subjective.

But I still think it would be kinda cool.

 

[lordxixor101]

Well, ratings are very subjective in general. Though, I think this is an idea here that would die quickly. Your problem are the "mainstream" game haters. Games like GTA and Halo are loved by many, yet there is a strong contingent of gamers that hate them only because everyone loves them. They will rate a game a 2 or a 3, when the game is obviously better than that, skewering the ratings.

Also, some more arthouse type games (something like ICO) would be overvaluled. It's fans (like me) woudl give it a strong rating, and most average gamers that may not like it won't give it a chance, moving it's values higher.

I think for ratings to work, you need only a certain number of people to play games and give it a fair rating. That's why, like it or not, a site like Gamestop will give more reliable reviews than a site like Gamefaqs.