How Much Longer Will Games Be $49.99?

PittsburghAfterDark

PittsburghAfterDark

CAGiversary!
The CC sale obviously inspired this but so did looking at several games recently and their commercial fate. La Pucelle Tactics, dropped to $19.99 at Target, Rallisport Challenge 2 out less than two months and dropped to $29.99, Beyond Good & Evil $19.99 after just a 5 weeks of realse. Christmas games like R: Racing Revolution, Castlevania: LOI from major franchises and gaming powerhouses Namco and Konami dropped to less than $15 each less than 5 months out on the market. Virtua Fighter: Evolution released stateside as a Greatest Hits for $19.99 despite being, arguably, the best fighter on the planet.

These were all "major releases" according to most publications, online gaming forums and hardcore gamers. Yet they all dropped liked rocks in price. I'm not even touching on games that came and went and still aren't selling for >$19.99 like I:Ninja, Goblin Commander, Battlestar Galactica, AvP, Magic: The Gathering and *insert recent game selling for> $19.99. It seems to me if you can wait 6 months for a game $19.99 is the price you'll pay, or less.

My question is how much longer can gaming companies expect to charge $49.99 for a game? Obviously this site and several others are dedicated to cheap gaming. For major franchises like Halo, GTA, Mario, Zelda, Metroid, possibly Sonic and a few others $49.99 seems realistic. Otherwise the new sport in gaming has been betting on bargain bin arrival times. Who would have thought every M$ game released last holiday season would be $29.99 or less and they'd be giving them away with sign ups for XBL?

Are these $4.99 sales wake up calls to publishers? Best Buy seemed to be an anomoly but with CC doing it it's got to be a trend. Can you not see TRU doing this too? I think the $4.99 sale is going to become a summer tradition from here on out. So when will original prices drop to something more realistic to collectors? I mean, yes, we're gamers but we're also collectors, many of us because we can't pass up cheap games. We have stacks of 10-20+ games we've purchased and never played, just because they were cheap?

Okay, I guess I just don't have much to add, this was just another "Can games contintue to sell for $49.99?" thread. My answer is a resounding no. I see gaming more and more staring to mirror the straigt to DVD movie market and less on the traditional priced gaming model. I think we're going to see the popular price point drop to $29.99 for unproven/new titles and $39.99 for true hits. I don't see $49.99 carrying any weight anymore due to the rapid nature of price drops that we've been accostmed to in the last year or two and these massive $4.99 sales where we go buy 10 games or more and pass up every new released game for a couple months because we have a stack of cheap stuff to play.

I'm not crying wolf, I don't see this as the gaming industry being in trouble. I do though see these trends as the end of the $50 per game era.
 
I am afraid we are all about to leave the world of $50 games & enter the world of $500 consoles.
 
[quote name='Ebraum']I am afraid we are all about to leave the world of $50 games & enter the world of $500 consoles.[/quote]

I would be really surprised if that happens. Sony has already stated they would sell the PSP at a loss, and recent polls suggest no one is willing to pay more than $150 - $199 for it. Will the PS3 launch at $500? No way.

Just my two cents.

As far as the games, I agree. Other than guaranteed hits like Halo 2, etc. I think we'll be hard pressed to find other games at the $49 price point. With that said, do I regret paying full price for my copies of Disgaea or La Pucelle? Not one bit.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']Virtua Fighter: Evolution released stateside as a Greatest Hits for $19.99 despite being, arguably, the best fighter on the planet.[/quote]

VF4: Evolution didn't release at $20 because it wasn't going to sell well, it released at that price because it was technically the GH version of VF4, and Sega loves you very, very much.
 
At the $50 price point, there are probably only a handful of games that having they popularity to keep the price that high for an extended period of time (Zelda, Metroid, Mario, Halo, FF Series). The thing is that this is most likely going to drive smaller shops out of business, they can't afford to take a loss like BB or CC can.

Good or bad? Not sure, cheaper games can't be a bad thing for us consumers right?
 
its always gonne be 50 when the game first comes out, except for the certain non popular/crappy games that come out at 20 or 30
 
I say until the next set of console come out (xbox 2, ps3, etc) then they will be 99.99. If I rember right was'nt xbox game 59.99 when it first dropped.
 
No way games are ever going up to $99.99. Just... no way. The entire industry would crater if that happened. Xbox games, PS2 games and GCN games have been at $49.99 since day one. Same with Dreamcast games.

Even back in the day of $59.99-89.99 carts few of them ever moved more than a million. The ones that did fit one of two categories.... enthusiast driven titles like Y's, Phantasy Star and the early days of the N64 when a game like Turok could collect $69.99 because it was one of the only good games for the console. Spare me your revisionist history Nintendo fans... Wayne Gretzky Hockey, Crusin' USA, Mortal Kombat (Forget which one.) were not worthy of selling 1,000,000 copies. They were the only games out for the damn thing.
 
The decline of retail prices is long overdue. The standardization on optical discs has change production costs by two orders of magnitude.

The usual excuse is that development costs have climbed but the average game dev budget is dwarfed by most direct to home video productions distributed on the same media and packaging for much lower prices than games. (Movie budgets for even small films are often grossly overstated. I know of one production listed as costing $7 million of which the director told me at a screening where I was working that at least a $million went up the crew and performer's noses.)

In the process they're artificially limiting the value of thier installed base. With equal budgets a $30 game obviously needs to sell better than a $50 game but the evidence from ohter products sugests that every time you lower price resistance the gain in sales is greater than a straighter dollar value.
 
[quote name='Graystone']I say until the next set of console come out (xbox 2, ps3, etc) then they will be 99.99. If I rember right was'nt xbox game 59.99 when it first dropped.[/quote]

You don't remember right. Some stores will mark stuff ridiculously high but those are not the publisher's SRP.

I recently saw while shopping for HDLoader at ConsoleSource.com that they were listing Mojo for Xbox at $54.95. At first I thought this was Canadian dollars and while overpriced not quite so outrageous as I first thought. But after looking some more the prices are apparently US dollars. How they can justify this for a game that was published as a bargain title remains unanswered but just about everybody else only wants $19.99 for that game.
 
I don't know how much to read into this price drop. I mean specifically speaking about Circuit City, they needed to do this. They had games on the shelf that were several years old, suffering in disorganization and getting little attention. Clearing out the crap is gonna allow them to get a foothold on the mess they've called their video game department. This should be a good thing for Circuit City. A fresh start of sorts.

In regards to the $49.99 price point I don't see it losing it's starting position anytime soon. What is lost by starting there? Even if the price of the product is dropped a week after release that's at least one week at the higher price point. Consumers do seem to be in the habit now of waiting for the expected price drop. I do know that I'm actually encouraged to purchase Nintendo software when it debuts rather than wait because I know there is little likelyhood that the price will drop in the short term. Maybe sticking to your guns(prices) is the best way out for the retailer. Only time will tell.

littlemonkey
 
Sony sells their non-online first party games for $40 new, which is a start. I think it would be great if prices on games dropped, though I can see major series, like Halo, Zelda, GTA being released for $50+ even if the average price on most games drop.
 
I don't think CC is the last $4.99 sale we'll see. I think the overall result of this on a large scale will be the big chains BB, CC, TRU, etc. carrying a smaller selection of games and mainly stocking the big franchises. We as gamers all know that most every game can be had cheaper, and while one could argue that as less and less games sell at $49.99, the publishers will get the hint and lower the prices, one could also argue that this will lead to corporate decision makers on both the publising and the retail end, to produce/stock only sure fire hits.
 
I think this trend is bad overall.

For the consumers - Sure, we get cheap games. But how often will stores stock games like Ikaruga or Viewtiful Joe now? Similar to the comic book market, only mainstream games will receive the shelf-space, slowly reducing innovation.

For the independent video game stores - littlemonkey, the problem is that when a dealer, like Defender, for instance, buys a game at wholesale for $40-45, and the prices suddenly drop to $20, that's a $20 loss that he can never make back. No one's going to buy that game from him at $50 anymore. Now, a price drop over time is understandable. But for games like Beyond Good and Evil or these BB/CC $4.99 sales, the sudden drop in price screws over the smaller stores. Do you think that BB is going to carry a lot of the next Disgaea or Culdcept? Not likely. These independent retailers are our best bet to get cool, creative games. And these price drops are killing them.

I'd rather have one copy of Culdcept at full price than a stack of crappy CC games.

That being said, lowering prices from the wholesale level and making the MSRP around $30-$40 from the beginning would be a welcome change and one that wouldn't cause too many of the problems I've noted above.
 
Here are my thoughts: we are living in the age of the CAG. Buying games for $20 new was unheard of back in my 16 bit days. This is why regrettably a lot of my SNES collection is used. Remember when PC games for the N64 were 39.99? Hopefully that will never happen again.

As far as how this effects the industry, I don't see how it could be bad. CC's clearance not standing, a game like Viewtiful Joe will still sell a lot of copies at 39.99 or 29.99. Another game like Rebel Strike will sell more copies at 19.99 because you take in account its quality (it's not spectacular, but way worth it for $20). My conclusion? Lighten up, there's not going to be an apocalypse for creative, inventive games. A cheaper game will sell more than a 49.99 game. This is why big titles will always be $50 for awhile, because I think they know people will buy them regardless. I'll take a chance on a game for $30 or $20. So it can only be good.
 
If gamers seems to be willing to buy anything they can at $5 then whats to stop the game makers from producing quick low quality games to sell at $5.

I am sure nintendo wont do this but prepare for the budget masses and quality to suffer. Next Christmas we wont see the same quality of games as previous years. Developers will have to stay within realistic budgets and get games done as fast as possible. I am sure more than one great game will never be made because gamers dont seem willing to fork over the $50 they need to make a good game.
 
we got lots of new games at $20 for the NES at toysaurus. Faxanadu, Double Dare(ugh), Bugs Bunny Borthday Blowout, Dragon Spirit were a few
 
I'm not commenting on the development possibilites this sale may change. I think Capcom, Sega, Konami and Sony will continue to make games the way they have. Ditto anyone else. What I'm saying is I think events like this have to make the industry as a whole question what can and can't be sold for $50 anymore.

Nintendo can/will do it because Nintendo fans love those game and will gladly pay for the quality they represent. Halo 2, GTA, Half Life 2, Doom 3 will sell for $50 for quite a while. However let's look at some of this up coming holiday's release schedule. I'm willing to bet that the majority of the following 4th quarter releases will be $19.99 by March of 2005.... ready? Here we go!

Samurai Legend Musashi, Blood Will Tell, Advent Rising, Rumble Roses, Silent Hill 4, Star Wars: Republic Commando, Otogi 2, Neo Contra, Y's The Ark of Napishtim, Ghost In the Shell: Stand Alond Complex, King of Fighters: Maximum Impact, Tekken 5, Capcom Fighting Jam and Kameo (Picked because it was Dave Halverson's "Best of E3" and he's picked such commercial successes in th past like Rayman 3 and Gunvalkyrie.) I will also go out on a limb and say either or both Gran Turisomo competitors Enthusia (Konami) or Forza Motorsport (Microsoft) will bomb to the tune of >100,000 sold. Oh, and this summer's majors like Sudeki, Full Spectrum, Riddick and anthing else? $19.99 by the holidays.

$49.99 won't fly much longer.
 
As long as Best Buy and Walmart still exist... where people who think game prices are a non-issue shop... then the majority of game releases will still be $49.99.
 
[quote name='magilacudy']As long as Best Buy and Walmart still exist... where people who think game prices are a non-issue shop... then the majority of game releases will still be $49.99.[/quote]

Sadly this is true in some respects. Working at Wal-Mart I see all too often ignorant customers (no offense) purchasing $49.99 games that could be $29.99 or even less at another store, because they think Wal-Mart has the lowest prices. No joke. Then theres the people (again, no offense) who buy games based on commericials and hype alone, and don't even read into reviews. Now I know you shouldn't be basing your purchase off of one or two reviews, but when almost every site is bashing your game you should probably back off. This is the case with Driv3r, where we have sold a decent amount of copies based on hype alone, and we all know the game isn't worth fifty bones.

Still, from September to December our gaming market is WAY too over crowded. All too often do great games like Beyond good and Evil get shunned because of our over saturated market.

Then of course It's not just the fact that the game market is over crowded, but the price is too high. I don't know about you guys but I am trying to set a personal budget of $99.99 MAX per month spending on games, and if theres seven real good games coming out in September I have little choice but to only pick two of those games, leaving those other five games unsold. When will I get the other five games? Next month? What if October also holds seven real good games based on hype? It starts to add up. Game developers have to realize we only have so much money in our pockets, and the majority of game buyers are young adults with little or no income. If all games were priced at $29.99 I would be able to purchase an additional game every month, and if all games were priced over $39.99 that would leave room (over time) for another game.

Blah, blah, blah...

Bottom line is im hoping for games to drop to a set standard price, yet I am quite unsure as to what will happen. I believe the bigger name companies (Square-Enix, Capcom for some games, Sony, Nintendo) will be able to sneak by games for $49.99, while companies like Acclaim, Eidos and whomever who are not meeting their sales quotas, will be forced to either shutdown completely or lower their budget and release games at a cheaper price.
 
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