This is interesting (honest)

[GhostofAnakin]

However, 20 years ago it cost me $3 US to goto a movie and it now costs me $10 US.

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Just had to sneak in a reference to one of your video game characters didn't you.

 

As for the movies thing...ugh! I remember when cheap night was actually cheap. Unless I'm getting senile, I remember paying about $1.50 to $2 for cheap night not too long ago. Now cheap night is up to about $8.50 or $9. Maybe if the theatres didn't hire so many damn pimply faced staff who just walk around and socialize, the costs for going to see a movie would be less. <_<

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Films are a lot cheaper here , than they used to be. But the still seriously overcharge for the snacks.

 

Cost

[GhostofAnakin]

Mind if I stay at your house over the weekend to watch a movie?

[Drakron]

Films are a lot cheaper here , than they used to be. But the still seriously overcharge for the snacks.

 

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Its the way the remain aflot, they dont really make much money in tickets and rely on "the snacks" to cover their losses.

 

Films today get a really fast DVD release and a lot of people no longer have the time to go to the cinema ... the last movie I watched on cinema was Matrix III.

 

I that that is the problem with Feargus comparing games to movies and music since they are completly diferent, take Cleopatra for example that almost sink Fox on release and yet it eventually made 300 millions, that is not possible in games.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Mind if I stay at your house over the weekend to watch a movie?

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With the money you spent on airfaire you could watch 100's of movies.

[GhostofAnakin]

Is that a no then?

[mkreku]

When I bought my Commodore 64 games I used to pay 99-149 SEK a piece. Nowadays I pay 339-449 SEK for a PC game. (I paid 449 SEK for NHL 2005 and then they go on a strike!! How annoying is that?!)

 

Prizes on games have gone up, while prices on computer parts have gone down. A 20 Mb harddrive for the Commodore Amiga used to cost around 10000 SEK. Now you'll get a 200 Gb harddrive for 895 SEK.

 

I don't know what all this means, but someone might be able to draw some conclusions from my numbers

[Tanuvein]

Wow, where do yo uguys live? It only cost me 4.50 to go to a new show, 2 bucks for an old one.

[Yst]

Prizes on games have gone up, while prices on computer parts have gone down. A 20 Mb harddrive for the Commodore Amiga used to cost around 10000 SEK. Now you'll get a 200 Gb harddrive for 895 SEK.

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I don't think prices on computer parts have really gone up or down much in relative terms. There has always been a high end and there has always been a low end. Sure, when a 20MB HD was a rare luxury, they were expensive, but that doesn't say anything about computer prices in general. It just says that 20MB HDs were a rare luxury. I wouldn't compare the price of adding a floppy drive to my TI 99 when the technology was new to the price of buying a floppy drive today in order to get any sense of how expensive computing technology as a whole is. Storage technology was in a very different phase. Comparing it to storage technology today doesn't make sense. Nor would comparing a 300 Baud modem from that era give any sense of peripheral prices, really. Networking technology was a very different beast at the time. It had a completely different status within the market. In fact, a middle of the road "computer" has actually continually risen in value since the 80s, I would say. An entry level "computer" in the early '80s was anywhere from $99 (e.g., TI 99 after price drops) to $500 (e.g., later Trash-80s). That price range as a practical option for a family computer isn't really there anymore, or at least isn't popular. A viable "computer" is generally $500 and up.

[Morgoth]

Full price titles cost 49,90 Euros here, which is 64.68 USD. And for an US Import I've to pay ~60 Euros, which equals with 77.622 USD. So I really don't get it when people say "Hey, when the game costs more than 50 USD, I'll pirate it!". Tsk tsk. "

The money was actually never the problem to me... I'm willing to pay a little more for a quality title if necessary, otherwise I wouldn't bother anyway. Ohh, and there's always Ebay too!

[Kaftan Barlast]

I don't know what all this means, but someone might be able to draw some conclusions from my numbers

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I feel like PC games have been at around 450 SEK for ages... but my numeric memory isnt very good.

 

 

I do remember that my 386sx 33mHz with 4mb RAM cost my father around 10000 SEK in 1993

[Oerwinde]

i remember back in the day when PC games were around 40 bucks each, then around the late 90s they were up to around 70. I was pissed. Then I found out it was because the Canadian dollar was worth 60 cents. Though it really annoyed me that as the dollar went back up, prices didn;t get any lower. Prices didn't go down to around 60 bucks until late last year. It wasactuallycheaperto buythe games in the US and just pay the exchange because it came out to 5-10 bucks cheaper that way.

 

 

 

PS: Stupid mac keyboard not recognizing spaces.

[Yst]

i remember back in the day when PC games were around 40 bucks each, then around the late 90s they were up to around 70. I was pissed. Then I found out it was because the Canadian dollar was worth 60 cents. Though it really annoyed me that as the dollar went back up, prices didn;t get any lower. Prices didn't go down to around 60 bucks until late last year. It wasactuallycheaperto buythe games in the US and just pay the exchange because it came out to 5-10 bucks cheaper that way.

 

PS: Stupid mac keyboard not recognizing spaces.

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I've lived in Canada all my life, and I don't recall store-bought major commercial PC games being typically in the $40CDN range...ever. I keep recalling the computer games of the '80s for comparison to games today because that's the most recent era in which I actually do recall the big games (for Apple II, TI 99, Commodore, etc.) frequently falling at or below that figure. But in the post-386 era? I don't think so.

 

I think perhaps one needs to differentiate "major releases" and media-rich titles of previous decades, and otherwise expensive development projects (good flight sims were always very expensive) from games which heralded back more to the development style of the previous generation and retained their pricing even into the 486 era (e.g., simple, low-price sports and action games). Sure, there were budget titles, or console ports that persisted and sold for cheap, but they're not the kind of large-scale projects that bear comparison to the major name media-rich titles of today.

[Monte Carlo]

Sorry Feargus, but comparisons between computer games and CDs or even DVDs are facile.

 

Example:

 

Imagine that in, say, 1996 I bought X-Com 2 for my PSX1 and Forty Licks by the Rolling Stones on CD.

 

Guess what? I'm still listening to Forty Licks whilst X-Com and, indeed, the console I played it on are long gone and forgotten. Ditto my Lawrence of Arabia special edition DVD versus, oooh, Fallout: Tactics? You can't compare the two because one has longevity and the other manifestly does not. A CD can be a cultural investment whereas a computer game is a mere indulgence. Yst's point about the music industry is well-made, but my ancient CD from '96 was still easily and legally transferred onto my iPod.

 

The vast majority of computer games are disposable, electonic Big Macs. Only a select, elite few have genuine longevity. So I'm sorry that production costs are booming and that the industry's business model is so broken, with second-rate and derivative products the overwhelming norm.

 

But you are all big boys and I'm sure you'll be OK.

[Yst]

The vast majority of computer games are disposable, electonic Big Macs. Only a select, elite few have genuine longevity. So I'm sorry that production costs are booming and that the industry's business model is so broken, with second-rate and derivative products the overwhelming norm.

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Electronic Big Macs, you say?

 

 

 

[Ellester]

Ahh... I just might have to break out Mame again tonight and play a game of Burgertime. These games never go out of style.

[stormcloud777]

probably costs a few million to develop a console game so i definitely feel for the game publishers.

 

its just economics.

i understand people dont want to pay 60.00 US for a game.

i also understand the publishers need to make a profit.

 

you just got to see how it plays out is all.

[Tanuvein]

Sorry Feargus, but comparisons between computer games and CDs or even DVDs are facile.

 

Example:

 

Imagine that in, say, 1996 I bought X-Com 2 for my PSX1 and Forty Licks by the Rolling Stones on CD.

 

Guess what? I'm still listening to Forty Licks whilst X-Com and, indeed, the console I played it on are long gone and forgotten. Ditto my Lawrence of Arabia special edition DVD versus, oooh, Fallout: Tactics? You can't compare the two because one has longevity and the other manifestly does not. A CD can be a cultural investment whereas a computer game is a mere indulgence. Yst's point about the music industry is well-made, but my ancient CD from '96 was still easily and legally transferred onto my iPod.

 

The vast majority of computer games are disposable, electonic Big Macs. Only a select, elite few have genuine longevity. So I'm sorry that production costs are booming and that the industry's business model is so broken, with second-rate and derivative products the overwhelming norm.

 

But you are all big boys and I'm sure you'll be OK.

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Actually, I still go back and play my old games frequently.

 

And on a scale of time spent, games tend to come out, value wise, second only to books: 50 hours for 50 bucks, as opposed to 20 bucks for 1 hour on a DVD or CD. Games are just more cost efficient.

 

Of course, a good (paperback) book can last you 20 or more hours for 5 bucks. Too bad I buy hardback ones, but they still tend to have the value efficiency of games.

[taks]

I think the price of computer games is among the few areas where capitalism and market economy actually works in reality. If games cost more, people simply wouldnt buy them.

a clear demonstration of a lack of understanding of capitalism. not a surprise.

 

capitalism works in every instance that it is implemented, failing only due to outside interference (typically government) which, by definition, makes it no longer capitalism.

 

the reason game prices have stagnated over the years is that supply has far outstripped demand. 20 years ago, games were a little cheaper, but not in inflation adjusted dollars. however, 20 years ago, the only people that had computers used them for gaming (C64 had one purpose, as did the atari 2600). today, however, the industry (publishers and developers, etc.) somehow assumed that the exponential increase in PC purchases had a one-to-one correspondence with game purchasing. they assumed everybody that has a PC wants to buy games. as a result, thousands of little upstart developers (and publishers) sprung up offering a better mousetrap.

 

as we have seen, this is not the case. most people that have a PC don't buy games. most of the better mousetraps, as well, aren't really any better, either. of course, everybody that has a console buys games, but there are literally hundreds of developers out there competing for marketshare. as a result of these things, margins have gotten slimmer and slimmer. the paradigm shift (imo) will come when publishers and developers start going to more online distribution methods, which will cut costs significantly allowing margins to creep back up. at least, i hope so...

 

in the mean time, capitalism is working as expected, with weaker companies falling by the wayside (interplay, troika). if obsidian is not careful, it will suffer the same fate.

 

taks

[stormcloud777]

even books are expensive now.

 

hardback books can run 20-40 and paperbacks at least 7-10

again the publishers are getting rammed by low sales, large volume/competitors and high prices for paper, storage.

 

used to be a paperback would be 2-3.

 

and u can bet in ten years costs will double, but hey... its called inflation.

[Darque]

Actually, I still go back and play my old games frequently.

 

And on a scale of time spent, games tend to come out, value wise, second only to books: 50 hours for 50 bucks, as opposed to 20 bucks for 1 hour on a DVD or CD.  Games are just more cost efficient.

 

Of course, a good (paperback) book can last you 20 or more hours for 5 bucks. Too bad I buy hardback ones, but they still tend to have the value efficiency of games.

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Not everyone relives the "good ol' days" though.

 

As for time spent... I put in 180 hours into a console RPG once Now that's value.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

even books are expensive now.

 

hardback books can run 20-40 and paperbacks at least 7-10

again the publishers are getting rammed by low sales, large volume/competitors and high prices for paper, storage.

 

used to be a paperback would be 2-3.

 

and u can bet in ten years costs will double, but hey... its called inflation.

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Packaging may well have been one of the things increasing the costs. Used to loath the new packaging, but no way would I be able to store 70+ old titles in a drawer.

 

In fact old titles probably take up more room in the attic than anything else in a volume per unit ratio.

 

On the subject of books I found an original "Pawn of Prophecy" priced at

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Not everyone relives the "good ol' days" though.

 

As for time spent... I put in 180 hours into a console RPG once Now that's value.

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What game would that have been ?

 

I work on a

[Kaftan Barlast]

I think the price of computer games is among the few areas where capitalism and market economy actually works in reality. If games cost more, people simply wouldnt buy them.

a clear demonstration of a lack of understanding of capitalism. not a surprise.

 

capitalism works in every instance that it is implemented, failing only due to outside interference (typically government) which, by definition, makes it no longer capitalism.

 

 

..in the mean time, capitalism is working as expected, with weaker companies falling by the wayside (interplay, troika). if obsidian is not careful, it will suffer the same fate.

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Its the regular my "real world capitalism" vs. your "theoretical/ideal capitalism" definition issue again. By my definition, the above was an example of capitalism(real world) working(with a positive effect = relatively cheap games).

 

And every system works. Capitalism works, feudalism works, theocracy works. But the fact that a system can achieve status quo for a longer period of time does not mean it has positive effects for the people forced to live within that system.

[Darque]

What game would that have been ?

 

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Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne