I think the problem I have is a big chunk of the games that are priced at $10 (on XBLA at least) aren't quality titles I'll get hours and hours of enjoyment from.

err sorry i meant $90 not $105..

I like how these developers think I can just throw $10 away left and right. The simple fact is there are $10 games that are not worth $10 to me, period, and PSN offers no demos most of the time with which to make a decision on.

A new $10 indie game pops up almost every day on Steam, if I bought them all I would be broke and probably play 1 out of every 10.

That said, he is right in that if you buy a game for $10, it's good, and then complain about the price you are probably one hell of a cheapskate, and piracy is NEVER justified by the price of the game (or anything else really).

@Harris

The point I was making is that when you purchase a $10 or $15 game, you expect a lesser quality product, or maybe less hours of enjoyment than a $60 game.

I was further comparing a $10 and $15 game and noting there was little difference in quality, and certainly, not enough of a difference to warrant a 50% price hike.

As long as the game is good, and the company is trustworthy, I'll put money down on their games.

It's why I support Atlus and Q Games over Activision and Ubisoft. :D

"The great part about that is I find myself in this exact group of habitual complainers from time to time. What's wrong with us?" Jordan Devore

Specifically to this point, the reason we find ourselves in this position is that we bought games that were HORRID for 10-15 dollars that we could've used said money to buy a plethora of other more useful/entertaining things.

Off of the top of my head I don't have an example of the bad buys that could be wrought, however think of this, if Noby Noby Boy was $15 or even $10 and you were told by the internet at large that it was a really fun game, and not told that it was instead a sandbox to play in and fool around, you'd be rather put out that you just spent that money.

On the flipside, there are games out there like Castle Crashers (On Xbox Live) or Super Stardust HD (On PSN) that for $15 seem like they are value priced right out of the gate!

People naturally think logarithmically. That means you assess things based more on percentages than actual objective numbers. Yes, $10 might be an hour's worth of work more or less, but compared to $5 it's double. Double is crazy. And $15? Ouch. We're talking triple. You want triple what I can buy an NES title for. Also, there are plenty of PS2 Greatest Hits that retail for $20. We're talking full 20 hour games here. $1/hour. And even worse is that you can find certain titles on amazon for $5. $5 full 20 hour game versus $10 5 hour game.
Consumers are unfortunately unconcerned with what the development budgets are for new titles. They look at everything that exists before it, how much that costs, and compare.

The dilemma is that the value of a video game, like a CD or a movie, is entirely perceived. There is no intrinsic value to the disc, nor is there to the information. If games exist that undermine entirely justifiable price points for the development budget of new titles, new titles will fail.
Sadly, due to Nintendo's insistence on not dropping the price of their games, I feel as a consumer more apt to buy their products. Yes, I'm spending more money, but the perceived value of the game doesn't decrease. This will be $50 new for the next three years at least and likely keep a decently high value after the system is gone. Greatest Hits collections and the usual "drop the game's cost by 50% after it's first year in retail" undermine the industry as a whole.
Downloadable games fortunately tend to remain the same price (at least on WiiWare/VC). While they don't fall into the price drop trap often, they are entirely inconvenienced by the retail portion of the industry which drastically skews their perceived value.

So that's why we bitch. We want something new, but we don't think in absolute values, we evaluate cost versus time rather than cost versus enjoyability, and downloadable titles have to compete with everything that exists, some of which cost a cent. Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec, I'm looking at you.

Again, the price point is based entirely on the quality of the product. There are plenty of games I would be very happy paying 10$ for (I would have gladly paid 20$ for Pixeljunk Shooter and Pixeljunk Eden. Maybe more). There are some games (Raycatcher being the example I remember best because the guy(s) over at indiegames.com got really pissed about it) which go for 20$ and are not 20$ worth of content.

Gamers will generally pay what the market will bear. If a really awesome game is released for 15$ instead of 10$ (cough Braid cough), gamers *will* buy it. No question. We will go for the quality experiences. The problem developers seem to be having is realizing that we don't judge their games based off of how many hours they put into them, or how much work they took (which is their quantifiable amount), but rather on the quality of the title as best we can ascertain from demos and videos and reviews. Which is very hard to quantify into a dollar and cent amount.

@Lucas

if you think ita ll depends on gameplay, then plz explain why VVVVV is having a tough time in the sales dept. ?

It's the Internet, it's a community of people who get together and bitch about stuff. Has been that way for a long time and it'll always be that way.

Well, lemmie add to it.

It's hard, its 8-bit, and it came outta know where, with nothing behind it.

I'm surprised anyone knows about the thing, much less gives a shit.

I've bought too many £5 games that I've played for an hour or two and got bored of to buy a £10 game without thinking twice....

err sry last comment was @ daxel in regards to VVVVVVV

I downloaded Warhawk at $30 after already purchasing it on disc. I'm pretty sure that gives me an extra special "consumer whore" title that most gamers will never even knows exists. Now to go download Burnout....

Now hurry the hell up on the next episode of Pixeljunk Shooter!!!

@ Daxel,

"For me, it was controls. One, keyboard doesn't do platforming well. At all. "

Use a controller then. PC's are cool like that.

"Demon's Souls doesn't look to be worth it either, nothing remotely interesting except how hard it is."

Seems like you haven't really looked into it very much. You are definitely missing out on a great game. I don't really consider the hardness of the game as any sort of positive or negative factor.. it's just a small part of a greater whole.

I enjoyed Shooter, a lot actually, but I also found it relatively short. I got it for free.

One of the greatest things about the XBLA or the PSN is that EVERY SINGLE Arcade game has a demo. That is a good thing that Sony needs to adopt right fucking now.

A gallon of milk lasts my girlfriend and I about two weeks...

People are just cheap. NES titles often cost $50 for less content than most XBLA games, and without a demo to try first. Since then, prices of comic books have gone up over 300 percent, movie prices have tripled yet you can get a new release game for $10 more than most NES games were. I always laugh when people complain about high game costs.

Yeah, as someone who plays portable games primarily on an iPod touch, I don't understand it either. A $10 iPhone game is kinda expensive—kinda.

A $10 XBLA, PSN or PC indie game is completely reasonable. $15-$20 for a lengthier or more polished experience is reasonable. Games would likely be far more popular if they were $30 or less, which is why I look forward to the impending all-downloadable future. Not only will games be cheaper to buy, renting them, digitally, will probably be cheaper as well.

I remember paying $90 of my own god damned middle school money on Donkey Kong Country. I remember SNES games costing upwards of $100. I just wish games were priced on perceived value and not a common standard. Bayonetta was worth the $60 I paid for it on day one, other games arent, yet everything from bullshit to AAA titles are set at that price.

To be fair, it does cost money to sustain the ability to make games. With indie developers, that is important as they are small and probably struggling. Know it's true that if you overprice games then they are not worth the price but I understand where he is coming from. People complain about something yet they never do anything once something is changed. They complain about price yet they don't buy it when it's lower. If you can buy it at the present time then fine, but to trash it for it's price is counter productive and hurtful to the sales of the game.

$10 is outside of the range of an impulse purchase, at least for me. The demo (there had BETTER be one) needs to be pretty damn good for me to drop the cash, and a $15 game requires a demo that is an order of magnitude better. The PixelJunk games don't usually have demos, so there's no reason I'm going to randomly drop $10 on a game that I haven't seen. The $15 price point is particularly bad since I can easily dig out good games (that aren't even a year old!) from the bargain bin for that price or less. Seriously, would I rather spend my $15 on Matt Hazard: Blood Bath And Beyond, or on F.E.AR. 2?

Sometimes this bites me in the ass. Aquaria's demo was nice but I wasn't sure about spending $30 on it. When I eventually did buy it (when it hit steam for $17ish), I actually regretted waiting - the game is so huge and good that I would have had no problem spending the full $30.

Still, though, I'm selfish and I'd rather miss out on the occasional good game or not pay the amount that I feel I should, than spend $10 (or $15!) on a game that turns out to be garbage.

@lvclix Exactly.

Part of the problem is that because of PSN, Live, WiiWare, Steam, we actually have more games of a higher standard. It's odd when a really bad game hits, pushed usually by a big publisher.

So when we complain, we're not complaining about $10 (a fantastic price), we're complaining about "another" $10. How many play-worthy $10 are released every month? As many as 3 or 4? That's a lot to ask from somebody.

Don't drop the price, gamers need to either learn to live without, or man up and pay up!

Some gamers are such cunts. They've gotten so used to pirating whatever they can pirate whenever they can pirate that they'll automatically piss and moan when they actually have to pay for ANY piece of downloadable content. This is the same reason that the music scene has been worse for wear. People claim to love this or that indie band or underground act, but refuse to stick the fucking crowbars into their pockets to give the poor sods $8-10 for their albums. Instead, they'll shamelessly bittorrent the fucking thing and spend the $8 on fast food, alcohol, or weed. They'll steal games and albums for years on end just so they can save up to buy their girlfriend a $4,000 engagement ring.

I've noticed that people seem to always to suspend their cheapness when it comes to buying shit like Modern Warfare II or lining up to get a Wii on the first day it comes out. Must be the same weak-willed bullshit that makes people rush into buying new iPhones and crap before they actually need the shit. Being a supporter of retro games, I've told gamers I know that they should really check out downloadable games like Mega Man 9 and R-Type Dimensions, as well as any of the countless retro compilations that came out for the PS2. All too often, those are the times when I'll hear bullshit about how little money they have to spend on games or they'll ask something like "can't I just get that on an emulator." Assholes.

As a gamer who's been on a tight gaming budget for almost a decade (since I spend lots on music equipment and books), I can't quite keep up the prices of the newest consoles and so-called triple-A things, but $10-15 for a game, download-only or not, is still a very fair deal.