~ Inflation?
~ Higher Production cost... Game Engines alone can cost millions
~ More people are in the industry , which means more money that has to go around
~ Greed?

Their not on PC, Steam FTW

Console has to pay the extra for licensing fees , and make back what they lose on the console sale via overpriced software.

Plus everything else mentioned in the story above.

The End

Games should not go any higher than $60. When that happens then I bet there will be even more people getting used games.

For what goes into them it's not that expensive, but it shouldn't be any higher next gen. Video games are a form of entertainment that shouldn't turn into a higher form of luxury. Games need to stay at a mainstream price, 60 is okay just not anything more than that. Otherwise I'll just start buying used games.

Games cost LESS now than 15 years ago. In 2011 dollars that old copy of Streets of Rage you bought for 64.99 (which was actual retail for that cart on Sega GEnesis) now costs just under $96 USD.

Games used to cost $50-65 USD retail back in the early 90's and they still cost that much. Keeping the retail price the same through 15-20 years of inflation would equate to LOWER prices.

If you know where to look games are realy cheap these days. But if you buy only in retail stores or at Steam it can easy be realy expencive.

Worst thing you can do is to buy a game at Gamestop etc...

I usaly pay 1/3 for games if I can wait 1-2 months. New games that I cant wait for you can get for 2/3 of the price if you know where to look.

Bottom line is if you love games you should also use the time to know where to buy and where not to....

Anyone with clever ways that they get newer games cheap or ideas for gamers to get games at a serious discount (legal please) shoot me a PM. interesting concept for a new article.

cuz nowa days game development cost more money than before and with today's competition publishers need to spend more money on marketing to try to guarantee good sales that will cover development costs+profit, that's why they lean to shooters cuz proved to be a safe bet, that why i think the game industry grew too fast and the main thing i'm afraid of is that gaming star is shining twice as bright but will last half as long.

because there expensive to make

Those who keep asking for the next gen will have to accept the game price will go up because of Art & Design and Programming. They made of 45%. So get ready for $80-100 per game for the next gen. Plus more contents will be moved to DLCs.

One area that needs to be cut is Marketing. Spending tons of money on marketing on well known games like Halo, Gears of War, Uncharted, Killzone, etc are just to make the fans happy but those are the consumers that are ready to buy the games anyway.

Reduce the Marketing and use the funds for Art & Design and Programming where it really matters to the game quality. If not, the total cost of the game will continue to go up.

The price of the game will eventually reached the point where gamers just can't afford to buy as many and that will kill the overall sales anyway.

This chart has a lot of stuff slightly wrong, although the general idea is accurate.

Retail takes around $20, not $12. Also, packaging costs are mostly due to printed manuals, not discs, unless its a multi-disc set, and a nonstandard case for said discs.

The "45%" for programming and development is only typically true on games which have new, in-house engines. Those costs get much cheaper with sequels, and middleware engines (like Unreal or CryEngine)... or at least the programming costs do. Marketing costs vary widely -- sometimes they are nearly 50% (on games like CoD).

Lots of inaccuracies, like I said (the biggest being retail, which takes WAY more than 20%), but decent picture overall.

I'm an oddity given my geo situation , but i actually used to pay more for games . Around here (small carribean island with heavy delivery taxes and Eu's "gift" the VAT), with current exchange in mind , games cost 120$ on ps3-360 . Snes game were actually around 150-160$ ... and same goes for the ps1 era .

Of course even then i'd mostly just import games cheaper from the us or uk . And this time around , with again currency exchange rates in mind , i actually pay less than probably most us citizens . My previous purchase was Infamous 2 and Catherine at 42-45$ each .

lol @ an Americans complaining about game prices please stop you're killing me here.

Signed:

The rest of the world.

maybe its because its it cost a shit lot to make the games

PS3 uses bluray disc they have an excuse to cost $60

360 games should be the same price as last gen.

Games are really not that much more expensive than they were over a decade ago.

Yeah, there's been a LITTLE bit of price increase in the last 20 years, but c'mon. Back in the old days, a game would be thrown together by maybe 10 developers and a couple of artists. These days, hundreds of people are involved, plus they must pay to license existing game engines and toolkits so they don't actually have to do everything from scratch.

Anyone who denies that it costs WAAAAAAAY more to develop a mainstream game these days is on crack.

I'd even argue that games with smaller dev teams like those back in the old days (e.g. indie games) are CHEAPER than they were in the past. Look at a game like Limbo. It has every bit as much content as the sidescrollers back in the day, but it's under $20, where as a game like Limbo would have been $40-50 in past generations.

Younger gamers don't appreciate how good we have it these days. "Gimme gimme gimme".

Whats the piechart look like when I buy the games out of the bargain bin for $14.99?

the need to stop working about the Print on the game then lol...save me some money...but i really dont care spending 60dollors on anygame i mostly buy collectors ED anyways

more expensive because sony and MS need a cut. Therefore defeating the point of trying to save money by buying a console instead of a PC.

Because the rent is too damn high.