I remember back in the day selling 500,000 to 1 million was the goal, now they sell 4 millions and devs are like: Meh, Mario just sold 20 millions and Halo 10m.

It's happened all throughout history. If you have something that people will buy, even at a high price, they'll sell it for a high price. It's just the way it works.

People are greedy. So they give us what we want for the highest price we'll pay. Then we pay it and they ge the money they wanted to begin with.

one word : GREED

Blame it on game rentals and used game sales. They're draining the game industry financially for not sharing profits with publishers.

I remember feeling crazy for spending $50 for Battlefield 2 back in '05, especially when I was still in middle school. It was worth every penny of my school lunch though. can't say for many of the games that came afterwards that cost the same or more. Not even BF3.

They don't cost more, I remember paying $70 for Jet Force Jemini on the Nintendo 64 over a decade ago.

Because these companies are based upon the idea of infinite growth, and where infinite growth is the goal either sales must go up or the prices per sale must go up; therefore ridiculous prices like £50 per game. There's also the fact that games now have far higher development costs, although arguably with not much better value for it.

Because each generation has higher expectations for how well something works.

Comparing to ebooks? The cost of a book has remained relatively static. Sure, it increases with inflation, but no one's going to ask for a book to raise the bar over all the books that came before it.

Comparing to music? Another place where the cost to create it remains relatively static over time.

Movies are the closest thing you can get to (even there, only the big budget action movies), and I beg to differ on the price! The price of movie tickets has gone up and up-- o hai 3d imax!

Each generation, a game requires at least twice as much content, visual effects, realism (or styled, in-world consistency). Gamers expect maxing out of ever more powerful video cards, which means more to draw and more to optimize. Gamers expect maxing out of CPUs-- increase the accuracy of physics, the complexity of gameplay...

I'm happy that games are better each time, but THAT is why games cost more.

(And really, they don't even cost that much more. Look at buying power versus price now compared to the 80s! When I was a kid in the eighties, getting a game was really special, because they cost so much-- 60-80$. When I was a teen in the nineties, I remember some of the first games I bought with my own money costing about 60-70$ for my SNES and PS1. And here we are in the 2010s at 60-70$ for console games? And small experiences like the ones I had in the 80s cost 5$ now on iPhone [granted, none of the feelies from back then]. The prices of paperbacks have more than trebled in that time.)

Game prices haven't changed in over a decade. Yet development costs have risen by tens of millions. This article is pointless.

Game prices haven't gone up. I remember paying ____ for ____ on the _____. it's our perception of game prices that have changed. People seem to think that DLC is required with a purchase, which it is not, but adds to the total purchase of the title.

It's not just prices that are this way - people seem to feel this way about the length of games too. Paying 60 bucks for a 4 hour game? Ridiculous - even though it took about 3 hours to get through Resident Evil 2.:\

not on pc they don't!

you just gotta wait for those epic sexy steam deals!

Whoa, wait a minute. Didn't games cost quite a lot more money in the SNES/Genesis era?

More expensive?!
Oh, you must be playing on consoles.

I only buy games on Steam, it's like a paradise with all those sales :)

Overly priced? WTF. Alot of games use to be £44.99. Not anymore.
I remember When Mortal Kombat was £60 when that was released. And not forgetting Street Fighter 2 which was £80!! I remember when you could buy a game for £20 on the Playstation ONE Platinum range. I thought that was a miracle.

Why are games more expensive now?

That's a easy one game studios in the past were not as big as they are today, they are bigger today because systems like the PS3, 360 and PC have higher graphical capabilities than they did in the past and for studios to take advantage of this they need to hire more people maybe over a 100 "graphical designers and game designers in particular" to work on all the pixels, physics and blah blah.

Now as a result of this games are cheaper to make on the Wii due to its low graphical capabilities compared to the others, the Wii still can have a small development team, even 2 - 5 people can develop a Wii game, and this is mainly the reason why the Wii has allot of shovel-ware compared to the others, developers do take advantage of the Wii's small development cost as they still charge $60 dollars for the games like on the other systems so they gain big profits.

its called inflation, games are cheaper now than they have been if u take everything into account

Games arent expensive in America. So stop complaining. I saw Saints Row 3 for 75$ new the other day, thats expensive the game came out a while ago.

they arent actually. I remember mario brothers 3 costing $80. But i guess some games go so overboard with dlc that they actually are more expensive when you buy the entire game.
The only thing I miss is how games didnt slap us in the face with crappy stories and cutscenes every 5 minutes. They used to be fun, challenging and didnt make us wait 30 minutes to actually get playing. What a bresh of fresh air dark souls was, and the diablo 3 beta!

production costs have increased. So obviously it will be more expensive. Why would people expect games to stay the same in price as everything else increases? It's called inflation. gamers need to grow up. Most people need to make more, because the cost of living becomes more expensive.

Its fairly shocking to hear how exorbant some of the pricing was in Genesis/SNES era of gaming. Yet personally, I have NEVER seen what you guys were talking about. I was still very young then and just got into gaming but they never cost more than 40 where I lived. And I guess I didn't really become a "Gamer" until PS1 era and New games were maxed at 40-50. PS2 era ushered in at 50 bucks for a new game. Now this gen is 60 and they charge ridiculous amounts for DLC.

I can only speak from my experience but I am not used to, nore will I ever be used to paying more than 50 for a peripheral to another already expensive device. I mean honestly, 2 games these days is 120 bucks??!?!?!?! I think that is crazy as do most people. ESPECIALLY knowing they give less than half the value of games from the PS2 era. I used to be able to buy an RPG and be assured at minimum 130hrs of playtime easy, and thats not including all side missions. Now I buy mass Effect 3, can do everything in the entire game under 50hrs, and then they sell DlC for 10bucks extra for less than an hour of added gameplay. CRAZY!!!!!!

They want to know why sales of games are just simply less lucrative than ever before, because gamers decide the value of games. Not greedy share holders. No one pirates a game that costs 5bucks or less. Why? because the common consumer is not inherently thieves, they just want to get proper value for their money. Not saying console pricing needs to be like app games market, just be priced reasonably.

Greed. Simple as that really.

Why do games cost more than ever? Because they don't. Back in the days of cartridges, it was common to spend about 60 dollars for a game. Some games even set you back 70 or 80 dollars. Chrono Trigger on the SNES had an m.s.r.p. of about $79.99. If you wanted a copy of Phantasy Star IV on the Genesis, you had to shell out about 90 dollars. If you wanted a game on the Neo Geo home console, each one set you back more than a hundred dollars.

wages.. If a programmer is on 40-60 grand a year and a game takes 2 years to make.. then multiply that by maybe 50-100 people working on a game at any one time.. theres like 5-12 million pounds right there..

They aren't in fact they're not bad. Early to mid nineties 40-60 pounds in the uk. New releases today start at around 30-35 from places like amazon plus most high profile releases get discounted quite early. They are cheaper then infltion would've allowed.I'm not sure of the specifics but Is it not the same in the US? Werent snes games 60 dollars almost 20 years ago? Also from a gamers point of view there is less need to import due to more releases being made available worldwide simultaniously. There was a time that keeping ahead on the latest games meant paying heavily inflated import prices. Not any more. Like people have mentioned this article is pointless.

Because games are getting more costly to develop. It's getting to the point where you could make a hollywood blockbuster movie for cheaper.

It's good to know that people can think about things that all of us have thought about. Then write an article about it and it gets approved. Then in turn we all comment on it.

Did nobody buy carts in thes 16 bit years? I clearly remember games that were 80-90 dollars.

Until the playstation there was never really a fixed price for new games, it was on a per game basis.

It takes too long to make games now and games have way too much content, so the development costs are really high. I remember games even last gen were made within 6 months, and this is because most games had no online and the hardware was much easier to build on.

Obviously games in the gens before took just a few months to make. Games last gen could sell 250,000 and be very profitable. Most Games this gen need to reach at least 500,000 before they start turning profits, even with the game costing more.

Sony and MS need to stop concentrating on graphics when building their consoles, it's ridiculous how much emphasis they put on this.

Anyone who played games last gen will agree last gen had many more fun games in comparison to this gen (GTA, Resident Evil and sports games in general are the obvious ones). This proves graphics do not make games.

It's the economy. People don't like the higher price because :

1 It DID go lower and stayed lower for a while. I'm glad you got ripped off back in your days. A majority of modern day gamers didn't jump in till the end of N64 and beginning of PS1 days. Games were 40-50 dollars, thats what they were used to.

2 The economy. You gladly paid 5million dollars for your game back in your day? Cool, so did i. but guess what? We had jobs, gas prices were not raping us on the way there, and we had money to spend. We don't have that anymore....Sudenly that game isn't a priority until it drops to a reasonable price. Videogames are entertainment, entertainment can be cut from a budget, higher the prices go, the more likely that happens.

3 We paid higher prices, got more content. Today you pay 60 dollars for a game that lasts you maybe 5 hours unless you buy DLC and unlock codes.....

Slight price adjustments are fine, but you need to understand your audience and the economy they live in. You don't see movie companies raising prices, then tagging on extra fee's and giving us a shorter unpolished project do you? No. They raise prices, their budgets go up. Comic books know their tipping point, they go too far, sales go down, they bring the price down till people buy again.

Same issue here with video games. They go to far, people don't buy, either fix the product or adjust the price. It's common economics 101, price goes up, demand goes down.

games are cheaper now that before.

nes games in a time where people made MUCH LESS than now were $40-$50 with accessories being as high as $100

snes games were in the $40-$60 price range

n64 games were in the $50-$100 price range, yes there were a lot of games, especially wrestling that cost $80-$100.

ps1 was around $40-$50, some being higher around $60-$70

ps2/xbox was mainly $50

ps3/360 is $60

wii is $50

So, how exactly do games cost more now when everyone makes more money than they did before.

i dont see why there there so pricey....half assed,chopped up games these days.

Here is another take on this article.

I see some people on here saying that production to make these games today has gone up, leading to a $60 dollar price point. Well let me ask you guys this question. Would it make any difference if games from Sega Genesis, Saturn, and N64, maintain the cost of $70 to $100, instead of lowering down to the standard price of $50 dollars? No!!! They would still maintain those prices for the next generation of games if they wanted to, because they are too greedy. How comes other forms of entertainment like movies could cost just as much to develop, but cost so little to watch like $8 dollars(mantee), $10(night time), and $13 dollars (3D)? Movies could have the same amount of people making it as much as the amount of people designing a game. DVD and Blu Ray still cost $20 to $30 dollars even with special features like extra scenes(movie version of DLC). Not even used DVD movies have hurt the movie industry!!!!! Not even used cars have hurt the auto industry!!!! The only problem with the movie industry they claim is the piracy, but privacy lead to more people actually watching movies in theaters. There is even a great solution to helping the movie industry in general. What they need to do is send those theaters out of business and make websites to watch upcoming movies with a attractive lower price point, and I guarantee you that there will be little to no piracy. for the game industry they need to just lower the prices, which would lead to less piracy and less people buying used games. Even if people pirate games, then why can't many developers create a game mechanic that prevents hackers from reaching far into the game? Some developers like Rocksteady games and Croteam do this. I am hoping Kickstarter will actually cause lower game prices, cause people are putting their hard earn cash into these projects, so wouldn't it be fair to lower down the prices?

Games are definitely not the most expensive they have ever been. You may not remember paying 60+ dollars for games in the 90's but i sure do. Factoring in inflation games are probably cheaper than they have ever been.
These companies need to make money and with the cost of development rising with each new generation companies need to sell more and more copies to turn a profit.
Also if you do not like paying full price, wait a week and almost all games go on sale for 10-20 dollars less brand new.

Dunno what it's like in the US but Sony exclusives are often between $20-$40 dollars cheaper than multiplatform titles here in Australia.

Tell me again how the multiplatform strategy was supposed to fix everything. Look at your results and compare them to Nintendo, which keeps thriving with exclusives. Your loyal fans are gone. And let’s not forget the pile of IPs you purchased only to let them rot.

The worst thing is this is down from last years numbers/expectations which was down from the previous years numbers/expectations. You think about how long “down” has been a consistent part of the communication and you realize those subscriptions are what’s holding that boat together. The price cut of gamespass is still a price raise in a string of price raises. They are trying to use players to offset the missing revenue. Now call of duty is out of gamespass, which is literally WHY they bought the company. To draw people to the subscription. They realized they missed a boatload of money and that wasn’t sustainable. Now you pay for it like you would have if they never bought the company… so why buy the company? Mind you those billions still need to be paid back. Yeah it gives you a chance to say we make the biggest FPS… but the internal conversations must be brutal at high level on topics that really matter. Like revenue. Profitability. And ROI for the shopping spree.

Is this like the 10th quarter in a row they're down 33% on hardware how is that even mathematically possible. You would think their mediocrity would Plateau