News - Videogame prices set to rocket this Christmas - £54.99 anyone?

[Saracen]

Xbox 360 games are already RRP £49.99, this is a mere £5 price increase on that figure. The main article and a lot of the comments are misleading comparing the £54.99 that Activision are talking about to the 'standard retail price' of £39.99, it won't be like that at all. I'm thinking we can still expect the lowest launch price to be something down the lines of £37.99, which seems pretty reasonable to me.

I can't remember the last time I paid anything like £37.99 for a game, let alone more.

It's a wonderful bit of timing, innit? Worldwide recession, money short, unemployment heading for the stratosphere so what do they do .... jack up prices.

I'm not an avid gamer, but I can't think of a single game I'd pay anything like £40 for. Instead, I'll wait a while, and sometimes it's no more than a few months, and pick it up for less than half of that.

To those of you paying £35 or more for a game, be aware (if you aren't already) that you're not paying top price for the game, you're paying top price to play (or own, at least) it on release. Me .... I'll wait a few months and either buy twice as many games, or save myself a flippin' fortune.

In my personal opinion, top prices for games is, excuse the pun, a mug's game, () but it's all about personal choice. For me, it ain't worth it. If it is for you, well, have fun with those pricey games.

So, I suppose, the reported prices rises don't affect me, because it won't change what I'll pay. If I can't get a game at a price I'm prepared to pay, I simply won't buy it, and I'm not increasing my target price

[Salazaar]

This is the reason I joined up with a Love Film derivative. £13/month gets me as many games and DVDs as I can eat, two at a time.

[danroyle]

did we not hear a similar story when the ps3 came out they were gonna charge £80 for games like MGS4 that never happened.

the cod games have always been more expensive than others cod4 was £45 and held a high price for a long while.

as long as we have sites like play amazon etc we will get disounts anyway

[macphee70]

High prices of games will probably just drive more poeple to the wii, its part of the reason I bought one.

[dudds23]

Crazy!! I payed £44.99 for inFamous because i liked it but would never pay that OR over that again.
As we all know games are like cars, as soon as you buy them you lose £20 instantly then the price falls each month its out!

If they charge that much for a game then at least they can do is realease a demo for people to try.

[GheeTsar]

Just a quick question to start with - I preordered COD: MW2 with gamestation but I haven't paid yet. If I were to order from game or play from the net I would only have to pay the price at the time of ordering but how much will I end up paying? Thanks

Not sure how Game or Play operate, but Amazon sell it to you at the cheaper of either the price you pre-ordered it at or the final price. You can't really lose.

[Hicks12]

thats why i love pc games, cost £15-£25 generally(cod4 is an exception) and so you dont really lose much money, i buy alot of pc games on release but hardly any 360 games but i try to if they are really good multiplayer because one of my mates always buys games from the store straight away(he gets to much from parents!) so he spends like £40 as retail price is that in game and he tells me if its good or not lol.

As long as pc games dont go up in price im happy, especially when it will rule out the argument of the cost of a pc as the hardware is getting cheaper more effcient and reliable(compared to RROD!) and now the games would have even more of a lead on price so it would actually be cheaper .

[kalniel]

Its been said already, but wont this lead to higher levels in piracy.

Nope.

They want to stop piracy then they need to be reducing the price of games

Again nope - that hasn't worked at all. The price of games has reduced massively over the years (especially in real terms), yet piracy is higher than ever. But for more discussion see the dedicated thread about it

As gamers we shouldnt be forced to pay that kind of money for a new title that has a high profile. It would be like charging twice as much for a cinema ticket for say the new Harry Potter movie regardless of how good or bad it is, charge x amount just because of the name.

I would really hope you've never been forced to pay any kind of money - gaming is a luxury and should be purely optional. If you don't feel a game is worth the price then just don't play it

[Terbinator]

Havent Amazon and Game already confirmed there going to sell it for £45, ShopTo is the cheapest at £42.99.

Edit: I paid £50 for CoD4, was it worth it? Hell Yeah !!!

[watercooled]

Don't forget with console games (360 at least) you pay a premium because consoles are sold at a loss - the games make the profit. Also you don't end up with DRM, copy protection or any of the associated malware when you get a console game and you can pass it on when you're done with it.
I'd have to disagree about higher prices not resulting in piracy - I'm sure there are plenty of people at the limit on how much they pay on games and would start pirating with a price increase. Also, you say the price of games has reduced massively??? I don't remember PS2 games costing anywhere NEAR as much as current console games do - now you get 2 per £100!!

[dshepsman]

the last time i payed £50 (or was it £55???) for a game was super street fighter II on the SNES.

no way would i pay more than £30 for a pc or ps3 game.
ok, i payed £40 for rock band 2, but that was a one off.
good thing i dont have that much time to play anymore, so my games last even longer...

[pollaxe]

Sod that.. mind you, given my noobness and general lack of overall ability I'll probably still be trying to master Arma2 when MW2 comes out so I won't need to buy it til it's cheaper..

[GheeTsar]

I remember when the N64 came out the games were £60 each. Ouch.

[beanbandit]

Also, you say the price of games has reduced massively??? I don't remember PS2 games costing anywhere NEAR as much as current console games do - now you get 2 per £100!!

Pricing for games has been pretty static with each new generation. PS1/Saturn games were about £40-45 with prices then dropping to around £25-£30 towards the end of its life cycle (not taking into account the Platinum range) The same thing happened with the PS2/Xbox £40-£50. Real term pricing hasn't changed much, what has changed is the cost of making these games. The increase in manpower has to be recovered, production, shipping and to some point they have to factor in the pirating scum bags.

What people have to consider is that this is just one game publisher who is increasing its RRP. On a title that they know people will flock to buy. If enough people actually voted with their wallet and decided to hold off this would send a message to Activision Blizzard that they have something wrong. But alas people won't, they will rush out to buy it, be it the normal version or the I Have More Money Than Sense (cheapo crapo night vision goggles anyone £120) version.

Also consider that no one is being forced to buy this or any other games. Its your own choice.......

[watercooled]

Sorry if I was incorrect about PS2 game pricing - it was a while back
But yes, now you come to mention it they were around 40ish brand new.

[david@scan]

I still remember the controversy when the average game cost rose from £7.99 to £9.99