Here we are, sitting around with all of these gaming consoles and video games scattered all over the room. How much money have we spent on these video games? Have you ever just sat back and thought about that? There is a lot of money to be made when you are a developer in the video game industry, but the game has to be a hit.
With the rise of 4k playback and games that include a virtual reality experience, at some point we are going to see video game prices go up. Right now, you can buy a video game (depending on the console) for around $50-$60. That does not seem all that bad when you think about what you are getting in return. Quality entertainment costs consumers money all the time and now that you can download extra video game content these days, that entertainment value increases.
Are the video game prices about to go up? It is hard to say, but with the new Microsoft XBOX and the PlayStation video game consoles on the market, there is a lot going on with games that certainly would warrant a price increase. Just like with any product, the interested consumer is the one that will set the price they are willing to pay. According to some sources online, video game prices should be expected to rise with the popularity of 4k, virtual reality and online content.
Video game developers are working long and hard days to keep the gamer interested in their content. In order to develop and publish this great content, the company behind a game has to put some money into it. Games like Call of Duty and Skyrim are just a couple of examples of games that really take you to another world and have grown in popularity over the last 10 years. Those studios have the right idea and that is when you spend money on development, the odds are good you will be getting most of that back. However, there seems to be a few gaming sites like potsofgold.com popping up to offer players options of playing and winning money.
If your video game reaches a viral like status around the world, you will really see the sales flow in. All that means is the video gamers out there enjoy the game and you should be working on a sequel for them to play once they conquer it. Personally, I feel that video games have been overpriced for some time now. In most cases, you are paying for a video game that is created with a few hours of fun in mind and the rest is online content.
You are getting less bang for your buck and the video game developers do not seem to care. They just assume that you will get through the game quickly, get hooked on your way through and spend a lot of money trying to get the content you will be able to download from the internet. Accessories that is where the money is, always. Get that special gaming package and you might even get a new poster to put up on your wall.
There is a lot of talk that the Xbox One can play 4k content, but what consumers need to understand is that there is more to the 4k content than just plugging in your Xbox and turning on the television. Is 4k playback necessary? Of course not, you are still going to be able to shoot people in 1080p and you won’t even notice the resolution difference. But when you see the 4k content, you are going to wonder how they packaged that awesome-ness into a gaming console and didn’t charge you $1,000 for it.
In the end, you can run away from more expensive games all you want, but that is not going to help keep the prices down. There are plenty of people buying video games all over the world, so publishers know what they CAN charge. As soon as one company decides the price should go up, they will and the rest of the video game publishers will follow.
I do expect them to raise as the technology advances.
I sure hope the prices don’t go super high. I would understand the prices changing for more high-tech games though.
I’d expect the video game business to be more like the “razor and blades business model”, where one component is sold cheap and the other component is sold high (in other words, sell consoles to consumers for a cheap price, but make the games expensive), but it’s not exactly like that, because both consoles and games have gone up. I think part of the reason is that there are increasing technological advances and also an increasing demand for silicon chips, but it doesn’t make sense for some things. For instance, you might find a re-release of a childhood game and the download copy costs $60, probably costing a lot more than that original game, so that part doesn’t make much sense at all since you’d be better off purchasing the original game, so I think there are other reasons as well. Perhaps game publishers want to create a buffer in the case of external factors (like inflation of the economy, lawsuits over video game products or consoles, defects, etc.). There’s a lot behind closed doors that we really don’t know when it comes to pricing, and there are definitely reasons beyond “technological advances” for increased prices of games.