Viewing Thread:
"Why all gamers are skint"

I don't know enough about the FairPlay campaign and all that to write a topic about how overpriced games are. We all know that it's ridiculous, that games could easily be sold for £20 and there's still be profits made but no, we're expected to pay twice as much etc. etc. but the price structure of gaming does not end with the actual software, and when you think about it, it's actually pretty bloomin' expensive.

Today I did a paper round with my friend Joe, far_too_empty on these boards (or torticollis, I don't know, he changes his name a lot). Seven odd quid in the bag, which will probably be going towards Tribes 2 on a budget range. Rather than explore the avenue of £10 titles (but I will later, promise!) I'd like to tell you what we did before actually getting round to delivering the papers. We played on our consoles. I brought round my PS2, he got out his Gamecube and with a widescreen telly we had quite a lot of fun. During one-player games, one of us played and the other either watched, or sat underneath the nearby lamp and played on the Game Boy Advance. So, to summarize: one Gamecube, one Playstation 2, one Game Boy Advance. At a guess, that's around £600 worth of stuff (going on the prices when they were bought). Walk into your local electronics shop, and you can get a pretty spiffy hi-fi for around £100. They'll play your tapes, your CDs and even let you listen to the radio. What does a poxy console do?

I bought my PS2 soon after launch, and Joe didn't hang around too long for his GC and GBA. My GBA:SP will be on its way brand new from Play; £85 and it doesn't even have a headphone jack! I remember way back in November of 2001, when I brought my PS2 back from Electronics Boutique (now called GAME, and full of people wearing purple shirts). I was all psyched up to play Tekken Tag, only to find out that my television didn't have the relevant socket, nor the console have the right lead! One return bus ticket and a £10 adapter later I was doing backflips and kung-fu kicks...so instantly, there was £10 added on to the £300 for the new console. And £40 for the game. £25 for a new controller. £20 for a memory card. See what I'm getting at?

And that's just what you need for a PS2. What about poor XBOX owners? With a great game like Halo, it's a neccessity to have four joypads to fill in those controller ports. Say £25 a pop for the official deal, and that's £75 on top of the basic console and controller package. Of course, nowadays you can get bundles and deals every which way you look - there's the cheap as chips XBOX deal which also gives you four great games. Gamecube are following the trend they've set since the SNES days with pack-ins including games such as Mario and Zelda. But we're still not talking peanuts here, we're talking a few hundred pounds.

I know that the media likes to tell us that the average gamer is in his mid-twenties. I've used that particular stat in a few posts over my stay here on UKchatforums...but the majority of us on here are in our mid to late teens. We don't have that sort of money to throw around. We rely on birthdays, Christmas presents, saving up our pocket money and allowance. Maybe even a job. It's just not fair, I tell you, just not fair!

The PS2 has its Platinum range where you can get great games like GT3 for twenty pounds. Microsoft is doing the same, with a Platinum Hits series set to kick off within the next few months. Should we be suprised that they're putting off including Halo in their line-up? If a game can sell at full price, then it will. Now that everybody that wants it HAS Max Payne or Tony Hawk's 3, it can go for a reduced price...but people are still willing to fork out for GTA3, so why give them a better deal? This seems to be the infuriatingly logical business plan games companies use, and it's the reason that we're all so skint.

Now, I promised you a paragraph on even cheaper games, so here we are. Now I'm not one to pirate games using the likes of Kazaa. Well, not if I can't find what I'm looking for, anyway. My friends have recently been raving about the ancient jet-pac-inspired team FPS Tribes 2. Well, I downloaded the demo and discovered that it really does deserve the crown of 'buggiest, heavily patched game EVER' and so decided that it's the real deal, or nothing. Well, thanks to the enticing pricetag there'll soon be a Tribes 2 CD in my computer, and £10 in a cash till somewhere. Seeing as I've just done a paper round, it's really only costing me £3, and who's going to turn down an online tour de force for £3?

Don't be afraid, guys. If your game is only £10, I won't think any less of you. You'll be a better developer for it. I hear that WWE:Crush Hour will be released at a cut price, and funnily enough, I'm considering buying it. I never bothered with Twisted Metal Black but car combat sounds fun, and it's not like I'd be losing £40 anyway. So that'd be two instances of me buying a game because it's cheap, right? It's an incentive, not a deterrent.

Well, I must go. Off to play some more PES2...but I can't score a good goal, because then I'll want to save it, and then I'll have filled up my second 8mb memory card, and...ARGH!

Thanks for reading, your thoughts are appreciated.

I don't know enough about the FairPlay campaign and all that to write a topic about how overpriced games are. We all know that it's ridiculous, that games could easily be sold for £20 and there's still be profits made but no, we're expected to pay twice as much etc. etc. but the price structure of gaming does not end with the actual software, and when you think about it, it's actually pretty bloomin' expensive.

Today I did a paper round with my friend Joe, far_too_empty on these boards (or torticollis, I don't know, he changes his name a lot). Seven odd quid in the bag, which will probably be going towards Tribes 2 on a budget range. Rather than explore the avenue of £10 titles (but I will later, promise!) I'd like to tell you what we did before actually getting round to delivering the papers. We played on our consoles. I brought round my PS2, he got out his Gamecube and with a widescreen telly we had quite a lot of fun. During one-player games, one of us played and the other either watched, or sat underneath the nearby lamp and played on the Game Boy Advance. So, to summarize: one Gamecube, one Playstation 2, one Game Boy Advance. At a guess, that's around £600 worth of stuff (going on the prices when they were bought). Walk into your local electronics shop, and you can get a pretty spiffy hi-fi for around £100. They'll play your tapes, your CDs and even let you listen to the radio. What does a poxy console do?

I bought my PS2 soon after launch, and Joe didn't hang around too long for his GC and GBA. My GBA:SP will be on its way brand new from Play; £85 and it doesn't even have a headphone jack! I remember way back in November of 2001, when I brought my PS2 back from Electronics Boutique (now called GAME, and full of people wearing purple shirts). I was all psyched up to play Tekken Tag, only to find out that my television didn't have the relevant socket, nor the console have the right lead! One return bus ticket and a £10 adapter later I was doing backflips and kung-fu kicks...so instantly, there was £10 added on to the £300 for the new console. And £40 for the game. £25 for a new controller. £20 for a memory card. See what I'm getting at?

And that's just what you need for a PS2. What about poor XBOX owners? With a great game like Halo, it's a neccessity to have four joypads to fill in those controller ports. Say £25 a pop for the official deal, and that's £75 on top of the basic console and controller package. Of course, nowadays you can get bundles and deals every which way you look - there's the cheap as chips XBOX deal which also gives you four great games. Gamecube are following the trend they've set since the SNES days with pack-ins including games such as Mario and Zelda. But we're still not talking peanuts here, we're talking a few hundred pounds.

I know that the media likes to tell us that the average gamer is in his mid-twenties. I've used that particular stat in a few posts over my stay here on UKchatforums...but the majority of us on here are in our mid to late teens. We don't have that sort of money to throw around. We rely on birthdays, Christmas presents, saving up our pocket money and allowance. Maybe even a job. It's just not fair, I tell you, just not fair!

The PS2 has its Platinum range where you can get great games like GT3 for twenty pounds. Microsoft is doing the same, with a Platinum Hits series set to kick off within the next few months. Should we be suprised that they're putting off including Halo in their line-up? If a game can sell at full price, then it will. Now that everybody that wants it HAS Max Payne or Tony Hawk's 3, it can go for a reduced price...but people are still willing to fork out for GTA3, so why give them a better deal? This seems to be the infuriatingly logical business plan games companies use, and it's the reason that we're all so skint.

Now, I promised you a paragraph on even cheaper games, so here we are. Now I'm not one to pirate games using the likes of Kazaa. Well, not if I can't find what I'm looking for, anyway. My friends have recently been raving about the ancient jet-pac-inspired team FPS Tribes 2. Well, I downloaded the demo and discovered that it really does deserve the crown of 'buggiest, heavily patched game EVER' and so decided that it's the real deal, or nothing. Well, thanks to the enticing pricetag there'll soon be a Tribes 2 CD in my computer, and £10 in a cash till somewhere. Seeing as I've just done a paper round, it's really only costing me £3, and who's going to turn down an online tour de force for £3?

Don't be afraid, guys. If your game is only £10, I won't think any less of you. You'll be a better developer for it. I hear that WWE:Crush Hour will be released at a cut price, and funnily enough, I'm considering buying it. I never bothered with Twisted Metal Black but car combat sounds fun, and it's not like I'd be losing £40 anyway. So that'd be two instances of me buying a game because it's cheap, right? It's an incentive, not a deterrent.

Well, I must go. Off to play some more PES2...but I can't score a good goal, because then I'll want to save it, and then I'll have filled up my second 8mb memory card, and...ARGH!

Thanks for reading, your thoughts are appreciated.

But if you were making games for a few quid, and people were buying them at £40 each, you'd suck out everything that you could. But yeah good topic. But if you put yourself in their position. You could sell games for £40, or £20 and get nearly the same takers. So you'd sell them at £40 right?

Yes you would, you money hungry living person. Like everything else that breathes :op

And you know it.

I think £30 is a much more reasonable cap to the pricing scheme than the £45 it seems to be at now at most high street stores. In fact, I've seen XBox games recently for just under fifty quid, and that's not even new releases.

i agree that it is rediculous, i bought splinter cell from eplay about 2 weeks after it was released for £27 when next door in game they were selling it for 34.99 . i try to shop around and stuff, i bought freelancer recently for 23.99 second hand because no way am i shifting 34 quid for the game. sure it may be worth it, but as El Blokey said, they'd still make a killing if they selled all games for round about 25 quid.
but yet again as GasMask said they'd keep the prices high if they still get the same abount of buyers as they would if the games were cheap...
well my post didnt really establish anything but i felt like showing my support...meh... :D
good post.

Heh! Everything is about money.

i kinda understood that original post until the ending where it kinda went stale and i hadnt a clue what the jiffy cake anyone?

it's these new consoles that come out. what use is a 150 quid console without a few 40 quid games?

i am not skint ive got £94.

i hear all these church-goer people saying that love of money is bad. surely the wealth wouldn't hurt?

generally i get put off games that are too cheap. if i was to choose a game outright, it'd be around the 30 quid range around about.