I've always thought it was pretty ridiculous that the retail and digital versions of a game would cost the same amount.

I don't, so long as it's released on the same day. They're the same games and both methods have their merit. What I don't like is that digital versions take so long to go down in price once they're set. You'd think that they'd lower all the retail game downloads a year after they come out, but they don't. Not on the PS3 at least. They just Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition up on PSN for close to full price - that game came out well over a year ago. Regular Super Street Fighter IV's price wasn't adjusted, either.

How much do you all value video games? An average game's single player campaign is what, ten hours? $5 or $6 per hour of entertainment seems reasonable to me whether I download it or buy a physical copy.

You should open up a new thread on that topic. Seriously.

There will always be people in the world that want the latest stuff but can't afford it,whether this be games, tech ,whatever .They will either trade /sell their old stuff or wait for the inevitable price drop.
Trust me ,90% of consumers do not pull things off the shelf and wonder where the money is going. If it's cheap they'll buy it, if they can get it cheaper,again, they probably will, it's how we are programmed . What the people in the know are saying is that we should support the developers and while this ideological thinking is nice and true (well, to a certain extent anyway) it just ain't gonna happen in a capitalist society. We want it now and we want it cheap!! All I know is that while the tools exist to make video games then we will have video games of one sort or another. Too many creative, talented people love them and will continue to make them in some form. I'll just go with the flow.
Besides I always thought that something's worth is only what people are prepared to pay for it so...ya know....

At £30, I'm willing to take chances on titles; more than that and I'd only plump for things I was more certain about, so I'd have skipped The Last Story and Pandora's Tower, for example (which I should have done anyway).

Whether or not the download price is cheaper is irrelevant to me. Downloads have two appeals: convenience and disaster recovery: I can just download the game again rather than having to buy a new copy in the event my system has a fault or there's a fire or whatever.

The discussion on game production costs is interesting because people do tend to equate films and games, not realising that films are better able to recoup costs because they have a much wider audience and a larger sale window (theatrical release and then home video). There is a point to be made that you can potentially sell more copies at a lower price and make more money, but it is a risk for the publisher if they end up selling the same number of copies regardless of a lower initial price - they cannot very well then raise the price, can they? I suppose they could try offering a pre-order discount for online purchases to gauge interest.

Anyway, it is an interesting conversation that probably does deserve a more general thread.

I think what could be done is to bring the cost of development down. For example the off the shelf engines nowadays are very good, use these saving on the cost of developing their own. Releasing the multi-player and single player parts as two separate entity's. And finally ..make shorter games!! Call me mad but I find too many games are padded out and full of fluff nowadays, lets cut the c**p. Give us short but sweet masterpieces with some replayability at £20-30 pound a pop and I will try em all, full price (Enslaved was a great game imo because of these points). Of course there is a place for epic's like Skyrim etc but I would also like to be able to finish some games through to the end once in a while..maybe it's just my lack of time but I'm sure there are others in the same boat.

There is a point to be made that you can potentially sell more copies at a lower price and make more money

Economists would tell you that's a very bad idea. The number of copies that need to be sold to scale to the price reduction make it a losing battle.

The healthy way to go about it is to sell fewer copies at a higher price. Raise a game by $10 and sell 10 per cent fewer copies, and you're going to be doing better than selling 10 per cent more copies of a game at $10 less price.

As for the discussion about digital download prices: someone want to explain to me why consumers think the savings in terms of production and logistics should be passed on to them? The way I see it digital downloads should be as expensive as retail games because then the developer and publisher would be making a fair margin.

@Oldboy

I'm sure if they made tutorials simpler and shorter, they might save some money (and hatemail).

This is such a hard concept for people to understand.

And this is an idea we can all understand and agree with.

Joe about reinvesting I. Digital. Microsoft has had a killer lineip this year and most of it is modestly budgested but very retail like production value games like Alan Wake American nightmare, Joy ride turbo, and bloodforge while still having the cool arcade titles like mark of ninja, deadlight,, crimson dragon, and super time force.

Nintendo has done this o. The 3ds side with titles like pushmo, rolling western, samurai samurai as well as exclusives like mighty switch force and mutant Kurds.

Because there's always going to be people that prefer owning a tangible product and won't consider buying a digital copy of the game without some financial incentive. As to how much of the savings should be passed onto the consumer is up to debate but charging the same amount for a digital copy isn't the best way to get people to hop on the DL bandwagon.

This is my favorite thread.

I'm not saying these things shouldn't be questioned I'm just saying that us paying such a huge premium should also be questioned. If the game industries are struggling so much then why don't they increase the prices internationally? Surely if they raised the price even by pennies in the US they'd more than make up for huge price drops here given how ridiculously small a market we are. All you've done in your long rant is explain why the US price should be as it is... you've given zero reasons why Australia should pay more.

I highly doubt that an inquiry into media prices is going to get them many votes. To people like us an inquiry into game prices means nothing when they're the ones building a FTTH network. You can put 1000 coats of cynical over this but that doesn't change the fact that if they haven't won us with freeking lasers down glass tubes they aren't going to win us over with trinkets. Story for another day obviously but if you want to complain about populism don't ignore the guy on the other side wearing the shirt that says "I'm totally not DLP I swear" when talking about the dry populist BS of the gov'.

Explain to me why Americans should pay $40 less than we do here. It's the same argument isn't it? If you want to say that it's about the developers and publishers having a "fair margin" then surely the price should be $99US RRP everywhere if it's going to be sold at about that cost in Australia via digital distribution. After all the healthy way to go about it is to sell fewer copies at a higher price, right?

In other not-adding-to-the-conversation news, seeing the name "ChocoGoldfish" quoted in all of these deep discussions is slightly amusing.

Explain to me why Americans should pay $40 less than we do here. It's the same argument isn't it? If you want to say that it's about the developers and publishers having a "fair margin" then surely the price should be $99US RRP everywhere if it's going to be sold at about that cost in Australia via digital distribution. After all the healthy way to go about it is to sell fewer copies at a higher price, right?

I'm not sure where I said that Americans shouldn't be paying more for games.

If there's to be price parity, I would want to see the prices in the US go up, not those in Australia go down. I believe that the people in the US pay economically unsustainable prices for this industry.

So now we're talking about the government? How utterly amusing. Go ahead, this might actually amount to something.

I'm not sure I get it. Are you saying people will actually buy at $99 per game? It doesn't matter what people SHOULD be paying to sustain the industry, it just won't happen in a place like the US. People will always want things cheap, they don't care if it'll hurt the industry.
They fact that games have to/should be priced at a price most people won't pay, isn't a good place for any industry to be in.

People will always want things cheap, they don't care if it'll hurt the industry.

Sounds like the perfect customer.

Here's a hypothetical: it would be better for the industry if it lose 30-40 per cent of its overall customer base to become a premium form of entertainment and the leftover 60-70 per cent happy to spend a little more to support it.

I know you didn't say that and I could see that you do want Americans to pay more for games. What I can't understand, and what you haven't given a good reason for, is why the prices in the US and Australia should be so different. That's my gripe here.

They're cutting out the retailer and a lot of the grey market by going partially digital, is that not enough?