We watch heroes (in hd), 30 rock, a bunch of old action movies, let's see, Leverage is cool, ... I may actually have a better time showing you my instant queue (I wonder if I can get at everything we've ever watched instantly). Are you only looking at HD stuff? There isn't that much of that. There is definitely more old stuff, but plenty of old sci-fi I hadn't seen (and by old I mean something like pre-2005, not AGES old). Did you browse the Starz Play section? They have more blockbuster type movies there, although I generally like tv shows, documentaries, etc.

not to my knowledge... my copies both came in regular boxes like every other LEC game of the time

i know eidos used the trapezoidal boxes for alot of their games at one point

I'm also in accordance that PSPGo will fail and I hope it will. Digital distribution will always have a place, but I do hope it won't become the dominant form of media. Right now, I like the mix we have of indie games being downloadable, while big releases are on disc form. The big problem with digital distribution is having a fast Internet connection and bandwidth limits. Here in the dorms, the bandwidth limit is 4 GB so you're much more limited with what you can do. I had to go to used the school's unstable wireless to download Assassin's Creed from Direct2Drive, which was nearly 6 GB.

I'd love it if that were the case - they'd have to limit a certain number of transactions per game/timeframe, though, or people would just kick games back and forth for free forever.

I really hate how piracy has driven up the price of video games, and m
now a crap load of security mechanisms are put in place, that more often than not are buggy and do not give you the best performance on a PC.

The whole concept of not releasing video games on the PC to avoid piracy is incredibly flawed. More people own consoles than PC's powerful enough to run a game like Gears of War 2, and believe me, the great majority of people in this country who own an x box, have it rigged so they can play any pirate game.
For 50 pesos (3.70 dollars) you can get 3 games. Also they don't care about X-Box live, they're fine with 4 players.

Sponsors for large gaming events/lans have clauses about mod-chips/pirated games.

Inflation. The word you're looking for is inflation.

"The whole concept of releasing video games in countries where people can't afford $60 a game is flawed."

I believe (key word, as I have no source and this is my impression from reading here and there) the net earnings on games that aren't triple-A titles or lower risk sequels have declined along with the increasing costs of development, which may partly be explained with piracy. If this is correct, it would likely play a substantial role in the increasing price of new releases. Then again if you look back at game prices in the 90s, we had much more expensive games, at least on the systems I mostly played on (Nintendo). There was a time when 100 euros (which when converted to Finnish Marks would naturally have also been worth more back then than now) for a new game was not unheard of.

The game industry is booming right now, with about 10% annual compounded growth in total revenues industry-wide. Here are the real issues, as I see them:

- Prices don't drop as quickly as they used to, even though demand is just as elastic.
- Prices are industry standard, irrespective of either demand or perceived value. Price fixing makes piracy inevitable.
- [Voluntary] increases in development cost do not take the increased abundance of alternatives into consideration.

'Piracy' is just a buzzword the entertainment industry uses to get policy written in their favor. The real culprit here is incompetence on the part of game publishers.

Not adjusted for inflation, PC titles are, at worst, roughly equal or lower in price now than 10-15 years ago. Adjusted for inflation they are easily less expensive. I'm sure there are some exceptions but I can remember new releases priced at $50-65 twelve years ago. Console games, not factoring in inflation, might seem a little pricier but the only "substantial" increase was $10 for the current generation. Other than that, new release console games have been $50+ forever. I generally never pay the premium for a new release game anyway.

Revenues would be higher if they lowered prices.

$60? Ok that's expenisve. $80, theres a hell of a lot of games that cost that (especially for the xbox 360/ps3 and wii). Thats bat **** insane. Let alone some games have preorders of 120 dollars.

I can go to the beach for 3 days 2 nights, for 95 dollars. (which I might add I'm doing this weekend).

I remeber the days when $40 dollars for a pc game was "normal".

Nothing you ever post is more than superficially relevant to the discussion.

I haven't seen any games I want that cost $80, except for "special" editions, and there's usually an edition that's $60.

I too remember $40 games. I remember thinking that games would become cheaper to make as time went on, and eventually we would have $30 and $20 games! Was I ever wrong. Everyone switches to discs which are cheaper to print all right, but prices shot up!

Which is sort of still understandable since games have gotten more complex and need more work put into them to shine.

MZZT, it's because he lives in Mexico. Electronics are universally overpriced throughout Latin America because their governments (and by extension their people) are corrupt and stupid and don't understand the most basic things about economics. Taxes and levies are high on basically any imported good and companies are often forced to hand out huge bribes just to get them on store shelves in the first place.

Like in Brazil: the Xbox 360 is $1,400 US. Over $1000 US of that is tax. There's an honest-to-god black market for a cheap consumer electronic device.

Interesting facts, gives me a new perspective on this.

Well, the problem resides in the fact that black markets, are the markets in latin countries. So no one give's a ****. If the government cracks down on them, then they'll give a ****, and the the government will have to start doing things right.

In my opinion, the current process of digitally distributed video games has a lot of room for improvement before I adopt it in favor of physical copies. However, I believe this leap should be taken by the rental industry. Think netflix's watch insantly function, but for video games. You would be given a time-leased digital copy of the game and after that time expires, the game is erased.

No, because those are caused by the reasons that joncy listed.

and 5 minutes before the service launches someone already has tools available to crack the games

Yeah. This is what I was thinking. Software 'time limits' are easy to bypass.

I've only paid more than $50 for ANY GAME EVER once in my life. GTAIV, because I love the series so much, I bought it on release night. Aside from that, I always wait until they drop to the $30-$40 range. Which is usually 2-4 weeks time on Amazon.

i paid more than $50 for a few... and they are the games i usually end up playing the least

paid full price for resistance because i needed something for my PS3 when i bought it (the excitement over buying a PS3 and disappointment that they didn't have any copies of uncharted at that wal-mart turned me temporarily stupid) i've played it to some point with the first conversion center you go through and a bit of the MP

paid full price for uncharted didn't even really start playing it until after the trophy patch...i'm not far past the bit with the u-boat

paid full price for GTA4... played a few missions, played some MP... haven't touched it in months

Resistance was really fun with Co-op. Or maybe its just because every time those little crawlers appeared I would scream "****ing PRAWNS!!! **** off!!!" This was shortly after District 9 came out.

I semi-enjoyed the first part of resistance but just as it started to pick up I ran out of time to play it. I need to make some time to finish it up.

The last time I have paid $50 for a game was Metroid Prime Trilogy because I'm a such a fan of the series. Not to mention I got a neat shirt and poster included. Before that, it was the Orange Box. Besides those two games, I honestly can't remember paying full price for games in the last years. Things like Steam and used game stores allow me the wait it out for deals.

I got Left 4 Dead when it was on sale for $24. If I paid full price for that game, I would have kicked myself in the balls. Patience is indeed a virtue because if I paid $60 for new releases all the time, I probably be (more of) a jaded, grumpy gamer.

I also paid for the trilogy, but I don't really see that as 'one game'...
I didn't get a shirt though...

Orange Box was £20 new over here :s

To a certain extent lower prices generate greater revenue based on more sales generated. Just like lower taxes are proven to generate greater revenue. There is always going to be a point where that is not the case. With regards to games, though, I really don't believe the people that pirate games are going to be so inclined to stop just because the game is more "reasonably" priced.

Also, it is kind of funny that many people want the ability to play the game without the disc but now that the industry is beginning to cater to that desire people don't like it because they don't have the disc. I do believe that digital distributions should be deeply discounted compared to the physical release. I'll just keep buying my games used or on sale. Picked up Ninja Gaiden II in a pawn shop yesterday, the limited edition of Halo Wars a couple months ago on Amazon ($36ish) and I'm going to get Riddick and Wolverine on eBay probably. I do have the Sith Force Unleashed on preorder from Amazon, though, but that one is kind of cheap anyway. Oh, I also need to look for Halo 3 ODST somewhere...

yes demand is elastic, that's what i said

I've spent the most on Fallout 3. I was at work during the Hungarian release (got an SMS from the store that they now have it in stock), and asked a colleague who was on his way to get it for me. This was the PC version. I've later bought an X-Box 360 version as a present to a friend of mine. And now I'm considering buying the Game of the Year edition that includes all 5 DLCs.

I used to be opposed to buying things digitally, for the same reasons as most - I like owning the physical copy and the freedom to sell if i want. But I've recently changed my opinion, quite completely.

My reason is that I've moved house 5 times in 5 years and each time I have more and more crap to lug around. This is normally because if I buy a DVD, Book or CD, I have no intention of selling it, so the amount of stuff I have is constantly increasing. My collection of media easily makes up the bulk of the weight and size of my stuff and quite frankly I'm fed up with it, and I'm not even what you'd call a big purchaser of these things.

The second an ebook reader comes out with full colour (for graphic novels), decent battery life and a decent distribution system, I'm going to buy it and sell all my physical books. I'm hoping we're only one or two console generations from an entirely digital distribution platform, and I've already stopped buying CDs and DVDs.

While I do like having the boxes and a real manual instead of a PDF for games, or the jewel case for music, many times I'll still look for no-CD patches, and the games I still need the disc for are separated from the box and go into a holder. I've bought games from GoG and Steam, and for me Steam is only a minor nuisance to play non-Valve games.

Music CDs and DVDs are put into a CD wallet and the cases stored with my game boxes, and even then the music itself is copied to my computer and then to my mp3 player. I don't use iTunes, so almost all of my music still comes from physical purchases.

I don't know if the transition is bad, but it's definitely not slowing down.

Expanding on Detty's point - Iz and I have lived in our new house for 18 months now and we still just have a single big cardboard box with all our old CDs in. Both of us just listen to music via streaming from either her Mini or my MBP through my Xbox 360, or via an iPod plugged directly into the sound system.

The box of CDs is getting perilously close to being shoved up in the loft never to be seen again. In fact sod it, that's what I'll do this weekend. I'll catalogue the box of CDs so we know what's in there, then shove it up in the loft. We need to redecorate for the baby anyway, so space saved = win.

It's different with digital music (at least the songs I own) because you can get them without DRM at all. Plus, they're not locked into one specific program (like games in steam) and they can't be remotely deactivated. And I don't have to "activate" them in the first place.

I hate digital downloads. I absolutely prefer having physical copies of my games. Most of the games I buy I want to keep so I can play them again later.

I'm kind of mixed on the issue. I like the ability to re-sell games, but any other media is staying forever so digital copies are fine. Better, actually since space is a big issue for me. On the other hand, I have sold many games that I wish I had kept so maybe digital copies would keep me from doing stupid things like that. *shrug*

Almost every game I purchase now comes from Steam.

Hey dildos, if you don't want your PC games to cost over 50 bucks, stop pirating them and causing developers to lose money. That way we will care about releasing the PC version!

Sincerely,
Annoyed game developer

that was mostly in response to those complaining about the costs of buying the game if they are being forced to buy it for themselves. not trying to derail!

*looks at row of game boxes*

STFU.