Why are video games so expensive these days?
games · 16 comments · 750 words · Viewed ~377 times.
I was looking to buy the latest Zelda game for my wife as a present (Shhh! Don't tell her!) and it was SIXTY BLOODY QUID! For a video game!
That seems extortionate. I remember, when I were a lad, video games cost... wait? Do I remember? Or is it just rose tinted glasses?
I remember saving up my pocket-money for weeks on end, and getting an advance on my birthday money, in order to be able to buy Sonic 2 for the Megadrive. Let's check the archives... Sonic 2 cost about £40 when released.
Hmmm... forty quid in '92, plus inflation, takes us to about... £80.
I remember, a few years later, the huge fuss that was caused by Sega releasing Street Fighter II on the Megadrive. The 24Mb cartridge cost SIXTY BLOODY QUID. Oh, and the new six button controller would set you back £15.
Inflation adjusted, a £15 game controller becomes about £30 today. Which is roughly the same cost as a PlayStation controller.
Why has software become cheaper while hardware peripheral prices have stayed static?
Part of it is that games are now almost purely software. Games used to be delivered on hardware cartridges. These were costly - which led to multiple lawsuits.
Nowadays, most games are delivered over the Internet - the cost of delivering megabytes over the net is miniscule compared to shipping boxes around the world. The remainder are burned onto optical media - which are cheap to purchase and light enough to ship cheaply. Nintendo also sells games on proprietary flash cartridges - just like the olden days - but it is now much cheaper to manufacture physically smaller carts with larger amounts of data.
But lower manufacturing and distributing is offset by the labour it takes to make a game.
Zelda had a staff of 300 hundred people working on it for 4 years
Sonic took 100 people a mere 2 years.
The real reason seems to be the sheer size of the market now. On the day of release - "Sonic 2sday" - Sega sold 750,000 copies of the game in the UK alone. Lifetime sales are estimated to be around 6 million worldwide.
By contrast, two years after launch, Zelda had sold over 12 million copies. As of now, it is close to 30 million copies
And that's it, really. Yes, there are bigger teams working for longer on more complicated games, more amazing graphics, more intricate soundscapes. And I'm sure marketing budgets and executive bonuses have also ballooned. But manufacturing and distributing is now ridiculously cheap. And there are many more people willing to buy games.
That means video game prices have fallen over the years.
But price is not the only metric. We also have to consider value.
The last Zelda game offered about 50 hours of gameplay to the average user..
Sonic 2? A paltry 3 hours - although there's no "save game" functionality, so it is likely to provide entertainment for a lot longer.
Imagine going back to the 1990s and telling your younger self that the future has epic cinematic games, with an orchestral score, which you can play for months, and it costs less than Sonic! Your fragile little mind would explode.
Anyway, I thought I was grumpy with the cost of games. I now realise that I live in a time of embarrassingly cheap entertainment.
Looks like my wife will have a new game to review soon!
Alex B says:
Interesting to see the price comparison though, thanks
I remember back in the day even Sega Master System games costing £39:99.
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