The Weekend Debate: The Price is Right?

The playstation HD collections most certainly do. But these overly hyped games like Call of Duty, are way over priced. I’d pay £15 for some of the games I have brought. But really it depends on how much you can pay for a game.

I’d say some games are good value for example the most recent Zombie map pack for Black Ops and Section 8: Predudice. Some are poor value such as Sonic Episode 4. No where near enough gameplay in Sonic. CANT WAIT for Sonic Generations though

I have always wondered why the digital version of a game is much more expensive then the “normal”/store version of the exact same game?

It should be the other way around. No production cost for the disc, box, manual, shipment, etc.

it depends on the type of game if its final fantasy,fallout,elder scrolls then your bound to get moneys worth out of them, where as games like vanquish you can beat in less than 4 hours which if bought new would be paying £10 an hour to play the game isn’t that worth of money but saying that, i spent £49.99 on the uncharted 2 collectors edition 2 years ago and i still play it to this day i’ve beaten the story probably 10-15 times and played over 500 hours on the multi player and i most definitely have gotten my moneys worth from an awesome game

I think it depends on the person, and the game.
Take the upcoming releases over the next couple of months.
£40 for Batman, probably something like 30 hours of game. that’s a good number in my opinion.
But, £45-50 for Modern warfare 3? I don’t play CoD Multiplayer, so no it’s not. 4-5 hours of game for that price is extortionate in my opinion, but many will disagree as they will still be paying the multi-player until this time next year.
But I’ll be doing the same with Battlefield 3. £40 for a game I will lose weeks of my life to. What other form of entertainment can you have for £1 a day?
But as I say, it’s subjective.
It depends on the person and the game.
for me, there are rare gems that make it worth it, but the majority of games simply are not worth the money we pay

Go to your local store and you’ll find some bargains.

Digital titles take the biscuit though. Who in their right mind buys games like Red Faction for £57.99

If this is the future, and im thinking of the VITA specifically here, then we are all doomed. I refuse to pay that much for a videogame

Games cost the equivalent of £60 here in Norway (Yes, that’s just a conversion, so it doesn’t take in account economy and stuff) and sure, everyone would wish for cheaper stuff, but the way I see it you probably have between 8-20 hours of entertainment on average, on rare occasion up to 70, maybe hundreds of hours. To me, that’s worth it.

There are lots of other things I could waste my money on, without them giving me what video games have given me for so many years, so the choice is easy really.

In my opinion, it all depends on the content of the game. If it has an extensive multiplayer component that I can put hours into, then it’s well worth the money. If it’s predominantly single player, I’m not so sure.

Hence why I don’t buy many single player only games.

Of course it does, but only because I plan what to buy and when to do it. There are many titles that simply want to squeeze the last from its franchise (like so many Star Wars games) or simply want to go with the current trends…

There certainly are some must-buy titles, that will be considered as classics from day one – be it because of their epic tale or addictive multiplayer. But why should I pay a full price for an 8-hour single player campaign with no new gameplay mechanics and a boring multiplayer? A good plot you say? Well then, I’ll wait till the game gets cheaper and with the money saved I can buy another game. Or a book. Or so many fun things.

is gaming value for money?

TL;DR answer – absolutely.

I bought Persona 3 Portable from the PSN store last month for a little under £25 quid and have got 90 hours out of it so far and the finish isnt even in site yet.

That works out so far to 27p per hour of content. To get 90 hours of movies at the cinema i’d have to watch 60 movies which would work out to a spend of £330 (approximating that movies take 90 minutes and cost £5.50 a ticket).

that’s just a single, unbelievably brilliant RPG, if you think how many other titles are out there for less (some of them even free like DCUO) that offer hours upon hours of content for next to nothing. Gaming is the pass time on the rise for a reason and that’s because it gives more value than a movie, TV series or book could ever produce.

have a great weekend guys

Yes, a high percentage of them. But sometimes they tell that you’ll enjoy for more than 60 hours and instead of that you suffer a stupid game for more than 60 hours, and of course you have paid 40£ or more to play the same game that the previous year. I won’t give any name but everyone could say a few of them.

I wish ‘new’ games were £29.99 I would buy every game i wanted day 1 then. £44.99 is just to much i think :-/ £34.99 is ok but still sounds to high to me
+ I try & get PS3 exclusives day 1 to. I really want ‘Uncharted 3′ + ‘R&C:All 4 one’ day 1 (but if they are over £40 then i can’t yet)

I think it does if the price is right and suits your tastes. I got Dark Souls and for me I’m getting tremendous value out of it and haven’t advanced much, but I’m playing it a lot and having fun doing it, for someone else it’s probably not worth it.

What I do is to get information for a game and decide if I should buy it full price on launch day or if I wait a month or two for a price drop before I buy it, or even if I wait for the desert of games (also called summer) and buy those games in a bargain that I didn’t feel confident paying a lot for it.

On the PSN though, I usually only buy those games I really want to play now, Plus does a great job of suplying me with the others

Of course! in my opinion gaming is the best form of any entertainment, for many reason, such as the longevity how long a game will last! for example, I have spent over 100 hours on Oblivion simply because there is so much exploration and personal feel to it.

Other reasons include the choice of a social experience when playing multiplayer with friends or choosing to enrol in a solo adventure. Gaming as a media is the most varied and versatile type out there in terms of how the user can experience the game.

So, I guess the real debate question is…’Is money good value for gaming?!’

It all depends on if you make your choices wisely and buy games that you know for certain that you will enjoy and don’t fall for the hype that many developers incite. It is also a good idea to buy games that have high amounts of re-playability such as the fallout series. although sometimes it’s best to wait for a while to wait for prices to fall.

Well gaming is good value for me as I do not pay for most of my games. No, I do not steal them, my dad gets promotional copies and I get to play them. I do however buy games, like FFXIII, for £25 for a play time of at least 50 hours that’s £1 for 2 hours of gaming, now that is value for money. I do think however dlc is maybe not value for money, I put £10 into my psn wallet which had Deus ex human revolutions name on it. I thought I had enough put I’m wondering if I should get. I mean £10 for 5 hours gameplay is not great, that is £2 an hour. No good value compared to FFXIII. But still, should I get it?

Shopping around always helps, there are so many different places to buy games nowadays, internet stores, auction sites, super-markets, PlayStation Store and high-street game shops, and if you don’t mind waiting a little longer for your game you can buy a pre-owned copy. Good value can be found with anything if you look hard enough.

There are a lot of variables to take into account here, like the cost of the game, the amount of play you get out of the game and also the amount of enjoyment the game gives you over the time you play it.

Most of the games in my collection were great value for money, as I try to buy games I can put a lot of hours into, and if I know a game isn’t going to be very long I wait for it to drop in price or go into a sale and get it a bit cheaper so it’s more worth my hard-earned.

For me it has always been a case of hit and miss, i already paid a lot of money for some games that I played around 5hrs… so not good. But in others cases, especially recently with the PSN Store, I’ve been buying really fun, addictive games for a very low price, NBA Jam On fire being the last one. What I have learn is to research, read reviews and know what I like (always look for demos), it’s not easy but it’s worth it. The best value for money that i got was Braid for 2.50€ (best deal of the year!), but on the other end, I bought Rogue Galaxy from level 5 for 70€ (PS2) on the release day, and it was awesome! some 100hrs of gameplay and one of the best games I’ve played so far… So, I think the games are a fair price if you going to enjoy them.

That all depends on the game I buy. Yakuza 4 for instance is a game I’ve put around 100 hours in to, so that’s very good value for money. Yet the first Uncharted, that took me 5 hours to complete on hard, so that isn’t good value, which is why I returned to get my £40 back. But as a whole I would never question the amount of money I’ve put in to gaming, because I’ve had years of fun and great experiences. Especially when some people can spend twice what I do, on cigarettes and drink.

I only rent

Depends on the content available.

When Heavenly Sword was first released I paid full price, which was £50 back then! I was annoyed to say the least when I completed the game, & only clocked in just over 5hrs worth of gameplay Yes the production values & the gameplay were varied & great, but £50 for 5hrs!!!!

The likes of COD & Battlefield are good value imo, as they have an extensive multiplayer package. Games like Fallout, StreetFighter, Oblivion, Final Fantasy & RAGE (although Rage is roughly 15-20hrs, the gameplay you receive is far superior to alot of games on the market at the moment!) offer a huge amount of gameplay & alot of bang for your buck!

So it depends on what genre & what effort & story etc is put into a game, for me to think it’s worthy of my hard earned cash

Let me keep this brief:

Games which are long and difficult (Oblivion and ME2 spring to mind) are fantastic value for money because if you divide the amount you paid for it (£9.99 for ME2 in my case) by hours paid then you will end up with a ridiculous amount of around 10p per hour. That is fantastic value, and that doesn’t even include a second playthrough.

However, licensed-based games, games which depend on MP for ‘value’ and those games which deliberately are shipped without DLC in them are not good value for money. License because they will be developed in a few months and won’t be very good quality – you are likely to sell it on within days. MP ‘value’ because if you have a poor community then you won’t get value if the SP is poor. And DLC because it doesn’t seem right to take away content from a game and then charge for those features. In the olden days (circa 2006) you would get a full game. Today it is like asking someone to pay you £1,000 to fit an exhaust onto a car they just bought because it is an ‘extra’.

I just want to add.

If game releases were stuck at £30, then the games would sell alot more & we could do away with online passes & unlock keys!

I still think £40 is alot of money for a game, when I can purchase a digital title that may not have the level of polish of some games out there, but for £7.99, I get hours upon hours of gameplay!

Kind Regards

I prefer digital games to physical ones, as my discs always seem to get lost/scratched/stolen by badger/spontaneously combust/hidden by wife/broken.

If they were priced well I would always go for this option, but often they are 2x even 3x more expensive then my local retailer! I feel a price point of around £25-£30 on launch would be a good price, around 2.5 times the price of a film.

I’d like to leave you with this however:

If you want to know the value of money, go and try to borrow some.
- Benjamin Franklin

Gaming is Value for money, especially because you get more for your buck.
A cinema ticket is around £9 where I live and a film only lasts 2 hours or so
A game can be from £10 secondhand or £40 new which can be enjoyed from 4 hours to hundreds of hours. Long live gaming.

i dont have much money. so i cant go out and buy a game for 70 bucks, which in this situation of course feels way overpriced.

so i have to wait about a year or so for special priced editions – like game of the year editions or platinum editions. those rock of course, quality games for low prices.

so if you can wait, yea, gaming is good value for money. always depends on the games but i only had 1 or 2 games that really sucked. if you cant wait, well, it’s your decision to pay that much money for something that you know will drop in price soon. not the game companys fault

also – some games would be worth more than those 70 bucks cuz they are just so much greater than other 70-buck-games. i couldnt afford good games like uncharted 3 any more then tho

I feel stupid, I meant DEx HR dlc in my post,the missing link, not the actual game, no way it would be £10!

I think it really depends on the game. In the current economic climate I am far more picky about what games I buy. I rent games that I am not sure about and will then buy them if I really enjoy the game and want to spend more time on it.

The Uncharted games are day one purchases and the same with Arkham City and Skyrim.

I do tend to wait for a couple of months after release to buy some games now as they tend to be discounted at that point. £24.99 is the sweet price for me at which I will impulse purchase any game.

I believe that most games give good value for money because of the in depth gameplay and graphics. For example the fallout games where you can explore areas in search for good loot. Also the infamous games give so much to do because you play through it twice to get the best out of the game. Then you have the trophies to collect which can take hours to get the last one and get the platinum. At the moment I’ve picked up demon souls again and already done 30 hours and probably half way. The best £20 I spent on a collectors edition! However there are some ridiculously expensive games like call of duty which in my opinion are very similar to each other and the dlc is so expensive you could by a game which is far better – like prototype. Also the games on the ps store are so ridiculously overpriced (FIFA 12 £54.99). Why would something that doesn’t need to be packaged cost nearly twice the price than on amazon or play.com. Overall I believe if you wait a couple of months after the game has been released you get the best deals and more than your money’s worth!

in my oppinion it depends . I mean here in Romania where I live the average cost of a game is around 60 euro when the average salary is around somewhere at 300 -400 euros so from this point of view it’s not worth it! But the games I really look forward I save up money months ahead and usually buy them but here’s the thing , some live up to my expectation and some don’t so it really is a matter of 50 50 chance that a game is worth it! So yeah it all depends on the game and the producers to make it worth! So with that said pleeeaaasee give me the code cuz I’m poor :p ! Just kidding hope the best opinion wins ! Cya next week and in a few weeks on battlefield 3 cuz that stupid kz3 seems to be glitched and nobody is doing nothing in that matter!

Well it all depends on how much you are going to play the game in question and the amount of content on the game. This is where a lot of games i have played have fallen short because they have just concentrated on graphics and the content has been lacking. I dont want to spend £40 – £50 and a brand new game and then complete it in 10 hours. Games like oblivion/fallout are completely worth the money for gametime.

On the flip side PS plus is exceptional value for money imo and second hand gaming can bag some real bargains.

I personally think that digital downloads are 9 times out of ten overpriced and prices should be brought down to be more in line with hard copies.

Either way if there is a game you really want. The human body can survive for 14 days without food =)

One man’s chalk is another man’s cheese but to me the essence of value for money can be summed up as..

Re-playability.

If i buy a game play it once and then it sits on the shelf for months until being traded in that is a waste.
I want my purchase to enthrall me, captivate me and ultimately pull me back for more time and again.

That then is value for money in my eyes.

Hardware as it is generally well supported is excellent value, My ps3 is the centre of my home life. My psp on my travels was a saviour on those long bus rides around Oz.

Gaming wise. It depends on the price you pay for the game. Movie tie ins are generally short so therefore poor value.
Stand alone games (a personal favourite Alpha Protocol has had a TON of replays) can be excellent value.
Franchise games are generally great value such as Assassins Creed or Arkham City (bring it on), but there are always exceptions.
With things being harsh for money at the moment, I think devs are realising that they need to incorporate value to get the sell as people are being more choosy on their day 1 purchases.

DLC is a variable. A COD map pack is very expensive and therefore unless you are a hardcore player poor value. Red Dead has shown excellent value, by mixing free with paid for to gain extra revenue, but at the same time reward the fans. (undead nightmare was phenomenal value)
The upcoming Arkham DLC seems a bit pricey, but for the major fans who will use it a lot it will be good value.
So DLC is down to both the gamer to get their monies worth and the devs to put in the effort to justify to extra expenditure.

i think its all down to replay value, for example if i paid £100 for say final fantasy 7, (which is over triple what i actually paid for it) a game that i have clocked over 500 hours on easily in the past 10 years, then thats definately good value. But if i pay £40-50 on say vanquish (which was still a good game in its own right) and clock a grand total of 8 hours after playing it through twice and never touching it again, then thats when my wallet starts to cry a little.

Gaming these days for me is highly focused around multi-player and replay value, if its got the stuff that keeps me coming back for more on a regular basis then what i paid for it is unimportant compared to the hours of enjoyment its given me

Depends I got Uncharted 2 for £10 + £5 of dlc and I’ve logged well over 50 hours so yes its easily good value for money unless you buy a dud *cough brink cough* where you play it for an hour or 2 hen give up and its all down the drain. Also shopping around helps as you can get up to £15 off. Good price DLC helps.

Part 2: Iphone/Android apps etc can be as you can get hours out of Plant vs Zombies for £2.99 but some are pure rubbish so I say console gaming works out cheaper. Also demos and trials are a good way for cheap(free) gaming and if you like it then you know ou won’t waste your money.

For the most part, I’d say yes. I’m not the greatest gamer in the world, so rarely able to “rush” through a game, but even then just because a game is “short” doesn’t mean it’s poor value.

Take something like Ico, often considred a very short game. Yes, it can be completed quickly, think back orignally on the PS2 I finished a first playthough in around 8 hours, but as most of us know it can be finished MUCH quicker. Would I consider it poor value? No, since the enjoyment I got from playing it greatly outweighed any sense of it being “short”, and I’ve played it several times through since then….most recently in shiny HD on the PS3.

Am I going to get as much “play” from something like Ico compared to Dark Souls? Hell no…. I’ll likely be struggling through it for many months. Yet I give equal value to Ico/SotC Classics HD that I finished a first runthrough of in a few days. Why? Simple answer – enjoyment.

That’s what matters to me. Length has it’s place in games, and allways will. But enjoyment is king.

Personally I think so – I’ve invested over 879 hours in White Knight Chronicles 2 – a game that cost me £36.85 and I still haven’t hit GR30 (GR28 at the moment) that is value for money

However some recent releases I really shouldn’t have bothered – sequels in particular (Dead Rising 2 :Off the Record) I am definetly looking at you – even as a budget release I feel ripped off – didn’t I buy this game last year with a different skin on the character and 1 less area to kill zombies in? this is not value at all

Fortunately I live around the corner from a chain video store that sells used games – some in the 4 for £20 category – while not being the newest games – I can pick up anywhere from 6-8 games for the price of 1 new one – and as I play primarily single player games the need for some multiplayer ticket for use on games is irrelevant – so yes gaming is extremely good value for money i just need to stop pre-ordering some hookey releases

I’ve been gaming since the NES i remember buying super mario 2 £45!!
More expensive than any ps3 title on the Market!
If the game is rubbish eg… Mario 2.
Then no.
But battlefield bad company 2. I just completed my 400th hour on multiplayer. Epic campaign and add ons. Value for money?? Damn straight!
So to conclude. It really depends on the title.

I like the way new games are priced TBH. £40 for a new game is good even if you dont like you’d get about £25 for trade. But i have to say most of the cheap PSN games are more fun than a full priced disc game. I buy just about everything in the PS store and spent hrs and hrs playing them. Think i’ve spent at lest £400 in store.

I’m of the opinion that playing videogames is not an expensive hobby (at least it isn’t now that we have multiple platforms and ways to get our games) if you know what you are purchasing. Back then we was limited to our local games shop but in this time and age, with internet at our disposal, it’s easy to find competitive prices for the games we want, not to mention that our own console let us purchase games directly thanks to the Store where there are plenty of nice deals. So, choosing a good game, one that you know for sure you are going to enjoy, which isn’t hard at all cos there are tons of great games out there at ridiculous prices, is the decisive factor to make sure you aren’t wasting your money.
I’d like to comment a couple of aspects many people mentioned in their posts, the online features and the hundred of hours spent playing some games. I think neither of those are reasons enough per se to consider a game worth our money. I’ll continue in the next post.

Online modes can be cool if it’s not an artificial addendum only included to hide faulty solo campaigns, but it’s not that every single game needs it. A good example would be Batman Arkham Asylum, the fact that it includes no online mode is no obstacle to consider it a fantastic game worth everyone’s money.
And finally, games need to be accessible for everyone, it’s kinda scary when a game requires dozens of hours to play and explore it, not every one has all that free time to devote it to a single game. I agree that short games can be disappointing, but I still consider that the key here is the overall quality of the product, a game that can be beaten in 10 hours can be as good a other that requires more than 60. So, how long it takes you to beat a game is not always a fair criterion to judge whether a game is worth your money or not.
In short, as far as games refers we have quantity and quality, what more can we ask for our money?

Usually yes. Then again I rarely buy games blind so I know exactly why I want the game I’m getting and what I’m expecting out of it.

I think it’s a shame how games are viewed as consumables by many. Far too often in a purchasing decision the main factor is “how long will this distract me?” instead of “will this game give me a new and interesting experience”

In my eyes gaming as always been good value for money,but recently im not sure i mean modern games cost around 50 pounds and you dont get the full content which comes on the market at an extra 10 or 5 pounds .what happend to buying a game and having hours of game play and storyline i mean you could spend i say 40 quid and get over 100 hrs plus of gaming nowadays you get about 10 hrs max come on wheres the logic in that !dont make sense i say gaming as gone downhill ,prices have gone uphill.

Well that depends on a large range of things. Firstly, the game itself. If the game has a big budget and a lot of hype behind it, as well as if it ends up any good, I would say the price is somewhat justifiable. A fantastic example of this is Portal 2. I pre-ordered that game for £30 from amazon, and it ended up as one of the best games I have played of this generation, if not, of all time. It also depends of what kind of genre you like and how much money you have access to at that time. An example of this would be Driver: San Francisco, with it’s utterly ridiculous price on the Playstation store. In fact, no matter how good the game is, no game should ever be sold at £57.99, even if you adore the series. But really, it all comes down to personal opinion. If you want a game, and you think it’s worth buying, by all means, go right ahead.

For a game such as the elder scrolls series, or dark souls, or grand theft auto the price is deffinantly good, however a game such as transformers revenge of the fallen which felt like a multiplayer game with a campaign stuck on isn’t as about 3 months later when the hype has died down you can no longer play a game you’ve paid full price for

Part 1*

To me, a lot depends on the length of the game, I could spend hours playing a game like FIFA or Call of Duty. FIFA doesn’t really have a story (haven’t been into manager mode for ages) but online is where I know I’d get my money’s worth in my opinion, making my ultimate team, the ultimate team, setting up a club where we can just have a laugh (play properly but don’t really care abut results etc) and up my game playing 1v1. Kind of the same story for COD, the single player is action packed explosive gameplay but I won’t be buying it for that reason as I know I wouldn’t feel like I got the value for my money, I’m buying it for the multiplayer.

Quite a few single player games do provide us with hours of gameplay, some not so much and this is where trophies come in to it. They make games longer, make you notice things you never did the first time round and set up a challenge for you, in short they extend your playtime and will satisfy your purchase as you collect everything, complete the game on its hardest difficulty, have a wonderful platinum on your profile and what not.

Part 2*

I do feel I always get great value for my money from all the games I buy for them reasons I noted above(although I am very picky on what games to get). I have several games to buy in these last few months of 2011 and the PS Vita in 2012, which will keep me entertained for months getting all the trophies and ranking up online. LongLivePlay I say

Now where did I leave that key to the padlock around my wallet..

First of all, sorry, I reported comment 2 by accident.

Now, gaming.

For me personally, gaming is excellent value for money.

The reason I think this is because I only buy games in which I am going to play and enjoy.

Whilst some people may enjoy hundred hour games such as Fallout, I prefer, well, I like lots of different genre of games, just not RPGs.

The point is, people who like RPGs and see them as good value for money, will buy them because they know they enjoy them and they also know they’re going to get a lot of gameplay out of it.

In my case, I buy games that I know I’m going to enjoy and play a lot of and I buy them – simple.

Now bring on Uncharted 3!