On Retailers And Videogame Pricing 62
Thanks to CNN Money for its article discussing the results of a retail survey analyzing relative videogame prices among "key game retailers." According to the survey: "Wal-Mart's prices were the highest, coming in 9 percent higher -- nearly $100 for a basket of 30 games -- than Amazon.com and 6 percent higher than Best Buy, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Tony Gikas." Other interesting trends were also observed, though: "The used game market has quietly been growing for the past several years and Gikas now estimates that more than 8 percent of all games sold in the U.S. are used games." The piece concludes by noting: "The survey indicated retail prices seem to be holding up as the current generation of consoles hits middle-age... Other analysts, though, say retailers they've talked to indicate while prices have not fallen much, the demand for games at higher price points is not as strong as it was a year ago."
$100? (Score:1)
Re:$100? (Score:2, Informative)
Most Expensive - Wal-Mart $1,231.76
That's a difference of $97.25. I'd say that counts as "almost $100."
Re:$100? (Score:2, Informative)
The difference of $67.06 is between the best and worst brick and morter store (Best buy and Wal-mart), the $100 is between best and worst (amazon and wal-mart).
Re:$100? (Score:2)
Re:$100? (Score:2)
Re:$100? (Score:2)
Re:$100? (Score:1, Insightful)
But other than games like those, $50 is very pricey. Any non-multiplayer game shouldn't be $40-$50. Any game with a set point of completion should be much cheaper. In fact, games all around are really too expensive. Console games are usually around $70 to $90 from what I've seen (I don't
Re:$100? (Score:5, Insightful)
Faugh, I say!
If you get ten hours of enjoyment out of a fifty hour game, you've just paid 5 bucks per hour. You'll pay a hell of a lot more than that to go to a movie, say.
Books can be cheaper, as they're the result of one or two guys banging on a keyboard, somebody editing it, and somebody printing it.
DVDs are an anomoly; it's often easy to find the full blown DVD of a given movie for less than the CD soundtrack. Also, consider that Laserdiscs tended to be $100+.
Re:$100? (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyway, its just a thought. I haven't payed $50 for a game in years. The most I've payed in recent memory was $35 for Soul Caliber for the Dreamcast, but that was 2 years ago, and nothing's been more than that since. And I don't even buy many used games. Unless you're the type of person that has to have it the day it comes out, there's no reason to drop that much cash on a game, give it two or three months, and it'll go down a little. I'm still waiting on Fzero GX and Viewtiful Joe to get down to $20. Hmm, maybe I should go check on them
Oh, and Cheap Ass Gamer is your friend too.
Re:$100? (Score:2)
Well, I tend to wait for games to drop in price myself, unless of course it's the kind of game one JUST CAN'T WAIT FOR, but as far as I'm concerned, Ninja Gaiden, for example, was well worth 70 bucks CDN.
Re:$100? (Score:2)
One or two guys banging on a keyboard... No wonder nobody learns to read any more.
Re:$100? (Score:2)
I see you've never owned a console, but have you actually played the games? Serious question, not trying to bash you. The games I've played, with a few exceptions, have superb quality with minor bugs at the most. And the exceptions I've had I've gotten from the bargain bin for $20. Well.... with the exception of Enter the Matrix
Re:$100? (Score:1)
Re:$100? (Score:5, Insightful)
Teens have more disposable income than their parents. Read more about it here [govst.edu]
Even if you are an adult without kids, you have much more bills to pay than your "average" teen with a job. When I was in HS and worked, I had close to 100% disposable income. When I moved out, that dropped to around 5%, as rent, phone, utility, car insurance, and food absorbed the great bulk of my funds.
Used games from Amazon? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm not buying this article...
Re:Used games from Amazon? (Score:2, Interesting)
The fact is that Walmart takes a very long time to lower prices on their games. Games that came out a year ago or even more can often be found for their original retail price. While Best Buy, Amazon, EB, etc. all sell the games for ~$50 when they are first released, they are on a shorter timeframe for when the price of a released game is lowered.
Re:Used games from Amazon? (Score:2)
Now I'll go find the prices. (Maybe I'll prove myself wrong).
Best Buy - $49.99
Walmart - $49.75
Amazon.com (actually from Office Depot) - $46.95 (or $34.98 used).
Hm.. well I guess I'm wrong. The point I was trying to get across however was I wondered if they went by the used prices for the games on Amazon or the new prices for the games on Amazon. I honestly didn't think Amazon was th
9% on $50? (Score:1)
And who's buying 30 games at a time anwyays?
Aren't costs supposed to come down? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Aren't costs supposed to come down? (Score:2)
Re:Aren't costs supposed to come down? (Score:1)
Usually. You are refering to what is known as economy of scale however it doesn't really apply to games. The cost to produce a single game, after it has been developed, is nearly identical to the cost of producing 1,000,000 games. Thus no real cost savings, with the exception of shipping, as the volume increases
Re:Aren't costs supposed to come down? (Score:2)
Depends on the goods. Video games--especially video games on CD/DVD--are like movies, music CDs and software. They cost a bundle to initially create, but once they're created, making additional copies is dirt cheap. The result is the more you sell, the lower the price, because you can spread that big upfront fixed cost over more copies.
Chris Mattern
Re:Aren't costs supposed to come down? (Score:1)
Re:Aren't costs supposed to come down? (Score:2)
But what's happening here is that demand is increas
Re:Aren't costs supposed to come down? (Score:2)
I was mostly referring to used games, though, where the development cost was already paid by the first user and the prices are set by the reseller. I personally hold the belief that resellers are artificially inflating the prices of used games to (A) increase profit margins and (B) encourage people to
Do you need to have the "latest and greatest?" (Score:5, Interesting)
You can save plenty that way. For example, I just picked up Wave Race: Blue Storm for Gamecube in Akihabara today for 500 yen - for a new copy. I'd never have paid $50 for it, but I'll buy just about anything for $5-10.
Holding off on the "iffy" purchases makes it a lot easier on the wallet to pick up the occasional "gotta have it" game at $50.
Walmart (Score:3, Informative)
Prices are just fine (Score:5, Insightful)
I have reason to complain (Score:4, Insightful)
You can count on the fact that if our dollar had gone down they would have adjusted prices... they didn't lose any time adjusting it when it slid.
I think I have good reason to complain about the cost of a game (although I appreciate the article was focused on US sales).
Anyways I think your argument regarding the increase in game cost and complexity versus the sale price is flawed - there are vastly more games being sold today than previously, so although it might cost more to develop them, the costs are recovered as more copies are sold. Ask EA if they mind their $500 million profit margins...
Re:Prices are just fine (Score:2)
Re:Prices are just fine (Score:2)
Who's still surprised? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you watch their low prices commercials you'll notice that the smiley face is lowering prices based on WalMart's original price for the item. WalMart is now in the game of convenience. You go to WalMart because you can get pretty much everything you need in one trip and it doesn't cost too terribly much.
WalMart is not the place it used to be. Notice that "The customer is always right" is no longer their policy and that "Always the lowest prices" has been replaced with "Always low prices".
Re:Who's still surprised? (Score:3, Interesting)
They changed that because they were taking too much flak from the various consumer protection agencies. They don't have any sort of price-matching policy so it was misleading for them to claim they were always the lowest.
Re:Who's still surprised? (Score:1)
Re:Who's still surprised? (Score:2)
Re:Who's still surprised? (Score:2, Informative)
> WalMart is not the place it used to be. Notice that "The customer is always right" is no longer their policy and that "Always the lowest prices" has been replaced with "Always low prices".
And did you notice how their "BUY U.S.! MADE IN THE USA!" flag-waving has sort of... disappeared?
Re:Who's still surprised? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Who's still surprised? (Score:2)
One thing keeping them high.... (Score:2)
I think there's more to it than that though because no one routinely sells cheaper games. There's no low-margin discount place like there is for most other things. It has to be artificially controlled because quite often the exact same game for the PC will be discounted almost immediately. Really the only way to get games less expensively is to track the deal sites an
Royalties, baby, royalties! (Score:1)
Re:Royalties, baby, royalties! (Score:2)
my random price story. (Score:2)
Although most stores sell things at about the same price, E
Re:my random price story. (Score:2)
That's funny, i found the exact opposite... (Score:1, Redundant)
And its consistent -- Last week I went to go buy Ninja Gaiden -- the guy at EB said that they didnt have any used copies in, but suggested a new copy, at the canada-normal price of $69.99. Meh, i said, i might as well see what price it is across the street at wal-mart, considering the deal
Re:That's funny, i found the exact opposite... (Score:2)
I wanted to get a game a while back, and it was $10 more USED at EB than it was NEW at Superstore (NHL Hitz IIRC)
Wait a week or two (Score:3, Insightful)
Obviously Ebay is a great source. Funco land is almost as bad as a college book store - they give you practically nothing for your game and then give a very minor discount to a buyer.
Armchair Economics (Score:5, Insightful)
First, we have no idea how the games were selected, other than that they were a presumably random mix of "recent and older games from all platforms". If we picked a different set of 30 games, or sampled another set of 30 games, we'd likely get a much different result.
A second point to consider is what is called the "grocery store paradox": store A advertises lower prices than store B, and vice versa, and a check of the receipts shows that both are telling the truth. Were we to break out certain categories of games from the sample (such as all PS2 or XBox games), Wal-Mart might have the lowest prices on these categories... old N64 cartridges that management won't drop below cost might be keeping Wal-Mart's average prices high, but most game buyers wouldn't care. We don't have the data, so we can't say for sure.
My last point (because this is getting too boring, even for Slashdot) is that the differences presented by the survey likely won't matter to most consumers. The difference between best and worst was $97.25, or just over three dollars per game. If I only want 5 out of the 30, and I want them now, then a $16 convenience fee might be worth paying... and, who knows, Wal-Mart might have better prices on those five.
To sum up: Amazon rocks, and Wal-Mart does in fact suck, but not for the reasons stated in the article.
Re:Armchair Economics (Score:3, Interesting)
I wouldn't be quick to disregard the survey, either. My informal observation is that all games commonly sold at a set price point ($50 for most new games) can be had at Wal-Mart for basically $50, but they shave off enough that, technically, Wal-Mart is the cheapest store in town.
However, what Wal-Mart has much less of, is substantial price cuts on any video games. You can sometimes find
EB vs. BestBuy (Score:2)
Wal-Mart is high here (Score:1)
I've also noticed all of Wal-Mart's GBA games are $5 more than anywhere else. I believe they are still selling Beyond Good and Evil for $49 at my local store as well.
Cheap Ass Gamer has good deals sometimes but I've found the best place to get new games is Half.com
Nickel and Dime... (Score:1)
Where the big differences come in is when the big box stores use a title as a loss leader to get people into their store/website, or when they work out some kind of deal with a publisher for a bargain price,