How Much Should Games Cost?

In this video, Stryxo awakens from hibernation to talk about the prices of games. Should games cost $60 dollars? $70 dollars?? $100 dollars!?? Find out on this episode of...umm, "how much should games cost".

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The year, is 2005. (Devil May Cry 3 - Devils Never Cry) We’re deep into the sixth generation of consoles, and gaming, is doing pretty good. So far this year I’ve gotten to play Devil May Cry 3 and Resident Evil 4 on my Playstation 2, and for my Xbox, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, and Doom 3 finally got ported so i’m playing that as well. It is so great to have so much money to buy all of these games, surely there’d be no financial crisis in the future or anything. In fact the future looks bright, for gaming, we’ve been holding onto this sixth generation of consoles for awhile now, and games have only looked better and better, but I think it’s time to ask what’s next. And the answer to that, may not exactly be what I’m hoping for.

See, I should specify that this is May of 2005, and I’m sitting down to watch the unveiling of the next gen- oh my god is that Elijah Wood from the Lord of the Rings? (Console Reveal montage).

Over the next month more next gen consoles would be unveiled, like the PS3, and the Wii, and with that the clock started ticking down towards the seventh generation of consoles. While that’s great for the plethora of new games that are sure to come out, you see, during this sixth generation of consoles, and essentially most of the early 2000’s, games cost about $40-$50 dollars, obviously that’s in USD and without counting for taxes, but they weren’t $60 dollars, not yet. That is until November 22nd, 2005, when Call of Duty 2 was released onto a console alongside the launch of the Xbox 360. Now this wasn’t the first ever $60 dollar game in the early 2000’s, a game called SOCOM: US Navy Seals came out in 2002 and was priced at $60 dollars, but that was because it came bundled with a cheap headset. No, Call of Duty 2 set the standard for this next generation of gaming to be priced at $60 dollars.

While there was of course some pushback, which I’ll talk about in a bit, it’s undeniable that there was a jump in quality to the seventh generation. Games were longer, had more content than ever, told better stories, and looked better than ever while doing it. Publishers told people that games needed to cost more because they were getting more expensive to make, and it clearly showed in the end product. Putting two scarabs on screen in Halo 3, stepping outside of the vault for the first time in Fallout 3, or falling out of a plane in Uncharted 3, couldn’t have been done in the sixth generation, and sold the idea that these games are worth $60 dollars now.