The Official GiantBomb $70 next gen games poll

I rarely buy games new nowadays and the games I do buy on day 1 are games I really want, so this would not affect me. Game prices lower so quickly nowadays too.

I haven't bought a console game on release day for a long time now. I bought quite a few new PC games at around $30 each in the past few months thanks to great deals on PC games from various sites. I'd pay up to $45 for games I really really want. There is no way I'd pay $60 for a new game right now, nevermind $70.

Wouldn't stop me but then again I don't think this will happen.

I very very rarely buy them at $60 these days. $70 is far more then I'd be willing to pay for a game.

I buy maybe one game a year on release day. I much prefer to wait for the price drop or steam sales and pick up most of my games at $5-$30. I will rarely pay more than $30 for a game. So personally it doesn't affect me too much.

Now adding microtransactions to full price games on the other hand, that does affect the game, so fuck that.

I don't buy EA games at launch anyway, they don't get more than half price from me anymore.

EA can charge whatever they want for their games, because they don't hold any value. Almost all of them have been price dropped in a month or two.

I won't buy any games from that shitty company for 60 dollars, much less 70. Why should I give them 70 dollars when they want to put on disc "DLC" in their titles, and the most recent bullshit about how they're putting micro-transactions into everything that they make now? Why? I work hard for my money, and even though I have a good job it doesn't mean that I should give my money to a company that treats it's entire legitimate user base as thieves and walking dollar signs. Having a disposable income doesn't mean that I just throw it at shit.

EA is already charging 70 bucks for digital releases of PC games. I don't think they'll sway the other companies to bleed their customers like that.

Games are already over 100 USD here(Norway) anyway

I never buy shooters day one, so the EA games I end up purchasing are typically larger experiences like Mass Effect and Dragon Age. If I'm willing to pay $60 for Rising and its ~6 hour campaign, I damn well better be willing to pay $70 for a 20+ hour RPG.

Good thing I won't have to.

@damisterchief said:

The shadow effect looks so nice on the new website.

I rarely spend 60 bones on a game nowadays. Sure as hell wouldn't drop 70.

I am by no means an EA defender but from looking at a summary of the investment call its unclear what exactly they mean by $70 per game. Does that include deluxe editions for instance the Simcity Deluxe edition? Or is this the new base price for all games?

I wouldn't mind if some games were $70 if (and this is a big if) there was price parity across their lineup. Not every game should release for the same price. I wish EA wouldn't cram in unneeded features/modes into a game to justify a $60 price. For instance, if a game like Spec Ops which consensus seems to have turned around on, would have release for $40 without a multiplayer mode and different marketing it would have done better. As they come more heavily reliant on Origin it would be nice if they diversified their pricing tiers.

edit: After posting this I saw this PC Gamer article about how all EA games will have microtransactions. That's a real cause for alarm. http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/02/27/ea-planning-microtransactions-for-all-of-our-games/

I rarely buy games at 60$ anymore and would stop entirely at 70$.

They can't justify it with the amount of DLC they release.

Anyway games drop in price so quickly now that doing this would only accentuate this trend by having fewer people buy at full price.

I paid $70 for releases in the PS2 days when the exchange rate was bad here in Canada. I was in middle school then and have more money now so I can't say I won't pay $70. I probably wouldn't be buying a game a month like I was a few years ago.

I imagine my purchasing habits won't be especially impacted, considering that I rarely purchase games at full price anyways.

I'll just drop this in here again: Games are cheaper than ever.

Inflation is a real thing even if you don't want to admit it. Oh, hey, look the Inflation Calculator says that what cost $60 on 2005 would cost you 69.77 as of last year. Hrm.

it wont go up to 70 dollars, if they do that, then the middle tier level games will be destroyed i think. cause then thats where reviews are more all important, and people will avoid anything that doesnt get 4 stars and above

$60 is already a lot. 3 games are $180, and that's before tax. If they went up, goodbye day 1 purchases.

Won't support it if it's EA only.

Won't affect me. I have no problem spending more than $60 for any Elder Scrolls game. They usually give me more play time than any other game at that price (excluding MMOs). I normally don't buy games at release anyway. SimCity next week will be the first game I bought at release since Skyrim and Dark Souls.

I haven't bought games new on release for a long time now. So yeah, this wouldn't change a damn thing for me.

Microtransactions and 70 dollar games. If EA does both of these they will doom them selves.

Fine by me. $70 for 365 days of fun (or more)? How can you complain about that? That's just pennies a day.

@oldguy said:

The problem there is wages haven't kept up with inflation.

Anyone who voted the last option while they continued to buy games after the jump from 50$ to 60$ is lying to themselves. You'll keep buying them.

Personally I rarely spend 60 on a game and will not spend a single 70$ on one.

I don't buy $60 games at release, so $70 wouldn't affect anything. Well, it might mean I'd be waiting a little longer post release to pick them up.

I'd be ok with a price rise if it meant an end to being nickel and dimed constantly (and to games being designed with that practice in mind). That won't happen obviously, I'm just sayin'.

I think there should be much greater variation in game pricing in general. A few games do deserve more than $60, but many would probably do a lot better if they launched at a more realistic price.

With game prices the way they are right now there are still a lot of games I can't afford or have to get used, it would only get worse if they started putting up prices further. I also think making the standard RRP for video games even higher would only raise the already pretty high barrier for entry for a lot of video games.

I very rarely by titles on release as is, so I don't see this having a particularly significant impact on my purchasing habits.

When I can buy games for five bucks that last me longer and offer just as much enjoyment than most of the $60 games there's no way I'd be happy to spend an additional $10 just to play the latest "bleeding edge" game. I'm not content to keep throwing increasing amounts of money at the same experience with slightly shinier graphics over and over again. When games actually change and offer something new I might be willing to pay a premium price, but from what I saw of the PS4 announcement? No way.

I wouldn't buy any EA game for $70, that's for sure.

@damisterchief said:

@SpudBug "We’ve been contacted by EA Corporate Communications to clarify that Blake Jorgensen “misspoke” and that he actually intended to use example pricing tiers of $59 and $49 in this “hypothetical discussion about pricing patterns at the beginning of a hardware cycle.” Source

I rarely if ever buy games on release day so if games where $70 or higher on launch day, I would wait for a price drop.

I'll continue to not buy games until they've dropped in price to what I can reasonably afford to pay for them.

The thing is, I play a lot of single player games and I jump around a lot, so I'm not buying one game and getting endless hours out of it like a multiplayer experience or an open-world game where I'm crazy enough to do every menial side task. I also don't often buy used unless it's one of those games no one likes to keep in stock otherwise. Basically, regardless of the cost involved in making them, I can't justify spending that much. I'd feel entirely irresponsible given the way I play games.

Buying new games is for people with too much money, and not enough hobbies.

@canteu said:

I wouldn't totally agree with that sentence, but I mostly agree. Anymore, if i want to get a game, I either have to pre-order the game well in advance and use the pre-order system like a semi-layaway (making payments on the game until its release, at which point I either just pick up the game or pay off what's left)*, or I wait until the price drops due to competition from used game sales. If the price doesn't drop, then I just get the game used.

*This method requires me to get the game from a brick & mortar, since you can't "pay-down" a pre-order through digital services like Amazon. Previously this has been Gamestop, but as over the past few years I've discovered a few local FLVGS** which I think I'll be giving my business to in the future.

**Friendly Local Video Game Stores, derived from Friendly Local Game Stores (or FLGS), a term used among players of tabletop role-playing games to describe their favorite store for getting those games.

Doesn't affect how I purchase my games since anything in my country that goes over $79 I buy off Ebay anyway.

no ill wait for the game to drop in price ....$40 for most games

Wont bother me really. Games aren't cheap the make.

Game prices are the worst, I can't wait until big publishers start being realistic and flexible with their pricing strategy instead of just slapping $60/£40 on everything.

Most EA games aren't worth $40 let alone $70.

last game i bought at (almost) full price was diablo III so no, probably won't buy at $70.

I'm okay with it.

i don't know if i would buy a new game if they increase. i barely buy games as it is. i've just been trying to beat all of the games that i have. the last game was forza horizon and that game was a pretty big disappointment to me. the game wasn't that long compared to the other 3 games that i played of them.

I don't buy games at $60, you think I'll buy them at $70? Nothing is that important that I need to play it immediately. I look for deals, I wait for sales, I bide my time until the game is reasonably priced. And, I actually enjoy games more this way because I don't have $60 expectations. When games are below $40, I am more accepting of their flaws. When games are $30 and below, I am much more willing to experiment and take chances. A $70 game would have to come with a pair of tits and a cloth map before I even consider buying.

I don't see this affecting me too much. Outside of holiday season, I generally buy cheaper stuff or take advantage of sales. ESPECIALLY since pretty much all of my out-of-holiday season purchases are digital.

So the only time I regularly/consistently buy games at full price- retail or otherwise- is during the holiday season. And I don't think this'll change that.

Not only that; I don't think the perceived value of video games have increased either. If anything their value has dropped with all of the indie and mobile games. So the only thing you do when you raise the price of games, you push more and more people out of the hobby all together.

I've made it a statement to not buy games at $60 when they started coming out at that price. It was just too high a price to pay. Although I've faltered a couple of times (games I really wanted), I've stopped buying new releases all together thanks to Steam sales. Does that hurt AAA games? Yeah, but that's not my problem that they need 600 people to make 1 game. I don't care if 1 guy makes a game let alone 600. Even if we do lose a bit of graphic fidelity.

Because games are already $60, I buy a full price game maybe 3 or 4 times a year at most, but $70 is completely out of hand, fuck that.

I don't even buy games at $60 now. I'll wait for a price drop or discount of some sort. Going beyond $60 is just dumb, because $60 is already dumb. Do they not understand that a large portion of their core market isn't flush with discretionary cash? A ton of the people buying games have really lackluster jobs.

I just don't understand. Do they do any market research?