Yea, its not like they could of priced it the same, as people would only buy the EE edition... now people have to think: should I buy the older version for $10 or buy the EE version for $20. Or people have to think: I all ready bought the older version, but buying the EE version would make my previous purchase pointless and wasteful, so I won't buy the EE.
Makes sense really

I now see remakes/ee/hd digital games as being good only for people that did not all ready buy the older version of said games.
(In the case of turning dvd movies into bluray movies, at least you can SELL the dvds, with digital games, we can't sell those)

An AAA game has hundreds of developers working on it. That's not something you ever saw in the old days. Most of the money has been going into art for many years now. In the 2D days and early 3D days art wasn't that much of an issue, but creating more realistic or complex art is a lot more work.

A good solution would've been to charge those who own the originals a significantly discounted price, but I guess the issue of right-holders and who gets the money and so on would be a problem.

I'm not saying I disbelieve you, or that your explanation isn't logically sound or whatever, but do you have any statistics to back that up?

I sat through an hour of credits when I won Assassins Creed 3... I don't if that's enough proof, but a hell of a lot of people worked on that game. Even if you assume they were all getting £10k a year (or the equivalent in whatever currency) that's a lot of money, and that's far below what most people working in game design are likely to be paid.

I can't say the credits for any older game (or any other game I've ever played) were quite as long or extensive (or un-skipable...)

Not exactly scientific, but some small proof nonetheless.

I can't show you a breakdown, but a list of the most expensive games ever can be found in Wikipedia.

I am still wondering whether most of the $500.000.000 for Destiny went to creating art in the game? Or of the $265.000.000 for GTA V?

"In the old days" you didn't see games using licensed pop music, big name actors, worldwide TV marketing etc. So just like babark, I'd be very interested to know how much of the "skyrocketed costs" really is due to increased development costs, and how much for the fluff. To me it seems the studios are wasting lots of money on producing AAA games simply because they can, not necessarily because they have to.

I recall discussion here about this before, and someone linked to an article of one developer who felt big studios are indeed wasting money on development as well. E.g. there is one guy hired whose only task is to create one weapon for the game, and so on and so forth. No wonder the whole development team can consist of hundreds of people then, if every item and tiny bit has a separate person assigned for it.

I can't speak for all games, but at least for Modern Warfare 2, the development budget was 50 millions, while the marketing one was an astounding 200 millions. Source.

Thanks, that's something to start with. I presume that the development budget for MW2 includes also the salaries for e.g. these actors:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1450746/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast

No idea how much they were paid.

I totally agree with the OP. These days I don't have as much time to play games, but when I do, I won't mind paying $20 or $30 for something I'm really interested in and will play immediately.

For something like games, where the marginal cost is close to zero, pricing is determined pretty much entirely by what people are willing to pay. Many new games are priced at $50 or $60 because there are a fair number of people willing to pay that amount. Game prices also rapidly drop and are steeply discounted during sales because there are also a lot of people who aren't willing to pay $50 or $60, but are willing to pay $10-20. Digital distribution has made pricing discrimination very efficient, so over the course of 6 months to a year a game can usually capture most potential buyers due to price alterations during this time. It's also important to note that these pricing changes happen because it's what allows the games to make the most money (otherwise we wouldn't be seeing these kinds of price drops). Additionally, the fixed costs of making games don't enter into the discussion at all- those are relevant for determining whether making a game is a viable business venture, but has no bearing on what optimal unit pricing for a game is.

As for the specifics of what people are willing to pay (and this price decreasing for many people), key factors that determine this are the value that people put on a given game, and also what else that money being asked could be spent on. This second part is quite important, as the continued growth of the game industry means there are more and more games competing for both people's money and time. So a game that a person may have previously considered worth $60 suddenly looks a lot less appealing when there are games of similar quality that are available for $10-20 simply by virtue of having been out of a year longer. A $60 game is also a much tougher sell when someone has a large backlog of already purchased games already vying for their limited time.

Short version- if the face of fierce competition prices drop.

There was definitely a thread about the cost of making an indie game. I believe the general consensus reached was that the figures quoted (by and indie developer in an article) included a lot of unnecessary extras like thousands on brand new office furniture.

I'm fairly sure games cost more to make now, but just as certain that much of those costs go on extras that aren't strictly necessary.

That being said, without the massive marketing spending would CoD still be one of the most profitable series ever (don't quote me on that, I just assume that is the case). I doubt it. Unfortunately here is a segment of the market for whom hi fidelity beard stubble and famous voice actors are important...

There was a time I had enough money to buy any game I wanted as soon as I saw it and price be damned. Those days are long gone, however, and rarely do I ever buy anything over twenty bucks. It's not because I don't think they're worth more, but I simply cannot afford to spend that much on games anymore.

For now I'm going to stick to my thought that if games cost vastly more to make these days it's because of all the other crap that surrounds games, not the games themselves. I think that's where some arguments tend to pop up. And to use "inflation" as an argument that we should all be jumping for joy... eh. Kind of like saying "Well, if we imagine what the adjustment to peoples' incomes would be if corrected for inflation, you should all be out spending tons of dough!" It might be a good intellectual exercise, but I don't know how far it goes realistically.

That reminds me of Atari back in the day, they spent like 30 Million to get a license for ET, then gave the dev like 2 months to make a game so they could put it out by Christmas...

edit: Anyways, about whining about modern gaming prices...

The market is saturated with too many titles, if they were all $60 then only a few games would be selling. New games come out every month, for consoles and PC, and they backdate quite far giving us way too much competition.

Back in the day, you had say Sega and SNES games, right? Well you could probably buy every (unique) game on the shelf at full price and not break $1000. Today? What was it, 6 wide, 6 tall, 6 display boxes... And triple that for handhelds... I'd bet if you bought every game you'd break over 10k easy, though that's only for the consoles and the 3 majors and handhelds...

Honestly? My hard limit for a game is $40, but it has to be a REALLY REALLY good game, or really get my interest at the time (Which i've done twice, and both times i've quit under 10 hours of play). I won't look at games in Walmart over $20, and for Digital Distribution my target is usually $5-$10.

Ever since i discovered digital dist from GOG, Steam and Amazon, i never pay more than $5 for a game, even the really good games. I just wait for Xmas sales and stock up for the year. My HUGE backlog gives me alot of flexibilty and i can wait years for the price to drop to $5. Last year i finally picked up Fallout New Vegas Ultimate for $5. Soon i hope to buy Skyrim Legendary Edition for $5. The Steam week long deals are good too, i recently picked up Dementium2 for $1. I dont have alot of money to spend on games, so i try to get the best deals that i can.

I think that too sometimes :-) The recent one was Grimrock 2. The preorder price was LESS than 20euro and I was like, a brand new game at this price?

What I don't understand is how some people react to graphics. When offered the next Battlefield or Call of Duty game they'll gladly sell their house to buy the next game but when they are offered a pixel art game for one third the price of the "AAA" games they complain.

I'm personally fine with paying 20-30e for a game, what I can't stand is those big companies that ask 60e for a game and then throw a bunch of paid DLCs along the way.