$59.99 is the new norm for "PC" games that are just console ports?

[Philip_J_Fry]

Twisted Metal Demo Hits PSN on Jan. 31, Along With Syndicate Demo (on Xbox, Too)

Syndicate’s demo is hitting Xbox Live on the same day (and a day later for both in Europe). Guess what, though — no Syndicate demo for PC.

and
http://store.origin.com/DRHM/store?A...ctID=235934200

thats right, $59.99 for console ports with no demo, so they treat PC gamers like 2nd class citizen/gamer. made more money off of PC gamers per copy (since no royalties to M$ and Sony). what a load of

[Linchpin]

Well if you look at Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, it's $59.99 on Steam and the demo shows the game to be a dated looking blatant console port that's a pain to play without a controller so I'd say yeah that's the way we're heading now.

[zanzabar]

$60 is not just more since they dont have the MS/sony liability that is only $15 of the 60 (and covers printing), u also have whole sale it at $40 or less but thees are marketed as digital so u maybe loose $5-15 total instead of the $35 that gets lopped off from the start of a console game.

on demos they only come out when they think that it will make more sales, since in sure that there will never be a good multiplatform shooter (as it just is not possible to balance a game for mouse and controllers, and u cannot have a proper game speed with a controller) there wont be many demos, and affter the bf3 open beta and poor pc sales when compaired to bc2 i would not expect many demos.

Well if you look at Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, it's $59.99 on Steam and the demo shows the game to be a dated looking blatant console port that's a pain to play without a controller so I'd say yeah that's the way we're heading now.

i thought that it played fine with a few mouse rebinds, the textures were rather high quality, and the game started as a pc game then was supposed to to be ported to consoles so allot of the texture, gameplay and texture assets were designed to be an mmo.

it reminded me allot of .hack or the FF mmos

[3lfk1ng]

The following statements are just theory, none of them are based on facts:
I think that the game companies stopped releasing demos because most of them were releasing the demos far before the product was even mature enough to be released. People would then get their hands on the demos from places like Fileplanet and have a crappy experience with the demo. Then people would talk about their poor experience on forums and complain about the lack of certain features, even if the demos had the whole "This is a Demo. This is not a representation of the final game."

I think that the other issue is that some of the major file sites got tired of the bandwidth people were using to download the demos for free. Thye started to create bandwidth caps to force us to create "unlimited memberships" so then PC gamers just started torrenting the demos or finding the demos on other sites that didn't require users to wait in line for 40minutes. Without users creating memberships many sites could not afford the bandwidth and probably started turning away the idea of 2+GB game demos. Places like Fileplanet tried to secure subscriptions but when people weren't willing to subscribe, Fileplanet started pushing so many ads (among other issues) that people stopped even using their site.

Thanks to Alexa, you can view the trend over the last year.


I would even have to say that we have seen some the biggest slaps to the face over recent years as PC gamers. There have been a lot of shoddy console ports, games like Command & Conquer 4, Rage, Resident Evil 4, GTA IV, and even Skyrim (as much as I loved it). John Carmack totally turned his back on PC gamers, the very people that made him, with the release of Rage.

Here is another reason why the companies are avoiding consoles for the time being:


...and it is a damn shame too, we should be so much further than where we are. The consoles are definitely holding back visual performance.


Only MMOs, RTS games and some RPGs will remain highly profitable on the PC due to the nature of how those games cannot be played with a controller. I cannot believe that some people would rather use thumbsticks.

/END RANT, haha

[nksharp]

Simple solution. Don't buy games at that price and simply wait for a sale on steam.

[Chrono Detector]

Here in Australia the prices are worse, for example, on Steam and retail, MW3 costs $99 which is bull, while the other big titles are $89.

[solofly]

I don't mind paying 60 bucks for a game, as long as the game is worth it and there ain't many out there that are worth 60 bucks...

I remember paying 90 bucks for Warcraft III, crazy me...

[El Mano]

People paid 60$ for MW and this is what they got. It was so obvious back then.

Anyway, don't stop feeding the best. Keep buying from Origin, keep giving money to EA, Ubisoft etc...

[defect9]

If its worth the money to people, they'll pay it.

interestingly enough, I don't see what the complaint is. it's taken this long for games to get to $60. Twenty years ago, it was common to pay $40-$50 for a newly released game (depending on platform and scale of launch, naturally), and that's WITHOUT inflation adjustment. WITH inflation adjustment, that price would be roughly $64-$80.

Sure, we can continue to debate the merits of console port vs made for PC, but it comes down to the individual company's vision of what they want, not what we want. If we want something from them, we have to show them in a way that makes sense to them how they're wrong. Sadly, complaining on the internet doesnt work if enough people out there DO like the product/franchise enough to continue paying for console ports. It may be true that console ports aren't fully utilizing the hardware available (and are sometimes just plain retarded and buggy), but since when is truth relevant to marketing?

[zanzabar]

cdroms and flopys were like $20-25 then $30-40 was the price in like 05 ish. but i dont see why a pc game ported from a console game that is sold on digital costs the same as a retail console game, u would pay the $15 or so for the platform most likely (like steam) but your wholesale is not $20 off so IMO a digital game should be atleast $10 cheaper if not $20 since u are paying for the platform and wholesale discount in one and for much less.

[ColonelCain]

I have mentioned this many times before, but I guess I'll mention it again.

The 'reasoning' for $59 vs $49 comes from back when the 360 originally launched. It was sold at quite a bit of a loss, and the $10 was tacked onto launch titles to recoup the cost. PS3 did the same because they were in the same boat. Fast forward to today, and the consoles are being sold for profit; why remove the $10 mark-up if the consumer buys it up like candy?

Now for PC: a few big name studios started to price the PC the same way, $59 for new titles. They claimed that it was to 'formalize their pricing structure' and to account for greater development costs. Guess which game was the first (from what I can remember) to implement $59 prices? CoD: MW2. All the other publishers saw that this went over smoothly, so they started doing it. Now almost every major PC game is priced at $59.

[zanzabar]

they did not just tack on money to cover the loss from subsidizing it, thats how console makers make money and stop 3rd party/piracy. even since the problems with unlicensed 2600 games the only way to get a game on a console is through the company approving it and u had to pay them to do such. back in the day with carts it was like $20-30 since they cost alot of money but then with the ps1 it was only $5 to get the game printed then $8 for the ps2 dvd, $10 for the xbox and then now we have $15 for a 360 then $7 per extra disk and the ps3 is $12. so its not like its anything new its the entire point of making the console.

and with digital, there is no middle man its the publisher or dev and the store, there is no wholesaler so there so since AAA games are $40 whole sale i should pay $40 for a digital.

[Ket]

Companies dare not charge PC gamers that kind of money in the UK. In the UK the average price for a new release console game is £40 (!) while if that same game comes out on PC too at the same time (such as Deus Ex HR) the PC version was £25. IMO, there is not a single game out right now, or that is going to be released in the next few years, thats worth more than £25. The games just aren't good enough.

[Chickenfeed]

Other than Diablo 3, I'll agree with that. I'd drop $80 on that tomorrow if it was done and released ( I'm personally quite happy with the game so far ) Monk Norris!

That said I'm finding more and more I wait for a steam sale or a game to hit the bargin bin before I bite. I've paid full price on very few games in the last year, Skyrim being one of the few ( and worth it )

[Philip_J_Fry]

yes i just got diablo 3 beta invite. demon hunter here (i like shooters heh). I would totally get the collectors edition for $99. i got SC 2 collectors edition as well for $99. if its a good game, optimized, balanced. i would pay more than $60 for it, if its crap, i will wait for steam bargain for $15-ish.

[Ket]

Those prices are rediculous. $99 may as well be £99. Theres quite a few far more worthy things you can do with £100.. My standing stays, no game now or in the future is good enough to be worth more than £25. I'm undecided about Diablo3 and Skyrim isn't good enough for what they want for it, buggy, consolitis textures (thank god for modders ^_^) and broken quests under certain conditions.

[Flanman]

yes i just got diablo 3 beta invite. demon hunter here (i like shooters heh). I would totally get the collectors edition for $99. i got SC 2 collectors edition as well for $99. if its a good game, optimized, balanced. i would pay more than $60 for it, if its crap, i will wait for steam bargain for $15-ish.

i want the d3 collector's edition soley for the diablo skull and the flash drive

[UrbanSmooth]

The following statements are just theory, none of them are based on facts:
I think that the game companies stopped releasing demos because most of them were releasing the demos far before the product was even mature enough to be released. People would then get their hands on the demos from places like Fileplanet and have a crappy experience with the demo. Then people would talk about their poor experience on forums and complain about the lack of certain features, even if the demos had the whole "This is a Demo. This is not a representation of the final game."

I think that the other issue is that some of the major file sites got tired of the bandwidth people were using to download the demos for free. Thye started to create bandwidth caps to force us to create "unlimited memberships" so then PC gamers just started torrenting the demos or finding the demos on other sites that didn't require users to wait in line for 40minutes. Without users creating memberships many sites could not afford the bandwidth and probably started turning away the idea of 2+GB game demos. Places like Fileplanet tried to secure subscriptions but when people weren't willing to subscribe, Fileplanet started pushing so many ads (among other issues) that people stopped even using their site.

Thanks to Alexa, you can view the trend over the last year.


I would even have to say that we have seen some the biggest slaps to the face over recent years as PC gamers. There have been a lot of shoddy console ports, games like Command & Conquer 4, Rage, Resident Evil 4, GTA IV, and even Skyrim (as much as I loved it). John Carmack totally turned his back on PC gamers, the very people that made him, with the release of Rage.

Here is another reason why the companies are avoiding consoles for the time being:


...and it is a damn shame too, we should be so much further than where we are. The consoles are definitely holding back visual performance.


Only MMOs, RTS games and some RPGs will remain highly profitable on the PC due to the nature of how those games cannot be played with a controller. I cannot believe that some people would rather use thumbsticks.

/END RANT, haha

Keep your pimp hand strong, brother PC gamer.