I was theorizing earlier about the status of console gaming, given the severe slowdown in sales in Japan, fluctuating economy, and just consumer interest overall.

I'm wondering how many people readily run out and drop $50-$60 on a game these days. Between being able to buy a game used for cheaper via Gamestop or Ebay and waiting for a game to hit the bargain bin, gamers have ways of getting around the big price tag.

Many months ago, I posted a question about how many people would buy a game if it cost $10 new. The response was pretty good. I wonder if the difference in selling a $50 game to a reluctant crowd vs selling a game for $10 to a more open/experimentive crowd would be.

Let's say that a game for $50 sells to 200K people, that's $10 mil in sales. If a $10 game can get the interest of a million people, that's the same amount of sales. What would make the gap be so large in the population buying the game? The price, of course. People tend to be more open about dropping $10-$20 on a game than $50.

Of course, through a $10 process, you'd need to publish the game yourself, to reduce overhead and the profit pie being split up. At the end of the day, the dev might see $20-30 of that $50  game, so backtracking, the dev would make $4-6 mil off of that deal.

At the end of the day, a game is not measured in dollars, but how many people actually bought the game and are playing it. What makes popular games popular? Revenue earned, or how many people are playing it online/offline.

Maybe it is time for a shift to making cheaper games and supporting the community that supports the developers.

Thoughts?

Nah, I'm fine with 50/60 dollar games.

You pay for quality. Just don't buy crappy games.

It would need to be a universal practice. If some games still retail for $60 and others retail for $20, the $20 game will be thought of as inferior. Cutting Viva Pinata down to $40 retail at launch has not shown any significant growth.

I think one of the most underutilized practices is Nintendo's bundling of games with more desirable products. Look at the soaring sales of Wii Play because it's bundled with a remote. There's no reason why both Sony and Microsoft couldn't try the same strategy. It could even be multiple games to choose from in the package. It would promote more accessory sales and help sell a small game.

I pay the $50-$60 if it's a game I really want (which is a lot of games).

$10-$20 seems a bit low but even if they priced the game between $30-$40 I think more people would be open to buying it and they could probably justify getting two games in that price range rather than just one. So, +2 to the industry.

Developing games has become so expensive that they need a rather high pricetag, unfortunately.

Humans are greedy by nature. As a business owner myslef I can say porfitability and quality of your product or services are the most important and sometimes greed comes into play when we try to achive these things . I agree with some on this post, stay away from bad games.

Personally I'm a cheapskate (and broke), so making games cheaper appeals to me a lot. But Onyxmeth is right: people often see the dollar amount as the game's value, so they might just dismiss your $10 game as cheap shovelware, and save their pennies to buy a used copy of, say, Lair. Adding to the difficulty is the fact that retailers would rather stock more expensive games, as their shelf space is limited and they can't take as much money from a $10 game than a $60 one.

It seems to me that digital distribution will be the solution to this problem, but you'll first have to get the masses onboard.

Interesting points made. One one point, I'm not so sure I'd see a low priced game as "poor quality" off the bat. I'd have to get a reference from someone who's played it, or cross referenced reviews of the game to assume the quality or lack thereof.

I do agree that development, especially for HD systems, has gotten out of hand, which keeps the issue relevant and yet also on point of the OP. What happens when that HD game bombs, Lair style? There is only a loss of funds in that development process. Of course, in fairness, there were several issues wrong with that game in particular. Yet, I wonder if more money could have been made for selling the game at a lower price.

While there are $50 games I'd like, I spend more time passing by a gaming section at Best Buy/CIrcuit City/Walmart than I do intentionally going out to buy a game. When Im passing by, Im usually try to be conservative with finances, so I can't justify that $50 purchase, but might pick up something that's $20 (Zak & Wiki likely next on that list).

Yet, I think its foolish to think of a low cost game as being crap quality without playing it or at least researching it, no?

It is to us. Not everyone researches their purchases though. It's mainly a perception thing. When Rare announced Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts would retail for $40, one of the first concerns out of multiple people on this board were whether this meant there would be less content in the game.

Thats a sad society we live in - we expect to pay top dollar for everything, and when we don't we expect a lack of quality. Capitalist to the core. George Washington would have turned emo.