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"Why the end of the $60 video game is near"

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  • MainManiac
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    MainManiac polycounter lvl 11
    I didnt say older people that play games dont exist... Theyre less common than finding people under 25 that play games. I understand its very prominent but im not speaking against that lol Go through a mall and ask everyone under 25 if they play call of duty, and then ask everyone who looks older than 25. Unless they have a younger boyfriend/girlfriend/family member that plays it you wont see it as a common answer, and thats not even counting if they actively play it as a way to relax.
  • Two Listen
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    Two Listen polycount sponsor
    Frell I think you might just know a bunch of lame people, haha. And by lame I mean people who don't play video games. The people who grew up playing the hell out of the NES, SNES, even the original Playstation, etc - they're at or over 25. And they're all over the place. I think you might just not see it because it's not part of your age group, people do tend to flock towards similar folk as them. When I walk into a Gamestop, it's infinitely more rare to see a kid/teen in there than to see someone ~23-30.

    Growing up playing all sorts of online FPS games, RPGs, etc... Every clan or guild I was ever involved in, I was the young kid in pretty much all of them, and I'm now 22.
  • Vio
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    Vio polycounter lvl 6
    That threshold is only going to get older. There are anomalies at this stage in that computer gaming has only been around realistically for 30 years which means you have whole generations far beyond 30 that simply were not brought up on any concept of gaming before they found careers and hobbies of their own.

    Then social gaming its been around even less. My parents were big fans of games in the 90's such as Myst or 7th guest and they still like those games now but they are genres that are no longer mainstream. The COD generation will get older and expect their genre to last too. The games will get more complicated engines with more possibilities to employ more people to model the larger content.

    These are just my opinions of course.

    I guess being 26 I'm in the original quake games generation. I still love FPS games SP and MP and I expect that genre to continue gaining popularity regardless of the price because the prices we are talking about have always been there from what I can remember and today you have so many ways to avoid paying $60 for a game when you have things like Steam around.
  • Bibendum
    frell wrote: »
    I didnt say older people that play games dont exist... Theyre less common than finding people under 25 that play games. I understand its very prominent but im not speaking against that lol Go through a mall and ask everyone under 25 if they play call of duty, and then ask everyone who looks older than 25. Unless they have a younger boyfriend/girlfriend/family member that plays it you wont see it as a common answer, and thats not even counting if they actively play it as a way to relax.
    The average age of video game players is 37.

    The fact that you don't know anyone over the age of 25 who plays games or has heard of call of duty or whatever is more indicative of the kinds of people you know, not the kinds of people who play games.
  • SgtNasty
    Bibendum wrote: »
    This kind of embodies most of these articles because you say $60 is "way way too much" but you paid it anyway, knowing full well you'd only even play a portion of the game.

    Everybody wants things cheaper/better/sooner. I bet if you asked anybody who lined up to pay peak price for MW3 on launch day if they thought games were too expensive most of them would say yes. Then they'd get to the register and pay $60 + tax for one.

    "Too expensive" is the price that, above which, you're not willing to buy the game. So long as everyone is still buying games for $60 it really doesn't matter what they say about the price of games because their actions speak the real truth.

    It's not simply a matter of cheaper/better/sooner. As I mentioned there are free to play games out right now that I would consider much better than a lot of $60 games. There's a lot of talk here about CoD and BF or w/e. Those are like... the peak. What about your middle of the road stuff. Those B and C titles, still coming out at a $60 price point. I'm sure some of them could cut some fat off their game and lower the price.

    In general I'm just a big supporter of the free to play model. If you do it correctly and monetize correctly, it's amazingly effective. Again, Riot has totally proven that with LoL, but there are other examples as well. Team Fortress 2 went free to play and saw a massive spike. I'm sure DoTA 2 will be free as well. Heroes of Newerth went free to play not long ago and I believe they profited as well. Basically, if you can remove the barrier of price altogether, you've extended your potential audience massively.
  • SgtNasty
    Just as a side note, I don't fully support all free to play. There is a lot of stuff going on with social games (I won't name names) that's pretty questionable ethically speaking. Using human psychology to exploit people is wrong in my books. Luring people in and then frustrating them into paying money isn't cool. This method obviously really works on the majority of people however...
  • ambershee
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    ambershee polycounter lvl 17
    People who grwe up playing the hell out of the NES are generally in their forties now. The average 'playstation generation' gamer is going to be in their mid twenties.

    Holy crap, when did time happen?
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