You realize Collector's Edition are a huge waste of money and all it really is, is a market tool to analyze how much gamers are willing to pay for a game. So because of you thousands of other sheep buyers the prices of games inflate for everyone else. Thanks.
And what exactly are you basing that nonsense on? Whatever market data they ascertain from the sales of collector's edition boxes will only affect the cost of future collector's edition boxes. It's completely retarded to think the price of the base game will be affected by anything other then retail sales + digital sales + current market appeal to the Diablo franchise.
Depends on the game, and of course personnl preference. For instance the Mass Effect 3 CE (Quips about the end not needed, we all know the general consensus was that it was bad.) comes with the From Ashes DLC, itself a $10 value, plus the soundtrack which when it is eventually released on Amazon/iTunes will probably go from somewhere around $8-$10. So already you have made up for the $20 increase over the bas price of the game, plus you get the art book, comic, etc. So it is actually a pretty good deal IF you are they kind of player who also listens to soundtracks and likes seeing the concept art, etc. Which personnaly I am.
Your mileage may vary. But to make a blanket statement that CE's are just a waste of money is to disregard the preferences of others. To some they are very very worth it.
And since when has the CE ever EVER had an impact on the base price of future games. I'm pretty sure the price went up because Sony and MS proved people would pay a little more with the $60 price model of the 360 and PS3.
I have to disagree even though I rarely purchase collector's edition. Blizzards artwork alone is amazing and worth the purchase. I would highly recommend them if you like art. However, if you don't like it there's not much reason to really get it. Same for CE's that includes full blown maps, really nice manual and guide book like medieval fantasy types :) Ah, the old days. I could care less about in-game items, pets, DLC or the like but that's just me.
Now now, call it Blizzard's "Keep your index finger in shape" initiative. It's been getting a little pudgy just tapping a few trigger buttons on the 360 controller.
I'm skipping it too. I also skipped ME3 because of Origin. There is plenty of competition out there. I'm actually disappointed in Diablo 3. It looks just like the 12 year old arcade game Gauntlet Legends.
I don't see how you got that I'm skipping Diablo II from that strip?
FWIW I am, since I skipped the first two and it's not really my genre of game, but I merely posted this because I find the rage over 'always-online DRM' to be hilarious.
If any title I play must have DRM then I'd prefer it to be that kind. No third party launchers, no disk checks, no limited activations.. just a sign-in and that's it.
They make more money charging 59.99 and creating a shorter game. Combine this with most customers proving they're willing to pay 59.99, and there you go.
First, $10 is dirt, it's honestly weird seeing people get so uptight about it. Games remain one of the best $/hour entertainment values in existence, it's really incredible. A trip to the movie theatre at this point can easily be $10-12 for an average two hour show. Movie rentals aren't any better. Books (novel, average 500 pages say, average 250 words per page, average reading rate at around 175 WPM) can do better then a short game, and be around a medium one. But for an RPG, sandbox, shmup, fighter, and similar it's easy to sink 50-100 hours or more into one game. Even at full price, let alone on sale or used, that makes videogames a pretty amazing value IMO.
More fundamentally though, it's 2012 in case you haven't noticed, not 2000. Inflation means that yes, prices do in fact go up. Go take a look at one of the inflation calculators available online, the government maintains one, as do others: http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
Take that, $50 in 2000 has the buying power of around $66 in 2012. So at $60, game prices haven't even gone up, they've actually gone down. People like you who don't understand that (and/or are just cheapskates) and want the latest stuff produced not even for the same price, but for LESS, are a major part of the reason developers feel like they have to do DLC.
Dont spout inflation is the reason with your cocky tone. Inflation varies greatly depending on the good/service in fact there are many things that experience deflation.
Im not going to go into a cost benefit analysis over the entertainment value of games because I dont deny the value you get when the game is a quality product.
But its people like you with your smug attitudes and justification for skyrocketing prices that fuel corporate greed.
Unless your a developer yourself then dont pretend to know jack squat about what they feel. I AM A DEVELOPER and DLC has nothing to do with "developers feel like they have to do DLC" and everything to do with publishers wanting to nickel and dime the consumer to death for more money.
Are you naive enough to think developers get some cut of the DLC profits??? LOL know your facts before you make assumptions.
>But its people like you with your smug attitudes and justification for skyrocketing prices that fuel corporate greed. I think you're the one with a smug attitude. The objective fact is that effective game prices have not gone up. Few things are more a Free Market then video games. Spouting stuff like "corporate greed" makes you sound ridiculous in this situation.
>Unless your a developer yourself I am.
>I AM A DEVELOPER and DLC has nothing to do with "developers feel like they have to do DLC" and everything to do with publishers wanting to nickel and dime the consumer to death for more money. That's your problem, not everyone's. Lots of us who are entirely independent use DLC too, particularly in the mobile world. Your "nickel and dime the consumers to death" ranting over *ten bucks* illustrates the problem perfectly. You don't mention flops at all (which regrettably happens even to excellent games), you don't mention ballooning budgets for big titles, nada. It's just classic Armchair General.
Things like Steam and the Humble Bundle show there is plenty of healthy experimentation going on with low prices too. That some publishers of very expensive AAA titles decide to keep up with inflation is totally reasonable.
FYI - Xbox and Playstation games have to pay a big fat licensing fee to the console maker for every game, generally $5-10. That is why PC games stayed low for so long, because they didn't have to pay a console license fee.
Expect PC games to get even more expensive. Win8 Metro games MUST be sold through the Microsoft Store and MS will get somewhere between 15-30% of the cost. $75 games are probably only a year away. The next generation will certainly have $75 game.
Metro app games will be sold through the new app store, but most PC games, and all the AAA titles will not be on this store. You will still get these games from all the same places for the same price. Do you really think a developer will want MS taking up to 30% of there money when theres absolutely no need for it? Not only this but Metro games use different API's and ways of doing things, all these developer would have to first spend ages figuring out how to make a AAA game that works inside the Metro UI.
And have you actually seen the games currently on the app store? They're like phone/tablet games, they will be very cheap and simple.
Another example would be to look a crApple's app store, do you see any $75 games on that? lol.
No, games MUST cost whatever price the market will bear while still turning a profit. $75 games will kill the market for games. I know I wouldn't pay $75 for any game, and for $60 I'm still very selective. On average, I'd say I pay around $20-30 for a new game, and I buy a lot of $10 or less games that are only a year or so old.
$10 is not dirt. By that logic, you could keep adding $10 to the price and get it to $300. It's just $10. It's just $10. It's just $10. etc.
And to all those claiming inflation, this must be your 1st Blizzard game. They've been $60 since at least WC3. The price isn't due to inflation. Look at PC games on Steam and even Amazon. You can usually buy them between $5-$30. Is inflation the reason laptops now cost $1,000,000 each?
>$10 is not dirt. For something providing dozens of hours, if not hundreds of hours, of enjoyment? Yes it is.
>By that logic, you could keep adding $10 to the price and get it to $300. Um, no. $300 != $10. You notice how one of those is bigger then the other? 30x bigger? On Planet ionis they may do things differently, but back here on Earth, the only number equal to a number is, in fact, itself. So $10 + $10? That's $20, which is not $10. See how that works? We can help you out with that a bit more if you're still having trouble!
>And to all those claiming inflation, this must be your 1st Blizzard game. No, I still have my original copy of The Lost Vikings actually.
>They've been $60 since at least WC3. And they were $50 back in the 90s, which still makes inflation reasonable as one factor amongst a number. Every software title has a different budget, different expected sales, and different market strategies. That so many companies have increased efficiency and held off on expected price increases is impressive, but that doesn't make it "wrong" or "greedy" when the inevitable happens, or a company decides to go for higher value products with bigger budgets and longer dev cycles.
>Look at PC games on Steam and even Amazon. You can usually buy them between $5-$30. An utterly asinine point devoid of context. Are the games brand new? Are they AAA titles with ten million+ budgets?
And of course the ultimate arbiter is the market itself: if your game is better and in higher demand, you can charge a premium for doing a good job and making something people want. If you've built up a brand over years or decades that people trust, well obviously that's going to be worth something too (although the brand can lose value as easily or more easily then it can gain it). There's nothing immoral about that either.
Bottom line: there is nothing inherently unreasonable about a $60 game in 2012. It's cheaper then a $50 from 2000, let alone from 1990. If you don't feel a particular title delivers on value, then don't buy it (I certainly won't be), but that's the fault of the individual title, not the price.
D3 another hack'n'slash that will shine in builds and item raiding. That's about it. Sadly Blizz has never evolved from its past and keeps drumming the same recipe under the guise of a modern graphical engine. The same can be said about S2, the same APM dependent basehopping RTS. Relic does it much better with its Company of Heroes. Don't murder me, I've played their games once like a maniac.
Me too, and I was at first disappointed by S2 and D3. But you know what? I really enjoyed them despite the "same old fight and plot". I will be buying D3 and loving the same old stuff all over again.
The always online requirement and that auction house stuff are big negatives to me. Why do people hate on EA/Origin so much? This is 10x worse in my opinion. They have almost turned it into an mmo, and I don't mean that as a compliment. I was originally really looking forward to this game, but lack of offline single player is nearly a deal breaker to me.
Let's see, $60, DRM that forces me to stay online to play single player, same tired old story/gameplay, tired looking graphics ... I think not. Fist one was okay, second one was insufferable, this one I'll pass on completely.
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coldpower27 - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
Finally a release date, will be getting a Collector's edition, I love Blizzard there game quality is pretty much second to none!tigz1218 - Friday, March 16, 2012 - link
You realize Collector's Edition are a huge waste of money and all it really is, is a market tool to analyze how much gamers are willing to pay for a game. So because of you thousands of other sheep buyers the prices of games inflate for everyone else. Thanks.Arkive - Friday, March 16, 2012 - link
And what exactly are you basing that nonsense on? Whatever market data they ascertain from the sales of collector's edition boxes will only affect the cost of future collector's edition boxes. It's completely retarded to think the price of the base game will be affected by anything other then retail sales + digital sales + current market appeal to the Diablo franchise.Akrovah - Friday, March 16, 2012 - link
Depends on the game, and of course personnl preference. For instance the Mass Effect 3 CE (Quips about the end not needed, we all know the general consensus was that it was bad.) comes with the From Ashes DLC, itself a $10 value, plus the soundtrack which when it is eventually released on Amazon/iTunes will probably go from somewhere around $8-$10. So already you have made up for the $20 increase over the bas price of the game, plus you get the art book, comic, etc. So it is actually a pretty good deal IF you are they kind of player who also listens to soundtracks and likes seeing the concept art, etc. Which personnaly I am.Your mileage may vary. But to make a blanket statement that CE's are just a waste of money is to disregard the preferences of others. To some they are very very worth it.
And since when has the CE ever EVER had an impact on the base price of future games. I'm pretty sure the price went up because Sony and MS proved people would pay a little more with the $60 price model of the 360 and PS3.
The0ne - Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - link
I have to disagree even though I rarely purchase collector's edition. Blizzards artwork alone is amazing and worth the purchase. I would highly recommend them if you like art. However, if you don't like it there's not much reason to really get it. Same for CE's that includes full blown maps, really nice manual and guide book like medieval fantasy types :) Ah, the old days. I could care less about in-game items, pets, DLC or the like but that's just me.Andrew.a.cunningham - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
ClickClickClickClickClickClickClickClickClickClickClickClickClickAndrew.a.cunningham - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
ClickClickClickClickClickClicksiberus - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
pk's!!!! o wait there's no pvp... carry onBSMonitor - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
Now now, call it Blizzard's "Keep your index finger in shape" initiative. It's been getting a little pudgy just tapping a few trigger buttons on the 360 controller.Andrew.a.cunningham - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
Don't get me wrong, I'll probably end up buying this. :-) I actually might be a little more excited about Torchlight 2, though...minijedimaster - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
+1 for torchlight 2claytontullos - Saturday, March 17, 2012 - link
Have you checked out Grim Dawn?http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedd...
minijedimaster - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
Obligatory: Online always requirement for single player pass on this game comment.Exodite - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/8/8/mcnabney - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
I'm skipping it too. I also skipped ME3 because of Origin. There is plenty of competition out there. I'm actually disappointed in Diablo 3. It looks just like the 12 year old arcade game Gauntlet Legends.Exodite - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
I don't see how you got that I'm skipping Diablo II from that strip?FWIW I am, since I skipped the first two and it's not really my genre of game, but I merely posted this because I find the rage over 'always-online DRM' to be hilarious.
If any title I play must have DRM then I'd prefer it to be that kind. No third party launchers, no disk checks, no limited activations.. just a sign-in and that's it.
MMOs do it right IMO.
Exodite - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
Diablo III even.cknobman - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
WTF happened to $49.99 for PC games!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Bateluer - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
They make more money charging 59.99 and creating a shorter game. Combine this with most customers proving they're willing to pay 59.99, and there you go.zanon - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
First, $10 is dirt, it's honestly weird seeing people get so uptight about it. Games remain one of the best $/hour entertainment values in existence, it's really incredible. A trip to the movie theatre at this point can easily be $10-12 for an average two hour show. Movie rentals aren't any better. Books (novel, average 500 pages say, average 250 words per page, average reading rate at around 175 WPM) can do better then a short game, and be around a medium one. But for an RPG, sandbox, shmup, fighter, and similar it's easy to sink 50-100 hours or more into one game. Even at full price, let alone on sale or used, that makes videogames a pretty amazing value IMO.More fundamentally though, it's 2012 in case you haven't noticed, not 2000. Inflation means that yes, prices do in fact go up. Go take a look at one of the inflation calculators available online, the government maintains one, as do others:
http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
Take that, $50 in 2000 has the buying power of around $66 in 2012. So at $60, game prices haven't even gone up, they've actually gone down. People like you who don't understand that (and/or are just cheapskates) and want the latest stuff produced not even for the same price, but for LESS, are a major part of the reason developers feel like they have to do DLC.
cknobman - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
Dont spout inflation is the reason with your cocky tone. Inflation varies greatly depending on the good/service in fact there are many things that experience deflation.Im not going to go into a cost benefit analysis over the entertainment value of games because I dont deny the value you get when the game is a quality product.
But its people like you with your smug attitudes and justification for skyrocketing prices that fuel corporate greed.
Unless your a developer yourself then dont pretend to know jack squat about what they feel. I AM A DEVELOPER and DLC has nothing to do with "developers feel like they have to do DLC" and everything to do with publishers wanting to nickel and dime the consumer to death for more money.
Are you naive enough to think developers get some cut of the DLC profits??? LOL know your facts before you make assumptions.
zanon - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
>But its people like you with your smug attitudes and justification for skyrocketing prices that fuel corporate greed.I think you're the one with a smug attitude. The objective fact is that effective game prices have not gone up. Few things are more a Free Market then video games. Spouting stuff like "corporate greed" makes you sound ridiculous in this situation.
>Unless your a developer yourself
I am.
>I AM A DEVELOPER and DLC has nothing to do with "developers feel like they have to do DLC" and everything to do with publishers wanting to nickel and dime the consumer to death for more money.
That's your problem, not everyone's. Lots of us who are entirely independent use DLC too, particularly in the mobile world. Your "nickel and dime the consumers to death" ranting over *ten bucks* illustrates the problem perfectly. You don't mention flops at all (which regrettably happens even to excellent games), you don't mention ballooning budgets for big titles, nada. It's just classic Armchair General.
Things like Steam and the Humble Bundle show there is plenty of healthy experimentation going on with low prices too. That some publishers of very expensive AAA titles decide to keep up with inflation is totally reasonable.
mcnabney - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
FYI - Xbox and Playstation games have to pay a big fat licensing fee to the console maker for every game, generally $5-10. That is why PC games stayed low for so long, because they didn't have to pay a console license fee.Expect PC games to get even more expensive. Win8 Metro games MUST be sold through the Microsoft Store and MS will get somewhere between 15-30% of the cost. $75 games are probably only a year away. The next generation will certainly have $75 game.
DanNeely - Friday, March 16, 2012 - link
Conventional retail markups are 50% of list price....Does anyone know what Steam, Impulse, etc charge?
B3an - Friday, March 16, 2012 - link
Dont be stupid.Metro app games will be sold through the new app store, but most PC games, and all the AAA titles will not be on this store. You will still get these games from all the same places for the same price. Do you really think a developer will want MS taking up to 30% of there money when theres absolutely no need for it? Not only this but Metro games use different API's and ways of doing things, all these developer would have to first spend ages figuring out how to make a AAA game that works inside the Metro UI.
And have you actually seen the games currently on the app store? They're like phone/tablet games, they will be very cheap and simple.
Another example would be to look a crApple's app store, do you see any $75 games on that? lol.
Reality check.
Golgatha - Friday, March 16, 2012 - link
No, games MUST cost whatever price the market will bear while still turning a profit. $75 games will kill the market for games. I know I wouldn't pay $75 for any game, and for $60 I'm still very selective. On average, I'd say I pay around $20-30 for a new game, and I buy a lot of $10 or less games that are only a year or so old.ionis - Friday, March 16, 2012 - link
$10 is not dirt. By that logic, you could keep adding $10 to the price and get it to $300. It's just $10. It's just $10. It's just $10. etc.And to all those claiming inflation, this must be your 1st Blizzard game. They've been $60 since at least WC3. The price isn't due to inflation. Look at PC games on Steam and even Amazon. You can usually buy them between $5-$30. Is inflation the reason laptops now cost $1,000,000 each?
zanon - Friday, March 16, 2012 - link
>$10 is not dirt.For something providing dozens of hours, if not hundreds of hours, of enjoyment? Yes it is.
>By that logic, you could keep adding $10 to the price and get it to $300.
Um, no. $300 != $10. You notice how one of those is bigger then the other? 30x bigger? On Planet ionis they may do things differently, but back here on Earth, the only number equal to a number is, in fact, itself. So $10 + $10? That's $20, which is not $10. See how that works? We can help you out with that a bit more if you're still having trouble!
>And to all those claiming inflation, this must be your 1st Blizzard game.
No, I still have my original copy of The Lost Vikings actually.
>They've been $60 since at least WC3.
And they were $50 back in the 90s, which still makes inflation reasonable as one factor amongst a number. Every software title has a different budget, different expected sales, and different market strategies. That so many companies have increased efficiency and held off on expected price increases is impressive, but that doesn't make it "wrong" or "greedy" when the inevitable happens, or a company decides to go for higher value products with bigger budgets and longer dev cycles.
>Look at PC games on Steam and even Amazon. You can usually buy them between $5-$30.
An utterly asinine point devoid of context. Are the games brand new? Are they AAA titles with ten million+ budgets?
And of course the ultimate arbiter is the market itself: if your game is better and in higher demand, you can charge a premium for doing a good job and making something people want. If you've built up a brand over years or decades that people trust, well obviously that's going to be worth something too (although the brand can lose value as easily or more easily then it can gain it). There's nothing immoral about that either.
Bottom line: there is nothing inherently unreasonable about a $60 game in 2012. It's cheaper then a $50 from 2000, let alone from 1990. If you don't feel a particular title delivers on value, then don't buy it (I certainly won't be), but that's the fault of the individual title, not the price.
Tetracycloide - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
Stuff costs more than it used to!Young people use curse words!
Your social security check is late!
slickr - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
Inflation. This is not 2006 anymore!That said Diablo 3 is the most DRM heavy game out there. You will be required to constantly be online to play the game even offline!
sleepeeg3 - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
Wait 1 week.chrnochime - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
So then go make us a game that's better than D3 at even cheaper price. What are u waiting for anyway??mcnabney - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
Torchlight 2Thanks for the tip!
ThePooBurner - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
100$ for the collectors edition? I paid 60$ for the collectors editions of the first 3 WoW games. This pricing is utter bullcrap.scook9 - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
I pre-ordered this off amazon like 2 weeks ago, along with Heart of the Swarm. Did amazon jump the gun or is this just dated news?Craig Getting - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
Amazon will let you buy something before it has a release date.Dustin Sklavos - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
To think that in the time it took Blizzard to make Diablo III, BioWare was able to make the entire Mass Effect trilogy.Sorry Blizzard, I don't believe I'll be rewarding incompetence today. :)
Iketh - Sunday, March 18, 2012 - link
I would call it laziness/apathy. WoW is providing all the funds they need.Same reason for 10 years for SC2...
ananduser - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
D3 another hack'n'slash that will shine in builds and item raiding. That's about it. Sadly Blizz has never evolved from its past and keeps drumming the same recipe under the guise of a modern graphical engine. The same can be said about S2, the same APM dependent basehopping RTS. Relic does it much better with its Company of Heroes.Don't murder me, I've played their games once like a maniac.
KoolAidMan1 - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
Relic RTS were always "ok" and they only got worse with DOW2. I'm so happy Blizzard has been killing it with SC2, a superior game in every way IMODOOA - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
Me too, and I was at first disappointed by S2 and D3.But you know what? I really enjoyed them despite the "same old fight and plot". I will be buying D3 and loving the same old stuff all over again.
carnachion - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
Just got a 1-year WoW subscription. Now I just have to wait until June 7th. It'll be a hard waiting time hehe.frozentundra123456 - Friday, March 16, 2012 - link
The always online requirement and that auction house stuff are big negatives to me. Why do people hate on EA/Origin so much? This is 10x worse in my opinion. They have almost turned it into an mmo, and I don't mean that as a compliment. I was originally really looking forward to this game, but lack of offline single player is nearly a deal breaker to me.1ceTr0n - Friday, March 16, 2012 - link
I'm commander shepard and this is the most tired and boring game series on the citadelCraig Getting - Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - link
Like.ludikraut - Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - link
Let's see, $60, DRM that forces me to stay online to play single player, same tired old story/gameplay, tired looking graphics ... I think not. Fist one was okay, second one was insufferable, this one I'll pass on completely.l8r)