The cost of excess.

As gamers we are more than a bit vocal at what wrongs us, be it bugs, glitches, sequels or whatever we choose.  A huge bone of contention over the years has been with the pricing of games which shot up after the ZX Spectrum era by roughly 500 %, but it then levelled out and in all fairness has been round about the same price now for nearly twenty years.  In four months time the whole price issue may once again be changing and no one is too happy about it.  November will see the release of the much anticipated Modern Warfare 2, but the suggested R.R.P. for it is the princely sum of £54.99!  That is at least ten pounds dearer than most current releases and indeed can be up to twenty pounds more than many other games.  Some of the suggested reasons for this are the struggling pound and the global economy but is it more of the case that greed is taking over?

As I stated games have been at the same price level for nearly two decades now, there have been some minor fluctuations over the years but they have always settled back down.  We should be pleased that prices have remained the same for so long, there are very few products that cost the same now as they did in the early nineties, we really should expect an increase over time but this feels so wrong.  Modern Warfare 2 stands to be one of the most anticipated, biggest selling games of modern times and the publishers know this, could this be an attempt to milk the cash cow for even more of our hard earned pounds?  I really think so!  Call of Duty 4 is still on sale at nearly full price almost two years after it was first released and it still sells by the bucket load, my understanding was that when games sold a certain amount they became part of the Classics/Platinum ranges where they sell for twenty pounds or less, still hasn’t happened with one of the biggest selling games of recent times, strange that!  Of course many shops and online stores wont be selling the game at £55 but the more friendly £40-£45 range but underneath it all is a precedent trying to be set.  If Activision largely get away with the higher pricing then of course it will have a knock on effect with other publishers trying to do the same, from my point of view that will only mean one thing.  The beginning of the end for the games industry.

As it is, our gaming is an expensive hobby/pastime to keep up with and this will only make it dearer and harder to stay current and fresh.  That extra ten to twenty pounds per game will make many people despondent with the whole gaming scene and it is inevitable that a great many people will stop buying games altogether.  This can only be bad news for an industry that has largely bucked the global credit crunch and indeed could spell the end for more developers and publishers as less games may be sold.  Of course, all of this is purely hypothetical at this moment in time and really is only my thoughts on the issue, but there has been a lot of interest in the subject across many sites and forums.  So far Activision are the only publishers that have come out with this higher price, EA have stated that for the foreseeable future, their games will remain at the current pricing structure.  No other publishers have yet commented on their thoughts on this new pricing venture, but you can be sure that they will all be watching it with baited breath.