viranimus: I am older than this game and while I do respect that to some this may be the greatest of all time, I cannot for the life of me see the logic of an MSRP of 20$ for a 35 year old game.
Fairfox: it look liek a cartoon
or somethang
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ $$$ PROFIT $$$
..... Well I was thinking more in line with the consumers perspective.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ /Shrug
Well played none the less.
Anime-BlackWolf: Those are 3 (!!!) games, not one. All are completed games, so they go for aprox. 7 $ each.
If it is something you love, more power to you. That said by your reasoning we can look at a different metric and tell a completely contradictory story. Those are 3 games. That main story run time is 1 hour, 1.5 hours and.... 17 MINUTES respectively. Totaling to just under 3 hours for those three games. (( Side note: Completionist ests= 2.5, 3.5 and 3.5 for a total of just under 10 hours. Even still 10 hours for 20$ is a questionable value ratio in modern gaming.))
That is an approx. 6-7$ per hour of content. While not TOO expensive, that is more in line with movie pricing/value (be it in theaters or home video/rental) which is VERY high when compared to the average cost per hour of most modern genres of games. IE Shooters/RPGs/MMO/ect.
Warning: The following is further pontification on pricing and it is relevance. This long form is simply a side effect of mentally prepping to return to school for the fall semester, getting back into "scholastic shape" in both writing and thought processes. It just amounts to various musings and acts as just a supplement to the stated point above already made. It is not really relevant, or related to the portion of this "Reply" to quoted posts. , It was drafted only for my personal benefit. Others may not find the same, if any value in it. Read or ignore at your own discretion =)
Why "value" is relevant. [spoiler]
There is a variable of contemporaneity as inherently a portion of the value of any media content is tied to its contemporary relevance that effectively puts "best by" dates to games which will yield higher value the sooner it is consumed to have social engagement with others regarding the content of the game.
Think of this as hearing friends talking about a show they all are discussing. If they are all current and engaged discussing season 7 of the show, you are still not going to be able to properly engage if you just started watching the first season last night.
Also this refers to the natural progression of time vs the progression of video games as a media. This is why games naturally depreciate in value over time. Gaming is constantly evolving with its own new advents and tropes. Think of playing a modern game today that you just discovered. Then going 12 sequels back to play the original game. While the original still has its own value, The texture and complexity that has evolved as its series has will paint the original as effectively a shell of what the franchises modern incarnation is and offers.
Just compare it to other video games and you would see its price/content ratio is incredibly disproportionate and the "value" of those >3 hours is completely subjective to the individual player. There is nothing wrong with it if you find high value in the > three hours you pay for.
There is another issue to consider here as well. Logical pricing. (Not related to any specific distributor, just pricing in general.) GoG serves as a very useful example here. While the old GOG Price tier system has fell away like a vestigial appendage, those "tiers" are still technically present as even new additions of old games often fall into specific price brackets. 3.99, 5.99, 9.99, 14.99, 19.99, ect.
Typically "true" GOGs fall to that original pricing structure many times if they are of a certain age. Either 3.99 or 5.99 base price, almost always being games greater than 10-15 years old.. In many cases, games less than 10 years old will stay in price brackets of 9-19.99 dependent on things like quality, hours of content, features, name recognition, etc. Games 5-10 years old tend to hover around that 20$ base mark.
There are also MANY examples on GOG of games that inexplicably defy many of these logical conventions. You almost always see them quickly reviewed as "Wait for a sale" scoffing at how high the base price is. Many time these "exceptions" come from big name publishers/devs.
So why does it matter? Technically it doesn't because in the end the value is in the eye of the consumer. However there is an institutionalized set of standards and systems that have naturally evolved that provide logical economic order. When examples surface that fundamentally deviate from this order, it becomes a glaring, uncanny valley that shines a light on its deviation from those norms and the disparity between how much they deviate that calls attention to it, and then becomes a point of distraction that you cant keep from being drawn back to. While there may be some games where one can justify this economic uncanny valley like say a Civilization title or a historic RPG like a Morrowind.
TES serves as a apt illustration of this. For example TES4 runs at 20$ for a 10 year old game. While Morrowind is 15 years old yet still has a 15$ base price. So if you know nothing about TES, why the disparity? They have similar levels of depth of content. They are roughly one generation apart in graphical fidelity, The former is far more beloved than the latter. So is Morrowinds price high for being as young as it is? Is Oblivion a bad game to still be "valued" that close to a complete generation step backwards? Is Morrowind being under priced for how beloved it is when compared to how much criticism Oblivion has? These questions illustrate the nuance of choosing to follow pricing structures for certain situations while deviating from them in others, which is why consistency is sought, and inconsistency more readily catches our attention.
[/spoiler]
EDIT: D`oh. Man it would be nice if GOGs forums had more editing options as most similar size/scope forums do. [Spoiler] is a major force of habit to mitigate forum verbosity, and its absence is sorely missed. ...
... TO THE WISHLIST!!!