Not to be offensive or anything but this is a load of rubbish. For a start although packaging costs only about £3-5 the company has to recuperate years of development costs, in the case of some, i.e Tiberian Sun, over a Decades worth. Secondly the X-Box, this console contains a lot of expensive equipment and had Microsoft observed the same policy that Sony and Nintendo have it would have cost over £500. Finally gaming is not losing money, in fact it is one of the biggest indutries in the world, the only reason why jobs are being lost is that due to refinements in programming technology less programmers are required.

Yes i agree that console games are over priced at £50 but to expect them at £20 is unreasonable, look for a compromise in P.C prices - £30.

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by Havoc
Not to be offensive or anything but this is a load of rubbish. For a start although packaging costs only about £3-5 the company has to recuperate years of development costs, in the case of some, i.e Tiberian Sun, over a Decades worth.

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Very true. I believe most games these days cost at least £1 million to develop, and often a lot more. Course, sometimes that's on rubbish like Daikatana...

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Secondly the X-Box, this console contains a lot of expensive equipment and had Microsoft observed the same policy that Sony and Nintendo have it would have cost over £500.

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They were still selling it at a loss. The XBox is basically a fairly well-specified PC which is crippled so it can't actually be used as one. As Microsoft are discovering, people will pay a lot for PCs, but not for games consoles.

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Finally gaming is not losing money, in fact it is one of the biggest indutries in the world,

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I believe the site mentions that. More revenue is made than, say, the film industry, but that doesn't necessarily translate to profits.

And the fact is, a lot of smaller developers and publishers are closing down.

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the only reason why jobs are being lost is that due to refinements in programming technology less programmers are required.

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Less programmers are required, but they have always been a small proportion of the people who work on games anyway. More graphic artists, storywriters, music scorers, etc are needed than ever before.

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Yes i agree that console games are over priced at £50 but to expect them at £20 is unreasonable, look for a compromise in P.C prices - £30.

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It's quite simple, really. Consoles are sold at a loss, or at best cost price. The way Sony, Nintendo etc make their money is through licensing fees for every unit of a game sold, and this, is the primary reason why console games are so expensive. So, if the games were to become cheaper, the only way this is gonna happen is if the consoles become much more expensive.

The industry has started to respond to the campaign. A few highlights include the Peter Molyneux comment dating back to 1996!

See www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?section_name=ret&aid=775 for more details.

Hmm. This all sounds very suspicious indeed. The site claims "The games industry, taken as a worldwide whole, actually lost in the region of £1 BILLION in 2001", which hardly makes sense. Considering at least one point within the last 2 years, it has been stated by several that "the videogames industry has been raking in more cash than Hollywood", and seems to be getting bigger every year (I dare somebody to say that's not true!) there isn't a big chance that losing this much money will have that much of an effect on the gaming industry.

Having had a bit of time to think about it, the following occurs to me:

I was going to spout lots of stuff about development budgets, manufacturers' royalties, retail margins and other cost factors but the main thing though is that it is possible to buy games for £20, if you're prepared to wait for budget re-issues.

Right now, the PS2 is the only console with a budget range but it seems likely the Xbox and GCN will spawn them too once they've been around long enough for budget re-issues. As for the PC, prices go all the way down to £5 or so for things like the Sold Out range.

I also read recently that the best selling budget titles tended to be the same as the ones which had sold best at full price (on PC anyway) so budget software expands the market rather than cannibalising sales of full price titles.

Another thought - will halving the cost double sales (or better)? Not sure... More people will probably buy games and current gamers will probably buy more games.

Then again, a lot of current AAA titles are still pretty hardcore - how much bigger could the demand for titles like GTA3 or MGS2 get? Likewise, I'm not sure I'd have much time to play many more games of the sort I currently do, not if I wanted to get into them properly anyway.

So, if games sales did double, I suspect they'd be masss market titles a lot more in the vein of, say, Deer Hunter than Halo.

This whole thing's been interesting and thought-provoking but I'm not convinced of the conclusions yet. Would I like cheaper games? Of course I would. However, I think a fair bit of number crunching is needed to determine what's feasible and sustainable...