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Comment by brownbat | Hacker News Reader

> I know multiple people to refuse to buy games unless they are hugely (80%+) discounted.

I'm probably in that camp. Some might even dismiss it as entitlement, but really I just have a lot of sources of free entertainment (including all the games I bought over the last five years that still work just fine).

I remember paying $60 for a Genesis cartridge, back when graphics and immersion were improving every year. Seems crazy though, I don't feel like I live in that world anymore.

I've got to imagine it's tough to compete in a market where customers can use the product forever and there's no obsolescence.

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>> I remember paying $60 for a Genesis cartridge, back when graphics and immersion were improving every year. Seems crazy though, I don't feel like I live in that world anymore.

I wonder if the fact that we're talking digital downloads (vs shelf space at Walmart) has been the driving factor behind "race to the bottom". As a developer, I don't like the "race to the bottom" because it means I have to charge less to remain competitive.

As a consumer, I like it because I get quality games (sometimes) for free or like $5. Thinking about how I used to have to beg for mommy to buy me a $60 game when I was 10 yrs old. This would be a $5 effort now. Could I have gotten away with being a more disobedient kid? Nah, prolly not.

Thing is, now the race to the bottom has just (irreversibly?) skewed price expectations so I still hear consumers complaining "oh it costs $5? I'm not going to play that. SKIP"

And in my head I'm thinking — "wow...you spend how much on your coffee EVERY DAY, COMPULSIVELY, yet you scoff at a complete body of work someone is selling to you for $5?"

> And in my head I'm thinking — "wow...you spend how much on your coffee EVERY DAY, COMPULSIVELY, yet you scoff at a complete body of work someone is selling to you for $5?"

Yeah, but, I don't know many people who will harvest, ship, and roast coffee beans just for fun.

I'm mostly just thrown by everyone casting this as some insane race condition, some producer lunacy that's confusing irrational consumers.

Maybe consumers are the smart ones, and they're sending a deliberate signal to producers. Maybe we're saying, "Hey, we have distraction mostly covered as a human problem. And there are a lot of these other human problems to work on. If you're smart and can pitch in other places where we have greater needs, where it's harder to attract talent because the fields aren't as inherently rewarding, then we'll toss you better returns. (If you can go without good returns, then no big deal, just do what you love.)"

I don't think markets are always (or even usually) rational. But if we're pitting today's game prices against the monopolistic rents charged by consoles a couple decades ago... I don't first assume today's prices are the irrational ones.

> Seems crazy though, I don't feel like I live in that world anymore.

The games take just as much time and effort to develop. The artists put just as much care and love into the each character. The programmers take just as much pride in their intro sequence.

Sure we don't have generational jumps anymore, rather we have developers and designers who now have the tools to bring into being an immense array of visions.

That those visions are now possible does not make them any less valuable!

> The games take just as much time and effort to develop. ... does not make them any less valuable!

I'm not sure the amount of effort is the best way to determine something's value.

If you spent a million hours making me a house out of pizza, I'm probably still not going to move in. If you dig a thousand feet underground to bring me a normal igneous rock, I'm not going to wear it like jewelry. The price for these things, and I'd argue the value of these things, would be very low.

Part of what makes your efforts valuable is whether or not you are filling a pressing need.

If we were in a tribal society surrounded by coconut palm trees, and you start walking to faraway villages to bring back their identical coconuts, you're not bringing back something of value. You're really just wasting everyone's time. If you learn medicine, or go fetch water, that's a little more heroic.

Today we live in an era where we're surrounded by an abundance of entertainment. I could spend the rest of my life and not make a dent in Project Gutenberg. And I don't think we can safely dismiss any of those experiences as valueless. I'm reluctant to believe that every new iPhone game is a far better experience than reading anything by, say, Lewis Carroll.

Maybe falling prices isn't a symptom of an ungrateful audience or a "race to the bottom," but an honest signal from the village of humanity that we've kind of got this human need for distraction covered.

Paid $75 (in 1987 money!) for The Legend of Zelda for the NES at a Toys "R" Us in Colma, CA. Sold all my Series 1 Voltron (with the toxic paint) at a garage sale to finance it. Still the most I've ever spent for a game, and it was worth every penny.

When I think about how expensive games appear to be nowadays, I think back to 8-year-old me and the sacrifices I made.

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