The Monetary Value of Games is UNDER ATTACK!

Over the past few months, I realized something about myself. My fill of a game depends pretty consistently on how many hours I've put into it. In other words, I feel satisfied with a AAA title once I've played about 20 hours of it. That means if the game is 10 hours long, I'll play it twice. If it's 20 hours long, once. More than 20 hours? Usually I won't finish it, as was the case with Grand Theft Auto 4.

Length is a strange issue, especially with gaming. Length can be almost completely unrelated to experience in the game. Some games are padded with monotonous chores and take 50 hours (most RPGs), others are a densely packaged, transcendent 3-hour run (Portal).

Portal is a perfect example of how the experience of a game completely determines its value, both in terms of length and price. When Portal first came out, it was $20, and took about 2-5 hours to complete, depending on your pacing.

The pricing of games is a controversial topic. Most publishers and developers like to think their games are well worth the $60 you pay for a new copy. You'll hear the argument, "Well, considering the amount of entertainment you get in games, $60 is a good value". They're speaking about game length, of course. Do you want to talk about why this argument doesn't make much sense? I do!

Let's say the average, 2-hour movie costs $10 to see. That's $5 per hour. How much would that make a 12-hour game cost? $60?! Right on! You're good at math. Actually, I'm good at math, since I'm not interacting with you at this point. Now you might be thinking "This is dumb, because the value of a movie isn't in its length." Now say that thought out loud to me. Holy carp, you're right! Then why the hell does this argument even exist? The value of a game has nothing whatsoever to do with its length, just like with movies.

Besides, games vary wildly in length, movies don't really. They're mostly between 1.5 and 2.5 hours. Games can be 5, 7, 12, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 50, 60, 80, or 100 hours long. Time is irrelevant anyway, because puzzle games are infinitely long, the same with something like The Sims.

Why am I spending so much time on this point? Because of how fuzzy this whole issue is. What is the value of a game? I guess it depends on the experience. Something like Uncharted 2, I have no problem paying $60 for. It was an amazing experience, one I would gladly pay EVEN MORE for.

Games miss an opportunity movies are built around. There isn't, so far, a good way to experience a game one time for a smaller amount of money. With a movie, you can go see it a single time for $8. This is pretty low risk, so even if the movie turns out to be butt, you don't feel too bad because it didn't cost you THAT much time or money. Games aren't this finite. This is why renting a game isn't a very good solution. You only have so much time with it (a week), and you probably won't complete it in a single night. You really don't have a clear idea of how long it'll take to finish. So you're spending $8-$10 to maybe or maybe not play a full game.

$60 is just too much for a single item. People will pay it, but at the expense of other games. I simply cannot afford to buy all the games that I would like to, so I have to choose the games I want the most. This is why making a game is so risky. People can only buy so many games, so they have to be really selective. This forces gaming companies to play it safe. It's damaging the whole industry!

For me, I think the most reasonable price point is $30 new. I don't have nearly as difficult a time paying $30 for something as I do $60. I would probably end up spending even more on games in absolute terms because I wouldn't struggle with each purchase. Is anybody listening to me?!