circlewalker

i thinnk £75 was the most expensive game I can remember, which was Rise of the Robots.

Super Mario 3 was £65, and was worth it imo.

retired_bec8643

Mum bought me Super Mario 3 christ didn't realise she'd have paid £65 for it


Know on the Snes it was about £60 for Street Fighter 2

mrfunktastick

every time someone downloads FM08 someone at SI dies

retired_nini59

you could argue that piracy forces games manufacturers to reduce prices in order to prevent as many people as possible from pirating the product. CDs, DVDs, and games all seem to have reduced to some extent due to them no longer having an effective monopoly on their product, though you could argue it's due to production costs reducing.

What is for sure though is that it does take some money out of the industry, which in theory hinders future progress and development.

retired_brittneyloveshim

it`s not for sure. there`s academic study that states it is not easily ascertainable - esp in the case of music - whether it costs the industry or not. here`s a direct quote from one journal:

Media, Culture & Society, Vol. 26, No. 2, 163-181 (2004)
The Effects of Piracy Upon the Music Industry: a Case Study of Bootlegging
Lee Marshall

the problem is of course that announcing that it doesn`t cost the industry creates its own dynamic.

retired_kimmymarlo

game development and music two wildly dissimilar industries, however.

retired_brittneyloveshim

well yeah of course, but the point is that it`s not easily ascertainable whether piracy does or does not increase sales. the binary views on either side don`t help.

what is of course always ignored in these studies is the gain in consumer surplus. rightly or wrongly, the fact that people who wouldn`t be able to afford to, or would choose not to, buy the game/cd/whatever is never brought into the equation. of course there has to be respect for intellectual property brought in at some point, but to dismiss any idea of a tradeoff is ****ing nonsensical.

retired_kimmymarlo

market demands and constraints between games and music make a comparison between them as apt as a comparison between pirated music and clothing (save for the online delivery method and the attendant ease of piracy, which contributes a lot to it imo).

retired_tallgirl

One of the problems of the EHL series was that the game appeared to be fairly similar to its former incantation, asides the bells and whistles of the match engine.

I appreciate the cost of licenses etc but from freeware NHL, a league I'd guess the majority of players would play, to x $$$ for a few more with licenses and a few bells and whistles, sorry but I'd rather not and no I didn't pirate the game, I was happy with the original freeware and remain so.

As for it being available for pirating I had heard a rumour that this was never proven although it wouldn't be a surprise.

retired_ashlia80

it's literally not the same game at all.

perhaps I'm alone in this regard, but I'm perfectly happy to shell out 30 bucks for an improved match engine, new data, and a handful of new features. that enough is progress to me. </BLOCKQUOTE>

Is that really 4 versions worth of progress though? Comes down to opinions, I suppose. </BLOCKQUOTE>

I like Sid Meier's philosophy when it comes to putting out a new game: 1/3 old, 1/3 improved from last time, and 1/3 new.

Of course, it takes years between versions of CIV to do that, and the argument is that SI would go out of business if they did the same.