The Price of eShop Games

[Rummy]

Their prices are inflated because they feel they can ask the price and we keep buying them. There's not really justification beyond that and that's how business works.

 

I do feel this a lot of the time too, though I guess that's the whole point of the thread actually. I was tempted by the Kirby games currently reduced, but even with the discount I decided against it. Also Kirby's Adventure WiiU vs 3DS is £3.50 vs £5.40 normal prices?? I know they're adding 3D but I can't really think it's enough to jack the price up that much.

[Serebii]

I do feel this a lot of the time too, though I guess that's the whole point of the thread actually. I was tempted by the Kirby games currently reduced, but even with the discount I decided against it. Also Kirby's Adventure WiiU vs 3DS is £3.50 vs £5.40 normal prices?? I know they're adding 3D but I can't really think it's enough to jack the price up that much.

You're comparing the 3D Classic to the Virtual Console one. That's not exactly fair

[Rummy]

Your comprehension skills are most remarkable.

[Goron_3]

There are so many Nintendo games I want to play but I just can't justify spending so much money on the games. Fire Emblem: Awakening springs to mind the most..Heard it's amazing but I simply can't afford to spend that much on a game.

[Debug Mode]

What's wrong with the engine???

 

Generation VI's engine has to be the worst I've played so far with Pokemon. I have very little complaints with the game itself, but the thing can barely maintain the framerate with certain 1v1 battles. Despite the very unremarkable graphics, 3D can't be done for doubles even though it could have been done if they had focussed more on performance.

 

I'm still under the assumption that the game was supposed to initially come out a little later but the 3DS needed a bit more of a kick.

[Emasher]

I've been playing a lot of older Nintendo games recently, on the virtual console, and otherwise. The overwhelming conclusion that I've come to is that I get a lot more enjoyment playing these games than the games that have been coming out for the last 5 years or so. I'm willing to pay $4.99 or whatever they're charging for a game as good as The Legend of Zelda because I know I'll get a lot more utility from it than the last several new games I've purchased combined. Prices aren't determined simply by the cost of producing a product, but also by what consumers are willing to spend on it. Nintendo likely hasn't set the prices of virtual console games arbitrarily. You can bet they've analyzed the market very carefully to determine which prices will come as close to maximizing their profits as possible. As long as there are enough people willing to pay the current prices that they can achieve these profits from the service, they aren't going to be lowering them.

 

The main reason we think the prices are too high is most likely these 99 cent games on smartphones. Looking at the games I currently have installed on my phone, and the sorts of games that are currently selling well on the app store, it's pretty obvious that these games don't even come close to matching the quality of the games Nintendo was producing back in the 80s, 90s, and the aughts (as all the cool kids seem to be calling that decade now). We also need to consider that the market is completely different for smart phone games (it includes lots of people who aren't very serious about video games), and so many of those games require you to make several other 99 cent purchases to get the full game, or even play the game for more than a few minutes at a time (Candy Crush Saga, Two Dots, etc.). Even thought these games have aged a bit now, Nintendo are still selling a premium product, so charging what seems to be premium prices really isn't all that unreasonable.

[Rummy]

So what you're saying is prices are set what by what people are prepared to pay for them?

But then you're saying that people aren't prepared to pay these prices and think they're too high due to cheaper products?

Surely we could then conclude that the prices should come down - but of course, that is the whole reasoning for the debate in the first place!

 

 

Of course the distinguishment is that of arguable quality, and said quaulity adding the value, and in fact making them premium products in your eyes. It's all too subjective though! Then I think it has to come down to the large scale; what do people feel on the whole? I wholly accept that you feel the price is right for the games, I wholly accept that some feel the price isn't(or that an alternative model would be appropriate) - the real question is - what do most people think? Because that's what's going to define the market.

 

And sure - you may distinguish between the quality of Nintendo's offerings vs Shop apps/games - but what about the majority of people? What about the people who play on phones and enjoy those games and by their definitions find them of quality? What if that smartphone market eats into the VC/eShop market because they'd rather play these mobile games instead? Don't Nintendo need to try and compete?

 

We grew up in a different time of gaming, and I'd even say a different time of tech. Tech has evolved massively in the last 20, 15, 10 or even 5 years. Broadband, wireless, mobile phones, WAP, mobile phones with actual internet, there's loads of things different that the kids of today are growing up with, and a whole market different to just us - my concern is what appeals to them and how Nintendo can stay relevant to them. I do think a number of the old titles are good titles and I'd love for people who haven't played them before to do so - but if they don't see the value in the price tag of $4.99 where maybe a potential few do then what good is it really?

 

Sure, they might 'maximise profits' but the even better thing to do is to increase the profits beyond that maximum limit by expanding the market and getting more people on board. If that means selling a bit lower and making more money whilst getting more experiences out there - why is that not a good thing? Get more sold on the old Nintendo and maybe you'll also get them sold on the new.

[Emasher]

I didn't mean people wouldn't pay the higher prices. You can think the price for something is higher than it should be and still buy it. But I can see why the way I structured my post could be confusing.

 

You make a very good point. I'm just not convinced that lowering the prices would significantly expand the market for these games. People in all likely hood are not going to be buying a Wii U or 3DS for the virtual console, so you can only really expand the market to people who already own these consoles. With the Wii U, my suspicion is that most of them are bought by people who are already quite familiar with, and are fans of Nintendo, or parents buying them for their kids as their first console, and I would imagine the 3DS is similar, but perhaps with a higher percentage being bought for children. The console obviously isn't appealing much to the CoD, Halo, etc. crowd, and given the sales numbers Nintendo are seeing, I doubt the people who bought a Wii for Wii Sports/Fit/etc. or bought a DS for Brain Training, or Nintendogs or whatever are buying nearly as many Nintendo consoles again this time around (and these people wouldn't be buying virtual console games to begin with). Now, since this information isn't actually available as far as I know, I could be completely wrong here, but these are the assumptions I'm making.

 

So first, we have the case of the children. Since children don't normally have credit cards of their own, they're probably not going to be as tempted by impulse buys as adult gamers would be. They'd have to convince their parents to enter their credit card information, and considering how annoying that is, for most children it probably happens infrequently enough that they're not going to care that much if the game costs $0.99 or $4.99. Now, for the kids who do have access to credit cards, how many of them are really going to care about the price? Given how poorly most young adults manage their credit cards these days, I would expect most children to be much worse at it. And if the parents gave the kid a credit card in the first place, the kid probably has enough spending money that he wouldn't care that much either.

 

Then of course, there's the other group, the Nintendo Fans. Well, they're the market I was talking about to begin with. They're the ones who are already open to buying virtual console games, and they're most likely the ones who Nintendo has optimized the prices for in the first place.

 

Something else to consider is the fact that the reason mobile games can be sold so cheaply is there's a much bigger market for mobile games in the first place. It's estimated that over 1.75 billion people will own smartphones by the end of 2014 (the 1 billion mark being passed in 2012). The vast majority of these people most likely also own credit cards, and can easily buy games off their phone's respective digital shop. It's a vastly larger market than the Wii U's near 7 million, or even the 3DS's 44 Million, and since the size of the market is independent from development costs, lower prices are to be expected.

[Rummy]

Ah yeah I got that; had no intention to dismiss yours or misrepresent it as I thought it was certainly a relevant point to us here.

 

I think one of my largest concerns is - who is the market now? Are we still the market? I don't honestly know. If it's not us, do we understand the people who are?

 

I don't think many kids will have credit or debit cards(which I'll just refer to as credit cards), and despite the occasional app-bill-horror-story in the news I'd like to hope most phone owners are sensible and don't let their kids run wild with money or credit cards etc(I could of course be wrong, and base this on very little for myself). A kid I presume could easily beg their parents long/hard enough to make a 99p app purchase that they'll probably give in to, just like my mum sometimes would when I begged her for sweets/random toy/random something whilst out at the shops Apparently I'm an adult now and need to stop acting like a child in public.

 

eShop isn't just credit-card only anyway. If a kid knows their stuff they could either a.) make a one off purchase of some eShop points with their parents approval(not much different to me using parent's credit cards for online shopping back in the day, then reimbursing them) or even b.) actually buy an eShop card for equivalent value from a shop after saving pocket monies. Whereas I'm not so sure about mobile phone/app purchases, eShop transactions can actually be done quite easily without credit cards. That's actually a definite bonus for the eShop for folks without access to cards.

 

 

Market size is of course a very relevant factor, and as you say why mobile manages to be low - it has the greater potential that I think is needed in the non-mobile-gaming market. I don't think people recognise enough that each generation is not isolated, and that games become series for a reason. Later generations of hardware and indeed software are imo to a large extent sold on the success of previous - to a point of balance, of course. For someone with no knowledge, or an enjoyment of a certain title - lets say Mario - dropping a few quid on an older version and seeing what it's like or out of curiosity could lead to more purchases in turn that overall turn a greater profit. Consider especially the market that might be children - with no access to credit/debit cards, saving their presumably small/limited income - would they rather save up a massive £40 to buy a full retail title like NSMB or would they consider an eShop card for £10 and trying out something like SMB? SMB2? SMB3? SMW? Maybe all 4!! For a fraction of the price! Maybe they'll go on to buy the bigger games, or later systems, or who knows. I'm speculating a possibility really, I sadly don't know enough of a market outside us 'Nintendo Fans' to get a solid idea on it all really.

 

 

 

 

A random and complete aside - at my cousin's wedding last month I met an 11 year old kid; naturally being me I got talking about video games with him. It turns out he plays the old sonics and loves them(and none of this CoD/GTA stuff, his mum doesn't let him but he says he doesn't want to either). I can't entirely recall his reasoning why he played Sonic etc, I think he said his dad got him into it somehow, but given his mum is now with my other cousin I didn't linger too much on his dad. They'd been to bluewater and he told me he'd bought one of the old mega drive collections, ofc being down from scotland he didn't have his 360 but I said I'd try to bring mine over to my uncles for him to play it on the sunday. Him and one of the other kids played for pretty much the entirety of a sunday afternoon, just going through these old mega drive games and mostly really enjoying them. It's weird but I didn't quite expect it(there was admittedly some they preferred over others, and he didn't play any single player ones so the other kid could play too). It was awesome yet strange, seeing these two kids playing the same games I'd been playing some 20ish years ago in the exact same house, but in some ways reassuring that there's at least some of a different generation of people out there appreciating the old classics. I don't have many kids about in my life so I don't know many gamers from the younger generations to see what things are like for them, but I found that refreshing.

[Goron_3]

There was actually a really good chat on Radio Free Nintendo 2 weeks ago regarding the cost of games. The host mentioned that games are basically cheaper than ever due to significant competition between AAA titles (which see's many games drop in price quickly) as well as Steam, mobile gaming etc. At the end of the day, Nintendo hardware is barely selling as it is, so charging a premium for the games available on the consoles isn't going to help anyone. If the demand for the consoles was high, it would make sense, but it's not.

[Rummy]

There was actually a really good chat on Radio Free Nintendo 2 weeks ago regarding the cost of games. The host mentioned that games are basically cheaper than ever due to significant competition between AAA titles (which see's many games drop in price quickly) as well as Steam, mobile gaming etc. At the end of the day, Nintendo hardware is barely selling as it is, so charging a premium for the games available on the consoles isn't going to help anyone. If the demand for the consoles was high, it would make sense, but it's not.

 

What # episode was that? I'm well behind because I hate actually doing much in my kitchen :p Was just listening to 390 today I think, I see I'm many eps behind.

 

One thing I consider in the price comparison - as has been brought up excellently by someone - is some of the discounts of other media on the competing consoles. Ni No Kuni being an example - a game that was sold for less than a fiver well after release via digital distribution; how many people might that perceived bargain have gotten on board? As I said earlier too I think the appeal of 'bargain' is a great seller, too. Price was definitely no reflection of quality there either as you'll find many of our forumites here, myself included, telling you what an absolute cracker of a title that game was.

[Goron_3]

What # episode was that? I'm well behind because I hate actually doing much in my kitchen :p Was just listening to 390 today I think, I see I'm many eps behind.

 

One thing I consider in the price comparison - as has been brought up excellently by someone - is some of the discounts of other media on the competing consoles. Ni No Kuni being an example - a game that was sold for less than a fiver well after release via digital distribution; how many people might that perceived bargain have gotten on board? As I said earlier too I think the appeal of 'bargain' is a great seller, too. Price was definitely no reflection of quality there either as you'll find many of our forumites here, myself included, telling you what an absolute cracker of a title that game was.

 

Ah man, I miss the days when I was behind on episodes! I would literally tidy the flat or complete a project and have it on in the background. Bliss

[Rummy]

Well I only started on like 395 or something so I've skipped all the old old ones too :p Besides you didn't answer the question on which # it was where they discussed prices!

[Emasher]

After finally buying a Wii U, I've made a few more observations.

 

Something that would make me spend a little bit more on the VC right now would be a feature that allowed me to upgrade and download all of my (available) old Wii VC games on the Wii U at once. Having to make a list of them all, and then individually search each one to see if it's been updated is a pain.

 

Also, I'd be a lot more comfortable buying virtual console games at this point if they were only tied to my account, and not the console. There are much better ways to do DRM than only allowing the account to be used on one console of each type. I shouldn't have to worry about loosing all my digital purchases if my console gets stolen or damaged, or have to worry about them not carrying over to the next console.

[Serebii]

After finally buying a Wii U, I've made a few more observations.

 

Something that would make me spend a little bit more on the VC right now would be a feature that allowed me to upgrade and download all of my (available) old Wii VC games on the Wii U at once. Having to make a list of them all, and then individually search each one to see if it's been updated is a pain.

 

Also, I'd be a lot more comfortable buying virtual console games at this point if they were only tied to my account, and not the console. There are much better ways to do DRM than only allowing the account to be used on one console of each type. I shouldn't have to worry about loosing all my digital purchases if my console gets stolen or damaged, or have to worry about them not carrying over to the next console.

They are tied to your account

 

It's just the account is tied to the console.

 

If you were to delete your NNID though, through your 3DS, it would delete the games from your Wii U.

[Emasher]

I know. That's my point, they're now tied to an account, but also still tied to the console, which is off putting due to the potential difficulties in recovering the games if something goes wrong with the console. When I buy a game on Steam, I know that if something happens to my computer (stolen, destroyed, etc), I can just build a new one, and re-download all my Steam games to it without any issues, the same can be said for most other serious sellers of digital content such as Apple, Sony, EA, etc. However, with the Wii U, the games are tied to the account which is tied to the hardware meaning if your console is stolen or destroyed, there is no way of recovering these games. You can't simply log into a new Wii U with the same account and re-download your games, like you can with everything else.

 

There is no technical limitation that's causing Nintendo to use such a system either. The justification I've heard is that they're limiting an account to one console to prevent piracy, however, if I wanted to, I could go right now and download ROMs of every single title available on the virtual console and play them on an emulator. People who want to pirate these games can already do it very easily, and no amount of DRM on the virtual console is going to stop them from doing it. And if they really wanted to, they could implement a system like Steam, where you have to have logged in, and only one computer can be logged in to an account at once.

 

Getting rid of their seriously outdated DRM and moving to a more modern model would not increase piracy in any meaningful way, but would give their customers a lot more confidence that the titles they've downloaded will always be accessible to them through their account regardless of what happens to their physical hardware. This is especially important now that they're selling full priced retail titles through the eShop.