Tom Ruddle proposes that video games are not worth paying £40 for:

I don’t know about you, but where I can save a bit of cash, I leap at the chance. The problem is, paying £40 for a new game hurts your wallet. Five years ago I wouldn’t have had a choice – the market was ruled by the big name publishers: EA, Activision etc., who have produced such high-quality games that their high prices are worth it. 

However, the video game market has changed radically in recent years. Ever since some developers started putting in benefits for those people who bought the game new, the used game market has declined. As some gamers can’t afford new games, there has been unsuccessful pressure for publishers to drop their prices. This meant gamers turned to different avenues like digital distribution. By not having to print a physical copy, companies who utilise digital distribution effectively have zero costs after development.

This allows Steam, the biggest digital distribution network for the PC, to offer regular sales where you can get new big-budget games for around £20. The success of Steam’s business model has led to established companies setting up in competition, such as EA’s Origin and Xbox Live Arcade. Alternatively, consumers can take advantage of the fledgling independent games market, which does not command high prices. While it is prevalent on the PC and consoles, the main successes for independent games have been in mobile gaming.

For instance, a few years ago, no-one had heard of Angry Birds, but it’s now been downloaded over a billion times and it’s a household name. That’s not to say that they aren’t popular elsewhere, with Minecraft selling 9 million copies and Amnesia receiving acclaim for its quality. Finally, there is the newest model of so-called “freemium” games, where the basic game is free to play, but then you pay to enhance your game experience. This was originally popular with Facebook games like Farmville, but has now been adopted by mainstream games, like Team Fortress 2 and Star Wars: the Old Republic.

With all these methods of acquiring games for little to no money, it’s clear that the price point of £40 is unsustainable, especially for lower quality games from big publishers. The recent bankruptcy of THQ, once the third biggest video game publisher, might be the rude awakening that the market needs: you can’t sell average games for £40 when there are better games being sold for £10.

Angus Morrison disagrees with the motion:

Big games require big budgets. Huge budgets, in fact. A modern, triple-A release might require over $40 million to see it safely from design to disc. The £40 price-point does not seem so unreasonable when placed in context. As an example, Ubisoft Montreal, the company behind Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry 3, has charge of roughly 2,100 highly skilled individuals, from the producers, artists and programmers required in a game’s creation through to the copyrighters and marketing officials tasked with getting it off the ground.

Every time we push hardware to support sharper textures, improved models or better physics, more people must be brought in. Extra time must be allotted for the team of designers to lovingly realize whatever footballer’s nose hair they’ve been tasked with sculpting. Leaps in production values also seen the best in voice talent introduced to virtual worlds, and names like Patrick Stewart, Sean Bean and Ellen Page do not come cheap.

But perhaps you might argue that the enormous profits generated from key franchises ought to temper harsh demands for hard-earned cash. You might rightly point out that Call of Duty: Black Ops II grossed $500 million in its first 24 hours of sale. These are exceptional cases, however; making games is risky business. Drawn by the lure of a state-sponsored $75 million financing package, 38 Studios relocated to Rhode Island early in 2011. Despite the ample budget, its first game, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, sold only 330,000 copies in its first month, and the studio filed for bankruptcy soon after.

A sadder tale is perhaps that of THQ, the once-great publisher with ownership of titles including Saint’s Row and Darksiders which entered an inexorable spiral of layoffs and default, culminating in its closure late last year. If we as consumers insist upon buying into gaming’s march towards realism, we must be prepared to share the uncertainty. To break even on the cost of a triple-A game is a daunting prospect, and one justly reflected in their cost. Not only is the £40 price-point sustainable, we should expect it to rise.