I was wondering if all new games are as expensive as it feels in Estonia.
For example, Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion costs 690kr, It's about $56.
It's 10% of average wage (about 6900 kr). Definetly heavy hit on wallet.
Is it so pirate-temptating in other countries too?
A new game(for PC) here is around 500 nok. That's about $76.
However, I think most people have the economy to handle it. But still not cheap.
Most new games are between â,¬30 and â,¬50, in Netherland.
Oblivion is still â,¬49.99
CSI 3 â,¬14.99
Halflife 2 eps. 1 expention â,¬19.99
Dawn of War Dark Crusade â,¬34.99
Dark Star One â,¬39.99
Dreamfall â,¬44.99
Broken Sword 4 â,¬49.99
PC games vary a lot in what price point they release at, it's not standard like console games. But 30 GBP is a typical store price. That's less than $60 which isn't so awful I guess. Console games are the worst for regional differences, presumably because of region coding restrictions... current gen stuff is released at the equivalent of about 90 USD compared to 50-60 in US stores.
Buying games in store is not a good idea, at least here online retailers are usually at £5 cheaper and do free shipping.
As a proportion of wealth we're probably not as bad off as some countries, but for a student like me it doesn't matter what the average wage is, I usually either pirate or I don't play. There are usually better or important things you can get for £40 than a console game.
Oblivion is £20 now in the store I looked at, probably a rerelease.
New games in the US typically cost between $40 and $60 - I think it's pretty much the same whether you're talking computer games or console games.
That's why I never buy new games. If you can wait a bit, for $20 or less you can usually pick up the original game with all the expansion packs bundled into one package. Plus you wait out the hype and can see which games really stand the test of time. And it also means to you don't have to shell out the money for a cutting edge computer that can run all the newest games.
A new game here (any game here) sells for Rs. 30 per CD, or Rs. 100 per DVD. That's roundabout 0.50 and 1.60 USD respectively. I might have supported the non-pirates, but then again, I've never seen an original CD sold here. Besides, I think that charging $80 for a new, well publicised game is just as unfair as selling it for $0.50, so I take what I can get.
In the US, Elder Scrolls is $50 for the PC and $60 for the 360.
That's 1.67% and 2% of the average monthly wage ($3000).
The £30 price is likewise 1.67% of the average monthly wage (£1788) in the UK.
Estonian gamers seem to have a raw deal!
Estonian gamers met Kazaa, Limewire, DC++, iMesh, Morpheus, etc, etc a long time ago :(
Even if I bought a game from store, my parents would probably send me to a doctor.
I have bought alot of legal software in past few years (now that I have a decent job) but have to admit that tried alot I
would have regretted buying if I did so.
All online shopping possiblities are quite shut down for Estonia: Rarely any company ships anything here, rarely the price pays off (transportation boosts prices to sky) and even more rarely anything in postal services work. My GF sent me some stuff from US and it took 4 months to deliver! eugh.
But here, on AGSForums, everybody get super hostile when someone claims himself to be a pirate.
Thinking about quality of life elsewhere, it's quite unfair.
I've downloaded software illegaly too, and I don't even pretend to justify it in anyway. I have reasons, but no justifications. Admitting that is no big deal. I always figured what's not accepted is helping other people out with warez publically on these forums, because, fair or unfair, it's still illegal.
Ireland:
PC new releases wobble between anywhere from â,¬29.99 to â,¬54.99
Oblivion (PC) retails, on average, for â,¬49.99.
XBOX 360 new releases retail for between â,¬69.99 and â,¬74.99.
Average PS2 new release is between â,¬39.99 to â,¬54.99 (EA games mostly).
New PSP releases go for â,¬54.99, though lesser releases retail for around â,¬39.99.
DS games average out at about â,¬44.99.
All in all, we're being reamed. Lousy f*ckers. :-\
Torrents and downloads have little to do with software prices, imho. People just prefer to get stuff for free, regardless.
Yeh, but software prices claim to be connected to torrents and P2P software. ;)
But what causes me to pirate is not the prices but EXTREMELY terrible inventions such as FilePlanet or Gamespot.
The only places where you can really get something instead of meeting 404 or broken downloads.
Just to download some lousy demo, you have to wait in line for ages, subscribe for spam, remember 1000 passwords, remind them to just wait for ages for email to come and of course, more spam. Even if you get to downloading the damn 10-minute demo thing, it downloads for about 7 kb/sec or so. For a 3Mbit connection user, it's unacceptable.
In all that time, I could just download the full game disk image, play it through and forget forever. In PC gaming world, only some games get actually used as products. Others are played only because there's nothing to play or you were dumb enough to buy it.
So I buy things I really play, not the ones I just have try - to know about games today.
* cuddles Hitman: Blood Money box
"You and Half-Life2 are all I need. Oh well, and Act of War."
Besides, Solitare comes for free.