Cost of making games

I know that cartridge games cost a bit more than compact disc or DVD games.

I am wondering how much I'm getting boned for buying brand new games?

Could you specify the question a bit?
I fear I can't actually get your point.

Let's consider when there's a sale on...

Toys R Us in Canada recently had one that is a fine example.

Title Retail price Sale price

Dead Or Alive Ultimate: $69.99 CDN $14.99 CDN
Halo 2 Limited Edition: $54.99 CDN $14.99 CDN
Everything else: $39 - $49 CDN $14.99 CDN

they wouldn't do this with brand new games unless they were STILL making a profit, so we can safely gather from this that you're getting boned long and hard when you buy a new game.

Could you specify the question a bit?
I fear I can't actually get your point.

I'm basically asking how much more are we paying for brand new games as opposed to the actual cost of each game itself.

Like if someone makes a product for $5 and sell it for $40.

Get my drift?

Now I get your point.

Perhaps I should move to Canada!

No chance that you'll get such games so cheap in Germany, not even used. Man, we Europeans get ripped off...

I always wanted to know how much production actually costs, but I think we'll never know.

I have no good answer, but I don't think you're getting 'boned' too much.
If you just think about what it costs to get the game to the store shelf, you can see that there are in fact a lot of people..
People program the game, and any non programmer you see in the credits, like testers.
Licenses cost a pretty penny from what I hear, and from what I know Nintendo used to have a reputation of charging a lot for the licenses to publish games for their systems.
Graphics people for art direction and for advertisements.
Sales people to get places to sell the game...like if you couldn't find REZ at a Target, then Target didn't want to sell the game.
Factory to create the product and all the people working there.
Shipping the product to distributors.

I'm sure I overlooked a lot of things and waved my hands enough. But there is something to be said about games that release at budget prices (20 or 30 dollars). Usually with the budget games you can tell they're budget games. However, there are nice exceptions every once in a while

I've seen a lot of pie charts to show how much musicians make on each of their albums sold (when signed to major label). It turns out to be something like 48 cents on a 15 dollar CD.

I've seen a lot of pie charts to show how much musicians make on each of their albums sold (when signed to major label). It turns out to be something like 48 cents on a 15 dollar CD.

To tell you the truth, most musicians make their moola on the road and not what they sell in stores. The record label is getting all their dough back and more by what they spent on the recording and production with the millions of records some artist sell.

CDs are just forms of advertisement. You hear the song on the radio, you buy the album, you go see them in concert, you buy ridiculously overpriced merch and tickets. Everyone is a winner.

I'll stick to my hardcore shows with my $10 shirts, $10 CDs, $8 LPs and $4 7 inches, and $3 shows.

Plus, I feel better handing the bands money directly to them instead of going through some third party.

They were selling at a loss. Don't ask me why, but they were. The mark-up on electronics/video games is very low for retail. If they normally sell at $50 each, the store probably bought them for $45.

Even with cartridge based games, the cost of media is very low. The most significant cost (and this is true for most industries) is labour. People are expensive.

Yeah, probably.
Selling new games for 15$ must be a loss for the stores.
Maybe they just had to clear their shelves?

man, the shows you go to are expensive . the show i went to last weekend was $2 to get in, and 7 bands played, most of the time, the shows are around $5 though. most of their shirts range from $7-10, and their cds are usually $2-3, and sometimes $5.

but anyways, i can imagine the people that pay $60 for a 360 game are getting boned alot harder than we are....

Ah, the deal is, $3 shows are cheap in Laredo, Tx. A local show in SA costs about 5-8 dollars. The big hardcore shows are about 12-18 bucks. It's whack. There is one big club here in town and they are a bunch of fuck heads.

They were selling at a loss. Don't ask me why, but they were.

Well, I sure would like to know why... even clearance stuff is almost NEVER sold at a loss... it just doesn't make any sense...

"OK, this new shipment of Halo 2s just came in, we paid $30 per, and they'll FLY off the shelves at $40, but lets sell 'em at $15 because we hate money!"

"OK, this new shipment of Halo 2s just came in and we paid $12 per game, and they'll FLY off the shelves at $40, but lets sell 'em at $15 because we hate money."

The argument applies both ways.

Surely you realise that there was an error somewhere down the line that caused that sale. That, or they desperately needed shelf room for some magical product we can't even imagine.

A store does NOT get $50 MSRP games at less than $15 each.

The argument doesn't apply both ways, if they got them at $12, and sold them at $15, that's $3 profit. not a loss at all.

if it was an error, it wouldn't have been Canada wide, and lasted a few weeks.

the shelf space was seemingly filled with junky DVDs in my local store.

I have no idea how much stores pay suppliers for games, but I do know all big stores sell certain products at a loss, especially during sales time. They are known as 'loss leaders'. The idea is to attract into the store customers who will hopefully buy other stuff while they are there or return in the future and buy at full price. The tactic can also be used to try and put smaller competitors out of business. It's common practice.

Well, I do go to Toys R Us a lot more now, but I still don't buy things at full price, unless it's a good price Mario Kart DS bundle: $179.99, Nanostray: $24.99 for example.