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In addition to the $40-$70 price tag to purchase the game, many are
trying to force everyone into a subscription model for recurring monthly
and/or annual costs, plus additional costs for "virtual gold".

And on top of that, every few years the games can't be played unless you
significantly upgrade your computer or gaming console, which can be a
costs of a few hundred, to several thousand dollars. I went through this
just this Fall when my boys bought me Bad Company 2. I'm not much of a
fan of shooters, but was interested in its' including more realistic
damage to the environment (hiding behind a wall is no safety any more),
but found even my fairly beefy system (I have over 20 computers running
in my house with a dozen running at any given time, so tend to keep
incrementally upgrading every 6-9 months, and then "pass down"the
replaced parts into older systems, etc.) needed a major video card
upgrade, costing $400.00 just for the video card!

I finished the campaign in 3 days. Played the online maps for about 2
weeks, and was completely bored with it by then. Typical of shooters
(for me).

MMORPGs like DDO and LotRo are luring players with "free to play" but
then you are limited in choices of class, equipment, levels, etc, unless
you pay to earn some kind of "virtual bucks".

Also, some companies want to speed up the EOL (End of life) cycle once
they have made up their costs sufficiently, but many companies have
experienced push back from players, so had to "force the issue" by
forcefully shutting down even busy servers. This will be easier with the
latest generation of games that won't even let you start the game
without first logging in and being "authorized" to play your game
(grrr).

So, the video gaming industry is getting increasingly _more_ expensive,
and controlling, rather than the usual trend of technology to tend
toward "more for less".

Flip the page back to board games and tabletop RPGs, and the TCO/return
on investment ratio is astronomically better.
The for "core set" of many rulebooks, spending around $40 to $120, GM's
and players can theoretically play forever if they are willing to make
up their own adventures and house rules. They of course have the
_option_ to purchase the add-ons ad naseum, but it is not a requirement
as it is becoming in the video gaming world, in order to continue
playing.

However, this is also why the video game industry is so huge, and the
RPG specific branch is relatively small in dollar amount.

On Thursday, November 11, 2010 08:56:29 pm Mike "Talien" Tresca wrote:
> I'd take it one step further -- it may well be that alternatives like
> video games have priced themselves out of the same competitive
> entertainment space. Video games are selling for 60 dollars a game,
> last 10 to 60 hours, and rapidly become outdated because the player
> base moves on to the next multiplayer game. RPGs move slower in a
> multitude of aspects, including the community adoption rate.
>
> As a comparison, Modern Warfare 2 had about a year window. Halo
> Reach came out, and all of my gamer friends moved on to it -- and
> then Call of Duty: Black Ops came out and now they're all playing
> that. This would be like a new version of D&D coming out every six
> months.
>
> This speed and fragmentation has a very high churn. Try finding
> someone online to play a game that's five years old. Comparatively,
> role-playing games move slower and sell slower. It's a better
> investment, especially during a recession.
>
> With hobby games up -- all of them, not just RPGs -- it's possible
> that the alternatives are less appealing than they once were. A RPG
> selling at 60 bucks is a good deal considering how many hours of game
> play, the fact that there is unlikely to be a new version everyone is
> playing within six months, and that not every player needs a copy to
> play.
>
> Then again, see GMSkarka's post about this very subject:
> http://gmskarka.com/2010/10/21/tabletopocalypse-now/
>
> Of particular interest is the discussion about the 5th best seller on
> ICv2s list, the Dresden files.
>
> On Nov 10, 12:28 pm, Scooter C <scooteri...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > No worries. Thanks for the follow up.
> >
> > Hawke raises an interesting point. Are we in fact seeing
> > roleplaying games selling more, or is there simply a higher price
> > tag on them? A good parallel to this would be the movie industry.
> > Movies like Titanic and Avatar are called the biggest selling
> > movies of all time, but they don't factor in that, for example, my
> > dad would pay a dollar or something to see a movie when he was a
> > kid (and now we pay $10+). It's also a tough comparison because
> > it's easier to see a movie now.
> >
> > Likewise, it is easier to buy roleplaying games now. Many games are
> > now sold in comic stores, book stores, and through online venues.
> > There are also more of them (stores and games). Just like with the
> > increasing variety of movies and access to theatres, its simply
> > easier to buy roleplaying games. But the question still stands:
> > Are they selling more, or are they selling for more?

--
------
-Hawke Robinson
Recreation therapist & research scientist in training.
Retired Computer Scientist.
Role Playing Gamer since 1979.
Game Master since 1984.

The RPG Research Project
http://www.rpgr.org

The mission: A large scale, long term, multi-variable,
triple-blind series of research studies on the therapeutic aspects of
role playing gaming.

The purpose is to determine the causal characteristics
of role playing games, rather than relying on merely correlative
data as other studies have done in the past.

"Holistic medicine treats the person rather than the disease,
its concern lies with the 'whole person' and with permitting
individuals to assume self-responsibility for their own health.
Whereas illness is the sole concern of 'traditional medicine',
holistic 'well medicine' deals with wellness and health promotion"

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