With The Last Guardian's Price Drop It's Time to Reevaluate How We Judge Games

The Last Guardian's permanent price drop might lead to a decrease in perceived value, showing how games are increasingly judged on cost over content.

[SCW1982]

GOTY for me 2016. Such a beautiful moving experience that must be played to be appreciated.

[kevnb]

surprised to see so many disagrees.

[Player3Podcast]

This is spot on. Length of game does not equal value, and it's hard to quantify exactly the right price tag. Value is fairly subjective.

[Spenok]

This is why for me I rate a game not on a 10 point scale, but a price point scale. If people ask me if it's worth it, I tell them at what dollar amount I think it's worth.

[PhoenixUp]

We should also evaluate why Nintendo feels it necessary that many of their games go for long periods of time without price cuts

[Moonman]

Players Choice needs to return for Nintendo.

[PhoenixUp]

Nintendo Selects already exist, but the issue is that they don't happen frequent enough compared to its competitors

[Moonman]

Players Choice was frequent and that's my point. Nintendo Selects happen near the END of their consoles life.

[sk8ofmnd]

Esp on a user base thats getting reset to ZERO

[fenome]

Their hardware as well, the Wii U rarely had any price cuts and now they're just pulling 'em off shelves instead of trying to sell them at a discount, it's just crazy.

[sk8ofmnd]

The wiiu saw 1 $50 pricecut in over 4 years.

[fenome]

Was it seriously only the one? Wow

[quent]

From a business standpoint why would you ever sell your products at a lower price if its continues to sell at its original price over a long period of time, don't you think price drops occur wen your sales target havent been met or have slowed down ?

as a customer its a shitty situation, but that's how ALL businesses operates, maximizing profits is they're no1 concern.

So Vote with you're wallet, as they say

[IamTylerDurden1]

I think Nintendo would sell more units if they cut price.

[sk8ofmnd]

I can hardly dismiss nintendo in their greedy practices. $60 for a 7 yr old game (skyrim) and $40 for a 20 year old game (ultra super duper street fighter 2).

[fenome]

People did vote with their wallets, thus the discontinuation of the Wii U. Maybe if they dropped the price some more people would've actually bought it.

Now they're pulling it off shelves even though Zelda is coming out for it, it doesn't make any sense.

ALL businesses obviously don't operate in this manner considering PS4 and X1 have been selling fine and have both had price drops, cheap bundles and everything else.

From a business standpoint it makes more sense to sell it at a slight loss rather than just yanking them off shelves, at least you'd still be selling them.

[Scatpants]

Because they only release like 4 good games a year.

[Skaymore]

This is always an interesting concept. For example, Undertale is one of my favorite game s of all time, yet it only costs 10 dollars. I enjoyed it more than I would almost any 60 dollar game, yet I agree with its lower pricing. It's orettt strange.

Also, I hate the time=money thing. It encourages padding, which is way too prevalent in a medium that's supposed to be about fun.

[fenome]

I haven't tried Undertale, I'll have to check it out.

[DillyDilly]

Its simple when there are other games coming out & people buying new consoles such as the Switch some things will be left in the dust

[LP-Eleven]

Fortunately, The Last Guardian isn't one of those things. :)

[DillyDilly]

It getting a price drop so soon kinda says otherwise

[IamTylerDurden1]

The Last Guardian already sold a million physical, that is WITH stock shortages. It already met lifetime sales expectations and was well received by critics. TLG was really fan service and brand loyalty, most companies would've canned it years ago. It came out and served its purpose, it was absolutely a success and will easily be the best selling Team ICO game of all-time. Heck, it sold double that of Dead Rising 4 and it outsold Deus Ex with a considerably smaller team.

[Kribwalker]

@tyler

Where is it stated from Sony it hit 1 million sales?

[IamTylerDurden1]

Krib

According to VGchartz numbers which are about a month old it sold 920k physical units. Considering the numbers are old it obviously hit 1 million physical by now. That doesn't include digital. WITH digital it could be close to 1.5 million. It's reasonable to assume, especially with the price cut that it could hit 2 million in lifetime sales eventually. These are impressive numbers for a niche game.

http://www.vgchartz.com/gam...

For reference, Dead Rising 4 is a mainstream AAA that came out at around the same time and sold considerably less.

http://www.vgchartz.com/gam...

[Kribwalker]

@tyler

Time and time again VGchartz has been proven inaccurate. If you are going to state something as a fact then make it a fact. Or else it's estimates. Like the PSVR was estimated to sell 2.6 million by the end of 2016....

[LP-Eleven]

Except that it doesn't. The game may have already accomplished its goal. Price drops don't always mean something has failed.

[DillyDilly]

We will never know but if people can assume its still a success at the same time people can assume its a failure this is the same company that wont post the VR numbers after all

[_-EDMIX-_]

@TheRandom- Battlefront lowered its price within about two months of release and that game moved 14 million units.....

Sooooo no bud

[LP-Eleven]

But the same company that will post PS4 numbers, making that a moot point.

[DillyDilly]

Because the PS4 has been out a while & at this point Sony will be happy with the numbers while VR is a new product thats not catching on

[LP-Eleven]

No, it's a moot point because it cannot be proven, right now, that The Last Guardian is a failure and PSVR numbers have zero to do with it.

[sk8ofmnd]

Except the switch is already sold out. The world doesnt just stop turning because the switch is nonexistent.

[Hendog1981]

Needs to go a bit lower than that to make me want to pick it up.

[IamTylerDurden1]

In one month TLG sold 920k physical units. That means in a month it outsold Quantum Break, Dead Rising and Recore combined, and Deus Ex MKD respectively. It's doing just fine.

[Scatpants]

People should play this. I bought it day 1. I guess you would have to have played Ico and Shadow of the Colossus when they came out to understand.

[Vizigoth04]

Absolutely a remarkable game. I really hope these guys make a second one or new IP before next gen now that they know what they're doing with PS4 hardware.

[DivineAssault]

It was originally a PS3 game. It never came to be, but that's what it was supposed to be.. I still havent openend my copy yet and yet I paid full price on launch day.. Still, thats no excuse.. With newer hardware a lot more content should've been added from what ive read about it.. I highly doubt the game is trash by any means but making many fans wait this long was a punch in the nuts.. At least new owners can get it for the cheap but no 1st party games hold their value like nintendo..

[IamTylerDurden1]

Anything but a nutshot considering most companies would've given up on the game years ago. Sony pushed TLG out and stayed with it first and foremost for the fans. It's to be commended that they stayed committed and produced a quality Team ICO game. With games like Scalebound, Phantom Dust, Fable Legends, Hellraid, Agent, Silent Hills, Prey 2, Star Wars 1313, Furious Four, and Bioshock Vita it's surprising it even came out at all.

[DivineAssault]

Im glad it came out, dont get me wrong. I cant wait until i have enough time to dig into it. I just see no point in myself personally to buy games at launch when they need updates, get GOTY/complete editions, etc combined with my lack of time to get to them when they come out.. My backlog is 15-20 deep.. Im just going to hold off on the major releases until i can actually play them because theyre just sitting there collecting dust unfortunately.. My own personal issue with this is all

[VersusDMC]

Honestly I would have paid more for a team ico game. Ico and shadow of the colossus were amazing so I would have paid in full even if it got 2's from reviews. When a studio gives me 2 or 3 gems in a row the next game gets bought sight unseen. :)

[sampson3121]

"The Last Guardian was by no means a bad game" Metacritic - 82 actually it's a good game.

[Lazybones2020]

Flash sales have really impacted perceived value as well. One day a game is sold for 60 bucks and then on a random weekend, somebody can get that same game with the season pass for $30. Games get into more hands through flash sales, but it leads to a depreciation of value.