The Value of a $10 Price Tag

The state of PC gaming has come a long way. The evolution of such is both interesting and quite odd, leaving PC gamers with a heckuva lot of options and with a slew of games across any price point that any gamer could entertain themselves pretty much forever. I say "odd" because things that we used to say not too long ago (say, five years ago) are still being said, but these same statements are invalid. Just yesterday, my friend Zach told me to head over to this link where he wanted me to spread the word about the game Lux Delux making it to Steam. Well, before I did this, I of course had to play it.

He says "Just get it, it's only ten bucks." Hmm. Ok. So I go and watch some trailers and am finding out about this game. Meanwhile, my friend John says "Hey Justin, did you like Oregon Trail as a kid? If so, check out Organ Trail. It's on Steam and I recommend it. It's Oregon Trail, only with ZOMBIES!" So I do some quick searches and see this game for $4 on Steam. Hmm.

And I get super mad, because during the zombie apocalypse, dysentery is the least of my worries.

See, five years ago, saying "Get it. It's only ten bucks," used to elicit a game purchase. Now, not so much. Why? Because there are an infinite amount of $10 indie games out there to choose from. I do not have infinite $10 to spend on every $10 game.

The PC gaming terrain as I see it is broken down into five price categories. More about this after the jump. Most gamers as I know it don't stay within one or even two price categories. They span the spectrum and they have a generic budget for the totality of their gaming. My friend Justin C. breaks it down best when he really gets to the root of this issue. Upon recommendation of a game, he will stop me and say: "Ok if I'm at Best Buy and I only have X amount of dollars, is this the one game that I get?" It doesn't matter if X is $10 or $50, that question is very valuable. The fact of the matter is, $10 video games can be equally fine/good/great/bad/horrible as any other big name $50 game. So we have to consider that the price tag is no longer low enough at $10 to just be an insta-buy.

At what point is the price tag low enough that you will auto-buy the game upon friend recommendation? How often do you buy a game based on friend recommendation? How's that usually work out for you?

My answers after the jump. Oh, and by the way to both Zach and John - I played Organ Trail and Lux Delux. My thoughts after the jump as well.

Nowadays? The only time I will try out a game without question (assuming I have the time) is if a game is free. Which brings me to those price categories.

Free
It is an incredible time for PC gamers right now, because I would guess that with literally zero dollars, a PC gamer could keep themselves entertained forever. No matter what genre you are into, there are free games out there. For instance - I just got back into emulated gaming because my friend Brian suggested I play Mega Man Battle Network -- which is A FANTASTIC GAME by the way. And my friend Brendon was disappointed that I hadn't ever played the DS game Link's Awakening.

Blacklight Retribution

Also, my friend Justin C. wanted someone to play a free FPS called Blacklight Retribution - which is possibly the best free FPS I've played... ever. Don't forget that there are tons of free MMORPGs out there now too like Dungeons and Dragons Online, The Secret World, and Knights of the Old Republic, not to mention the bajillions of free indie MMORPGs. League of Legends is the most widely played MOBA in the world and 100% free. More recommendations are MUDs, roguelike games like Angband, and a slew of free giveaway games on the Windows 8 store. My friend Joe K. recommended a game called Dragon's Blade from the W8 store, and I think it's a fantastic Final Fantasy 1 rendition.

$15
This is the bargain bin price, but as I said before, there are now infinite games at this price point. Practically every indie game goes somewhere from $1 to roughly $15, and there are some serious

Desktop Dungeons

gems to be found here. One game I can't recommend enough: Desktop Dungeons. I've been a fan since their alpha, and now that I'm playing their beta, I'm more than happy that I dropped $10 on it. Also remember that Kickstarter is a HUGE trend right now, and there's a lot that a $15 donation can get you, often enough resulting in a confirmed copy of the final version of a game. Steam has only a million games at this price point and sometimes, even some big name games can be found going for only this much during a sale. Both Lux Delux and Organ Trail, mentioned at the beginning of the post belong here. I would say the majority of game prices are now in this bucket. It makes things even more interesting.

$15-35
A lot of "indie games gone big" end up here as well as big name games that are a year old or older. My friend Claud suggested I play Syndicate, which falls in this category and is barely a year old. My friend Joe P. suggested Frozen Synapse, also in this category. Both games, by the way are very fantastic and I recommend them highly - you know, if you have the money and time for them.

Over $35
Here is where the new releases fall under. Earlier this year I played Far Cry 3. Earlier this month, I bought SimCity. And most recently, I played Need For Speed: Most Wanted. All of these games fall in this category. These are generally the games that get the most hype out of the general gaming population and yet a lot of the time, these games are the ones that fall under the most scrutiny due to gamer expectations. Diablo III. Any WoW expansion. Starcraft II. Ok, I'll stop bludgeoning Blizzard now. :-) The idea that there are more bargain-priced $15 games than there are big name games is a big deal. I would say from my personal experience that I only get excited (and sometimes that's an overstatement) for a big name game once or twice a year. And sometimes, I won't even get that game until I see what other people think about it. Other times (SimCity), it'll be a bit more of an impulse buy and we just see what happens. Heh.

Monthly Subscription
We all know what this category is, so I'm not going to spend a heckuva lot of time here.

Riiiight...

Overall, if you look at how many $10-$15 games are available for you, how exactly are you supposed to pick up any and all games that get recommended to you? I try my best because I very definitely value my friends' opinions and suggestions, but it gets difficult on the wallet. Note that there is often the "Steam Effect." Don't know what that is? Hehe. We've all done it. See a game for under $15 and pick it up like you're getting a Christmas present. Then, after it gets downloaded (and sometimes as far as installed on your system), you just never open it up. Ever. It just happens to sit in your game library, basically forever untouched.

Organ Trail
After a bit of looking around, instead of buying the $4 version off of Steam, I found a full browser version. I was stoked enough to try it - Oregon Trail with zombies, so I made up my party and off I went... and... I'm glad I didn't spend $4 on this game. I know, $4 isn't even that much, but after my first play through on medium and about 2-3 hours in front of this game, I beat it. I beat it without losing any party members. So assuming I did spend the $4 on Steam for it, it would've amounted to roughly $2 per hour of game play. There are many other/worse things out there that cost more than $2 hourly, so this isn't a bad deal. But I won't go back and play it again. I'm just not sure if it's "worth it" for my time.

Lux Delux
Whoa boy. THIS is a cool game. Here's the link. And at the $10 price point, I am pretty tempted to actually buy it, but I still don't think I will. Luckily, there was a 30 day free trial download, which is what I got. And I lost about... six hours of last night to this game, not heading to bed until around 3am in mid-game only to wake up and finish the map I was on. So this game is pretty much a 'simplified' version of Risk, where you don't see the dice rolls. But imagine Risk with over 400 different maps? And games that don't take ten hours to finish?

LOL! Risk. Puerto Rico style. One of over 400 maps.

Some of these maps look straight up ported from Windows 3.1, but even that old-school gritty feel adds a ton of charm. I *do* recommend this game, even for purchase. My selling point here is... well, it's a board game, really. A digital board game. This is for casual gaming, maybe to pick up every now and then. And yes, since it felt new and fresh last night when I was playing it, I dumped a lot of hours into it. But it's still just a board game. And do know when I think board games are the most fun? When your friends are playing with you. Not random people online. Not against the AI. So the only way I personally would get this game, is if I knew that a bunch of my friends were going to play with me.

So that's that. Let me know what you think in the comments and I'll get back to you. It all seems lawgikill to me.