Games are, in my opinion, ridiculously expensive here in Cyprus.  Typical price for a new release PS3/X360 game would be around 70 euros (around 100 USD) and about 55-60 euros for a Wii/PC game.

The market is small so everything is expensive here.  Games are imported second hand even (via Greece) so i guess that makes them even more expensive.  They also hardly ever reduce in price (I see 3 year old games with yellowing labels still at full-price).

I import practically every game (actually nowadays i order online, or buy while i'm abroad, pretty well everything except consumables).  Mostly import from the UK or sometimes from Canada (if i need a NA release) or from Hong-Kong (play-asia) for my japanese imports

UK

Most Wii games brand new at retail (not online) are about £35-£40 which is $53-60 USD

360/PS3 games are about £40-50 which is $60-75 USD. But bear in mind the value of the pound has dropped. The conversion used to be much less flattering. 

bugsonglass said:

the one thing that sucks about ordering online though is sometimes it takes ages before i get my hands on a game.  i ordered yakuza 3 almost 2 weeks ago and i don't have it yet.  i ordered assassin's creed II a few days ago, no telling when that will reach me.  normally games from the UK take about a week or less.  hope yakuza wasn't lost

 If I order a game which is in stock I usually get it within 4 business days. 

bugsonglass said:

the one thing that sucks about ordering online though is sometimes it takes ages before i get my hands on a game.  i ordered yakuza 3 almost 2 weeks ago and i don't have it yet.  i ordered assassin's creed II a few days ago, no telling when that will reach me.  normally games from the UK take about a week or less.  hope yakuza wasn't lost

I find that a healthy backlog always helps.

gamingeek said:

UK

Most Wii games brand new at retail (not online) are about £35-£40 which is $53-60 USD

360/PS3 games are about £40-50 which is $60-75 USD. But bear in mind the value of the pound has dropped. The conversion used to be much less flattering.

Going back to when the pound was stronger, why do you think the games were so much higher than in the US?  Less people to buy a game (therefore more risk)? Or something local (like special taxes).  And is that price with or with GST?  One thing people overlook when looking at our prices in the US is that Sales Tax is not-inclusive in tag prices, so a $60 game advertsied is actually $66 when you walk out of the store due to county and state sales taxes (in California at least as sales taxes vary from state to state, there is no national GST).

aspro said:

At their school a couple of years ago the principle held a fundraiser with an "early screening" of The Simpsons Movie (pirated, it had not been released here).  And afterward they were offering copies of the movie for a small donation.  I was like... um... what?

 It was all for a good cause, i'm sure "the simpsons" wouldn't have minded

there are whole countries where they don't really understand/know about intellectual property.  i was recently in israel (in tel aviv specifically) and there were shops with big shelves full of copied wii games, being sold like nobody's business.  russia and eastern europe are also like that.  cyprus was like that before it entered the EU.  there were just one or two small specialised shops selling licensed games (or even music).  it has since changed to a significant degree but i know of big shops where you could buy copied games and movies under the counter.

Dvader said:

aspro said:

Here's a question for everyone.  Games still cost way less than the average Studio released film.

Why aren't they priced the same as movie DVDs?  I am guessing price elasticity and inertia.

And for a bit of fantasy, holy shit can you imagine how different our lives would be if games were only $20 across the board?  They'd be no more decision making.

I always thought this is the way the industry should go, make it so the normal person can buy a game a week the same way some families buy a movie a week. The problem is that movies have box office and video, they make money twice, games do not. Plus there will probably always be a smaller market for games and we know gamers will pay whatever so why not exploit them. But if companies ever want gaming to be as natural as buying new movies, they need to bring the price down.

it can also be argued though that in terms of value, a game normally offers more.  if we say an average movie is just over an hour and a half and an average game will last somebody about 10 hours then that's about 7 times more.  also a game arguably (due to it being an interactive experience) has more re-usability.   maybe making games smaller will mean that they go down in price but it doesn't seem to have worked like that so far.

in my opinion paying £25 for a game more often than not is better value than paying £12 for a DVD.  i understand however that sometimes the price of a game is much more prohibitive than that of a DVD regardless of value, so i see what vader is saying

aspro said:

Here's a question for everyone.  Games still cost way less than the average Studio released film.

Why aren't they priced the same as movie DVDs?  I am guessing price elasticity and inertia.

And for a bit of fantasy, holy shit can you imagine how different our lives would be if games were only $20 across the board?  They'd be no more decision making.

There's that term again.  Price elasticity, if it's a factor, would mean that the number of games sold is relatively unaffected by price.  Fair enough argument given the price went up this generation and hasn't seemed to slow, but then again, Wii and DS are selling insanely well.  I'd put it on consumer and producer surplus.  Simply put, customers are willing to pay more.  Maybe also somewhat attributed to it being more of an oligopoly -- less competition, though not by much.

...I really need this semester to end -- this economics stuff is starting to get to me.