With the release of the National Football League’s (NFL) annual video game staple, Madden, football fans across the world will dig deep into their pockets to buy this year’s version, paying any amount, but how much is too much?
Like most sports fans, I get excited anytime a video game that involves my favourite sport is released and I most likely will fork out the cash involved with purchasing the game.
I was never the greatest at sports so having a video game provide me with a way to transform myself in the game and put me into the profession levels of the sports I loved was a great way to remain interested.
I used to spend hours on end sitting in front of my television screen tapping away on my controller helping teams like the Minnesota Vikings win their first ever Superbowl or the Calgary Flames win another Stanley Cup Championship. I felt like I was contributing to those teams in a virtual reality world.
As I grew up I began to buy my own video games, no longer relying on mom and dad to help me fill my collection, and as a teenager it was a big deal to me purchasing the new Madden or NHL game each year.
As the years progressed my video game collection became less of a diverse cornucopia and more of a “hey look I have every NHL game between 2008 and 2015.”
So I would pay $60 a game to have what soon started to become the same games with minor, and I mean minuscule, differences from year to year. Aside from players being traded to different teams and new uniforms and arenas, the games were pretty much a carbon copy from the previous year’s installment.
Sure they would bring in new mechanics for a game every couple of years, but other than that, games were becoming the same year-in and year-out. This smart cookie started to catch on, but still I would dole out $60 per game.
I tried to limit myself by purchasing the new hockey game every year, only purchasing the football game once every two years and baseball every three or so. But still it was getting expensive.
Over the years, prices of video games began jumping up in five dollar increments and I just assumed it was due to the cost of making a game for newer generations of video game systems. So I began paying $60, then $65 and then up to $70. But now I hear the games are being sold for $80.
How do developers expect people to pay this much for the same games year after year. What’s next: $100 video games? I shouldn’t have to take out a loan to buy a game. This year I am not sinking my money into what will most likely be the same game as last year.
Who am I kidding? I’m picking up Madden 16 next week.
