Games: The High Price of Playing

Games are getting more expensive. The thing is, it's almost like a price hike happened overnight and right now I think there's a lot of disparity in what you get at certain price points. You can say that the publishers are marking games like COSMIC ENCOUNTER and DOMINION at prices the market will bear, but at the end of the day you're getting less product now for $50 then you used to- and "play" doesn't count, I'm talking about what you materially get for you money.

There's no doubt that inflation, the flagging world economy, rising production costs, and yes, rising production standards are all contributing to games getting more expensive but it wasn't that long ago (like, last year) that $50 was sort of the average price for a big box game.

I'm not really complaining, just observing. I want to see companies like FFG do well and doing well does mean that they turn a profit and increase that margin regularly. If you've ever been outraged at a company raising its prices, declared Christian Petersen to be nothing more than a greedy corporate fatcat, or sworn off buying from Mayfair because they've acted to protect retailers then you have no understanding about how capitalism and business works. I'm not saying that there's anything necessarily "wrong" or "bad" about games getting more expensive, but like or not they are. And it does seem like the price hikes we're seeing haven't really been very gradual.

So the article's up at Gameshark.com , as usual, this time thanks to Jeff McAllister acting in Bill Abner's stead. Bill's down at Disney with his family, which was apparently an ideal time for Octavian to threaten him with action for posting my reviews over at some other board game site. I didn't realize there was another site where board games were discussed.