Modern Warfare 2 bringing $60 price tag to PC games

it may be the superior version of the game but also it is the cheapest and easiest to develop. Also if you buy it by digital distribution you are taking out of the equation the shipping, retailers, distribution, packaging, etc. So? I dont get your point? PC version should at most cost $40 to $50.

NMoose,

Pricing parity between console and PC games is unacceptable when one considers there are no steep licensing fees to be paid or incredibly expensive, proprietary hardware to be bought (dev kits) alongside the required midrange/higher end PC components. For those reasons, multiplatform games typically cost millions less to make for the PC than they do on consoles. Even our most touted, most visually astounding and highly advertised exclusives are often far cheaper to make than your average Xbox 360 or PS3 exclusive. So, taking all that in, I still fail to see why we should pay 17% more just because Bobby Kotick thinks we should. I'll be buried for it, but I personally hope Modern Warfare 2 suffers from piss poor sales just so that greedy, arrogant prick'll get knocked off of his little throne.

jackal,

The cost of creating the game is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is the consumer's perceived value of the product. It's obvious from console sales that people think a COD game is worth $60. You're asking for a superior version of the game for less than its generally accepted value. It's cool that PC developers have been willing to pass on the savings to consumers in the past, and trust me I'm all for it, but why should a company offer a product for less than its perceived value? Activision is a douchey company, but this particular move is just good business.

Let me ask, when you buy a T-shirt for 8 bucks (relatively cheap), do you complain that it should be cheaper because manufacturing it probably cost a dime and the company is just making too much profit? Companies make huge profits off of cheap manufacturing all the time. I don't know why you think there's some magical maximum profit margin that games publishers must adhear to.

What I'm getting at is how silly it is to base your purchasing decision on how much profit a company is making. One question should drive your decision:
Does COD:MW2 offer an experience that I would pay 60 dollars to have?
If yes: Buy game
If no: Vote with your wallet, don't buy the game, and stop bitching about companies not bending to your imaginary standards.

NMoose,

"The cost of creating the game is irrelevant." It's very relevant. Cost is why the current generation of console games retail for $10 more than what their predecessors did. Publisher didn't magically pull a $60 price tag out of a hat for shits and giggles or because, we, the consumer find that much value in these games; the $60 MSRP was established out of necessity because developmental costs of your average console game between the previous generation and the current one more than doubled. In some extreme cases, budgets have quadrupled or even quintupled. This has not been the case when it comes to making PC games and it is why those games have been priced lower than their console counterparts; licensing fees and dev kit costs included, a publisher makes more from a PC game's $49.99 MSRP than they do on an Xbox 360 or PS3 port's $59.99. So, yes, cost is a legitimate factor when it comes to the pricing of PC ports.

"You're asking for a superior version of the game for less than its generally accepted value" Ignoring interface (because KB&M dominates gamepad in FPS), PC gamers would be getting the superior version regardless of price because we've had the technological edge since 2006; any superiority Xenos or the RSX might potentially have been able to claim against their desktop counterparts was unquestionably laid to rest the moment DX10 capable parts hit the retail channel. Even if Modern Warfare 2 is a straight console port with a minimal amount of or no additional/advanced image quality settings, we'd be able to enjoy it with higher fidelity and better performance than what would be available on an Xbox 360 or PS3 simply because we have much more powerful hardware at our disposal. I fail to see how charging us extra or penalizing us for what's basically a given is justifiable.

As far as " for less than its generally accepted value" is concerned, that value would be $49.99 as is the case with every other PC game released in recent memory. EA, Valve, Epic Games, Microsoft, Ubisoft, THQ, 2k, Take-Two, Eidos, Warner Brothers, and Capcom have deemed that amount as an acceptable price point to release even their newest games at, so I fail to see how you can justify Activision's 17% price hike (which is not small) as they're the only publisher doing it. Just because Activision says, "You'll pay X amount and you'll damn well like it" doesn't mean I'm going to casually bend over and let them pound my financial ass like an inbred hillbilly raping a yuppie in some forgotten Alabama swamp. They are by no means the only FPS publisher in PC market, nor are they the only one to have a critically acclaimed franchise; sooner or later they'll get that through their thick, arrogant skulls. You might be okay with letting 'em fuck you over, but I'm not and, perhaps more importantly, I'm no where near alone on this site.

Oh and why the F do we need to confirm our posts in email? I mean ive been using the net since like 93 and this and engadget are easily the 2 dumbest comment systems out there. I mean now I have to go to my email to confirm what I just wrote, hmmm. And my phone next time i look at it.

Maybe i should confirm my gallon of milk after the bagger has bagged it, hmm yup, I still want my milk, better make sure its white milk. Oh ya, its white, make sure its cold, oh ya, its covered in condensation, what about the date, its fresh. Maybe I should just pour a bowl of cereal in the store here to make sure it will be delicious. Yup, its yummy! Im glad I checked to make sure I wanted my milk!

Sign up to the site and you won't have to do that.

maybe you shouldn't be using the internet.
if you actually paid any attention what so ever you will notice right above the comments section there is a returning tab where you can put in your email address and a password that joystiq provide you with in a comment confirmation email.
seriously dude if you have been using the netwebz for as long as you have been saying then you have learnt nothing.
also the reason there is a comment confirmation email is so that people won't use other peoples names, so that they don't give that certain username a bad name on the interwebz.

Ok I obv am a returning user, and the fact that people can sign in under other peoples names seems odd. How can they do that? And why can they do that, I mean if I signed up and have a pw, why do I have to also confirm what I wrote?

mate in those confirmation emails that you get from joystiq, at the bottom they provide you with a password, with that password you can enter it in the returning section and you don't have to confirm any more comments via email.
i thought that since you have been using the interwebz since 93 you would pick up on these thing more quickly than others

Map packs or any extra content on PC has never costed extra money in the past.

Supposed to be Rhimes with game on the end... is this what you guys call reply fail?