Game prices- Rant and Surprises

I haven't been in the reviewing mood for the past few days and even though I want to write at least 1 blog post a day when you aren't in the mood the content, review, and general wording seems to go down. Who wants to read some rushed piece of crap literature? So instead of making a horrible review I think today I'll just write about whats been on my mind for the past few days (more like 1 day and on and off thought through my week).

As the title suggests, its about game prices. If you read one of my previous blog posts about Corporation games stores versus local self-owned game stores then you kinda get where my stance is on game prices. I'm not the kind of guy that needs to have new games; thats not to say that I don't enjoy having that shinny new box and game, or that collectors edition of a game; because I do and I have shelled out that extra cash for a Collectors edition or pre-ordered a game (most recently Pre-ordered: Guild Wars: Eye of the North [yeah its a while ago but thats the most recent pre-order], Collectors Edition: Assassins Creed: Brotherhood [Also a while ago but I wanted that Harley skin and the jack-in-the-box] and Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty [got off ebay so didn't pay full price])

Now that you know a bit about my stance, lets get down to the "meat' or "core" of this rant.

I was born in the U.S. so there are a variety of stores, though most stores are chains [i.e. Gamestop, Walmart, K-mart, etc.] and very few of those self-owed stores. This forced me to go their if I wanted some convenience, but this also meant that I learned how the pricing went for them and which store would offer the better deal. Now I go to college in Europe and while it is also dominated by stores like Gamestop [why wouldn't it be] there are also a bunch of other self-owned game stores that are a bit more in reach so almost just as convenient as that Gamestop in the mall.

The main part of this rant is when I was walking with some friends and we walked past a self-owned game store. To my surprise I saw an extremely overpriced game. Portal 2 was going for 70 euros! Even in Gamestop that game would go for 60 euros [in the U.S. its probably $60 since they seem to just convert the price straight]. I understand that games are becoming more advanced and even more expensive to make and this would result in an increase in game price (if you remember new games used to be $50, even further back $40 and even $30). This price increase for new games was noted by me with the release of Starcraft 2 (or maybe it was a game before hand that was marked as being $60). This was fine but if the new tread is a $10 or 10 euro price increase ever few years I am going to go insane. Imagine paying $100 for a new game, thats insane!

Maybe its just me but things like this force me to reconsider even looking at new games since I know they are going to be this expensive and I might as well wait a year or 2 for the price to drop.

Thats it and thanks for reading my rant. If you have comments please leave them below.