The Price of Cheap Games

I was in Alabama from Friday until Monday, completely oblivious to the outside world, but thanks to a short 10 minute conversation with my friend Andrew did catch wind of the massive $5 game clearance that began at Circuit City on Sunday and was able hit one up on early Monday afternoon to salvage what was left over. So what did I find? I'll let the picture speak for itself...

This massive pile of 28 games was my haul after around $155 and slightly fewer than 20 minutes. Not every game in the pile is going to be amazing, but it's all stuff that I've been at least slightly interested in, and for a price that's cheaper than renting I couldn't resist going a little nuts.

That said, I am a little disappointed. No, I'm not disappointed because all of the $5 copies of Disgaea were sold out when I got there (ok, maybe a little), but I'm disappointed that the game industry has gotten to the point where so many great games are unable to sell enough copies at even $20 to sustain their existence on store shelves. The market has been flooded with games in the past few years and while the big titles like Need for Speed Underground and Grand Theft Auto just keep getting bigger and bigger, the smaller titles are being pushed to the side, selling barely enough to be worth their spot on the shelves.

Stores are going to start thinking that stocking 1000 copies of Madden is better than stocking 998 copies of Madden and 2 copies of Culdcept, and who can really blame them? The shelf space would more than likely cost more than the profit that they would make off of the titles.

If you look around, you can see that it's already happening. Great niche games are already becoming even more difficult to find and porting fan favorites over from Japan is becoming less profitable with each release. Try to find a copy of Sabre Wulf or Ninja 5-0 for the GBA, Mickey's Hide and Seek or Gotcha Force for the Gamecube, or Culdcept for the PS2 at most stores and you'll be out of luck. Even Gamestop and Electronics Boutique didn't order enough copies to stock all of their stores and most stores in each major city never received a single shipment. These titles would definitely be more profitable if they were more widely available. I've let several people know how good Culdcept is, and these people might have picked it up if they happened to see it in a store, but they were never given that opportunity.

If smaller, more creative games are forced to become any smaller we may end up without them altogether. And I don't want that happen. Moral of the story? Culdcept goes for between $20 to $25 on eBay. You know what to do.

-Wes