Gaming History 101

Video game pricing: this is a topic that sparks a lot of debate in the community. In this article I wanted to give you a brief history of video game prices in the UK while I was growing up and give my personal thoughts on the topic. Since this is quite a deep topic I’m only going to spend this article discussing new retail games.  [Editor’s Note: This article uses prices in British Pounds (£).  For reference, at time of writing £1 = $1.48]

I have been quite lucky to see the early days of video game pricing to what it has generally become today. Back in the eighties when I was a very young fellow I distinctly remember seeing ZX Spectrum games being sold for the nice low price of £2.99. This was very common with micro computers, but the ZX Spectrum by far had the cheapest and arguably the most shovel ware as a result. The Microcomputer and PC for that matter would always be cheapest place to get your retail game fix. This is of course back before the internet was even a thing, my family certainly didn’t even have the internet until the late nineties. What was commanding the high price points was the Sega Master System and Nintendo Entertainment system, games would sell between £29.99 to £49.99. Nintendo had quite the reputation for expensive pricing in the UK. What was quite interesting is the used game market wasn’t a big thing at retail at this stage. But you were able to purchase used games from market places or car boot sales along with a ton of bootleg copied Micro computer games. Once the Sega Mega Drive and Super Nintendo rolled around I started seeing games rock up to prices as high as £59.99. Nintendo once again was the main villian for these prices. While this may sound rather high we just have to deal with it. This sort of pricing became a standard affair for me, hence why my brothers and I would probabaly only purchase just one or two new games a year.

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