I’m not terribly mindful about my generational membership, but I’m pretty sure that being 30 makes me an apathetic gen X-er. I say this by way of explanation for why I find it embarrassing to admit that I have a blogging hero. Jeremy Parish is an editor at 1up and maintains gamespite.net (and bakespite.net, though it’s more foodie-oriented). He produces more words in a day than I do in a week, and I aspire to his standards for quality. So I’m a bit worried by the fact that I completely disagree with his position on the role of money in game reviews. Still, If I don’t hold my ground on this one, I may as well hang up one of my favorite review tools.

It does help that I actually agree with his points, and only part ways at the conclusion. The main thrust is that money is a useless and inappropriate tool to use in game reviews.
Money is intensely personal, which makes it a crass, alienating, and uselessly subjective measure of a game’s worth. These supporting points are all true, but don’t really bear on money’s utility as a review tool.

Everybody makes different amounts of money. It’s an ample wellspring of shame and conflict. I work a day job to support my blogging habit, and I’m not exactly paid commensurate to my Ph.D. Contrast this with a high school classmate who owns a home and is starting a small business. You can bet that I’ll feel the sting more acutely when we both buyMetroid: Other M at the end of this month. A dollar’s value varies between people, and drawing attention to the fact is a surefire way to offend.

The great chain provides
a useful reference point.

If a dollar’s scope was limited to tiny human dramas, I’d be instantly contrite. However, there’s a greater context that normalizes a dollar’s value across people: the market. For weal and woe, games are a commodity. They cluster around major price points. A landmark like $60 actually means AAA title. You can expect epic production values and conservative mass market design. If you’re feeling cynical, you might also expect a lot of padding for length. A $10 game is more likely an indie title, and probably downloadable. You can expect an intense focus on a single idea with an efficient delivery of content. $10 games are usually a little experimental and a lot niche.

The way that games fluctuate in value reflects the game’s popular reception as well. Guaranteed hits like Super Mario Galaxy 2 trundle along at a MSRP of $50 for months, while mixed appeal games like Killer 7 instantly plummet to half their value at retail. High profile resellers like GameStop have virtually locked the used game discount at 10%. If you look, the trends are unavoidable.

So when I say that a hardcore gamer should only shell out $10 for Castlevania HD, I don’t mean that both your local burger drone and Warren Buffett should value that sawbuck the same way. Rather, it falls short of the bar set by similar games at comparable prices. By the same token, you could probably be happy with a purchase if you lump it together with the savvy consumer glow you get from buying games on sale.

It’s worth mentioning that I don’t really have to name a specific dollar amount to get that point across. I could probably come up with a string of pithy recommendations between the highest praise of “MSRP” and the worst criticism, “regift.” However, as my adviser likes to say, humans are change detectors. We like accessible comparisons that we can reduce to binary choices. It’s the reason that game reviews come with a numerical score or a letter grade, and I’d do a disservice to lazy thinkers everywhere by omitting it. Besides, the text of the review is designed to let you decide if you want to spend time and money on the title; the score is just a little brain candy at the end.

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