At what point does a game become a good deal to you?

[Ramza]

generally, free games hit the spot for me. but some games, even free, aren't worth my time.

[Tooker]

That's definitely true - some free games are awesome, but with others, you really do get what you pay for.  There have been some free games I played and still felt like I got ripped off.

Of course, that raises another point for me.  There have been times with really cheap games when I've said to myself "well, this would have to be pretty bad for me to feel like I didn't get my money's worth."  For example, the iPod games I put $5 into.  A game would have to be pretty awful for me to feel like I didn't even get $5 of enjoyment out of it.

[Hidoshi]

I never thought of it in terms of movie ticket prices. I used to say that I wanted an hour per dollar, but it's not always that way. I don't mind paying more for a solid game that's a little shorter. I don't pay $60 for a 10 hour game typically though, no matter how good it's supposed to be.

I think that may have been more true in antiquity than it is now, if we use narrative-based games as a common theme. Portal is a pretty recent example of this rule not being true anymore. So's Mirror's Edge (I know, not as universally loved, but I thought it was great) and other games like that.

Still, I think games could do with more consistent pricing brackets, even for big-name titles. I always felt highly insulted paying full price for Dragon Warrior VII, when its final product couldn't hold a bloody candle to games from two generations ago. For the "oldschool" effect, Suikoden II was worlds better, and for narrative, a game like Xenogears was far more concise and meaningful. Not to say it was a cheap game to produce, but it certainly couldn't have been that expensive compared to its contemporaries.