Are re-releases overpriced?

I loved Uncharted 2. How could I not? It was my first true PlayStation 3 game, and brought a wave of amazing technology together in a great 15 hour campaign. Great cinematic presence, scripts and cut-scenes that worked seamlessly within the gameplay, outstanding visuals with small details that catch the eye like snow actually sticking to you, and minor gameplay enhancements over solid cover shooter gameplay. It was a great game with a nice treasure hunter theme. Its probably my favorite game from Naughty Dog as well. Uncharted 3 is nice as well, though with a fair share of issues that put it somewhat lower on the chain from Uncharted 2. Still its great. So why then would I not complete the journey with Uncharted 1 and grab it all in a remastered, better than ever, PlayStation 4 bundle? Because its $60 for a port enhancement. No thanks!

I mean really, as a guy that owns and has played 2 of 3 of the games at least three times (actually playing the first as well now), and still owns them, its hard to tell me that I need to put down full game price to replay the games again no matter how glorified your enhancements are. Yes I'm sure the games would be great in 1080p, 60fps, and with maybe some bumped up texture/models, and of course there's a capture mode function. Its not worth paying the price for a full game though. Oh and as for the original Uncharted game I didn't have by the time of this announcement? Its $5 at gamestop. I'm not going to wait until October to put down $60 just to experience the oldest (and depending on who you ask, worst) game in the series while its directly competing with itself at $5. I went out and bought it for $5 in its original form, and its playing just fine thank you very much. However what's even more laughable is how God of War 3 is dong that exact same thing all by itself. That one lone game at the edge of a trilogy is being re-released and put out on the very same shelves that hold the same game at $5. Its charging $40 for the re-release. Oh and there's been a full blown saga release that has 5 games bundled on the PS3 all together, making it a more complete franchise for fans or new comers for the price of $30 at launch... years ago (you can grab it for $20 now). Quite ridiculous really, but if you gotta have that photo mode I guess you can still find value in that $40 re-release of one lone game.

The cost is equivalent to its bloom: too much

It doesn't really end there though. Sleeping Dogs was $50 when it launched, and that was just a simple cult hit that barely did any enhancements with its game. Dishonored, one of my favorite games of last generation, is aiming to do one at $40 which is the same price they launched their collectors book at. So its genuinely a cost of brand new content without being anything brand new. While I love that game a ton, its very hard to see myself picking it up over brand new fan servicing content like the collector's book for a huge price. I already bought the game twice anyways, GOTY edition being $15 (not used) at the time I got it. Yes that's right, you can get everything there is to Dishonored for the price of a common PSN game, and yet its going to be placed beside a $40 texture bumped version charging more than double. This is just absurd. What's going on here?

Remember the re-releases that happened across 7th gen? Collections, fully trilogies, HD ports of classics, physical versions of digital games, all being sold to you $30 or less. Ratchet & Clank for $30, Sly 1-3 with new (though shallow) mini-games and 3D mode support for the same price, what was once the entire franchise of God of War for $30 with all these examples bringing out some newly added trophy support and keeping a high framerate. Now we just have bigger resolution and newer features already built into our hardware as the consistent incentive (Maybe DLC if that wasn't already done before), yet they're giving us less games and raising the prices, and doing it with the old games still on the shelves for cheaper. Oh and lets not forget multiplayer is being lost on some of these. Its not that I'm complaining from my own stingy viewpoint (though that motivates me a bit), but I'm also baffled at just how stupidly unaware these guys are. They have no sense of sight, or record of just where their own games are. They're convinced that they have enough following that they can just put out a 3 year old or older game and take it about the same income as if they just made a whole new game. Its also bothering me from a deeper point of watching a generous offer turn into a greedy hand begging for more money, because at one time this sort of thing was phenomenal. Again we were getting big classics brought back better than ever for the cost of half a game, because they actually understood these games were older, built with less expensive tech, and needed to compete with 2nd hand markets. Now they aren't even aware they themselves still sell the games for a better value than what they're offering with their "touched up" newer copies.

$30! nah, why not make it $40 or $50?

This isn't to be taken as a hate speech against general re-releases. I want it to be understood that I'm still grateful whenever one of these games are announced. Its good to put more choice, more entry points, and more updated games out there on the market. Its great that they don't simply kill a game and let it stay forgotten, when they know people could still have fun with it in today's market. I will never turn down the concept of a re-release. My only disappointment actually comes where opportunitites to make it better are missed, like how Dark Souls 2 got a re-release without the original, or how God of War is just handing out one out of 6 of its games. Still even disappointments there is no sass towards the whole decision to put a new game out. Its just that in the end of things, they're screwing things up and making what should be accessible very hard to do so. I just don't think they're aware anymore of what they're asking for.

It takes more than rehashing the same old experience with a bigger resolution to get a full or even near full payment from a lot of us. I do believe these re-releases are overpriced and that's a shame. Don't just take my word for it though, take it from Sony, Bethesda, Square Enix, etc where their older games are significantly lower in price than what they're asking for with the new version that slightly bumps up the visuals. The games still look roughly the same, play the same, and have the same stories, so why are the prices more than double or even triple the worth these companies gave it? Price is always subjective, but if I've ever seen a better example of how to prove something is overpriced, its harder to find it than right here. Here's an idea, instead of paying $60 to enjoy Uncharted 2 again (even a little shinier), how about I just go over and put it in my machine for free. That sounds better.

Its still fun over on PS3