More important than price is engagement value. If I spend four months with a game, I don't mind the $60 price. Some notable examples for me: Skyrim, GTA-V, and Dark Souls 2. However, I have played games with little or no engagement value. BioShock 2 lasted less than 2 weeks (2 play throughs).
If you want to talk about low value for a high price point, look no further than X:Rebirth. I'm hard pressed to believe the developers didn't know what an absolute mess they were pegging as a top dollar game; more than any question of price I'm wondering what happened to the demo THEN buy procedure that, at least for the games I cared about, seemed to be the norm. Nowadays it's prerendered trailer after prerendered trailer, and you may not have any idea what you're buying until the money has already changed hands.
Most empty action games I play (CoD series, Halo, etc.) I view as interactive blockbusters. So, if it costs $20 for a 2 hour movie, I'm getting my money's worth from a 6 hour game that costs $60.
That said, I actually enjoy good games, so I take my money elsewhere and buy little indie titles for $15-20 intead, and only occasionally buy a AAA theme park.
Unfortunately engagement value is only weakly linked to the price tag. It's expected a AAA title costing $60 to give at least 70 hours of entertainment, but beyond that it varies vastly across titles and players.
Usually, games with multiplayer features last significantly longer than single player games, but there are exceptions like the ones you listed which all have high replay values. Also, genres matter, open-world sandbox games lack the intensity but enjoys longevity, the price could hardly reflect that.
Then there's Minecraft, which keeps its charm after months, for some people even years. And it cost a lot less than the typical AAA titles.
I feel the pricing model in gaming industry is so rigid and backwards (although no so much for casual games, eg. in app purchase and mulitplayer games eg. esport games and MMORPGS). Some movement toward more flexible pricing mechanisms to reflect games' contents will undoubted benefit both game makers and players.
> It's expected a AAA title costing $60 to give at least 70 hours of entertainment
Does that include multiplayer? Personally I'd be surprised to find a majority of AAA single-player games to have that much content, barring the Skyrims and Fallouts. For me, playing the same game past around the 20 hour mark starts to feel like a chore.
Exactly. There is room in the world for big and expansive (and expensive) games like TES, Borderlands, and StarCraft and small one-off (and cheaper) games like all the indies. I would have loved the current game ecosystem when I was growing up 10-15 years ago.
