Should price be taken into account to a game review?

It happens with everything. Somoene buys a smartphone, gps doesn't work, makes bad photos... but hey it was for cheap so it is ok for them, even if they paid hundreds of euros.

Ideally I'd like to see games reviewed by three different measures:
-The game itself - reviewed as objectively as possible, its entertainment value and artistic merit. The gameplay, how fun it is, graphics, sound, features, innovation etc.
-Presentation/meta-game - how buggy it is, how active the online community is (for multiplayer games), post-release dev support, DLC, collector's edition goodies, advanced options on the PC port, does the game deliver what was promised etc. The overall experience of the game outside of the objective gameplay itself.
-Value for money - the amount of enjoyment/playtime/content you get out of the game for its price, relative to the price of other games. This absolutely has to be its own category since prices vary over time, platform, region etc.

It's not perfect since there can be some overlap and people will have different ideas what aspects belong to which category. For example an overly short campaign could ruin the objective enjoyment of the game, but also factors into the value for money.
Either way, I've said it before (and got blasted for it because, Internet); Steam reviews are broken, as well as sites like Metacritic. They boil the reviews into simplistic suggestions or numbers, and everyone has a different idea of how a game should be reviewed. If price is factored into the review, the game gets better over time as it gets cheaper. If it's a multiplayer game, the experience is going to get worse over time as the community move on. Let's face it, people going back and updating their reviews to reflect these changes, is extremely rare. And that's assuming everyone even reviews a game seriously; review bombing is a thing. Trolling. People get emotionally invested (both positively and negatively) about a game, because they backed it on kickstarter, it didn't live up to unreasonable hype, they slept with the developer, they hate the publisher because reasons...

There's another factor that I'm overlooking, which is time. It's a huge factor in an age of public alphas, Early Access, Kickstarter prototypes etc. It's not simply a matter of extending the content and the value for money changing over time. Games in such a state can change dramatically, have completely new features added (or removed), can have great potential and either deliver, fail to deliver, or be abandoned altogether. It's a whole other can of worms.

I selected the 'Other' option on the poll because, my general opinion is reviews themselves are a broken concept. People being able to present their opinions/share their experience/warn others of a game is important, at least for the sense of community and consumer benefits aspects. Ultimately though a game should be presented to the people to let them judge for themselves. Publications like Kotaku got on the right track by removing scores years ago. Let's Plays are invaluable. Demos need to make more of a comeback. Steam free weekends are underutilised, Scores, aggregates, yes/no conclusions should be dumped.

I feel the best reviews are those which let you know what the game is like, what kind of player would enjoy them, and how much the game is worth in terms of entertainment value. With that information, I can tell whether or not a game is worth buying at a particular price-point.

price should be taken in account for a game review but as a separate point from the game quality. "it's great/it's bad but/and too expensive/and cheap" makes sense in a quality view and "it's great/it sucks because it's expensive/cheap" makes sense for some as individual consummers. now to answer philosophy matters such as "is something great if you can't experience it?" might be messing this up

good question. It shouldn't but only if it doesn't have paid dlc's that affect gameplay, if it does this can be taken in consideration in review. or there should be seperate categorie for value.

A final review score should NOT be affected by price as price changes all the time and vary massively depending on where you purchase. This would make all reviews outdated extremely quickly and end up being really hard to judge the quality.

Also, the cost means different hings to different people. Some don't mind spending £40 on an average game, whereas some would only spend £40 on the best of all AAA games.

However, 'maybe' reviews should list the RRP price of the game at time of review as that way it allows the reader to judge themselves the value of a game if it's price has change and maybe if a game is extremely good or bad value for money, the review should comment on this.

I feel like you have to have a solid and objective review first (or if you're not being objective at least try and explain why). I see a lot of reviews that don't mention details and it is just essentially "it was good/bad" or "don't waste your time/money"/"worth the price" as you said. I look for reviews that actually mention specifics, good or bad. Because something tolerable by someone else may be a dealbreaker for me and vice versa. For instance, IMO DRM/other systems (especially UPlay/Origin) can also be as much or more of a turn off than just having major bugs and I love when comments call those out (helps a lot if you aren't paying attention to who made it). But I know plenty of folks that either don't care at all or don't mind putting up with it.

That said, where I feel the price comes in is after the fun factor and specifics have been called out. In other words, if a game is more expensive then it should be held to higher standards beyond just the "was it fun"/playable. For example, if I buy a game for $60 and it is fun and mostly playable but there are a couple major game breaking bugs and shitty graphics that might bother me more than a $10 game that also is fun and mostly playable but also has major game breaking bugs and shitty graphics.

No, since price is not an internal characteristic of the game: if a game is bad, it should be considered bad, no matter how much it costs; the same works for when it's good.

Voted for this option, because I 100% agree with it.
It's ok if a review mentions the game's price as a side note. It wouldn't be ok if the whole review was based on the game's price ("This game is a piece of crap, but hey, it's only €1 so thumbs up, recommneded!").

It's like that retarded mentality of "you can't criticise a free game because it's free". That one's really my pet peevee, being free to play doesn't make a bad game any better!

Games are unique in the entertainment world in their huge variety of both price and length of the experience (playthrough and replayability). I think the public takes these two factors into account when evaluating and purchasing a game, so reviews should also take them into account.

YES YES YES! Ofc price should be taken into account. Price to quality ratio is a very important factor. Also price to length ratio is important. If a game is very short in length then unless its really good quality you wouldn't wanna be paying a high price for it.

Price does matter, yes. But actually, in reviews, "worth the price" = "I haven't regret buying it" = "I like the game". So, it's a subjective opinion, because both enjoyment from playing and affordability greatly depends on the reviewing person. So, more important question is - should reviews be subjective or should people try to be objective in reviews? I can't answer it unequivocally - when I read review from someone I don't know - I prefer objective description of game, and when I read review from someone I know - I prefer subjective opinion, because if I know the person I usually know, if our tastes are the same or not.

I only bring price into my reviews after my points have been made, at the end I would say it is dirt cheap so definitely get it or even though it is a good game the price is far too high for it or something like that. Otherwise, it shouldn't really impact the review itself, unless if the review is for a skin DLC that costs a 5th of the games price ... I'm looking at you Tales of Zestiria - Evangelion Costume Set

I don't think price should be taken into account for a game review, but I do think it's a legit criterion.

Personally, I won't change a review from good to bad just because of the price, but I may mention something like "although it's a good game it's not really worth the price". I also may change a review from bad to good if the game isn't too bad and is really cheap. About that, it's sad that Steam's review system is binary, you get a pretty nasty threshold effect on games that are on the edge... :/

never.

Whoa. This is a valid, interesting topic of conversation!

We have come a long way from "what if Zelda was a girl" and "wud you liek to be 2D". I'm so proud!

cries a single tear

I think a combination of price/hr is important for example the witcher 3 is a AAA game but I got 130 hrs out of it while some 5$ games couldn't
Hold my intrest for more than an hour.

That being said it shouldn't be a defining factor as the game itself has to also stand up. It don't matter how many hours you can put into a game if you don't have fun whIle doing so

Does anyone expect more from a 15 u$ game than from a 60 u$? Price is a factor towards my expectations. Of course is not and absolute rule that a more expensive game is better than a cheaper one, but when I buy them I expect more from que most expensive :)

The price doesn't detemine the quality and a cheap price can't save a shitty game, but obviously the money you spent on a game will determine how critically you think of something. If you spend $60 on a game you obviously don't want a bad product, especially if it gets really bad after 5 hours or only takes that long. In my opinion, $1 should get you 1 hour of entertainment, at least when it comes to gaming.

I myself see it like this : price shouldnt be the most important thing in reviews but its still a factor. if im buying a game that is fun but you can only play it for say half an hour and it has no replay value and it costs 30 euro i still wouldnt recommend it even though it was enjoyable. It feels like a rip off to get a fun game for that short of time for that high price. you could get some amazing game that you can play for tens or hundreds of hours and enjoy much more than that for the money. lets see it in another way, would you recommend someone to buy a normal (nothing out of the ordinary) PC or a high end gaming PC if they were for the same price? even if the pc itself is good in comparison to the other pc you could get for the same price its just not worth buying and therefore i wouldnt recomend it. Same goes with games. If there is a good game for too much i wouldnt recomend it and if there is an meh-ish game which is really cheap i would say go and get it

It's important. Let's say you have two games that both cost $20. One of them gives you 5 hrs campaign and 5 multiplayer maps no one plays at all... so basically dead multi with short singleplayer... The other one gives you 20 hrs story for the same money.

Which one is a better deal for the price? See, price matters.

I usually set "the scale" at 1 hr of fun per $1 when buying... or selling.

It is a factor thats for sure ... Basing your review on the price tho , or it having heavy impact on your score / overall rating of the game is wrong tho .
I dont think lets say 15-20$ is too expensive for lets say a heavily story driven 3-4h game , a lot of people will beg to differ thats for sure ... and if you review such game and its just a good game , you can have the factor yeah it is 20$ and only 3 hours long but its totally worth it .
Then again if you review such game , and its 4 hours of and its okay , not great not bad either ... just okay game ... you can use the price tag as a limiting factor saying it may not be worth the getting at full price , but maybe at a discount .

I believe it makes total sense to consider the pricing when judging a game.
Same with length, aesthetics, atmosphere, story, gameplay.

They are all factors when determining if something is worth buying.

Price is definitely a factor. Not the most important one but not the least either. That being said I find it natural for the price to reflect the overall quality and the amount of available in-game content. Sadly that doesn't really happen considering all the overpriced junk existing out there only for the sole reason of periodically having the game listed for over 90% discount with a price close to its real value.

At the same time there are also situations of underpriced games having either more content than similar titles or an above average quality not reflected in the price.

All in all, it's hard to objectively quantify a clear relation between the price and the amount/quality of the provided content available in the game because this mainly depends on each reviewer's preferences and the past experiences with other games.

The most important aspect related to a game is how much one enjoys it and this also defines the price range one is able to pay for it and this varies from person to person.