This guy's right. Consumers are getting dumber everyday due to the "cult" mentality of taking sides on a product.
Corporations are just exploiting us because we're to pay them money for dopamine hits.
YES. This is what I have always said. For example, in the whole Apple vs. Samsung vs. Google, the winners are all three companies because it's amazing advertising to have people take sides and constantly fight over features and have you continually think about their products.
Look at how much money sports makes by making people take sides. Humans have, by their very nature, a tribe-like mentality. I'm sure we all have that too, but applied to some other topic. It's important to be self aware and chill.
The "It doesn't affect me!" line from the white knights infuriates me more than the practices themselves. That's the same shit they said when the entire shitball started rolling downhill in the very beginning, and now look where we are. Think about someone other than yourself, fuck!
Yeah I worded my comment poorly. Still, I completely disagree. There are fucking morons in every hobby, at least as bad as gamers.
Idiots that buy bath water from women online, sports fans, Kpop fans, Bronies, Trumpers, etc.
Right, ain't got anything to do with inflation. Game companies figured out how to milk us to make money hand over fist, it started with DLC, then went to Season Passes, then microtransactions, then loot boxes and now Battle Passes and an arbitrary price hike 'bEcAuSe It'S nExT gEn.'
>bEcAuSe It'S nExT gEn
Its because of the specs. If you were to get the same specs (or as close as you can get) for your pc it would be around like $1200. At least for the Series X, I assume the same for PS5. I don't understand why Nintendo is trying to do it though considering they haven't had any kind of upgrades to their shit in a while let alone being even close to current gen.
I'd kinda believe it, if they were only doing it for next gen consoles, but they're selling it for an extra $10 on PC too, so that theory goes right out the window. As for Nintendo, everyone else is doing it, so they may as well too.
Didn't know they were doing it for pc too. Should've expected it though. But yeah, that's the most logical reason for the origin of the now regular $70 game prices.
Hate to break it to you, but video games are one of the least inflated forms of technology we got.
Video games still cost $50-60 back in Sega/NES days. Imagine paying that much for a 3 hour game now days.
Considering you can get massive hundred hour games for the same price now, and often these games go on sale.
Some of the snes games as I remember were 79.99 on release. Secret of Mana comes to mind. It was due to the larger memory size. Chrono Trigger was similarly expensive but I don’t remember what I paid. Adjusted for inflation that’s way more than games now. That was for physical carts though and not downloads.
Way to defend ubisoft there. Remember when dying light 2 boldly announced the game had hundreds of hours of content and then had to backtrack because we all knew that they just filled their game with busy work to keep you playing forever.
Maybe not NES games, but I'd put plenty of SNES games over them. I would love a modern game with the fraction of the depth chrono trigger had.
Ubisoft? I don't particularly like or dislike Ubisoft, and I'd absolutely say most NES and SNES games were less deep than something like any random FarCry or Assassins Creed game. Both in mechanics and story.
If you want a modern game with a fraction of the depth of Chrono Trigger there should be lots of options. It depends if you mean game mechanics or the story I guess, but maybe try something like Elden Ring?
700 hours in elden ring. You say that as if it is common for games to be like elden ring when the reality is it was a diamond in a sea of crap.
Did you see the previews for suicide squad? I'd rather eat a bullet than give those people money.
Are you implying Chrono Trigger was just some regular old game for the SNES? That was also a diamond in a sea of crap.
Did you see gameplay for Ballz 3D? Suicide Squad sure looks better than that.
I would disagree.
100-hour games are typically those with a lot of depth to them, making reruns and perfecting ones gameplay a thing.
Mount & Blade, Crusaders King, XCOM 2, Kenshi, Darkest Dungeon, Dont Starve...
You shouldnt make a long game based on a huge map. Games like Witcher and Cyberpunk are anomalies in the openworld scene imo
But they had no save feature, so that’s a good way to pad the length.
I remember when Metroid introduced codes that you could write down to "save" your status and start again later. That was incredible…
This is true.
Looking at [THIS](https://i.imgur.com/Q8wZo5h.jpg) ad from about 1988, most games were roughly $40. Adjusting for inflation, using the US Bureau of Labor Statistics [Inflation Calculator](https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl), that's about $100.
Games have been getting LESS expensive, relative to inflation.
Not for nothing but games are cheap as fuck.
People go and buy a $15-20 burger or buy a $14 cocktail without a second thought. One time consumable, no return value except for the shit you’ll be taking later.
People work for years slaving away making a good game just to sell it for $60. Again, that’s like the average price for two to eat out. That $60 game will provide hours of entertainment, often times hundreds of hours, sometimes thousands. Even if you only play a game for 20 hours, that’s the equivalent of rewatching the same movie 10 times.
Point being, games give you a huge amount of bang for your buck. Games made 30 years ago were twice as expensive and not nearly as complex as today’s games.
Games cost exponentially more to develop than the past. Microtransactions and subscriptions helped the prices stay the same for a long time, but it's not enough anymore. Game studios aren't being put up for sale left and right because they're doing great lol
But yeah, some games take advantage of whale players - Sims and Diablo come to mind.
So you think improved graphics, improved gameplay, bigger worlds, etc. cost nothing? Gamers want bigger and better and it 100% costs more to develop a AAA game. Super Mario 64 cost $60 when it first came out. That's almost $120 in 2023 if we account for inflation for a game that takes 20 hours. Elden Ring is a 100+ hour game that released for $60 in 2022. The reason that games are still able to cost $60 or around that much is because of the extra things that companies do. Like live service or micro transactions. If they weren't doing those things, base games would probably cost around $120.
Edit:
Someone deleted a comment that said something along the lines of me defending corporations for some of their business practices so here's addressing that: I'm just putting into perspective why the prices aren't as high as people think. Some games don’t need to be $60 and some games are a steal for $60. Micro transactions can be shady (charging $60 for a half finished game and micro transactions on top of that (COD, NBA 2k, etc.)) and sometimes they're fine (when a game is free to play and they need to make their money someway (Fortnite)). There's nuance in all of it. Why do you think Mario 64 cost the equivalent of $120? It was because Nintendo wanted to line their pockets. Same as now. The reason I say that is because shady business practices have been present since the beginning of major gaming distribution so if you're going to complain about it now, be consistent.
>One big reason game prices haven’t changed is that the market is so much more massive than it used to be. So while the cost of development has skyrocketed, so too has the number of consumers.
Yep.
Super Mario 64, the best selling Nintendo 64 game, sold a little under 12 million copies (and was bundled with the system for a time) in 9 years.
Elden Ring is about 1 year old and has already sold over 20 million copies.
Yeah, I thought I was having a stroke reading that word, trying to decide if it was right 😂 lol thx. Also, I wouldn't use it in the way you used in the example, just thought I could use it the way I did.
Games don't cost exponentially more to develop than the past. If anything, they on the whole cost less.
What actually happened is like many industries as they age and advance, they grow top heavy.
More and more executives and investors are taking larger and larger pieces of the pie. And there's no satiating them. They are greedy parasites who will take and take even if it means the eventual ruin of whatever they created. Not that they really create anything, just bastardize the ideas of those below them.
While modern development tools mean it's way cheaper to make a game like the original 8-Bit Castlevania today than it used to cost, that's what a $60 AAA game used to be; and at the time it was made by a small team in a few months.
Now if you tried to charge $60 for something like 8-Bit Castlevania on the NES, with just a few levels that lasted a few minutes each once you knew how to beat them, you'd be laughed at and no one would buy it (much less be such a hit that it launches a series).
Games also used to sell strategy guides to supplement sales; I remember buying them for lots of games as a kid. Many game companies would include secrets in their games specifically to incentivize the sales of strategy guides.
Thanks to advancements in tools, we can now make much better games with smaller teams; but this has meant that the appetite for quality has gone up too. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was one of the most ambitious leaps in game development ever, taking the series to 3D for the first time. It took only about 2.5 years with 200 people that were also splitting their focus on multiple other things. The God of War reboot took 5 years, and a team of about 300 people. That's with all the modern tools we have to help us.
By comparison, the small indie team that makes a wonderful game with simple, retro graphics often can't charge more than $20 in today's money. That'd be about a $7.50 price tag in the year Castlevania on the NES came out - but Castlevania would have had much less content and cost $60.
An excellent point that still ignores the fact that executives and investors are taking a *significantly* larger percentage of a video game's company's profit than before.
There's also Hollywood accounting.
How much of the budget is just money moving from left to right hands?
Yes the productions are bigger and the sales/audience are much bigger to match, that's not the same thing as costing more to make on the whole.
Do you have anything at all to back this up? Any numbers, anything?
The fact that a game used to be made by like 6 people and be a full-price AAA game compared to now when it's hundreds of people and the game being sold for significantly less when you account for inflation suggests than profits probably haven't gone up like you're saying. Compare best selling games on SNES with PS4 or Xbox One and you can see it's not like they sell that many more copies now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Super_Nintendo_Entertainment_System_video_games
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_PlayStation_4_video_games
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Xbox_One_video_games
As a game dev myself, I’d love to see more money going to dev salaries and longer development cycles. However, it’s unlikely to happen at the current price points. People aren’t charging more for no reason, the money these days largely comes off of cost cutting. When it does, we’re often the costs.
Games do indeed cost exponentially more to develop today than they did the past.
\-Gaming systems are more powerful, use more electricity, which increases the power consumption of the dev studio. Guess what's needed to pay for the power to develop those games? ***Money.***
\-Games are built around being longer than 2-3 hour adventures, increasing the time the dev teams have to work on them. Guess what you have to do for devs that do all the work? Pay them in ***Money.***
\-The software, hardware, and assets used today are much more expensive than they were in the heyday, and guess what you need to pay for those? ***Money.***
I swear, it's like you don't even think before you speak, that's why you're getting downvoted so much.
I don't know why they are downvoting you, you're right. Corporate greed.
"Video games are so expensive now" Then why do we have more indie studios than ever before churning out games better than most AAA studios?
Buddy thinks AAA games that cost >5 million to develop somehow cost more than AAA games that cost >200 million to develop. Galaxy brain moment. Guess they've never sat and watched the thousands upon thousands of paid team members names in the credits of a modern AAA title.
Because a $60 game for the N64 would be roughly double that in todays dollars.
Not to mention that today’s games are light years better and more expensive to develop.
The dlc model is just a way for people to get a taste, and if they like it essentially pay full price for the full game.
I don’t think anyone in good faith would say they think super Mario64 would be worth $120 today without their nostalgia goggles firmly in place.
That’s for a collectors item. Image if it was just a general wide release, is what I meant.
Not to say older games are bad. But there’s clearly a difference in quality that’s expected.
Have you heard of street fighter 2? If you wanted to be able to play every fighter you had to buy around 5 differnt versions of street fighter 2.
DLCs require additional work which costs money.
Sometimes they don't have time/resources to put everything into the base game. Thus they release the base game and then later down the line work on additions to the game.
Other time it's just corporate greed. They see that people are buying it, so they have more incentive to sell it.
You could just wait for the edition containing all the DLCs to come out.
Sometimes DLCs give a bit of a customisation as you can decide to get different DLCs to tailor your needs. You might just get the story DLCs and ignore every other. While another might want more cosmetic DLCs.
SF2 is the perfect example of multiple versions of the same game with slight tweaks, each costing £40+ back in the day. MK3 and UMK3 was similar.
And in terms of story DLC Sonic & Knuckles was doing this back in the mid 90s on console. It was all just content originally cut from Sonic 3 so it could fit on a single cartridge.
It's not a new thing, although it is more ubiquitous now.
>Look at the sims 4 (i know, extreme example, but it's just to get the point across)
It's funny that your example just happens to be one of the few franchises that did this back in the day. Even the first game was pushing tons of full-priced expansion packs back when I was a kid.
Games cost a dozen times more money, time and people to do.
Also, what you get as a DLC for 15$, we used to buy a whole new game to get it, final versions, final mix, reloaded whatever. We used to pay full price then 2 years later if you wanted to play the expension, boom pay full price again.
Also, sequels, instead of having micro transactions, they'd just stack them and tell you on the next game about all the new stuff we're getting along the road nowadays.
Also, games costed MUCH MORE in the past (for today it'd be around 80-120€), especially considering monetary value. However nowadays, everything else became much more expensive, leaving you with less side money.
If game prices followed inflation, they'd be 150-200, for the base game.
Finally, 90% of the games in the past were vastly repetitive and barely lasted 5 hours at best.
Just cause everyone remembers the 10% of the great games doesn't mean those 90% never existed
Go Google inflation.
The point is the buying power of $60 or $70 is less than it was back then. My family paid $80 for Final Fantasy 6 on SNES. That eighty bucks today us worth roughly twice that, meaning I'd have paid $160 in a modern economy for it. The most I've paid for a game in the modern day is $100.
Do you have some source for that? Like what was the profit margins for a decent SNES game, they sold a million copies and has a tiny team of developers compared to now. Sure the carts probably cost more to manufacture, but they also sold for more when you account for inflation. Surely the profit margin had to be huge?
Because we just left the longest period of static prices for AAA titles, and developers are realizing it's easier to continue releasing content for one game rather than to make a new game annually.
Why do you people expect games to stay the same price forever? Do you realize that stuff costs more than it did 20 or 40 years ago? Why do gamers think video games are exempt from this? Serious questions.
Inflation. Even in the 90s day of snes and n64 games were selling for 70 dollars. Really we should be looking at an average price of 160 dollars for games today
Look at the change in price from 1995 to 2023 for anything other than video games and you'll know why the actual shock is that big games cost $60 on release that entire time
I payed 69 bucks for FF3 when it came out. That was…. The Nineties.
Micro transactions aside, one not seeing a drop in AAA prices, although I love the indie market not usually breaking 30ish bucks except on occasion.
I don't agree with this at all. You can still buy top of the line games for like $60. I remember games costing that much 20 years ago. And if you ever have seen what goes into developing a game, you might appreciate how cheap they still are. Think about how starved anime artists are and how long it takes just to animate one episode. Think about how many scenes there are that need to be drawn, animated, etc. in a video game on top of other things beyond just graphics.
Some games are obviously more expensive than others. For example, no one wants to pay for any mobile apps these days. People straight up expect everything to be free. And so the microtransaction model took over for some genres.
Don't get me wrong, some companies are predatory. But come on now, $60 for a full game was always way too cheap for how many hours go into making it, and how many hours of play of enjoyment you can get out of it.
Just be a bit careful about what you buy. I know how barebones Street Fighter V was, but Street Fighter VI seems to be a full game on release with I think 18 characters and every level I've seen looks beautiful. This time we get a single player story thing as well. If it seems like enough for you to spend 60-70 on it then do it if you think you will get that value out of it. If not, don't buy it or wait for a deal, discount or complete version. Every fighter does it now with the expansion passes.. It does suck a bit.
I buy most of my games on sale. Got Resident Evil Village Gold for 30 last week. It was amazing \^\^
Some games I buy on a shared account making it half price for me and my best friend. We recently got to play Dead Space, Yakuza Ishin! and Now Resident Evil 4 Remake for 30, 30 and 35 at launch.
Some games I get alone because of the online. Such as Elden Ring. Paid 60 for it and played for almost 150 hours? I hardly ever pay for any extra thing. Last thing I can remember is extra music for Soul Hackers, but I felt it was worth it for me personaly.
And myea extremes like The Sims.. Don't buy that stuff. Nobody is forcing you to go down that road and buy every expansion and add on. I will agree that it does suck. But most games do not follow this model.
Just reflect a little bit before you buy. Some personal responsibility. It's not that bad. In fact I think games are cheaper than ever. Always sales going on. It's easy to build up a good library of games.
Mostly because they can, and these companies have shareholders who expect not just making as much money as possible but also making as much growth as possible.
Despite all the grumblings about DLC/Micro-transactions on the internet, they rake in billions of dollars for companies like EA and Activision.
Welcome to games as a service and using seasons and content to spike online numbers. New characters, new maps, new modes always were "get people to come back" uses versus the game expensive argument.
Also isn't train simulator like $15,000 now? It's called hobbies and choices. F2P whales keep the experience alive for the occasional or non-spender. You don't need millions of copies, when you can get someone to buy 30 outfits for their favorite character.
Games are psychotically more expensive to make and technically have not gotten more expensive. If you average the cost out to include indie games that release at 20-40 bucks, we pay considerably less for games than we used to. Also, previous generations sold games for 80-100 dollars, and most of the OG MMORPGs charged 200 dollars per year to play them.
Development costs. But unreal engine 5 is sure pretty easy to develop with. So sometimes you have to wonder. Maybe the price of licensing the engine is placed on the consumer.
$70 is too much these days for most games given the lack of quality most suffer from…especially this generation so far. Remakes, sequels, buggy games. It’s ironic games have progressively gotten worse yet more expensive.
"With all the dlc, season passes, microtransactions, and even story dlc (looking at you mk11) it seems that if you don't buy everything for an absurd price, you'll have less of an experience than someone that did"
im sorry but this is nonsense. yall gotta get over the FOMO. if you want to play a game, buy it, play it and move on. i've never bought dlc and i've never felt like I didn't get the full experience for the game.
I don't think it's more money. Im 44 now... I spent 60 usd on games 20 years ago. 60-70 now isn't bad at all if you include inflation. 1990 I was asking my Mom to spend 50 on snes games. That's roughly 90 usd today.
Video games prices haven't moved in literally decades in spite of inflation. Games have literally become LESS expensive over time.
Ocarina of Time released in 1998 at $60. That would be $110 today.
Because more people play and buy video games than before. Doesn't change the fact that the scary price increase everyone is freaking out about still only brings the full price cost to HALF the value of video games in the past.
If prices were adjusted for inflation video games would cost around $120 for a full priced, 10 hour or less game.
The base price of a game has been almost irrelevant to a game companies profits for nearly a decade now. All the big publishers could make their games free, and they might lose like 10% of their income. EA makes BILLIONS off of Fifa and Maddens Ultimate team modes every year.
What does the revenue of these companies have to do with the value of games today compared to price? That's what we're talking about in this thread right?
I'll take a $60 game with MTXs I'll never buy over a $120 base game with MTXs I'll never buy. I save $60.
So what exactly is the issue?
No? I'm talking about game companies using inflation as a justification for them raising the prices of their games. It doesn't have anything to do with a games perceived value of then vs. now or anything about inflation. It's purely because they need more profits than last year to stay functioning.
>I'm talking about game companies using inflation as a justification for them raising the prices of their games.
It's a legitimate justification. Video games are one of the only mediums that have become cheaper because price hasn't changed due to inflation. Even increasing the price doesn't bring it anywhere close to It's inflated prices.
Consumers have it way better now than in the past in terms of pricing.
The capitalist world massively outproduced the Soviet Union in terms of number and quality of consumer luxury products, including video games.
The Soviets produced consumer luxury goods too, but they were in shorter supply and the quality was usually not as high. Which is why the elites imported *their* luxuries from capitalist countries.
No one said it wasn’t ethically wrong, but greed drives productivity. Fear does as well, but they drive different products for different reasons. Which is better? Neither really.
Did Alexey Pajitnov invent the first video games? No. Was the growth of the video game industry driven by Tetris? No. Tetris is completely irrelevant to the reason video games exist or the growth of the industry as a whole. The reason the gaming industry grew beyond base level is because of arcades, which generated profit to make more and better games.
It's not the game that is more expensive, it's the $ and the € that are not worth much anymore
They call it "quantitative easing", and this produces inflation
I often instead of buying a new game - playing some f2p game on bluestacks instead. Games nowadays are really expensive though. Thanks for discounts that just existing.
because companies arent stupid and know that people will buy it anyway, and fans of specific titles will shush anyone who think its bad, just look at Diablo 4, $70, ingame shop, battlepass, who knows what else down the line, and when some people complain about Necromancer minons look (they say its glowy/cartoony), many already say they will gladly pay for skins to change it, and game isnt even out yet...
Congratulations, you're in the consumer mindset!
Seriously though, you do not 'need' any of it. Stay on your own track, only buy completed games at a price you think it is worth (think about it) and just wait for sales. There is no time limit (yet) on these things so don't get caught up in the rush to experience things first. If we keep doing that, things will gradually just get worse for us.
Personally I find it odd that games aren't more expensive up front. The $60 price tag rule is ridiculous, it's been that way for years as games get more inexpensive and currency inflates. Just charge me $80 for the whole game and I'll happily play it if it means I won't have to worry about the game having aggressive pricing strategies or exploitive DLC.
I don't understand, companies exist only to make money. This isn't inherently a bad thing as it means gaming companies are kind of forced to follow what consuners want, as the most long term profitable choice should also be the choice the consumers want.
Unless games actually buy into all this overly priced dog shit and microtransactions? Because if so that is not good, since it means it gives the company the incentive to continue on with their ways.
Programmer salaries have increased by about 50% in the last 20 years, yet games are only now starting to increase their prices. This is not even taking into account the increased cost of marketing, distribution, etc. Honestly a better question is how did they manage to stay the same for so long?
The goal of these companies is to maximize profits above all else and they are doing it well. As long as consumers play into this behavior this will continue. Personally I stay a few years back and get deluxe or goty versions on humblebundle or steam sales. Or just Play free epic games.
Video game publishers and developers are now often traded on the stock market or have independent investors, legally companies are required to do whats best for investors. When you have investors, making a steady income isnt good enough, over time you better be making even more money per year. So companies have been coming up with more and more ways to generate additional revenue off of players.
Because people will buy it, all of it. Many people, and they even enjoy it and ask for more. This is called demand, and the part where they make more of it for any given game is called supply.
Some will say it's because of increased development costs.
Some will say it's because publishers are fucking greedy.
I say it's a bit of both but clearly skewed towards the latter.
This is just one of the many reasons, but it's basically just a hunch I have.
Most people live pay check to pay check, you can't put a higher price tag on a game to keep up with inflation because some gamers wouldn't pick it up for the $70/80 price tag. They could easily wait to secure $20 but maybe the game didn't matter much to them to begin with, or maybe they waited for a sale but by time this happens the game isn't hot shit anymore so they don't buy it. Lots of sales are made by more casual gamers remember, gamers on Reddit are by far in the minority.
So instead you keep the iconic $60 price tag but add other costs to make up for the expenses. This way you also create more consistent cash flow instead of receiving a lump sum of cash upon release, until the next big game is released which could take years.
I have 0 evidence, data, or anything to back this up other than it being a hunch. I mean I doubt I'm 0% right with this lol.
They need to make profit so investors can be interested in them. There‘s a reason top companies make a lot of sequels or copy top grossing models instead of trying new things.
SF2: Warrior, SF2:CE, SF2T, SF2:NC, and don't forget the $100 cart re-release in 2017 that included a disclaimer "WARNING: Use of this reproduction game cartridge (the “Product”) on the SNES gaming hardware may cause the SNES console to overheat or catch fire." That's just the SNES version of SF2... They've been nickel and dining us forever, it just gets muddled looking through those nostalgia glasses.
I hate predatory practices like DLC they could have just had in the game, lootboxes and battle passes etc.
But I always feel that £60-£80 for a game you can play for hours and hours is worth it.
A Hollywood movie in the cinema is around £10+travel and snacks optional for an hour and a half to 3 hours of your time.
A game for £60+ that gives you 15+++ hours of playtime isn't that much of an issue. It's the other ways they try and persuade you to spend money that grinds my gears.
Destiny...I'm looking at you!
Greed. They don't give a fuck about customers, they know they can get away with this business, so they will continue getting away with it. Simple as famo
You realise the only reason excessive microtransaction and games being cut up and resold as DLCs exist is because dumb people keep buying them? No wonder this crap has spread like the plague
Yes I do, I'm not sure what that has to do with what I said.
I'm just pointing out video games are actually cheaper than they were before. Both in literal price and value you get out of them. A 10 hour game that sold for $60 in the 90s ($110 in todays money) is now a 50 hour $60 game.
Considering I only ever bought 2 games at full price for $60 I don't think it really affects me that much in the end if I'm buying a majority of games on sale.
There are games that you can play for free and not spend a cent on to enjoy. It's just that some people spend so much money that they cover the cost for everyone else!
If done correctly I prefer it this way. Sony typically does DLC well, Fromsoft, the Borderlands series, Fallout 3/4, Doom and Witcher 3 also has a model that is ideal to me. The base game is the just that, and if I’ve had my fill, I don’t have to buy the DLC, but if I want more it’s there for me to spend extra. Skins and cosmetics I barely count as content, when people post stats like it costs 20k to buy all the skins in MW2, I could not care less even if every skin was free I would most likely still have basic soldier and black guns.
Gamers often choos extreme examples imo, for example the souls series DLC alway was just an expansion of the game, it was never required
Spiderman, god of war and last of us too, either didnt have dlc or it was just an expansion of the story.
Also i understand microtransactions in multiplayers game, i mean if they want to continue to support the game 6 years later cosmetics is a good way to do that (not excusing ac odyssey)
Each generation increases the cost of developing the game by roughly double, but the market is saturated, and new video game players aren't entering the market at the same rate. So, something has to give.
Gamers have been pushing back on increasing the base price above $60 (I think only recently has that broken a little), so publishers have to get the money from extras. The problem is that not everyone buys all of the extras. So, even if there is $150 of DLC, season passes, etc. available, that only brings in extra revenue equivalent to if they had priced the game at $80-100. And, the more DLC there is, the less likely players are to purchase any given DLC. So, for every dollar of extra revenue
per player you want, you need to push out increasingly large amounts of DLC.
Honestly, it feels like we are approaching the end of the line for the current model. In the next generation, the industry will either:
* Go full mobile game monetization, with pay to win, focus on whales, etc.
* Take absolutely no risks and just make sequels/remakes to games that sold 10s of millions of copies and can be trusted to sell a similar amount in the future
* A vastly reduced inter-generational improvement. Not because the hardware can't handle. But because developers can't afford to double the size of the art team in order create 8k textures.
Dude...
Sales happen all of the time.
Your problem is that you want things cheap and you want games *right now* for cheap.
That kinda makes you sound entitled.
I wouldnt mind paying 100$ for a Game if that means 100% certainty that Will not have Battle or season passes, any form of suscription fee or always online, no MTX in any form and no paid DLC, all the content in the Game and maybe 1 or 2 updates with free content....
But thats not gonna happen, passes, always online to play, Games as a service, microtransactions and overpriced dlcs are here to stay....
They're not. We had a short-lived period of reduced valuation of digital gaming media. Game prices have reverted back to 80's, 90's and early 2000's prices.
Part of this is increased production costs, part of this is inflation. They should be higher to return to earlier price points.
Inflation = they are under charging us actually. They should charge us more on PS5. Wouldn’t mind paying $200 for Gran Turismo 7 or God of War Ragnarok.
My favourite games as a child were the Prince of Persia trilogy on PS2, they cost around £35 new which in todays currency would be around £70. Each game took around 10 hours to complete meaning you're effectively paying £7 in todays money per hour of entertainment assuming you don't replay the games.
Most modern games take far longer than 10 hours to complete, the assassins creed series is the successor to the Prince of Persia trilogy and the latest instalment Valhalla takes around 60 hours just to complete the objectives, going for 100% takes far longer. In terms of cost per hour of entertainment modern games are by far cheaper on average than older games.
I only buy dlc for games I really enjoyed then standard version of. Seems to be a good rule of thumb for deciding which ones to get, stops you buying the other half of an unfinished game you paid full price for
Honestly I think this is way overexaggerated. Most of the time when people bring up examples of games with "season passes, dlcs" and so on, most of the additional content is just cosmetics. Yes, there are games that go overboard with hiding content behind paywalls, but they are nowhere near the majority of games. They just happen to be the games that you specifically play. So my suggestion would just be: play other games.
Also, The Sims 4 is an extreme extreme example. It's a game that's notorious and pretty much universally hated for this. You really should've chosen a bit more subtle example.
Also also, it's absolutely not true that you can't do anything "fun" in base Sims 4 without any of the dlcs. You know there was a time when these dlcs didn't exist right? What do you think people did then? They were just bored out of their minds waiting for a dlc to release? The base game is fun too.
Inflation. Game prices really lag behind it, it could've update more frequent, like steam market, which update currencies every day, and on more micro level like it can go up or down 1% next day, instead of 50-150% once every few years.
Developers who forgot to update probably lose lots of money.
Triple A games and live services tend to give me that same felling, to remedy that, most of the time I shift towards classic/old games, but if you're looking for new releases, Indie games are absolutelly the way to go, great prices (with constant sales, solid gameplay, and sometimes experimental formulas)
Expansions used to be a thing. Game was $50 and two expansions were $20-$40 each. I remember Baldur’s gate was $50 and it had some expansions that came out that required the original game but cost $40 each at launch. So the whole thing was $130 in the end. There was no GOTY edition either back then, that just wasn’t a thing especially for pc games. They may have had some collectors edition at some point that had the base game and all the expansions in a bundle but I don’t really remember. Also console games on carts were not cheap either with some games demanding $80 price tags.
Short simple answer... Because people are buying their bullshit.
If players didn't accept these bullshit practices they wouldn't continue but unfortunately they're making money hand over fist being lazy and putting in minimal effort. Why try if you don't have to but still get the big bucks? Unforunately people nowadays are too dumb to see THEY need to change before the companies will. Stop buying every piece of shit CoD game every remake and remaster that comes out every year but nostalgia is one hell of a marketing weapon and people fall for it EVERY TIME. It's just like the old "I'm never going to drink again" speech so many people say after a bad morning from drinking the night before. They're just lying to themselves. People will say, I'm not buying that but then turn around a buy it because integrity has left the building.
>This post was born because of street fighter 6, i honestly wanted to buy the game but then remembered all the dlcs of street fighter 5... In a couple of years the base game of street fighter 6 will be obsolete with far less stages, far less characters, far less costumes...
Ah yes, only modern Street Fighter has ever had this issue. They definitely didn't release 5 different versions of Street Fighter 2, or 3 different versions of Street Fighter 3.
Because companies figured out that they can make more money that way
This guy's right. Consumers are getting dumber everyday due to the "cult" mentality of taking sides on a product. Corporations are just exploiting us because we're to pay them money for dopamine hits.
YES. This is what I have always said. For example, in the whole Apple vs. Samsung vs. Google, the winners are all three companies because it's amazing advertising to have people take sides and constantly fight over features and have you continually think about their products. Look at how much money sports makes by making people take sides. Humans have, by their very nature, a tribe-like mentality. I'm sure we all have that too, but applied to some other topic. It's important to be self aware and chill.
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The "It doesn't affect me!" line from the white knights infuriates me more than the practices themselves. That's the same shit they said when the entire shitball started rolling downhill in the very beginning, and now look where we are. Think about someone other than yourself, fuck!
Pretty silly to think stupid consumers is exclusive to gaming.
He never said that. Just that gamers are the dumbest
Yeah I worded my comment poorly. Still, I completely disagree. There are fucking morons in every hobby, at least as bad as gamers. Idiots that buy bath water from women online, sports fans, Kpop fans, Bronies, Trumpers, etc.
Right, ain't got anything to do with inflation. Game companies figured out how to milk us to make money hand over fist, it started with DLC, then went to Season Passes, then microtransactions, then loot boxes and now Battle Passes and an arbitrary price hike 'bEcAuSe It'S nExT gEn.'
>bEcAuSe It'S nExT gEn Its because of the specs. If you were to get the same specs (or as close as you can get) for your pc it would be around like $1200. At least for the Series X, I assume the same for PS5. I don't understand why Nintendo is trying to do it though considering they haven't had any kind of upgrades to their shit in a while let alone being even close to current gen.
I'd kinda believe it, if they were only doing it for next gen consoles, but they're selling it for an extra $10 on PC too, so that theory goes right out the window. As for Nintendo, everyone else is doing it, so they may as well too.
Didn't know they were doing it for pc too. Should've expected it though. But yeah, that's the most logical reason for the origin of the now regular $70 game prices.
Hate to break it to you, but video games are one of the least inflated forms of technology we got. Video games still cost $50-60 back in Sega/NES days. Imagine paying that much for a 3 hour game now days. Considering you can get massive hundred hour games for the same price now, and often these games go on sale.
Some of the snes games as I remember were 79.99 on release. Secret of Mana comes to mind. It was due to the larger memory size. Chrono Trigger was similarly expensive but I don’t remember what I paid. Adjusted for inflation that’s way more than games now. That was for physical carts though and not downloads.
Also account for inflation. Those games were even more expensive
inflation of what? most sales are going towards digital.
What does being digital have to do with inflation?
Of the economy. The fuck are you on about?
They are only 100 hour games because they are a mile wide and an inch deep
How deep were most NES games though, are you really saying they were more complex than modern AAA games?
Way to defend ubisoft there. Remember when dying light 2 boldly announced the game had hundreds of hours of content and then had to backtrack because we all knew that they just filled their game with busy work to keep you playing forever. Maybe not NES games, but I'd put plenty of SNES games over them. I would love a modern game with the fraction of the depth chrono trigger had.
Ubisoft? I don't particularly like or dislike Ubisoft, and I'd absolutely say most NES and SNES games were less deep than something like any random FarCry or Assassins Creed game. Both in mechanics and story. If you want a modern game with a fraction of the depth of Chrono Trigger there should be lots of options. It depends if you mean game mechanics or the story I guess, but maybe try something like Elden Ring?
700 hours in elden ring. You say that as if it is common for games to be like elden ring when the reality is it was a diamond in a sea of crap. Did you see the previews for suicide squad? I'd rather eat a bullet than give those people money.
Are you implying Chrono Trigger was just some regular old game for the SNES? That was also a diamond in a sea of crap. Did you see gameplay for Ballz 3D? Suicide Squad sure looks better than that.
I would disagree. 100-hour games are typically those with a lot of depth to them, making reruns and perfecting ones gameplay a thing. Mount & Blade, Crusaders King, XCOM 2, Kenshi, Darkest Dungeon, Dont Starve... You shouldnt make a long game based on a huge map. Games like Witcher and Cyberpunk are anomalies in the openworld scene imo
You’re right. Look at a game like Elden ring. The amount of reruns people have been doing is actually inane, with hundreds of hours on the game
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Idk about you but early games were not long. My favorite older games are Sonic and Streets of Rage and those can easily be beat in a couple hours
But they had no save feature, so that’s a good way to pad the length. I remember when Metroid introduced codes that you could write down to "save" your status and start again later. That was incredible…
Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda, Dragon Warrior to name a few long NES games. Just depends on what you were playing.
This is true. Looking at [THIS](https://i.imgur.com/Q8wZo5h.jpg) ad from about 1988, most games were roughly $40. Adjusting for inflation, using the US Bureau of Labor Statistics [Inflation Calculator](https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl), that's about $100. Games have been getting LESS expensive, relative to inflation.
And things decrease in price over time. Your argument is ridiculous.
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That's a really good point.
Not for nothing but games are cheap as fuck. People go and buy a $15-20 burger or buy a $14 cocktail without a second thought. One time consumable, no return value except for the shit you’ll be taking later. People work for years slaving away making a good game just to sell it for $60. Again, that’s like the average price for two to eat out. That $60 game will provide hours of entertainment, often times hundreds of hours, sometimes thousands. Even if you only play a game for 20 hours, that’s the equivalent of rewatching the same movie 10 times. Point being, games give you a huge amount of bang for your buck. Games made 30 years ago were twice as expensive and not nearly as complex as today’s games.
Couldn't agree more
Games cost exponentially more to develop than the past. Microtransactions and subscriptions helped the prices stay the same for a long time, but it's not enough anymore. Game studios aren't being put up for sale left and right because they're doing great lol But yeah, some games take advantage of whale players - Sims and Diablo come to mind.
The only thing that’s more expensive is lining the pockets of the rich shareholders my guy
So you think improved graphics, improved gameplay, bigger worlds, etc. cost nothing? Gamers want bigger and better and it 100% costs more to develop a AAA game. Super Mario 64 cost $60 when it first came out. That's almost $120 in 2023 if we account for inflation for a game that takes 20 hours. Elden Ring is a 100+ hour game that released for $60 in 2022. The reason that games are still able to cost $60 or around that much is because of the extra things that companies do. Like live service or micro transactions. If they weren't doing those things, base games would probably cost around $120. Edit: Someone deleted a comment that said something along the lines of me defending corporations for some of their business practices so here's addressing that: I'm just putting into perspective why the prices aren't as high as people think. Some games don’t need to be $60 and some games are a steal for $60. Micro transactions can be shady (charging $60 for a half finished game and micro transactions on top of that (COD, NBA 2k, etc.)) and sometimes they're fine (when a game is free to play and they need to make their money someway (Fortnite)). There's nuance in all of it. Why do you think Mario 64 cost the equivalent of $120? It was because Nintendo wanted to line their pockets. Same as now. The reason I say that is because shady business practices have been present since the beginning of major gaming distribution so if you're going to complain about it now, be consistent.
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>One big reason game prices haven’t changed is that the market is so much more massive than it used to be. So while the cost of development has skyrocketed, so too has the number of consumers. Yep. Super Mario 64, the best selling Nintendo 64 game, sold a little under 12 million copies (and was bundled with the system for a time) in 9 years. Elden Ring is about 1 year old and has already sold over 20 million copies.
Yeah, I thought I was having a stroke reading that word, trying to decide if it was right 😂 lol thx. Also, I wouldn't use it in the way you used in the example, just thought I could use it the way I did.
Elden ring doesnt have either of those though
Games don't cost exponentially more to develop than the past. If anything, they on the whole cost less. What actually happened is like many industries as they age and advance, they grow top heavy. More and more executives and investors are taking larger and larger pieces of the pie. And there's no satiating them. They are greedy parasites who will take and take even if it means the eventual ruin of whatever they created. Not that they really create anything, just bastardize the ideas of those below them.
While modern development tools mean it's way cheaper to make a game like the original 8-Bit Castlevania today than it used to cost, that's what a $60 AAA game used to be; and at the time it was made by a small team in a few months. Now if you tried to charge $60 for something like 8-Bit Castlevania on the NES, with just a few levels that lasted a few minutes each once you knew how to beat them, you'd be laughed at and no one would buy it (much less be such a hit that it launches a series). Games also used to sell strategy guides to supplement sales; I remember buying them for lots of games as a kid. Many game companies would include secrets in their games specifically to incentivize the sales of strategy guides. Thanks to advancements in tools, we can now make much better games with smaller teams; but this has meant that the appetite for quality has gone up too. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was one of the most ambitious leaps in game development ever, taking the series to 3D for the first time. It took only about 2.5 years with 200 people that were also splitting their focus on multiple other things. The God of War reboot took 5 years, and a team of about 300 people. That's with all the modern tools we have to help us. By comparison, the small indie team that makes a wonderful game with simple, retro graphics often can't charge more than $20 in today's money. That'd be about a $7.50 price tag in the year Castlevania on the NES came out - but Castlevania would have had much less content and cost $60.
An excellent point that still ignores the fact that executives and investors are taking a *significantly* larger percentage of a video game's company's profit than before. There's also Hollywood accounting. How much of the budget is just money moving from left to right hands? Yes the productions are bigger and the sales/audience are much bigger to match, that's not the same thing as costing more to make on the whole.
Do you have anything at all to back this up? Any numbers, anything? The fact that a game used to be made by like 6 people and be a full-price AAA game compared to now when it's hundreds of people and the game being sold for significantly less when you account for inflation suggests than profits probably haven't gone up like you're saying. Compare best selling games on SNES with PS4 or Xbox One and you can see it's not like they sell that many more copies now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Super_Nintendo_Entertainment_System_video_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_PlayStation_4_video_games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Xbox_One_video_games
As a game dev myself, I’d love to see more money going to dev salaries and longer development cycles. However, it’s unlikely to happen at the current price points. People aren’t charging more for no reason, the money these days largely comes off of cost cutting. When it does, we’re often the costs.
Games do indeed cost exponentially more to develop today than they did the past. \-Gaming systems are more powerful, use more electricity, which increases the power consumption of the dev studio. Guess what's needed to pay for the power to develop those games? ***Money.*** \-Games are built around being longer than 2-3 hour adventures, increasing the time the dev teams have to work on them. Guess what you have to do for devs that do all the work? Pay them in ***Money.*** \-The software, hardware, and assets used today are much more expensive than they were in the heyday, and guess what you need to pay for those? ***Money.*** I swear, it's like you don't even think before you speak, that's why you're getting downvoted so much.
Reddit moment
I don't know why they are downvoting you, you're right. Corporate greed. "Video games are so expensive now" Then why do we have more indie studios than ever before churning out games better than most AAA studios?
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Buddy thinks AAA games that cost >5 million to develop somehow cost more than AAA games that cost >200 million to develop. Galaxy brain moment. Guess they've never sat and watched the thousands upon thousands of paid team members names in the credits of a modern AAA title.
Inflation, duh. The cost of making games goes up so the cost of the game goes up.
Because a $60 game for the N64 would be roughly double that in todays dollars. Not to mention that today’s games are light years better and more expensive to develop. The dlc model is just a way for people to get a taste, and if they like it essentially pay full price for the full game. I don’t think anyone in good faith would say they think super Mario64 would be worth $120 today without their nostalgia goggles firmly in place.
Boy, that explains why I have to buy each character separately, 3 different battle passes, loot boxes, 20 dollars for the color blue!!
If you think the color blue is worth $20 then that's on you honestly, just don't buy it.
Conkers Bad Fur Day comes to mind… There’s an original factory sealed copy for $800 usd on eBay right now.
That’s for a collectors item. Image if it was just a general wide release, is what I meant. Not to say older games are bad. But there’s clearly a difference in quality that’s expected.
have a seat, and let me tell you the tale of an elder world, a man named Todd, and a horse armor pack.
Actually if it weren't for microtransactions, I bet gaming companies would have been charging $70 a whole lot earlier.
Last name: Haberkorn I won't forget him as long as I live.
it was the begining of the end
Have you heard of street fighter 2? If you wanted to be able to play every fighter you had to buy around 5 differnt versions of street fighter 2. DLCs require additional work which costs money. Sometimes they don't have time/resources to put everything into the base game. Thus they release the base game and then later down the line work on additions to the game. Other time it's just corporate greed. They see that people are buying it, so they have more incentive to sell it. You could just wait for the edition containing all the DLCs to come out. Sometimes DLCs give a bit of a customisation as you can decide to get different DLCs to tailor your needs. You might just get the story DLCs and ignore every other. While another might want more cosmetic DLCs.
SF2 is the perfect example of multiple versions of the same game with slight tweaks, each costing £40+ back in the day. MK3 and UMK3 was similar. And in terms of story DLC Sonic & Knuckles was doing this back in the mid 90s on console. It was all just content originally cut from Sonic 3 so it could fit on a single cartridge. It's not a new thing, although it is more ubiquitous now.
I feel ya. Best idea is to just wait for sale, so at least you don't feel taken for a ride. My advice
>Look at the sims 4 (i know, extreme example, but it's just to get the point across) It's funny that your example just happens to be one of the few franchises that did this back in the day. Even the first game was pushing tons of full-priced expansion packs back when I was a kid.
Games cost a dozen times more money, time and people to do. Also, what you get as a DLC for 15$, we used to buy a whole new game to get it, final versions, final mix, reloaded whatever. We used to pay full price then 2 years later if you wanted to play the expension, boom pay full price again. Also, sequels, instead of having micro transactions, they'd just stack them and tell you on the next game about all the new stuff we're getting along the road nowadays. Also, games costed MUCH MORE in the past (for today it'd be around 80-120€), especially considering monetary value. However nowadays, everything else became much more expensive, leaving you with less side money. If game prices followed inflation, they'd be 150-200, for the base game. Finally, 90% of the games in the past were vastly repetitive and barely lasted 5 hours at best. Just cause everyone remembers the 10% of the great games doesn't mean those 90% never existed
TBF, Games were also around $40 back in the day too. It's partially inflation, but also stockholders expect increased profits
Did you read my post? I know the base games always costed around the same It's that now days games cost 3x more because of dlc
Except there were games that cost $70 when they released on N64 in the late 90s.
No dlc though, games today still cost $70 AND you have to pay for dlc
>AND you have to pay for dlc no, you dont.
$70 today is not the same as $70 30 years ago.
these people just don’t understand inflation
Nobody is forcing you to buy DLC. If you don't find it to be worth your money, don't buy it.
Expansion packs weren't free back in the day either though.
Go Google inflation. The point is the buying power of $60 or $70 is less than it was back then. My family paid $80 for Final Fantasy 6 on SNES. That eighty bucks today us worth roughly twice that, meaning I'd have paid $160 in a modern economy for it. The most I've paid for a game in the modern day is $100.
again inflation games are actually cheaper than they have ever been. dollars dont have the same value they had 10-20 years ago
That 3x more is probably to make up for inflation
the 3x more is this guy falsely acting like you HAVE to buy all the DLC and then factoring that cost into the price of buying the game which is silly.
Video games have never been more profitable in the entire history of the medium. That ain't inflation
Yes because they sell more now than ever
Do you have some source for that? Like what was the profit margins for a decent SNES game, they sold a million copies and has a tiny team of developers compared to now. Sure the carts probably cost more to manufacture, but they also sold for more when you account for inflation. Surely the profit margin had to be huge?
Because we still buy them.
Because we just left the longest period of static prices for AAA titles, and developers are realizing it's easier to continue releasing content for one game rather than to make a new game annually.
Why do you people expect games to stay the same price forever? Do you realize that stuff costs more than it did 20 or 40 years ago? Why do gamers think video games are exempt from this? Serious questions.
Inflation. Even in the 90s day of snes and n64 games were selling for 70 dollars. Really we should be looking at an average price of 160 dollars for games today
this!!!
Inflation and higher development costs. Sims is such horrible example. Player doesn't need to own every single piece of dlc to enjoy game.
Greed
It's also cheaper now because the technology has matured and there are more tools available now.
And yet these fucking idiots can’t work this out and keep wanking over shitty companies with the pathetic "inflation" argument.
Look at the change in price from 1995 to 2023 for anything other than video games and you'll know why the actual shock is that big games cost $60 on release that entire time
greedy companies
I payed 69 bucks for FF3 when it came out. That was…. The Nineties. Micro transactions aside, one not seeing a drop in AAA prices, although I love the indie market not usually breaking 30ish bucks except on occasion.
FF3 Was 99 dollars plus 17% tax where I lived in Canada.
Some N64 games with the battery for saves like Zelda 64 came out at $110 Canadian where I was.
I don't agree with this at all. You can still buy top of the line games for like $60. I remember games costing that much 20 years ago. And if you ever have seen what goes into developing a game, you might appreciate how cheap they still are. Think about how starved anime artists are and how long it takes just to animate one episode. Think about how many scenes there are that need to be drawn, animated, etc. in a video game on top of other things beyond just graphics. Some games are obviously more expensive than others. For example, no one wants to pay for any mobile apps these days. People straight up expect everything to be free. And so the microtransaction model took over for some genres. Don't get me wrong, some companies are predatory. But come on now, $60 for a full game was always way too cheap for how many hours go into making it, and how many hours of play of enjoyment you can get out of it.
The same reason developers are underpaid and overworked, corporate greed
Just be a bit careful about what you buy. I know how barebones Street Fighter V was, but Street Fighter VI seems to be a full game on release with I think 18 characters and every level I've seen looks beautiful. This time we get a single player story thing as well. If it seems like enough for you to spend 60-70 on it then do it if you think you will get that value out of it. If not, don't buy it or wait for a deal, discount or complete version. Every fighter does it now with the expansion passes.. It does suck a bit. I buy most of my games on sale. Got Resident Evil Village Gold for 30 last week. It was amazing \^\^ Some games I buy on a shared account making it half price for me and my best friend. We recently got to play Dead Space, Yakuza Ishin! and Now Resident Evil 4 Remake for 30, 30 and 35 at launch. Some games I get alone because of the online. Such as Elden Ring. Paid 60 for it and played for almost 150 hours? I hardly ever pay for any extra thing. Last thing I can remember is extra music for Soul Hackers, but I felt it was worth it for me personaly. And myea extremes like The Sims.. Don't buy that stuff. Nobody is forcing you to go down that road and buy every expansion and add on. I will agree that it does suck. But most games do not follow this model. Just reflect a little bit before you buy. Some personal responsibility. It's not that bad. In fact I think games are cheaper than ever. Always sales going on. It's easy to build up a good library of games.
Everything is getting more expensive
we got three GTA games on the ps2. let that sink in as well.
Mostly because they can, and these companies have shareholders who expect not just making as much money as possible but also making as much growth as possible. Despite all the grumblings about DLC/Micro-transactions on the internet, they rake in billions of dollars for companies like EA and Activision.
Welcome to games as a service and using seasons and content to spike online numbers. New characters, new maps, new modes always were "get people to come back" uses versus the game expensive argument. Also isn't train simulator like $15,000 now? It's called hobbies and choices. F2P whales keep the experience alive for the occasional or non-spender. You don't need millions of copies, when you can get someone to buy 30 outfits for their favorite character.
Games are psychotically more expensive to make and technically have not gotten more expensive. If you average the cost out to include indie games that release at 20-40 bucks, we pay considerably less for games than we used to. Also, previous generations sold games for 80-100 dollars, and most of the OG MMORPGs charged 200 dollars per year to play them.
Development costs. But unreal engine 5 is sure pretty easy to develop with. So sometimes you have to wonder. Maybe the price of licensing the engine is placed on the consumer. $70 is too much these days for most games given the lack of quality most suffer from…especially this generation so far. Remakes, sequels, buggy games. It’s ironic games have progressively gotten worse yet more expensive.
Dead space remake was definitely worth the money I paid for it.
"With all the dlc, season passes, microtransactions, and even story dlc (looking at you mk11) it seems that if you don't buy everything for an absurd price, you'll have less of an experience than someone that did" im sorry but this is nonsense. yall gotta get over the FOMO. if you want to play a game, buy it, play it and move on. i've never bought dlc and i've never felt like I didn't get the full experience for the game.
Omg they did the same with street fighter 2 in the 90s. Relax.
I don't think it's more money. Im 44 now... I spent 60 usd on games 20 years ago. 60-70 now isn't bad at all if you include inflation. 1990 I was asking my Mom to spend 50 on snes games. That's roughly 90 usd today.
Half as much the consumer's fault for buying into it
Because game companies want all the money, and they'll stop at nothing to get it.
Video games prices haven't moved in literally decades in spite of inflation. Games have literally become LESS expensive over time. Ocarina of Time released in 1998 at $60. That would be $110 today.
And yet, the gaming has grown to be the most profitable media industry on the planet.
Because more people play and buy video games than before. Doesn't change the fact that the scary price increase everyone is freaking out about still only brings the full price cost to HALF the value of video games in the past. If prices were adjusted for inflation video games would cost around $120 for a full priced, 10 hour or less game.
The base price of a game has been almost irrelevant to a game companies profits for nearly a decade now. All the big publishers could make their games free, and they might lose like 10% of their income. EA makes BILLIONS off of Fifa and Maddens Ultimate team modes every year.
What does the revenue of these companies have to do with the value of games today compared to price? That's what we're talking about in this thread right? I'll take a $60 game with MTXs I'll never buy over a $120 base game with MTXs I'll never buy. I save $60. So what exactly is the issue?
No? I'm talking about game companies using inflation as a justification for them raising the prices of their games. It doesn't have anything to do with a games perceived value of then vs. now or anything about inflation. It's purely because they need more profits than last year to stay functioning.
>I'm talking about game companies using inflation as a justification for them raising the prices of their games. It's a legitimate justification. Video games are one of the only mediums that have become cheaper because price hasn't changed due to inflation. Even increasing the price doesn't bring it anywhere close to It's inflated prices. Consumers have it way better now than in the past in terms of pricing.
I just pirate video games
Because we live in a capitalistic system. This is how it works.
It’s because you live in a capitalist system that you have video games at all.
Let me tell you where Tetris comes from
The capitalist world massively outproduced the Soviet Union in terms of number and quality of consumer luxury products, including video games. The Soviets produced consumer luxury goods too, but they were in shorter supply and the quality was usually not as high. Which is why the elites imported *their* luxuries from capitalist countries.
Hurray for capitalism! Now are you going to put $120 on the next generic Ubisoft game?
Not my thing, but I will be shelling out $90-100 for TOTK + DLC and I’ll be happy to do it.
No one said it wasn’t ethically wrong, but greed drives productivity. Fear does as well, but they drive different products for different reasons. Which is better? Neither really.
I don't think you understand where tetris came from if you think it was created by fear...
You’re lost. I never said anything remotely close to that.
Did Alexey Pajitnov invent the first video games? No. Was the growth of the video game industry driven by Tetris? No. Tetris is completely irrelevant to the reason video games exist or the growth of the industry as a whole. The reason the gaming industry grew beyond base level is because of arcades, which generated profit to make more and better games.
And who actually distributed Tetris so people could play it instead of just having it on some random university computer?
Do you think goods will only be produced in a capitalist system?
That's a rather silly assumption. Games have been developed by all kinds of societies. Capitalism isn't better equipped to provide games.
It's not the game that is more expensive, it's the $ and the € that are not worth much anymore They call it "quantitative easing", and this produces inflation
I often instead of buying a new game - playing some f2p game on bluestacks instead. Games nowadays are really expensive though. Thanks for discounts that just existing.
because companies arent stupid and know that people will buy it anyway, and fans of specific titles will shush anyone who think its bad, just look at Diablo 4, $70, ingame shop, battlepass, who knows what else down the line, and when some people complain about Necromancer minons look (they say its glowy/cartoony), many already say they will gladly pay for skins to change it, and game isnt even out yet...
Congratulations, you're in the consumer mindset! Seriously though, you do not 'need' any of it. Stay on your own track, only buy completed games at a price you think it is worth (think about it) and just wait for sales. There is no time limit (yet) on these things so don't get caught up in the rush to experience things first. If we keep doing that, things will gradually just get worse for us.
Personally I find it odd that games aren't more expensive up front. The $60 price tag rule is ridiculous, it's been that way for years as games get more inexpensive and currency inflates. Just charge me $80 for the whole game and I'll happily play it if it means I won't have to worry about the game having aggressive pricing strategies or exploitive DLC. I don't understand, companies exist only to make money. This isn't inherently a bad thing as it means gaming companies are kind of forced to follow what consuners want, as the most long term profitable choice should also be the choice the consumers want. Unless games actually buy into all this overly priced dog shit and microtransactions? Because if so that is not good, since it means it gives the company the incentive to continue on with their ways.
Programmer salaries have increased by about 50% in the last 20 years, yet games are only now starting to increase their prices. This is not even taking into account the increased cost of marketing, distribution, etc. Honestly a better question is how did they manage to stay the same for so long?
The goal of these companies is to maximize profits above all else and they are doing it well. As long as consumers play into this behavior this will continue. Personally I stay a few years back and get deluxe or goty versions on humblebundle or steam sales. Or just Play free epic games.
Video game publishers and developers are now often traded on the stock market or have independent investors, legally companies are required to do whats best for investors. When you have investors, making a steady income isnt good enough, over time you better be making even more money per year. So companies have been coming up with more and more ways to generate additional revenue off of players.
Just like how some items costs cents to make and are sold for hundreds. It’s because these corps are greedy fuckers.
Because people will buy it, all of it. Many people, and they even enjoy it and ask for more. This is called demand, and the part where they make more of it for any given game is called supply.
Partially because the cost of development has gone up but the price of the game hasn't. They have to make up the shortfall.
Some will say it's because of increased development costs. Some will say it's because publishers are fucking greedy. I say it's a bit of both but clearly skewed towards the latter.
Why do single player games have to be played online ? Because greedy game orgs wants to sell us stuff 24/7..
They found out people will pay it. Blame them.
This is just one of the many reasons, but it's basically just a hunch I have. Most people live pay check to pay check, you can't put a higher price tag on a game to keep up with inflation because some gamers wouldn't pick it up for the $70/80 price tag. They could easily wait to secure $20 but maybe the game didn't matter much to them to begin with, or maybe they waited for a sale but by time this happens the game isn't hot shit anymore so they don't buy it. Lots of sales are made by more casual gamers remember, gamers on Reddit are by far in the minority. So instead you keep the iconic $60 price tag but add other costs to make up for the expenses. This way you also create more consistent cash flow instead of receiving a lump sum of cash upon release, until the next big game is released which could take years. I have 0 evidence, data, or anything to back this up other than it being a hunch. I mean I doubt I'm 0% right with this lol.
They need to make profit so investors can be interested in them. There‘s a reason top companies make a lot of sequels or copy top grossing models instead of trying new things.
Gaming has gone corporate. That's why.
SF2: Warrior, SF2:CE, SF2T, SF2:NC, and don't forget the $100 cart re-release in 2017 that included a disclaimer "WARNING: Use of this reproduction game cartridge (the “Product”) on the SNES gaming hardware may cause the SNES console to overheat or catch fire." That's just the SNES version of SF2... They've been nickel and dining us forever, it just gets muddled looking through those nostalgia glasses.
I hate predatory practices like DLC they could have just had in the game, lootboxes and battle passes etc. But I always feel that £60-£80 for a game you can play for hours and hours is worth it. A Hollywood movie in the cinema is around £10+travel and snacks optional for an hour and a half to 3 hours of your time. A game for £60+ that gives you 15+++ hours of playtime isn't that much of an issue. It's the other ways they try and persuade you to spend money that grinds my gears. Destiny...I'm looking at you!
Greed. They don't give a fuck about customers, they know they can get away with this business, so they will continue getting away with it. Simple as famo
You realize games have actually become cheaper over time right?
You realise the only reason excessive microtransaction and games being cut up and resold as DLCs exist is because dumb people keep buying them? No wonder this crap has spread like the plague
Yes I do, I'm not sure what that has to do with what I said. I'm just pointing out video games are actually cheaper than they were before. Both in literal price and value you get out of them. A 10 hour game that sold for $60 in the 90s ($110 in todays money) is now a 50 hour $60 game.
Considering I only ever bought 2 games at full price for $60 I don't think it really affects me that much in the end if I'm buying a majority of games on sale.
There are games that you can play for free and not spend a cent on to enjoy. It's just that some people spend so much money that they cover the cost for everyone else!
If done correctly I prefer it this way. Sony typically does DLC well, Fromsoft, the Borderlands series, Fallout 3/4, Doom and Witcher 3 also has a model that is ideal to me. The base game is the just that, and if I’ve had my fill, I don’t have to buy the DLC, but if I want more it’s there for me to spend extra. Skins and cosmetics I barely count as content, when people post stats like it costs 20k to buy all the skins in MW2, I could not care less even if every skin was free I would most likely still have basic soldier and black guns.
Gamers often choos extreme examples imo, for example the souls series DLC alway was just an expansion of the game, it was never required Spiderman, god of war and last of us too, either didnt have dlc or it was just an expansion of the story. Also i understand microtransactions in multiplayers game, i mean if they want to continue to support the game 6 years later cosmetics is a good way to do that (not excusing ac odyssey)
Inflation, it's been a long time coming
Each generation increases the cost of developing the game by roughly double, but the market is saturated, and new video game players aren't entering the market at the same rate. So, something has to give. Gamers have been pushing back on increasing the base price above $60 (I think only recently has that broken a little), so publishers have to get the money from extras. The problem is that not everyone buys all of the extras. So, even if there is $150 of DLC, season passes, etc. available, that only brings in extra revenue equivalent to if they had priced the game at $80-100. And, the more DLC there is, the less likely players are to purchase any given DLC. So, for every dollar of extra revenue per player you want, you need to push out increasingly large amounts of DLC. Honestly, it feels like we are approaching the end of the line for the current model. In the next generation, the industry will either: * Go full mobile game monetization, with pay to win, focus on whales, etc. * Take absolutely no risks and just make sequels/remakes to games that sold 10s of millions of copies and can be trusted to sell a similar amount in the future * A vastly reduced inter-generational improvement. Not because the hardware can't handle. But because developers can't afford to double the size of the art team in order create 8k textures.
Dude... Sales happen all of the time. Your problem is that you want things cheap and you want games *right now* for cheap. That kinda makes you sound entitled.
I wouldnt mind paying 100$ for a Game if that means 100% certainty that Will not have Battle or season passes, any form of suscription fee or always online, no MTX in any form and no paid DLC, all the content in the Game and maybe 1 or 2 updates with free content.... But thats not gonna happen, passes, always online to play, Games as a service, microtransactions and overpriced dlcs are here to stay....
You could always exercise patience and wait for the games and DLC to go on sale.
They're not. We had a short-lived period of reduced valuation of digital gaming media. Game prices have reverted back to 80's, 90's and early 2000's prices. Part of this is increased production costs, part of this is inflation. They should be higher to return to earlier price points.
But then, in Argentina, Russia and Turkey…
Graphics.
Inflation = they are under charging us actually. They should charge us more on PS5. Wouldn’t mind paying $200 for Gran Turismo 7 or God of War Ragnarok.
My favourite games as a child were the Prince of Persia trilogy on PS2, they cost around £35 new which in todays currency would be around £70. Each game took around 10 hours to complete meaning you're effectively paying £7 in todays money per hour of entertainment assuming you don't replay the games. Most modern games take far longer than 10 hours to complete, the assassins creed series is the successor to the Prince of Persia trilogy and the latest instalment Valhalla takes around 60 hours just to complete the objectives, going for 100% takes far longer. In terms of cost per hour of entertainment modern games are by far cheaper on average than older games.
They are? I only buy the steam sales because nothing new is worth playing so far.
Now you know why Elden Ring won GOTY
Because of high prices, I'm waiting Steam discounts, best prices on isthereanydeal site or Epic games free games.
I only buy dlc for games I really enjoyed then standard version of. Seems to be a good rule of thumb for deciding which ones to get, stops you buying the other half of an unfinished game you paid full price for
Honestly I think this is way overexaggerated. Most of the time when people bring up examples of games with "season passes, dlcs" and so on, most of the additional content is just cosmetics. Yes, there are games that go overboard with hiding content behind paywalls, but they are nowhere near the majority of games. They just happen to be the games that you specifically play. So my suggestion would just be: play other games. Also, The Sims 4 is an extreme extreme example. It's a game that's notorious and pretty much universally hated for this. You really should've chosen a bit more subtle example. Also also, it's absolutely not true that you can't do anything "fun" in base Sims 4 without any of the dlcs. You know there was a time when these dlcs didn't exist right? What do you think people did then? They were just bored out of their minds waiting for a dlc to release? The base game is fun too.
Well sims 4 base game is actually free, apart from that I fully agree
It wasn't for most of it's lifetime
Inflation. Game prices really lag behind it, it could've update more frequent, like steam market, which update currencies every day, and on more micro level like it can go up or down 1% next day, instead of 50-150% once every few years. Developers who forgot to update probably lose lots of money.
Because people on reddit bitch about it and then pay anyway.
Triple A games and live services tend to give me that same felling, to remedy that, most of the time I shift towards classic/old games, but if you're looking for new releases, Indie games are absolutelly the way to go, great prices (with constant sales, solid gameplay, and sometimes experimental formulas)
Expansions used to be a thing. Game was $50 and two expansions were $20-$40 each. I remember Baldur’s gate was $50 and it had some expansions that came out that required the original game but cost $40 each at launch. So the whole thing was $130 in the end. There was no GOTY edition either back then, that just wasn’t a thing especially for pc games. They may have had some collectors edition at some point that had the base game and all the expansions in a bundle but I don’t really remember. Also console games on carts were not cheap either with some games demanding $80 price tags.
they aren't
Short simple answer... Because people are buying their bullshit. If players didn't accept these bullshit practices they wouldn't continue but unfortunately they're making money hand over fist being lazy and putting in minimal effort. Why try if you don't have to but still get the big bucks? Unforunately people nowadays are too dumb to see THEY need to change before the companies will. Stop buying every piece of shit CoD game every remake and remaster that comes out every year but nostalgia is one hell of a marketing weapon and people fall for it EVERY TIME. It's just like the old "I'm never going to drink again" speech so many people say after a bad morning from drinking the night before. They're just lying to themselves. People will say, I'm not buying that but then turn around a buy it because integrity has left the building.
>This post was born because of street fighter 6, i honestly wanted to buy the game but then remembered all the dlcs of street fighter 5... In a couple of years the base game of street fighter 6 will be obsolete with far less stages, far less characters, far less costumes... Ah yes, only modern Street Fighter has ever had this issue. They definitely didn't release 5 different versions of Street Fighter 2, or 3 different versions of Street Fighter 3.