Games might be $70 next gen.

[minteK917]

You do realize that $50 in 1990, is the equivalent of $100 today?

If you're talking say, Legend of Zelda for NES which came out in 1986, even if you take a low estimate of it being $30 at release (despite there being evidence it was higher, such as this), That would be about $71 in today's value.

And we're still not even getting to the peak of prices, with late SNES / early N64 where prices climbed above $60 at release.

Gaming is cheaper now, with way more selection than it has ever been. Yet people are still whining like the sky is falling.

Yes and DVD players used to be $500. Can we stop falling into the trap that multi billion profit companies are not making a profit on games! None of them are opperating on loss, even if all they did was sold games with no MTX.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I think it is. Estimates are games cost 85-95 dollars a unit in reality. I bought Control + the season pass for 85 dollars.

That is complete and utter nonsense. How would anyone even begin to reasonably estimate that? The unit price varies wildly between games because of production cost and units sold. A game with a unit cost of 85+$ would be a complete and utter comercial failure.

[korijenkins]

If games were the same length as they were in the past and weren't cutting content to re-package into DLC, I would have no problem with this.

Something few people know is that most DLC for games is already finished when the game releases, and they delay the launch of it until later. Skyrim's DLC, as an example, isn't something they were working on in the years after it came out. It was done, they just chose to sell it to people later.

[WaltherLeopold]

I remember Totalbiscuit talking about this in like 2011-2012, a lot of polish is going to be asked from a product for 70$

[Ladey Gags]

So while this is slightly off topic, I feel it is still related to the topic at hand.

How do you value other entertainment? Do you go see movies? Concerts? Amusement parks? Bars? Download music?

Everything you listed other than movies at overpriced theaters are well worth their values as they are unique, sensory social experiences that can’t be replicated. A video game is a fucking video game (yes I know they can also be social but it’s nowhere near as comparable to a face to face in-person social experience). A complete and total waste of time. I’m not spending $70 to waste time. $50 is pushing it.

[enigma77]

Then show some restraint and don't buy them?

[Eninya]

I'll stick to quality indie games for $10-30. At least I enjoy those so much that I'm willing to purchase merchandise from some of them.

[minteK917]

Everything you listed other than movies at overpriced theaters are well worth their values as they are unique, sensory social experiences that can’t be replicated. A video game is a fucking video game (yes I know they can also be social but it’s nowhere near as comparable to a face to face in-person social experience). A complete and total waste of time. I’m not spending $70 to waste time. $50 is pushing it.

Whats funny is an amusement park is a much harder business then video game, video game walk on money for low effort by comparison. Beside movies all he listed in his quote are stuff that not only can be shown to be much harder to turn a profit than video games can, but also are next to impossible to just cheat your client like video games do all the time.

[SirCowdog]

Except games sells way more units they ever have. Profit didnt go down, it went all the fucking way up even if you remove MTX. You are just being told lies.

Rofl. Sure sure. The Corporations would to totally be honest and never spin anything.

[Poppincaps]

People being paid didnt increase either.

Quality of the games went down over the years. A lot of them are unfinished garbage. Nintendo games seems to be a rarity, but even then they go down from 3th party.

I do yarr before buy for every game now as you can get easy burned. (think of it like a demo)

Also a jims video:

I can't speak for other countries, but jobs like Walmart and Target now pay 15 dollars an hour which is definitely more than they did in the past. Basically every entertainment medium besides video games has increased in price.

Also you saying that the quality of games has gone down is so subjective that it isn't even worth debating.

[Zig Zug]

The problem is, most AAA games have less content in them so devs can cram them with microtransactions. This wouldn't be as big a deal if games actually had more content in them.

It's not the devs cramming it in, it's the C suite seeking to give shareholders a return, while adhering to a standard price, and still being able to recover the production costs, and possibly make some profit for the quarterlies.

Games aren't released early as a "just take it" but more like, "hey, consider this a bond, and your return will be more compelling game/xyz." But that divulges into the discussion that profitability isn't as important for a company as cash flow, but - this is MMO champ.

The development costs have increased, but the price of the product has remained the same? What else do people expect?

I'm not defending micro-transactions or the corporatization of gaming at all, in fact it's obviously sucking the soul out of the industry. But literally every other cost has gone up.

The game prices aren't even adjusted for inflation - honestly, what do people expect?

Imagine expecting to buy a 2020 sedan ($29,500) for 1990 prices ($17,000), and still getting the same level of performance and features of a modern, complete, functioning car.

If games sold for a clean $100, but were complete and free of micro transactions - would you buy it? What about increased subscriptions?

Gaming makes up a significant portion of my recreation/entertainment. If I spent $1000s on building a computer, or whatever the new consoles cost, why would I want to go cheap on games?

I can appreciate the concern that given more money, a game developer will just find more ways to screw players over, and that's a valid concern.

However, to continue to demand / expect that game prices stay stagnant for the better part of 30 years is a bit silly.

[Kyphael]

Uh, we already pay like well over $100 on new games between DLC and all the special editions crap. What else is new?

[minteK917]

Rofl. Sure sure. The Corporations would to totally be honest and never spin anything.

Im not sure why you quoted me, no shit corporations will spin anything it can for the any extra cent they can. The person i quote is just naive lmao. Sure n64 games used to sell for $70 too, remember the last n64 game that sold 30 million units? Wait no back then breaking 10 million units probably meant you where sold with a console itself.

[Baine]

They are already 80$ in Canada (thanks devaluation). I guess it won't be far it will cost 100 canadian dollars.

[Tech614]

Im not sure why you quoted me, no shit corporations will spin anything it can for the any extra cent they can. The person i quote is just naive lmao. Sure n64 games used to sell for $70 too, remember the last n64 game that sold 30 million units? Wait no back then breaking 10 million units probably meant you where sold with a console itself.

Uhh the N64 only sold a total of 33 million consoles. No shit it didn't have games near 100% attach rate. What's next you gonna tell me no Wii U or Vita game reached 20 million in sales?

And FWIW 30 mil is a hilarious benchmark to set since it's incredibly rare for a game to hit that both decades ago and in modern times.

[Great Destiny Man]

Raw costs of game increasing hardly bothers me, inflation's on the rise so getting angry that games now cost twice what they did when I was a kid (90s) would be ridiculous as near enough EVERYTHING I bought at that time was significantly cheaper than it is now.

I agree that prevalence of MTX in already premium cost AAA games is problematic, but that's an issue that's been around for years. It would be nice to have a regulator that ensured that game prices are kept in line with the volume of MTX pushed on the user but considering in some countries we're still only in the initial stages of deciding if loot boxes in games are acceptable we're a loooooong way off that.

[HitRefresh]

I heard this back in the Xbox 360/PS3 days but it never happened.

I think people often forget that games DID cost more $70 in the past, a lot of N64 games were priced as that for example. But the value of money has only decreased, so it's still significantly cheaper than a new game then.

The other thing is that unless it's made by Nintendo, games drop in price pretty fast, you can probably wait two months to get it at like $40 or less.

[razorpax]

Not how its gona work jimmy.

oh i know

they arent going anywhere but honestly little jimmy is going to have a hrd time justifying the 70 dollar purchase to his mommy after last years nba2k was cheaper and he already spent so much money on it

- - - Updated - - -

I heard this back in the Xbox 360/PS3 days but it never happened.

I think people often forget that games DID cost more $70 in the past, a lot of N64 games were priced as that for example. But the value of money has only decreased, so it's still significantly cheaper than a new game then.

The other thing is that unless it's made by Nintendo, games drop in price pretty fast, you can probably wait two months to get it at like $40 or less.

dude ps1 games were 20 bucks

the only time you got a high priced game in the time of n64 was like the hey you pikachu and i think that was only like 40

[minteK917]

Uhh the N64 only sold a total of 33 million consoles. No shit it didn't have games near 100% attach rate. What's next you gonna tell me no Wii U or Vita game reached 20 million in sales?

And FWIW 30 mil is a hilarious benchmark to set since it's incredibly rare for a game to hit that both decades ago and in modern times.

It was just an exagerated number. Might wanna address the main point. Its bullshit to say games dont make profit now lmao. They sell more copies than ever before. Smash ultimate sold 18 million copies in 2 years, thats like the top 5 n64 games put togheter. Obviously older game that rerealease a million time dont count for that. But its still a fact, the cost for making them did go up, but the sales have sky rocketed every where. The video game industry is not poor, even if you remove MTX, its still one of the most lucrative easy money. The fact someone here tried to compare video game to amusement park is funny as hell.

[mcnally86]

That is complete and utter nonsense. How would anyone even begin to reasonably estimate that? The unit price varies wildly between games because of production cost and units sold. A game with a unit cost of 85+$ would be a complete and utter comercial failure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypZZTIOR__Q these people did, but you are right. Game costs are different. Sports games with huge expensive licenses and lawyers to maintain those licenses cut money from production and dump development resources into micro-transactions.

- - - Updated - - -

No Jimmy is gona pay $70 for NFL and $200 in card packs. Stop trying to think they are trying to do you a favor. They raise cost because they think gamers are dumb enough to believe it, which most are yes. If you think there wont be mtx for skins in your single player game because of that $10 you are delusional. The point is to get every single cent possible.

Who is they? Control was published by 505 Games and I do thank them for it. It is a great game and I am satisfied with he price. Sports is a big scam and most of the money they harvest from kids go into paying lawyers to maintain licenses so they can harvest money from kids. But if the kids have positive memories who am I to judge?