Diablo 4 is $69.99.

[gondrin]

I am sorry but I looked at the first 3 pages and no one is talking about this, how did blizzard get away with this?
I understand that some game companies want to be scummy and charge $70 for the ps5 versions of the game but how come the Digital version purchased from battle.net(I initially pre order it for ps5 cuz of friends) is $69.99. IS not a physical copy of the game!!!!

While everyone is talking about the lore, the hardcore statue thing and how similar it is to D3, I feel like this has gone over the head of many of you and this is so wrong. Its thievery of the highest level. And what sucks is that if you want to play with your friends you have to fork out $70 for something that you won't really own since its not a physical copy or anything like that and its already too late to purchase a wow token cuz I haven't paid my wow sub unless someone knows of a way to have the gold on your toon from an unsub account get use to buy a wow token. This sucks. /rant over.

/edit, found a way to purchase a wow token with my unsub account. still, it sucks.

Because game prices have pretty much stayed the same for nearly 15 years. It was one of the few things that was separate from inflation. Last time prices increased was during the PS3/XBox360 launch when it went to $59.99 per game. Pretty much 2005. Sooner or later, they will have to go up due to development costs increases. Either prices go up or sales have to increase. Guess which one is always going to win out.

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Because game prices are starting to increase this generation. Because Blizzard determines the price they sell their games for. Because people will pay that increased price. Because it's been discussed and there's just not that much to really say about it.

It's not thievery, if that's too expensive for you (a whopping $10 more than usual), don't buy it until it goes on sale. I continue to wonder why nobody else seems to remember the era of gaming where you would go to the store and games would range in price from as low as $30 to as high as $90 just for the game itself - no special editions or add-ons, just the game in a box.

People should look into NeoGeo games when they came out(average of $199.99 per game due to being the same as an arcade board). This was around 1990. Then you have SNES games. Average cost was $59.99 in 1990 dollars. Then you have Atari 2600 games costing on average $39.99 in late 1970 dollars.

Gaming has always been an expensive hobby. If the price would have kept up with inflation, we would be paying quite a bit more. Games would cost more around where the NeoGeo ones cost instead of where they are at today.

If people don't like the price, DO NOT PAY FOR IT. Pure and simple. It isn't air nor food/water. Vote with your dollars folks.

I mean, Blizzard could turn into Chris Roberts and charge $1000 for a class that cannot even be played.

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Consoles were INSANELY expensive back in the day compared to what they are now, and they did a lot less, you had to just live with their faults, and wasn't unheard of to have to replace on in the middle of a generation. My Playstations have been the center of my entertainment systems since the PS2 because the consoles could fill the role of multiple devices cheaper than the cost of buying each individual piece of hardware at the time while still being relatively cheaper than consoles of previous generations. Point is that gaming only got cheaper while we as gamers got more.

The PS2 sold as good as it did BECAUSE it was also, at the time, the cheapest DVD player you could find.

[Mysterymask]

I think the big thing people forget is it's a single player game at the end of the day...you don't have to buy it day 1

Hell with Hogwarts Legacy and Star Wars being $70 all I gotta do is wait a few months and the price will probably drop to a more manageable 40 wait a little longer and a Steam Summer Sale will make it cost like $15

Diablo is $70 now give it a year and blizz will probably have a Black Friday sale and it will drop to like $35

[Kumorii]

It has been talked about?

[qwerty123456]

You forgot that are are also doing a 3-4 tier battle pass as well. With 2 or 3 of those tiers being paid.

[Speedlance]

A very skilled player used 70 hours to max level, normal player should be around 100-120 hours and casuals 150+. Now imagine doing all classes, that will for me be at minimum 500 hours played. I think paying 70$ (or 90 in my case) is for that amount of hours is insanely good.

So at worst you will pay 1$ per hour of gameplay if you’re extremely good and only play to max lvl and quit.
This is the most value per $ ive seen in a long time.

[Zulggun]

Wait till you see how expensive houses are.

[Psykd]

$110 here for basic edition. Love that weak Aussie dollar.

[Mendzia]

Just wait for the people who bought Collectors edition... and some of them are still for sure unware they will need to buy the game itself.

[vizzle]

Someone do the math and work out, with inflation considered, if a $70 game today is more or less value than a $50, $60 game 20 years ago. Which was pretty normal, no? I hate to defend corporate greed, but this is also just inflation.

[Orby]

I would be fine with live service games being expensive if they cut back on MTX, I'd buy a live service game for $100 if it meant they would not do MTX in it. If they are $100 and and have MTX then that's just greedy.

[lanerios]

don't like it? don't pay it. It's that simple.

If enough people do that, prices will change.

As long as people are willing to pay, prices will stay that high. It's basic economics

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Wait till you see how expensive houses are.

Exactly this.. imagine complaining about the price of a game, when way more actually important things are rising in price way way faster.

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You forgot that are are also doing a 3-4 tier battle pass as well. With 2 or 3 of those tiers being paid.

Please provide me with any evidence where blizzard is physically/mentally forcing you to buy any of them. And please don't use:

FOMO
Corporate greed
Blizzard-fanboy
White knight
etc

which usually gets tossed around.


I am against battle passes myself, (unless it's DRG where it's 100% free) but I really don't get this activist stance.

[Biomega]

Someone do the math and work out, with inflation considered, if a $70 game today is more or less value than a $50, $60 game 20 years ago. Which was pretty normal, no? I hate to defend corporate greed, but this is also just inflation.

There's plenty of inflation calculators around. Here's some numbers from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics:

$50 in 2010 = $70.00 in 2023
$50 in 2000 = $89.86 in 2023
$50 in 1990 = $119.06 in 2023

[FelPlague]

You forgot that are are also doing a 3-4 tier battle pass as well. With 2 or 3 of those tiers being paid.

You could have spent 20 seconds researching, there is 2 tiers, free, and premium, there is a battlepass skip you can buy however.

[crusadernero]

A very skilled player used 70 hours to max level, normal player should be around 100-120 hours and casuals 150+. Now imagine doing all classes, that will for me be at minimum 500 hours played. I think paying 70$ (or 90 in my case) is for that amount of hours is insanely good.

So at worst you will pay 1$ per hour of gameplay if you’re extremely good and only play to max lvl and quit.
This is the most value per $ ive seen in a long time.

Does max level corrolate with completing the campaign? If not, I would bet many players wont bother grinding to max level ones the story is over. I think many people highly missjudge what D4 really is all about and what they can get out of it.

Sure, you can replay the game over and over again with each and every class in all kinds of difficulties - but most players probably wont bother with it. Its like doing retail wow raids on LFR, normal, HC & mythic every week. No one gonna bother with that shit.

I suspect threads will quickly pop up with something akin to "I have nothing to do" or "that was all?".

Havent bought the game but I can feel the temptation to just give in.. Im not a HUGE ARPG fan, but sometimes its fun to just slay demons on a barbarian..

[Lolites]

If you can't afford a hobby, find something else to do. Read a book, watch a movie, go outside.

not that i disagree but have you seen prices of books recently?! games are probably still cheaper per hour of entertainment...

[crusadernero]

There's plenty of inflation calculators around. Here's some numbers from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics:

$50 in 2010 = $70.00 in 2023
$50 in 2000 = $89.86 in 2023
$50 in 1990 = $119.06 in 2023

Yeah, this argument clears up the price. yes, people get frustrated when they see the higher pricetag, but it could actually be higher.

The better question(s) to ask ourself is wether or not we still get quality and a bang for our buck today as we did in the past. Also, people buy alot of cheap games today and probably tally higher sums than 120 dollars a year. Games they barely play. But - if you buy a 100 dollar game and get hundreds of hours from it, its def worth it.

This all really boil down to consumer choice(s). Example:

I dont think going to the cinema is expensive, its fairly priced. But, if I go watch a movie and I find it boring/bad/shit, the money feels wasted. If I come out of the cinema thinking "damn that movie was GREAT", it was money well spendt. 5 dollars for a shit movie feels wasted while 10 dollars for a great movie feels worthwhile.

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not that i disagree but have you seen prices of books recently?! games are probably still cheaper per hour of entertainment...

Yeah, I agree. Prices for literally everything gets higher these days and from many of those the volume of return doesnt increase. Atleast with games we know we are getting alot of return for our money spendt. Also, the vast and sheer amount of games to pick from certainly help to somewhat give power to the consumer. Dont like the game? dont buy.

Everything from electricity/gas to bread increases steeply in price, but we dont get more of it in return. its just more expensive.

[Ghuntastic]

Games have even with a 70$ price tag still the best price performance ratio of all entertainment products and it's not even close. What kind of entertainment gets you hundreds or thousands of hours of fun for 70$? It's ridiculous to discuss corporate greed in this business from this point of view. Not to mention inflation (20$ increase over the last 20 years is nothing) and not to mention the increased complexity of games that requires hundreds of employees, 4-5+ years development for AAA games and a huge expensive infrastructure in form of servers.
The only reason games are not 100$+ yet is because of the mass acceptance of the newer generations + cosmetics income. While games were a niche market 20 years ago, the sales of computer games skyrocketed. I'm pretty sure devs make today way less profit from selling one 70$ copy than it was 20 years ago with a 50$ game.

[Kumorii]

Gamers sure are spoiled.
Personally I'm happy my hobby is still cheaper than most other hobbies.

Price increase sucks, but trying to deny we haven't had it good with no price increase (and in reality price drop) over 25-30 years is ridiculous.

[kail]

Why would video games be exempt from inflation? So many products have seen a hike in price, including some recent triple-A games.

[Gaidax]

Welcome to 2023, son.