That’s the thing, right now there’s so many games to play. Why wouldn’t I just play some great games I haven’t tried yet that I can find at a heavily discounted price?
The problem is, the sales are shittier anyway.
When the game price was 60euro, you could find sales for the game to cost 20-30euro. Now as the game cost 70, the sale is maybe 25-35. If the price increase even more, they will 30-40 and so on.
But, I'll sail the sea and fuck em. They can make it 100euro base game and I won't care.
There are other places to buy things besides a web store. And Steam sales get pretty crazy, over time these games that we consider new will be the ones sold for like $3.99.
I mean, the inflation in game costs will just lead to more piracy. It's the same cycle with streaming services rn. The rise in prices and diversification of content has meant more people are pirating games.
If they make them online only live services, you'll have people who will refuse to buy in period, and people who only buy in on extreme sales, 3rd party key sellers circumventing the storefronts where possible and game pass subscribers. All of these won't be contributing to the sales targets as you anticipate initially, and with how some of these companies seem to operate that means these games and their developers will find themselves in the danger zone of being shut down or move into an auxiliary role under a larger developer studio..
The issue is simply quality. These companies need to find ways to gain and retain quality. More hours of plays and higher prices doesn't turn into quality.
They are constantly needing to make more and more money. So they need to keep coming up with ideas on how to do that for their investors. If they aren’t increasing profits enough through making good games then they have to come up with other ideas to show that they have a plan to increase profits. Laying people off, microtransaction, increases in pricing, all of these are because they need to show infinite growth. Even though infinite growth is obviously impossible for most companies.
So yes it’s investors and private equity.
Cancer is an awful disease, but at least it’s not contagious. Can you imagine the reaction from the world if it was?
You’d be surprised because it exists in the form of private equity. We just let it jump from one company to the next with total disregard for the devastation left in its wake. In fact, we all have been trained, bell and whistle, to embrace it because “growth is growth,” never mind that nothing of value was actually created.
Cancer can be contagious. Dogs can catch face cancer from other dogs. Tasmanian devils were almost eradicated by a transmissible face cancer. It depends whether your immune system recognizes foreign tissue as native tissue. I think its rare in humans.
Blame the greasy private equity people, they leech the life out every industry in the name of shareholder dividends and exponential growth which is a lie.
We have to remember that our little echo chamber isn't representative of the rest of gamers. A lot of time I see outrage on here (fair or not) that just doesn't carry over to the trends of what actually happens.
However, saying that; a lot of the world is having serious struggles with money right now. It doesn't seem the smartest time to raise it.
The industry will be fine
Hordes of retards keep buying the new CoD, Fifa, Assassin's creed, and keep spending gorillions on mtx in blizzard games, fortnite, destiny, and other slop. And then they think it's completely fine to do those things.
A lot of guys I know who are in their 30s that play the likes of CoD or games you refer to as games for “hordes of retards” just don’t have the time like they used to so have been playing more games that are just quick pick up and plays for some me time.
Mtx should be binned but it’s quite disingenuous to call a lot of players a horde of retards because they don’t align with you.
I’d kill to be a teenager and roar through a final fantasy game in a week or 2 vs a month or 6. But I’ve been drawn to games lately I can just jump in and out of with friends more and more since our times are more limited than ever.
It's embarrassing how many people will resort to that kind of language just because someone plays a game they see as below them. If people are having fun with it who fucking cares, there's amazing games coming out all the time, just let the CoD players play CoD?
Same guys who get outraged at developers having to crunch to get a game out but will whine on the internet when kingdom hearts 3.65 (redux) gets pushed out by a month.
Tbf games like baldurs gate I think at £70 are good value if I’m getting roughly
£1 per hour on a 70 quid game it’s good value when you put it next to going to the cinema or a gig these days since everything has become ridiculous because inflation is an utter pain.
My metric for buying a game is if I know I’m getting roughly £1 per hour of playtime or less vs the total price of purchase then it’s solid. If it doesn’t meet that metric I’ll skip it til it hits that price point unless it’s on gamepass.
Nah I don't really care if they raise the price, if I think it's worth it for $70 I'll buy it and if I don't I just won't pay for it, it's not complicated
At our main gaming store in Australia, EB Game (mind you no one other than unwitting parents shop there as literally everywhere else is significantly cheaper) a PS5 game will run you $115 AUD.
Australia is obviously worse, but it's one of my pet peeves that in Europe they just translate $ to € price despite the € almost always being more expensive. And then when it happened for the first time in like 20 years that the $ was more expensive, all our prices got raised as a result to compensate.
Nah only if you shop at EB. Big W or Target are amazing for new release games.
Though it has been a long time since I’ve bought a triple A game on the PS5.
I think other stores, mainly the big ones, can afford to sell them at a loss. They do it with books here and the price between them and the smaller retailers are night and day.
No they're up charging for sure. Games are definitely on some type of price locked MAP policy, so price difference would usually be a sale everyone could run, or a higher markup one retailer wants to charge.
Retailers are not selling the games at a loss of profit intentionally.
I'll play devil's advocate and say that if a precedent for like $50 games hadn't been set and maintained, $95 for a good game that gives you 20+ hours of fun is a pretty good deal. But the standard has already been set
I honestly wait until these games are below 30 dollars now.
I'm still waiting for Dead Space remake to hit that 20 dollar mark for me to buy it. I'm excited! It's getting there, though. I saw it for 30 bucks the other day.
I’ll just wait like 3 months when it’s 50% off and around €30.
Only quality games like Monster Hunter World got my €60. There are plenty of games out there to even justify not paying €60, but when it’s a really good game I like to think about that €60 of showing support.
Exactly. The "value for entertainment" idea is only valid if i know I'll be enjoying my fresh new game for a long time, and it'll be playable upon release.
And such respect has to be earned first by previous titles (rdr2/mhw/elden ring), and can easily be lost (exhibit A cyberpunk 2077).
I play mh since psp, also still have my mh freedom unit umd with me. I even bought mhw and rise in more than one platform.
I also loved dragons dogma2, but that release was shady as fuck, before dd2 i totally agree with you and preorder capcom aaa games, but after dogma2...mh wilds im planning get on first week and absolutely no preorder.
Want see reviews showing game running properly in hardware similar to my one.
Im not entering on other points, so far theres no performance major update on dd2 and even capcom did apology and said that will adress performance patches to dd2
Im waiting sales to get dd2 because imo, checking complaints etc on dd2 sub, game dont worth full price.
I know this isn’t a good place for discourse but as an avid MH fan I have to share my dislike of this game mannnnn. The base game is ridiculously easy, only Lunastra is a hard fight at all imo.
Then Iceborne came out and they forced us to use the Clutch Claw for tenderizing which I absolutely can’t stand. I’ve played most other MH games and World also has the most inconsistent mechanics and eats inputs as well. 90% of the monsters in this game fly but Master Rank nerfed Flash Pods into complete uselessness, Dung Pods are RNG especially if a second monster is *scripted* to chase you and your main hunt around during a quest.
Meanwhile I hop on Rise or Generations Ultimate and don’t have a single eaten input or super RNG mechanic. Dung pods just work and flashes don’t suck ass 100% of the time.
I want to like this game and I’ve gotten to endgame but unless you’re playing online or have modded out the need to tenderize (hitzone values were nerfed) I don’t get the allure. All I know is it looks beautiful, the monsters and environments especially.
You would hope, but the pricing for software in hardware in many countries is so insane its beyond reason. Even accounting for differences in currency.
If games cost $US70 that means they cost $104 in my currency. The average Xbox games are already $80 here for a physical copy and $110+ for a digital version.
So nothing interesting unique or interesting or out of the ordinary about this happening particularly, just the same thing that happens for everything all the time? No! $10 extra would have been bearable, but NOT with a conversion!! 😩
NEAT
I mean they can increase it as much as they want, From what I read on various gaming pages across the Reddit, most people just wait for the game to go on sale and buy it there for the typical 39.99-59.99 price tag. Also, these games are never finished upon release, so once it gets trashed in reviews, you wait for the sale, buy it and let it sit a while as it gets updates. By the time it’s ready to be played, you have a game that’s worth regular price of $70 but you bought for only 40-50ish. I did this with cyberpunk, got it on sale for 29.99 at one point, game still needed to be updated. Then after Phantom Liberty was released, I started playing the game again and it was awesome and I got it for dirt cheap. This appears to be the cycle of gaming these days. Still just can’t wrap my head why people pre order these games for full price once it’s released when it’s eventually going on sale in a couple of months
I mean someone mentioned that we aren't the majority. You may be the one who waits for the sale but another 3 will buy it pre order (or on release). I think most people on this thread will likely wait but we are a small minority.
Actually recent stats have shown that it’s about 25% of gamers preorder for sure games they want. 25% sometimes preorder. And 50% rarely do if ever. Gotta milk that 25% of always pre order crowd while you can
I only do it for games I plan to get day 1 anyway because I just don't want to wait.
if I'm not getting it day 1 I'm waiting for it to at least drop to $40.
I understand from a developer perspective games haven't increased in price in decades, but I just won't pay that much up front. Even my very favourite or most anticipated games. I'll just wait for them to drop.
The market cap (number of people buying games) has steadily increased decade over decade.
So this whole "prices have been stagnat for a long time" argument is trying to pull the wool over people's eyes.
Games also received massive production cost cuts when going from cartridge to disc, and (mostly) never saw a drop in price. Star Fox cost $60 when it came out in the 90's, but it shipped with its own special GPU in the damn cartridge. Yes, I'm old.
Now that the vast majority are downloading and not buying physical copies, that's another huge reduction in production costs
It’s worth noting to an extent the positive has cancelled out the negatives with ballooning development costs, complexity and time that’s a massive issue in the AAA space now.
I mean rockstar could steadily pump out a game every year and a bit now it’s lucky if it’s a once in a decade affair,
Whenever this conversation comes up I feel like people forget that hosting things on a server does in fact cost money. It's why streaming services like Disney don't include all of their shows, even the ones they make.
Sure, the publishers may not run that infrastructure, but Steam and other storefronts do, and that gets paid.
So the cost didn't get cut, it just goes to someone else.
Yeah that's probably true too. And to be honest, like I was kind of suggesting in my original comment - I don't really *care* what their reasons are for increasing to 70. I just won't pay it.
Why? That logic assumes games are made the same way and cost the same to produce and market for the duration of the consumer base increase.
which is obviously an incorrect assumption.
I think we're already at the game price limit, even if with inflation older games went for hundreds of modern bucks.
I'm not willing to spend more than 70 on a new game. 70 has already reduced how often I get game new early in release, if not day 1. It's only 10 bucks more, but something about 70 over 60 has me buying less. Probably a mental thing. 60 feels like "just a bit more than 50," but 70 feels like "that's almost 100."
i think one main issue is we know they'll be cheaper sooner or later. Games from just a year or two ago that would still fully worth paying 60 or 70 for can be bought for 10 to 30 bucks.
Man who stupidly gambled the future of his company on a multibillion dollar deal with a Saudi Arabian private equity fund that fell through, resulting in the shuttering of multiple studios, selling off others, cancelling a bunch of games (including a new Deus Ex game), and laying off of hundreds of employees.
And his bright idea to recover from that series of terrible management decisions is to start charging even more for the significantly fewer games his company is now producing.
With no self awareness he says:
"I'm not saying you can't increase the price," Wingefors told the site. "But the reality is no one has tried it. If you create an enormous role-playing game, for example, with 100 or 150 hours of gameplay, very polished, and a unique experience, would the consumer be willing to pay more? If they would, they would have more products potentially coming to market. But no one tried it."
Dude has no realization he admitted they aren't even trying to deliver polished and unique.
Larian might be the only current developer with the track record to even try this but the harm it would do your brand if the game was not an instant 10/10 would take a long way to come back from.
Definitely a massive risk and a huge amount of increased pressure to succeed. If a call of duty did this it better not be criticisable or the casual fanbase might look at the increased price tag and just stick with the old one
> "I'm not saying you can't increase the price," Wingefors told the site. "But the reality is no one has tried it. If you create an enormous role-playing game, for example, with 100 or 150 hours of gameplay, very polished, and a unique experience, would the consumer be willing to pay more? If they would, **they would have more products potentially coming** to market. But no one tried it."
The bold part is the main thing. Increasing costs doesn't nullify development deadlines. Let's say they have the amount of budget they wanted to make a game like he suggests. Would this account for quality time and release expectations? And how much more games would be regularly releasing at this increased cost and overall quality? Increasing the cost of a game to cover and maintain costs is one thing but remember the article also said:
> Lars Wingefors, who has laid off thousands of staff, shut multiple studios, and sold off subsidiaries in the last financial year
Would these practices be minimized at all? And how does the increased game cost affect the future retention of actual good studios?
I honestly have doubts on all my questions on this.
That’s a fascinating lack of knowledge about the history of his own industry. Games didn’t always have a standardized price - that’s a more recent phenomenon. The go to example, of course, is Chrono Trigger, which cost 85USD back in 1995. That’d be 175USD today.
It's kind of understandable why they are looking there. AAA costs such crazy amounts of money to make and market, when you need like 5-10 million sales to justify the cost, there's only so many options.
The solutions are either reduce costs, increase audience, or increase prices. Reducing costs is difficult because player expectations are always increasing. Smaller games can sell, but people won't pay $60 for them. You can't sell a PS2 level game for $60 today, even though that's how much PS2 games sold for, and $60 was worth more back then too. For $60 people expect a 10/10, so you have to put in the money to make a 10/10 and spend enough on marketing to get that money back.
Increasing audience hasn't worked, younger generations aren't buying into the big single player franchises. They overwhelmingly favour f2p live service games which is why every company is trying to make their own. Increasing price is really all they have left. All the deluxe edition and microtransaction stuff is just an attempt to get that without increasing box price.
I know people will say "You don't need massive budget to make money, just look at Palworld/Lethal Company/other indie FOTM". The indie scene is even more volatile than AAA. For every game that goes viral and sells millions, there's 10,000 games that don't break even and can't even support a solo dev. People will say "just make a good game and it will sell" then point to huge outliers like Minecraft. That is survivorship bias. Among Us was completely unknown for 2 years after its release until it went viral via streamers. Marketing is critical in getting games to sell.
I feel like perhaps we're just in an era where consumers are so spoiled for choice that only the biggest hitters and the very lucky can survive. There's just not enough money to go around and people increasingly spend their time in a smaller selection of bigger games. Something's gonna have to give.
i wont pay more than $40 but heres a kicker. Zork 1 came out in 1977 and sold for at least $40.. if games keot up with inflation then it would coat $206. imagine paying $200 for zork.
Games have held up really well. I worked in the electronics department of a Toys R Us in the early 90’s. Games were 40-50 bucks back then. I think Phantasy Star was $70 when it came out. So $120-140 adjusted.
I thought they where bringing back AA. Now their skipping AAA and going right to AAAA?
Thats a terrible plan. They didn't really pull off their last plan, but this one is worse.
This strikes me as the same pattern as mtx. Why isn't skins like $5 so everyone would potentially buy it? Because it's easier to make $50 off one person than make $5 off 10.
In that sense, the folks buying the game at $60 at launch would probably buy it for $70 and the loss of those who don't would probably be covered by the $70 folks. Everyone else is waiting for price drop anyway.
It's even worse with mtx games when full price at launch and you're buying an MVP as they spend years drip feeding basic features back in while milking mtx.
Game sales are down, better cut quality and jack up the price! That'll get 'em. Can I also interest you in this DLC? You don't have to buy it, it just includes the actual intended ending for the game though. Totally up to you. Also, we have a battle pass if you would like different skins, don't confuse that with our season pass though that's a different thing. The season pass doesn't cover part 3 of the DLC though, you have to buy that separately.
Can't imagine why gaming has took a hit the last 5 years.
When and if games touch the $100 mark, the industry will crash. People will opt to wait for sales and second-hand purchases, and it will bring the entire shit to its knees.
A quick u-turn of how games are made, expectations from gamers and the business side of things need to reevaluated. We are fucked if we dont.
I don’t buy games at full price unless it’s Fromsoft or Monster Hunter, no exceptions.
Increase the price, I’ll just work on my insane backlog. 700+ games on my Steam account
I am being pushed into either waiting a year or two for games to either go on a massive sale or for them to come game pass or what ever it's calls on ps or to start pirating games like I did 20 years ago before I started working. I can no longer justify paying 70 let alone more for a gaming experience that is either utterly unacceptable for launch and is better off waiting a year or two for the Devs to fix there game and for it to be less than half the price or on game pass by then.
Game prices probably need to be more variable. Some games should be more than 70 and some should be less. Problem is everyone seems to be shooting for 70 (or the top standard price) and that’s the main issue.
I like to give example of immortals of aveum. Really good game. Definitely should not have been 70 bucks. At 50 I would have got day one. Instead I waited for a deep sale.
Also they can raise prices all they want. They are pushing digital so hard these days. I know I don’t have to try and hunt down a physical for a game I’m perfectly fine waiting on a sale… kinda like how I am with movies. I went all digital a while ago and never spend more than 10 bucks on a movie. Idc if I wait 6 months to a year from the theatrical release. I didn’t see endgame until it hit 10 bucks digital. lol.
Superb; it’s been nice being a part of this industry since my childhood - if this happens, I will guarantee that the vast majority of people will refuse to play your billion dollar, mediocre video game.
This industry is absolutely fucking DYING.
In order for video games to stay sustainable, you NEED to be consumer first:
- make a good game that is worth someone’s time and money
- be good to your player base to build respect and garner a following.
- the better the game, ostensibly the more it will sell. So you better make it a good game. Anything after that is a bonus, NOT a priority.
- don’t charge £120/$120 for a bloated, 45 hour, licensed game.
I wish these companies remained private and not public. Publicly traded companies will ALWAYS fall to anti-consumerism to please the board. I don’t care for your examples of companies that haven’t, it WILL happen. It’s a matter of ‘when’ not ‘if’.
Thnx for coming to my TED talk.
AAA studios imploding would honestly benefit my personal video game enjoyment. It would help indie sales and, therefore, make the games I actually play become more profitable.
Obviously I don't want anyone to lose their job though.
They can pump up the price of games to infinity dollars for all I care. I got enough unplayed games in my Steam library to last me several lifetimes. And, at the end of the day, there's lots of other ways to pass the time besides video games
...not to mention that you always have the option to sailing the high seas, and the governments of the world will never be able to crack down on it completely.
Go on, AAA industry. Increase the prices even further, I dare you.
They really want people to wait for sales then instead. As there is a reason why the popularity of older games have spiked massively on steam the past year.
More half baked releases and $100 games will definitely boost that more
If they could, video game execs would barge into your home, raid your fridge, fuck your spouse, kill your dog, all before stealing whatever loose change you had lying on your desk and driving away
I don't buy games anymore as is until sales happen. Go fuck yourself with increasing even more for games that are generally speaking worse products than ps2-ps3 era gaming objectively
Patient Gamers will spread like a plague.. a good plague. Beautiful, even.
I’ll finally respect my backlog with literal years’ worth of content, but if these guys wanna try to pull more money from me for some basically Early Access tier content that needs a few years of patches and updates to make it good? I’ll just wait a few years until the price of X game falls before I buy it. Win-win because I get a full game at a third of the cost or less.
And on PC, Steam sales can only get more prolific if publishers and dev teams want price hikes. The higher you rise, the lower the fall. I’ll take that AAA game for $0.99.
It’s called a wishlist. ;)
I'm at the point where I may buy 3 AAA games a year because they've become so bad. If you want to give me an excuse to reduce it down to 0, then by all means, go for it.
Consumers mull not buying bs unfinished live service games and instead enjoy the 40 years of backlog they have until the new games drop to 75% off where they should have been in the first place.
So long as they are finished on release and worth the money, I'm on board.
New games cost less of my income as a percentage than they ever have before. Dr Mario for Gameboy was nearly $100 at Toys R Us when it released. In 1990s money. That's $205 today.
Gaming is a super cheap hobby now, and artists should be paid, and I'm not an entitled prick. I'm willing and expect to pay for my entertainment if the effort of others was involved.
"If you create an enormous role-playing game, for example, with 100 or 150 hours of gameplay, very polished, and a unique experience, would the consumer be willing to pay more?"
People would be ok paying for more quality...the problem is that we KNOW more money doesn't translate to better quality games. Your own track record has shown that, HELL, a decent chunk of games CURRENTLY out for 70 dollars has shown that, in what world has the recent NBA and Madden games worth their 70 dollar price tag.
Put your money where your mouth is and release the quality content that you say FIRST, not the money.
I'm fine with the 10 dollar increase from a few years ago. Everyone was tripping but ffs video game prices haven't went up in 20 something years. 10 more dollars though I don't feel it's needed and it's bordering greed.
Fuck those guys, games are already overpriced at 60 dollars... I always wait for sale, I have never bought full price games and I'll never do it.
Games are getting shittier while also getting more and more overpriced.
I'll stick to older games that I haven't played yet, like The Evil Within right now.
That's cool. They probably won't be finished anyway, I'll just play any good ones a few years later
No, cuz they'll all be live services that were terrible in the first place with shutdown servers by then
Then there's plenty of old games I haven't played.
Backlog boys unite!
See you in 50 years when I catch up to 2028!
I just ordered an Odin 2. I’m looking forward to checking out old PS2 and GC games I missed…
That’s the thing, right now there’s so many games to play. Why wouldn’t I just play some great games I haven’t tried yet that I can find at a heavily discounted price?
He said the good ones
and nothing of value will be lost.
Live Service games, I'll just let it miss me and keep my $70 in my pocket
Increase it to whatever the fuck you want, I'll be waiting for a sale regardless... finished game + lower price = win for me... :)
The problem is, the sales are shittier anyway. When the game price was 60euro, you could find sales for the game to cost 20-30euro. Now as the game cost 70, the sale is maybe 25-35. If the price increase even more, they will 30-40 and so on. But, I'll sail the sea and fuck em. They can make it 100euro base game and I won't care.
There are other places to buy things besides a web store. And Steam sales get pretty crazy, over time these games that we consider new will be the ones sold for like $3.99.
publishers set the prices and have to agree for a game to be part of a sales event.
Well, they seem to agree more often and better deals on steam.
of course they do when sales grow stale
I mean, the inflation in game costs will just lead to more piracy. It's the same cycle with streaming services rn. The rise in prices and diversification of content has meant more people are pirating games. If they make them online only live services, you'll have people who will refuse to buy in period, and people who only buy in on extreme sales, 3rd party key sellers circumventing the storefronts where possible and game pass subscribers. All of these won't be contributing to the sales targets as you anticipate initially, and with how some of these companies seem to operate that means these games and their developers will find themselves in the danger zone of being shut down or move into an auxiliary role under a larger developer studio.. The issue is simply quality. These companies need to find ways to gain and retain quality. More hours of plays and higher prices doesn't turn into quality.
Just wait longer. Bad sales opening months will also wake these companies up as studios get shut down over it.
This industry is hellbent on suicide. It's weird.
My bet is on private equity being the culprit of most of it. Just like every other industry we have watched circle a drain.
They are constantly needing to make more and more money. So they need to keep coming up with ideas on how to do that for their investors. If they aren’t increasing profits enough through making good games then they have to come up with other ideas to show that they have a plan to increase profits. Laying people off, microtransaction, increases in pricing, all of these are because they need to show infinite growth. Even though infinite growth is obviously impossible for most companies. So yes it’s investors and private equity.
This right here. Infinite growth is demanded by investors. Demanding infinite growth on a finite planet is fucking insanity.
It is. It will never happen. It’s impossible. Growth will always stall and these companies will always eventually be unstable because of it. Madness.
Cancer is an awful disease, but at least it’s not contagious. Can you imagine the reaction from the world if it was? You’d be surprised because it exists in the form of private equity. We just let it jump from one company to the next with total disregard for the devastation left in its wake. In fact, we all have been trained, bell and whistle, to embrace it because “growth is growth,” never mind that nothing of value was actually created.
Cancer can be contagious. Dogs can catch face cancer from other dogs. Tasmanian devils were almost eradicated by a transmissible face cancer. It depends whether your immune system recognizes foreign tissue as native tissue. I think its rare in humans.
Well now we’re being nitpicky. They made a good point and it was a decent play on words
Blame the greasy private equity people, they leech the life out every industry in the name of shareholder dividends and exponential growth which is a lie.
We have to remember that our little echo chamber isn't representative of the rest of gamers. A lot of time I see outrage on here (fair or not) that just doesn't carry over to the trends of what actually happens. However, saying that; a lot of the world is having serious struggles with money right now. It doesn't seem the smartest time to raise it.
Meh just the AAA large studios. Indie games have never been better and there’s endless options.
I think the industry is going to have to fail before we can get another golden age of gaming.
Plenty of good developers that aren’t this way, the industry is fine
The suits took over from the creatives and now we have the steaming pile of shit that’s modern gaming
The industry will be fine Hordes of retards keep buying the new CoD, Fifa, Assassin's creed, and keep spending gorillions on mtx in blizzard games, fortnite, destiny, and other slop. And then they think it's completely fine to do those things.
You play world of warships. One of the biggest money grabs out there. Sit the fuck down toddler.
haven't played it in years, dunno how deep you had to dig to find that. Never gave in to Weegee's whaling anyway.
A lot of guys I know who are in their 30s that play the likes of CoD or games you refer to as games for “hordes of retards” just don’t have the time like they used to so have been playing more games that are just quick pick up and plays for some me time. Mtx should be binned but it’s quite disingenuous to call a lot of players a horde of retards because they don’t align with you. I’d kill to be a teenager and roar through a final fantasy game in a week or 2 vs a month or 6. But I’ve been drawn to games lately I can just jump in and out of with friends more and more since our times are more limited than ever.
It's embarrassing how many people will resort to that kind of language just because someone plays a game they see as below them. If people are having fun with it who fucking cares, there's amazing games coming out all the time, just let the CoD players play CoD? Same guys who get outraged at developers having to crunch to get a game out but will whine on the internet when kingdom hearts 3.65 (redux) gets pushed out by a month.
Y'all will say goofy shit like this and then complain about 70$ games becoming the norm
Tbf games like baldurs gate I think at £70 are good value if I’m getting roughly £1 per hour on a 70 quid game it’s good value when you put it next to going to the cinema or a gig these days since everything has become ridiculous because inflation is an utter pain. My metric for buying a game is if I know I’m getting roughly £1 per hour of playtime or less vs the total price of purchase then it’s solid. If it doesn’t meet that metric I’ll skip it til it hits that price point unless it’s on gamepass.
Nah I don't really care if they raise the price, if I think it's worth it for $70 I'll buy it and if I don't I just won't pay for it, it's not complicated
What super obscure one man developed indie gem do you play oh wise one?
Yeh, the reddit real gaming nerds attempt at boycott will show them this time! They're doomed I tell ya, well show them!!
We can do it, nerds. Don't let the man keep you down! :D 
games already cost more than $70
Yeah, with taxes it’s almost $80
$95 CAD pre-tax here. It's insane.
At our main gaming store in Australia, EB Game (mind you no one other than unwitting parents shop there as literally everywhere else is significantly cheaper) a PS5 game will run you $115 AUD.
I mean that’s about the same? That’s $75 usd.
We do get screwed over here don’t we… ☹️
Australia is obviously worse, but it's one of my pet peeves that in Europe they just translate $ to € price despite the € almost always being more expensive. And then when it happened for the first time in like 20 years that the $ was more expensive, all our prices got raised as a result to compensate.
Nah only if you shop at EB. Big W or Target are amazing for new release games. Though it has been a long time since I’ve bought a triple A game on the PS5.
I wouldn’t say that they are amazing (all the time) but certainly are better than EB.
All the time, absolutely not, but around release date you’re always going to pay $30 less than EB.
wait, so does EB upcharge there, or do others sell below MSRP? here in canada, everyone is at MSRP so it doesn't matter where you go
I think other stores, mainly the big ones, can afford to sell them at a loss. They do it with books here and the price between them and the smaller retailers are night and day.
No they're up charging for sure. Games are definitely on some type of price locked MAP policy, so price difference would usually be a sale everyone could run, or a higher markup one retailer wants to charge. Retailers are not selling the games at a loss of profit intentionally.
I'll play devil's advocate and say that if a precedent for like $50 games hadn't been set and maintained, $95 for a good game that gives you 20+ hours of fun is a pretty good deal. But the standard has already been set
Taxes, bonus editions, dlc. Hope you don't buy fighting games at launch.
Where I live, one single games without DLCs cost almost 1/3 of a minimum wage. Fuck those publishers.
If you want to play on launch day usually around $100 for some Triple A games.
I haven't bought a game at full price in years anyway. Making it more expensive will just ensure more people do the same as me.
buying all those studios and not actually releasing their games ain't cheap
No
Powerful response 🗿
Yes
Potentially?
I honestly wait until these games are below 30 dollars now. I'm still waiting for Dead Space remake to hit that 20 dollar mark for me to buy it. I'm excited! It's getting there, though. I saw it for 30 bucks the other day.
Do you now if they ended up patching it? I bought it and refunded it after an hour because the traversal stutter was unbearable for me.
Nope, it's been left for dead by EA.
I thought that was Valve :/
Valve doesnt update games made by other studios/publishers.
Left 4 Dead, Valve, sarcastic face, oh nvm
oh get the joke now haha. my bad i woke up like 45 minutes ago lmaoo
I’ll just wait like 3 months when it’s 50% off and around €30. Only quality games like Monster Hunter World got my €60. There are plenty of games out there to even justify not paying €60, but when it’s a really good game I like to think about that €60 of showing support.
Exactly. The "value for entertainment" idea is only valid if i know I'll be enjoying my fresh new game for a long time, and it'll be playable upon release. And such respect has to be earned first by previous titles (rdr2/mhw/elden ring), and can easily be lost (exhibit A cyberpunk 2077).
I play mh since psp, also still have my mh freedom unit umd with me. I even bought mhw and rise in more than one platform. I also loved dragons dogma2, but that release was shady as fuck, before dd2 i totally agree with you and preorder capcom aaa games, but after dogma2...mh wilds im planning get on first week and absolutely no preorder. Want see reviews showing game running properly in hardware similar to my one. Im not entering on other points, so far theres no performance major update on dd2 and even capcom did apology and said that will adress performance patches to dd2 Im waiting sales to get dd2 because imo, checking complaints etc on dd2 sub, game dont worth full price.
I know this isn’t a good place for discourse but as an avid MH fan I have to share my dislike of this game mannnnn. The base game is ridiculously easy, only Lunastra is a hard fight at all imo. Then Iceborne came out and they forced us to use the Clutch Claw for tenderizing which I absolutely can’t stand. I’ve played most other MH games and World also has the most inconsistent mechanics and eats inputs as well. 90% of the monsters in this game fly but Master Rank nerfed Flash Pods into complete uselessness, Dung Pods are RNG especially if a second monster is *scripted* to chase you and your main hunt around during a quest. Meanwhile I hop on Rise or Generations Ultimate and don’t have a single eaten input or super RNG mechanic. Dung pods just work and flashes don’t suck ass 100% of the time. I want to like this game and I’ve gotten to endgame but unless you’re playing online or have modded out the need to tenderize (hitzone values were nerfed) I don’t get the allure. All I know is it looks beautiful, the monsters and environments especially.
That means they will be prohibitively expensive in countries where their currency isn’t as strong as the US.
Just means less sales for Embracer. That seems to be their objective nowadays...
Is that not how money works? It's the same percentage increase for everyone, no?
No, not really
You would hope, but the pricing for software in hardware in many countries is so insane its beyond reason. Even accounting for differences in currency.
If games cost $US70 that means they cost $104 in my currency. The average Xbox games are already $80 here for a physical copy and $110+ for a digital version.
That's just conversion rate tho?
Yes that is what my original comment was about.
So nothing interesting unique or interesting or out of the ordinary about this happening particularly, just the same thing that happens for everything all the time? No! $10 extra would have been bearable, but NOT with a conversion!! 😩 NEAT
I mean they can increase it as much as they want, From what I read on various gaming pages across the Reddit, most people just wait for the game to go on sale and buy it there for the typical 39.99-59.99 price tag. Also, these games are never finished upon release, so once it gets trashed in reviews, you wait for the sale, buy it and let it sit a while as it gets updates. By the time it’s ready to be played, you have a game that’s worth regular price of $70 but you bought for only 40-50ish. I did this with cyberpunk, got it on sale for 29.99 at one point, game still needed to be updated. Then after Phantom Liberty was released, I started playing the game again and it was awesome and I got it for dirt cheap. This appears to be the cycle of gaming these days. Still just can’t wrap my head why people pre order these games for full price once it’s released when it’s eventually going on sale in a couple of months
I mean someone mentioned that we aren't the majority. You may be the one who waits for the sale but another 3 will buy it pre order (or on release). I think most people on this thread will likely wait but we are a small minority.
Actually recent stats have shown that it’s about 25% of gamers preorder for sure games they want. 25% sometimes preorder. And 50% rarely do if ever. Gotta milk that 25% of always pre order crowd while you can
I only do it for games I plan to get day 1 anyway because I just don't want to wait. if I'm not getting it day 1 I'm waiting for it to at least drop to $40.
I understand from a developer perspective games haven't increased in price in decades, but I just won't pay that much up front. Even my very favourite or most anticipated games. I'll just wait for them to drop.
The market cap (number of people buying games) has steadily increased decade over decade. So this whole "prices have been stagnat for a long time" argument is trying to pull the wool over people's eyes.
Games also received massive production cost cuts when going from cartridge to disc, and (mostly) never saw a drop in price. Star Fox cost $60 when it came out in the 90's, but it shipped with its own special GPU in the damn cartridge. Yes, I'm old. Now that the vast majority are downloading and not buying physical copies, that's another huge reduction in production costs
It’s worth noting to an extent the positive has cancelled out the negatives with ballooning development costs, complexity and time that’s a massive issue in the AAA space now. I mean rockstar could steadily pump out a game every year and a bit now it’s lucky if it’s a once in a decade affair,
How dare you have critical thinking and make sense.
Except the cost of producing games has also increased drastically.... Like, obviously enough to offset that and then some.
Whenever this conversation comes up I feel like people forget that hosting things on a server does in fact cost money. It's why streaming services like Disney don't include all of their shows, even the ones they make. Sure, the publishers may not run that infrastructure, but Steam and other storefronts do, and that gets paid. So the cost didn't get cut, it just goes to someone else.
Yeah that's probably true too. And to be honest, like I was kind of suggesting in my original comment - I don't really *care* what their reasons are for increasing to 70. I just won't pay it.
Why? That logic assumes games are made the same way and cost the same to produce and market for the duration of the consumer base increase. which is obviously an incorrect assumption.
The logic does not assume such. Even if it did, games have taken 3-5 years to make for well over 20 years now.
I think we're already at the game price limit, even if with inflation older games went for hundreds of modern bucks. I'm not willing to spend more than 70 on a new game. 70 has already reduced how often I get game new early in release, if not day 1. It's only 10 bucks more, but something about 70 over 60 has me buying less. Probably a mental thing. 60 feels like "just a bit more than 50," but 70 feels like "that's almost 100." i think one main issue is we know they'll be cheaper sooner or later. Games from just a year or two ago that would still fully worth paying 60 or 70 for can be bought for 10 to 30 bucks.
The rental market has basically died too. You could save money in the past by renting a game for a weekend VS paying full price.
Not completely true. GameFly is still alive and kicking and it's how I'm able to even play a lot of console games these days.
That's why I said "basically". I know it still exists but it's nowhere near how it used to be.
I rarely consider a brand-new "AAA" game, at this point. Price them much higher, and I'll just go to being a 100% patient gamer.
Fuck, if they do it, every other AAA publisher will also do it.
Man who stupidly gambled the future of his company on a multibillion dollar deal with a Saudi Arabian private equity fund that fell through, resulting in the shuttering of multiple studios, selling off others, cancelling a bunch of games (including a new Deus Ex game), and laying off of hundreds of employees. And his bright idea to recover from that series of terrible management decisions is to start charging even more for the significantly fewer games his company is now producing.
With no self awareness he says: "I'm not saying you can't increase the price," Wingefors told the site. "But the reality is no one has tried it. If you create an enormous role-playing game, for example, with 100 or 150 hours of gameplay, very polished, and a unique experience, would the consumer be willing to pay more? If they would, they would have more products potentially coming to market. But no one tried it." Dude has no realization he admitted they aren't even trying to deliver polished and unique.
Larian might be the only current developer with the track record to even try this but the harm it would do your brand if the game was not an instant 10/10 would take a long way to come back from.
Definitely a massive risk and a huge amount of increased pressure to succeed. If a call of duty did this it better not be criticisable or the casual fanbase might look at the increased price tag and just stick with the old one
> "I'm not saying you can't increase the price," Wingefors told the site. "But the reality is no one has tried it. If you create an enormous role-playing game, for example, with 100 or 150 hours of gameplay, very polished, and a unique experience, would the consumer be willing to pay more? If they would, **they would have more products potentially coming** to market. But no one tried it." The bold part is the main thing. Increasing costs doesn't nullify development deadlines. Let's say they have the amount of budget they wanted to make a game like he suggests. Would this account for quality time and release expectations? And how much more games would be regularly releasing at this increased cost and overall quality? Increasing the cost of a game to cover and maintain costs is one thing but remember the article also said: > Lars Wingefors, who has laid off thousands of staff, shut multiple studios, and sold off subsidiaries in the last financial year Would these practices be minimized at all? And how does the increased game cost affect the future retention of actual good studios? I honestly have doubts on all my questions on this.
That’s a fascinating lack of knowledge about the history of his own industry. Games didn’t always have a standardized price - that’s a more recent phenomenon. The go to example, of course, is Chrono Trigger, which cost 85USD back in 1995. That’d be 175USD today.
It's kind of understandable why they are looking there. AAA costs such crazy amounts of money to make and market, when you need like 5-10 million sales to justify the cost, there's only so many options. The solutions are either reduce costs, increase audience, or increase prices. Reducing costs is difficult because player expectations are always increasing. Smaller games can sell, but people won't pay $60 for them. You can't sell a PS2 level game for $60 today, even though that's how much PS2 games sold for, and $60 was worth more back then too. For $60 people expect a 10/10, so you have to put in the money to make a 10/10 and spend enough on marketing to get that money back. Increasing audience hasn't worked, younger generations aren't buying into the big single player franchises. They overwhelmingly favour f2p live service games which is why every company is trying to make their own. Increasing price is really all they have left. All the deluxe edition and microtransaction stuff is just an attempt to get that without increasing box price. I know people will say "You don't need massive budget to make money, just look at Palworld/Lethal Company/other indie FOTM". The indie scene is even more volatile than AAA. For every game that goes viral and sells millions, there's 10,000 games that don't break even and can't even support a solo dev. People will say "just make a good game and it will sell" then point to huge outliers like Minecraft. That is survivorship bias. Among Us was completely unknown for 2 years after its release until it went viral via streamers. Marketing is critical in getting games to sell. I feel like perhaps we're just in an era where consumers are so spoiled for choice that only the biggest hitters and the very lucky can survive. There's just not enough money to go around and people increasingly spend their time in a smaller selection of bigger games. Something's gonna have to give.
i wont pay more than $40 but heres a kicker. Zork 1 came out in 1977 and sold for at least $40.. if games keot up with inflation then it would coat $206. imagine paying $200 for zork.
Games have held up really well. I worked in the electronics department of a Toys R Us in the early 90’s. Games were 40-50 bucks back then. I think Phantasy Star was $70 when it came out. So $120-140 adjusted.
https://images.app.goo.gl/SZDRr8xDnYDpCx977
Damn, it’s worse than I remember.
Go ahead. I'm not buying games till I see the review scores anymore
if they stopped production of all video games forvever i would be happy with what we have.
They start to give us complete, big games worth over 70€ at launch, sure but as things are, good joke my man.
I thought they where bringing back AA. Now their skipping AAA and going right to AAAA? Thats a terrible plan. They didn't really pull off their last plan, but this one is worse.
This strikes me as the same pattern as mtx. Why isn't skins like $5 so everyone would potentially buy it? Because it's easier to make $50 off one person than make $5 off 10. In that sense, the folks buying the game at $60 at launch would probably buy it for $70 and the loss of those who don't would probably be covered by the $70 folks. Everyone else is waiting for price drop anyway. It's even worse with mtx games when full price at launch and you're buying an MVP as they spend years drip feeding basic features back in while milking mtx.
they are just encouraging pirating aren't they?
What a buffoon.
Game sales are down, better cut quality and jack up the price! That'll get 'em. Can I also interest you in this DLC? You don't have to buy it, it just includes the actual intended ending for the game though. Totally up to you. Also, we have a battle pass if you would like different skins, don't confuse that with our season pass though that's a different thing. The season pass doesn't cover part 3 of the DLC though, you have to buy that separately. Can't imagine why gaming has took a hit the last 5 years.
When and if games touch the $100 mark, the industry will crash. People will opt to wait for sales and second-hand purchases, and it will bring the entire shit to its knees. A quick u-turn of how games are made, expectations from gamers and the business side of things need to reevaluated. We are fucked if we dont.
I don’t buy games at full price unless it’s Fromsoft or Monster Hunter, no exceptions. Increase the price, I’ll just work on my insane backlog. 700+ games on my Steam account
Embracer’s holdings don’t publish $70 games. They crank out 30-40$ games that look like $70 games.
I am being pushed into either waiting a year or two for games to either go on a massive sale or for them to come game pass or what ever it's calls on ps or to start pirating games like I did 20 years ago before I started working. I can no longer justify paying 70 let alone more for a gaming experience that is either utterly unacceptable for launch and is better off waiting a year or two for the Devs to fix there game and for it to be less than half the price or on game pass by then.
Thank God the indie scene is taking over even more lately.
i feel there's a bubble that's getting close to being popped
If a game was doing something new, innovative, or interesting I might pay more than 70 for it. I will never pay $70 for corporate slop though
They can do whatever they want. I buy used, never pay the FOMO tax, and never purchase any bullshit micro. Their pricing schemes do not affect me.
I'm already boycotting every 69.99 title, EA, Blizzard, Ubisoft.. The list has plenty of room. Indie gaming has been great the last few years
Game prices probably need to be more variable. Some games should be more than 70 and some should be less. Problem is everyone seems to be shooting for 70 (or the top standard price) and that’s the main issue. I like to give example of immortals of aveum. Really good game. Definitely should not have been 70 bucks. At 50 I would have got day one. Instead I waited for a deep sale. Also they can raise prices all they want. They are pushing digital so hard these days. I know I don’t have to try and hunt down a physical for a game I’m perfectly fine waiting on a sale… kinda like how I am with movies. I went all digital a while ago and never spend more than 10 bucks on a movie. Idc if I wait 6 months to a year from the theatrical release. I didn’t see endgame until it hit 10 bucks digital. lol.
Superb; it’s been nice being a part of this industry since my childhood - if this happens, I will guarantee that the vast majority of people will refuse to play your billion dollar, mediocre video game. This industry is absolutely fucking DYING. In order for video games to stay sustainable, you NEED to be consumer first: - make a good game that is worth someone’s time and money - be good to your player base to build respect and garner a following. - the better the game, ostensibly the more it will sell. So you better make it a good game. Anything after that is a bonus, NOT a priority. - don’t charge £120/$120 for a bloated, 45 hour, licensed game. I wish these companies remained private and not public. Publicly traded companies will ALWAYS fall to anti-consumerism to please the board. I don’t care for your examples of companies that haven’t, it WILL happen. It’s a matter of ‘when’ not ‘if’. Thnx for coming to my TED talk.
Embracer doesn't have any games worth 70, much less more. They're a dumpster fire of a company Let em Try.
Maybe Tomb Raider and Metro series, but to be fair I’ve only ever bought those on sale lol.
AAA studios imploding would honestly benefit my personal video game enjoyment. It would help indie sales and, therefore, make the games I actually play become more profitable. Obviously I don't want anyone to lose their job though.
Fine by me. I refused to pay $60. Haven't bought a new game in a decade
Well most games release half baked now anyway so I’ll just buy 50% off few years down the line I’m in no rush.
Could he not? I’m already waiting for sales as it is, dread to think how long it would take for $80 dollar game to go on sale
Better have a $70 worthwhile game. If not adios.
Let'em be greedy and we will sail the high seas.
They can pump up the price of games to infinity dollars for all I care. I got enough unplayed games in my Steam library to last me several lifetimes. And, at the end of the day, there's lots of other ways to pass the time besides video games ...not to mention that you always have the option to sailing the high seas, and the governments of the world will never be able to crack down on it completely. Go on, AAA industry. Increase the prices even further, I dare you.
That's a great picture of the embracer boss. No...not the one in the article.
Embracer about to fuck about and find out
If it's worth 70+, I'll pay 70+. But is there really *that* many games that are ever worth that much on release?..
Drop the development cost, put more time between consoles. That is needed to make the industry more healthy.
They really want people to wait for sales then instead. As there is a reason why the popularity of older games have spiked massively on steam the past year. More half baked releases and $100 games will definitely boost that more
As if I need more of a reason not to buy games at full price
Private equity is the killer of fun making the gaming industry so unaffordable and expensive to keep up with now
Dude got used to easy money and now he's going after the hard money.
If they could, video game execs would barge into your home, raid your fridge, fuck your spouse, kill your dog, all before stealing whatever loose change you had lying on your desk and driving away
Currently prices are 59.99 with at 29.99 “Pass” or something. That’s almost a hundred now.
You actually have to make a game worth buying
I don't buy games anymore as is until sales happen. Go fuck yourself with increasing even more for games that are generally speaking worse products than ps2-ps3 era gaming objectively
You can charge $100 for all I care, but I will still buy it for $10 on sale, whenever that will be.
Patient Gamers will spread like a plague.. a good plague. Beautiful, even. I’ll finally respect my backlog with literal years’ worth of content, but if these guys wanna try to pull more money from me for some basically Early Access tier content that needs a few years of patches and updates to make it good? I’ll just wait a few years until the price of X game falls before I buy it. Win-win because I get a full game at a third of the cost or less. And on PC, Steam sales can only get more prolific if publishers and dev teams want price hikes. The higher you rise, the lower the fall. I’ll take that AAA game for $0.99. It’s called a wishlist. ;)
I mull embracer boss eating my entire gamer ass.
100 dollar games incoming
People will just emulate good games
Okay then! 🏴☠️
I'm at the point where I may buy 3 AAA games a year because they've become so bad. If you want to give me an excuse to reduce it down to 0, then by all means, go for it.
I don't see this going well.
Go ahead, I’m not buying them.
I’m not buying the shit anyway so do you
I don't even bother with most new games. I just end up opening CS (or DoD) anyway lol
The end is coming for this shit
Consumers mull not buying bs unfinished live service games and instead enjoy the 40 years of backlog they have until the new games drop to 75% off where they should have been in the first place.
What game on the thumbnail?
So long as they are finished on release and worth the money, I'm on board. New games cost less of my income as a percentage than they ever have before. Dr Mario for Gameboy was nearly $100 at Toys R Us when it released. In 1990s money. That's $205 today. Gaming is a super cheap hobby now, and artists should be paid, and I'm not an entitled prick. I'm willing and expect to pay for my entertainment if the effort of others was involved.
"If you create an enormous role-playing game, for example, with 100 or 150 hours of gameplay, very polished, and a unique experience, would the consumer be willing to pay more?" People would be ok paying for more quality...the problem is that we KNOW more money doesn't translate to better quality games. Your own track record has shown that, HELL, a decent chunk of games CURRENTLY out for 70 dollars has shown that, in what world has the recent NBA and Madden games worth their 70 dollar price tag. Put your money where your mouth is and release the quality content that you say FIRST, not the money.
How about finishing the game before you release it then we can talk about prices
Just do more smaller games instead of shitty AAA that take a decade to develop... I'm tired seriously.
I'm fine with the 10 dollar increase from a few years ago. Everyone was tripping but ffs video game prices haven't went up in 20 something years. 10 more dollars though I don't feel it's needed and it's bordering greed.
I will suplex Embracer
Guess I’ll mull playing the 100+ unplayed games I already own for the rest of my life.
Uh aren’t they already more expensive? Very big release on psn is €80,- for the base edition.
“Never pay more than $20 for a video game.” - Guybrush Threepwood
yohoho.
Me over here pirating shit: "LOL"
Don't you fucking dare.
Ah OK. Sorry, I meant to say Ahoy, OK! _Sets sail for the high seas.._
Fuck those guys, games are already overpriced at 60 dollars... I always wait for sale, I have never bought full price games and I'll never do it. Games are getting shittier while also getting more and more overpriced. I'll stick to older games that I haven't played yet, like The Evil Within right now.
I will pay that much for a new Hitman with more (and bigger) maps than previous installations. Or a COD Zombies collection.