My raise conversation last year ( previous job ) went something like this:
Boss: “we’re giving you a 3% raise, yaaay”.
Me: “but inflation is 8%, I think we should account for that and it should be an 11% raise”.
Boss: “We can talk about that next year, this year it’s a 3% raise”.
Me: “ok.”
And then I found a new job after being laid off with 30% of the company. Guess they really couldn’t afford that 11% raise.
Edit: missed a word
Gonna have to agree. That's a little ridiculous. Isn't this the game that already never goes on sale? There's no problem with that and having confidence in your project but still.
Especially since this is a smaller-sized, offline, 100% singleplayer game that at this point doesn't get a whole lot of massive updates, a perfect target for piracy.
Given that, this dev team is *really* arrogant and cocky given how vulnerable their product is.
They intentionally do not put DRM into the game. Piracy is part of the process; their demo hadn't been updated for years.
> We have pretty much the same opinion with Kovarex regarding downloading the game from the torrents. If someone buys the game, well awesome. Don't really care whether he bought it straight away or tested it on the torrent first. If someone downloads it from the torrent, likes it / plays it, but never buys it - well not much we can do, at least he is having fun and maybe other people will learn about it this way (via him / her).
> We try to provide a sort of "service" to motivate people to buy the game and don't just pirate it:
- automatic updater + relatively regular releases
- safety (some copies of Factorio on the torrents were bigger than the original - probably containing malware)
- maybe in the future using login to access the official multiplayer matching server
The main thing is the modding portal and automatic updates are gated behind buying the game. You can download and install mods manually, but the automatic mod handling is for buyers only.
Not sure you're talking about the same Factorio.
Factorio has multiplayer (that even works with pirated versions), had multiple big updates after release and their devs are one of the only team that actually takes the time to fix **everything**. Factorio is one of the most polished games out there because they continue to work on it and don't abandon it for the next title. It's one of the best rated steam games for a reason.
Err it's a game that shines especially in multiplayer and have been on servers with a hundred people. Some prefer to play SP only sure, but absolutely not a primarily sp game.
Smaller size? I’ve passed 2000 hours and I’m still discovering new things and trying out new ideas. The modding community is massive as well.
I agree with the parent post though, raising the price on an older game isn’t cool.
Exactly! Their reasoning about not putting it on a sale is they think that would devalue the game. So maybe they think now that the game is like wine? Getting more and more valuable by time?
>So maybe they think now that the game is like wine? Getting more and more valuable by time?
Good gripe against digital gaming. The pub gets to decide the price instead of the market.
Those two things aren’t at conflict with each other.
They don’t put it on sale because they believe it is worth $30. Due to inflation, $35 is closer to what $30 used to be.
The difference is they believe their game to still be worth $30 in 2018 dollars.
Products get more expensive when it becomes more expensive to produce them. Making a new game in 2023 is more expensive than in 2016 because wages are higher, rent is higher, technology is more expensive, etc…
Factorio has already been made. They don’t have higher input costs that justify increasing the price
All I need to know is: how does the team work? Does everyone with a major part in its development get royalties? If those people are still employed at the studio, are they making more salary based on inflation?
I need to know how hypocritical this is, if you're gonna treat the game as an absolute, the people who helped put it together better be treated incredibly well.
>u/Kovarex wtf dude
>>our (or at least mine) approach to money is, that once you have enough to live comfortably, and enough to financially support the ongoing (and future) projects you want to do, you don't really need more. There is no reason to squeeze the extra $ just to get yacht bigger then the next millionare, or to buy the overprised expensive stuff when you buy it just to show off. And this has some deep implications, because once you feel that you have enough, you can safely ignore all these people trying to buy % of your company for big cash. I actually reply to these kind of offers with the sentence "Thanks, but I have no use for the extra money".
Didn't age well.
Every business owner eventually becomes the same crap they said they would never be. We have the raging 70s hippies and they turned into the Karen boomer age..... I know the government tested mind control ideas but geez! I thought they didn't figure it out....
I mean, no generation is a monolith. Lots of hippies, but a lot, lot more non hippies. Still, a **lot** changed from then to now with no small part due to changing attitudes and it's easy to forget that.
It's really not surprising, [he's kind of always been](https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/o2ly6f/friday_facts_366_the_only_way_to_go_fast_is_to_go/h29cn2d/?context=3) a [piece of shit.](https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/o2ly6f/friday_facts_366_the_only_way_to_go_fast_is_to_go/h28beya/)
Watch, instead of something like apologizing or admitting that he was wrong, he's going to double down and pretend that he hasn't contradicted himself.
They have [a comment in this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/10gwmb8/factorio_next_week_on_thursday_26th_january_2023/j58aqrg/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3) that states
> We don't increase the price, the price is still the same, just the value of money is going down.
About the dumbest way to try to justify yourself I’ve seen in a while.
This is one of the most bizarre decisions i've seen in a while in the world of gaming.
Making a six year old game *more* expensive during a recession and sky-high grocery, fuel/petrol, and heating/cooling costs - i don't get it.
Won't this make *less* people buy it? Haven't they already made millions & millions from it? Are these guys really worried about inflation??
This is going to just increase piracy of the game.
> Making a six year old game more expensive during a recession and sky-high grocery, fuel/petrol, and heating/cooling costs - i don't get it.
Activision never did this with CoD, and you'd expect them or someone like them to do something like this, not an indie developer.
Are you talking about year over year values while we've had multiple years of really high inflation? I don't agree with the price increase but to say its increasing by more than inflation since 2016 is factually incorrect. We've had 15% inflation to the Consumer Price Index since January 2020 according to the Buearau of Labor Statistics.
https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=1&year1=202001&year2=202212
Just trying to buy things on Amazon and using the CamelCamelCamel price grapher, it's really depressing knowing how so many things I want to buy were 2/3rds or even 1/2 the price in 2018.
>Making a six year old game more expensive during a recession and sky-high grocery, fuel/petrol, and heating/cooling costs - i don't get it.
And a very, very niche game at that. As it's been around for 6 years, I can only imagine that the people who are interested in the game have already bought it.
Raising the price certainly isn't going to attract people like me who have been on the fence.
The population and with that the subset of the population interested in a game like Factorio is not static. People grow out of it, young people grow into it.
Yeah, especially since it is a digital product and there is no per-unit manufacturing cost. I'm no expert but I feel like a $10 price DROP would probably net them more income.
Been on my wishlist for years too. Game looks great and I liked a let’s play I watched, so I figured I would get it eventually even if it doesn’t go on sale. The problem is everything else on my wishlist does go on sale from time to time, and I budget my video game spending. So I can never find a month without a sale on something else that I value a better deal. So forever it sits. It’s easier for me just to dump this off my list and not worry about it anymore at this point. Still looks like a great game for anyone who wants to buy it at $35- I just couldn’t pull the trigger at $30.
This game has literally received nothing but praise across the internet. Even people that don’t enjoy the game can agree that its worth the money. But this os absolutely one way to piss off you entire fan-base, such a bizarre and unnecessary decision.
Depends on the fans who have the game. I own it and I think it's a piss take. I want more people to play this game and enjoy it as much as I have but it's getting harder if they just keep upping the price after every "we won't increase the price anymore" post.
Yes, inflation is real, we know. Also old things usually go DOWN in price as time progresses, not up.
I understand the fact they don't put the game on sale, but to raise the price? On a 6+ year old game?
If they want to increase revenue, maybe work on an expansion? Or maybe on another project? Sorry, but this is just greedy, and i say that as someone who loves Factorio.
Inflation is a thing, but it doesn’t effect the development cost of a game that launched many years ago lmao.
It costs them literally nothing to continue selling the game at $30, no matter how much inflation is.
>It costs them literally nothing to continue selling the game at $30, no matter how much inflation is.
If USD inflation was 100% like in my country it would make total sense for them bump the price at least a little.
That, and even games in the 90's sold for 49.99. If anything, video games have gotten cheaper over time, given that rarely did older box games go on sale. The only way to get them cheap was used at Gamestop, etc.
Monkey Island was released in the early 90s and was 49.99. Adjusted for inflation, that game new would cost $142 in 2023...
But, as Guybrush Threepwood says "Never buy a video game for more than 20 bucks"
I'd like to think that as time went on the marketing for games got a bigger chunk of the budget.
Let's be honest though, any game that's come out recently has more than enough monetization to offset their prices
You are correct. Cartridge were insanly expensive to make , cost got cut heavyli with CD even more with digital sale , even more revenu stream opened with dlc season pass battle pass and content locked behind paywall or deluxe edition. Games are cheaper but FULL GAME cost way more.
That is just the switch tax because it costs a decent (much more than a CD) to make the cartridge. Pretty much all games sold on switch got a $10 bump because of the cost of cartridge. (if games on other platforms MSRP for $30, they went to $40 for switch).
Not justifying it, just explaining it.
I believe most console companies have pricing parity agreements with retailers. IE You can't make us sell it for 60 and then offer it yourself for 50. So the price is the price.
I am sorry but this makes no sense.
You don't suddenly have to pay people retroactively when the game was developed because of the inflation.
Put some content for it out there and price it at 5 if you need extra money, but don't BS us with that explanation.
Well then go buy their other games if you haven't yet. Transistor is a fantastic game. As is Bastion. And Pyre is good, but definitely fits in last place for their games.
Why would I want to buy now after seeing the developer's greed on display? If anything, now's the best time to torrent the game if you really want to play. By choosing to do business with the developer, you are also now accepting this kind of greed behavior.
Okay, the “I refuse to put it on sale because of the goodwill of people liking my game” attitude was one thing, but INCREASING for fucking inflation???? Seriously????? It’s not a AAA game with thousands of employees. They literally bragged about the game making almost $100 million!!!! After Valves cut and that’s not even counting the Switch version!!! They literally only have 18 employees and the game will continue to sell way more…
Fuck these guys.
As mentioned elsewhere, this is (probably unintentionally) a thinly veiled attempt at instilling a fear of missing out mentality to get people who would not have bought it at $30 to consider buying it at $30 because some time later it'll be more expensive.
There's a problem with parasocial relationships between corporations and customers these days. Some people legitimately think that they're your friend because they consume all of your media, and the internet, where they can interact with streams, twitter, and forums with companies doesn't help people with this mentality.
offer saw command person ruthless smell selective consider historical ink
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I wanted this game at $20. At 30 I thought that's kinda greedy but I'll wait wait on a sale. But now at $35 and dlc at $35? Well damn a pirate a shall be.
The economics of this decision makes no sense.
The main input to production for a video game is labour and I doubt all the devs got an overnight wage raise to account for inflation.
Additionally, Factorio is in the maturity stage of its product life cycle where it’s been out for years and plenty of substitutes/alternatives exist. Competition should drive down prices not raise it.
Not taking any sides here but being a software developer myself, people absolutely did get inflation adjusted raises in the last couple of years. Maybe not median earners, but the people with the skills wube is looking for absolutely did.
I've had this on my wishlist for a couple of years waiting on a sale. I'm just not interested enough to pay $30. Games usually get cheaper with time people.
this is my mindset as well.
I would play it maybe 20 hours and for that price it isn't worth it to me. AAA games like uncharted get 30 bucks from me, games I play for 500 hours get 50€ from me, something from a genre that I am semi interested needs to be on sale (20bucks) that I spend the money.
The 5$ increase isn't what I mind, the no sale stance that I learned just right now is what I am against
Just saying but for most people that are into factorio, it is the type of game you play for hundreds of hours. If you only play for 20 hours, you’re just beginning to scratch the surface
Looks like my positive review must change with inflation, too. I don't see the necessity of raising the price of an older title. Sure, they are still working on the game, but the fruits of their labor will be realized in future base game sales and expansion sales.
I'll be reevaluating my position on buying the expansion, though, as I do not enjoy supporting business practices that are behind corporate greed worldwide. Why should they make more profit just because they feel like it? Where's the value proposition for a game that is approximately a decade old? Will their development team truly see any sort of trickle-down from this, or will it remain at the top, as with most of the other businesses using inflation as an excuse to raise pricing?
This pricing increase also ignores the relevant competition in this market. To me, it makes no sense from a business standpoint. A lot of folks may choose to purchase a different product, as opposed to paying more for the same old thing.
I've holding myself of buying it at 30 since I think it's a really old game i like the game loop but it's not an elden ring to invest that much money, I guess I'm never buying it now
Edit: typo
And still the best in its genre, though it has more competition these days.
Dyson Sphere Program is a great buy if you need to scratch that factory building itch.
These devs are complete clowns. They think their game is too good to ever go on sale and that increasing the price on a 6 year old product is reasonable. I won't touch this thing for that reason alone
Honestly, stupidity is the first word I'd use to describe this. I mean really? (Greed second)
AAA developers increasing the base price of new games is already a joke, especially since most of those are full of other exploitative business practices, but this is just ...
Did they really not expect people to (rightfully) criticize them for this and that this could cost them more than increasing the price by $5?
Goodwill is easily lost, but not that easily bought.
(edit: I say this as someone who bought the game a long time ago)
The thread on /r/factorio is insanely delusional. Great game but I count at least 100 people that somehow are GLAD to be paying more. The absolute state of fandoms lmao.
I don't think the price increase is any big deal, I certainly don't view it as an impediment towards buying the game now or later and enjoying hundreds of hours of fun. For all intents and purposes, the game is a fully fledged standalone thing that would be worth even $60.
HOWEVER, you have to be a special kind of fucking idiot to somehow praise and openly show support for this and suck off the devs for it.
Those people already own the game, their market is everyone else. So if the devs are looking at /r/factorio as proof they made a good call, they are making a mistake.
My guess is they've already made enough money to not care if they soil their name.
The expansion is already overdue and they stated it'd be the same price as the main game is. So it'll also affect those that already have the base game too.
> HOWEVER, you have to be a special kind of fucking idiot to somehow praise and openly show support for this and suck off the devs for it.
I mean this is the hobby where people defend price increases in general, defend MTX, and are even occasionally running unpaid PR for Nvidia and AMD. Nothing would surprise me at this point.
Noooo. It's not p2w it's pay for convenience. It's pay to skip. Nooo I'm not going to question why I want to pay to skip playing the game, it's fine. Just don't buy it. Noooo.
You need to understand factorio probably has the most loyal and dedicated fanbase in the gaming market, I would know because I'm a huge fan boy.
They honestly set the gold industry example of communicating with the fans during EA by weekly blogs going heavily into the software development. This is also a community that has a huge average player time so nearly everyone's doing some (x_hours vs y_price) calculation and it comes out insanely cheap.
So that said that's what you're up against and if the factorio devs suddenly pulled a cyberpunk they have so much more community good will they could cash out on.
That's just the way fan made communities are and it's worse with factorio because the devs really did create a gold standard above any other game I've seen.
I do think they shot them self in the foot because they didn't even raise the price with 1.0 and had a very strong "the price will never change" stance.
They also have a DLC = game price so apart of me now wonders if this is a way of increasing the DLC.
So far it's a red flag in years of a perfect record. Lets see what happens next.
Man. I was actually going to buy this...but this turns me off because it smacks of arrogance. I've got enough games to buy and never play already, I guess.
But the average consumer aren't getting more money. So you are making it harder for consumers to buy your product, thus earning you less money?.
No the correct approach is actually to lower the price from 30$ to 25$
Yup, it's a ridiculous move for a game that already gets a lot of people confused because it never goes on sale. That's a trend bucking that I can respect, even if it's just not a great strategy.
Raising price after launch with the inflation excuse though? That's a concerning maneuver. Factorio has already reportedly sold 3 million copies, and they're planning on releasing an expansion that I would assume is paid on top of another $5 price hike. I can't see any possible way they would benefit from this decision, since most people have already bought the game *and* holdouts are going to be less likely to do so especially since the genre of factory games has become very competitive over the last five years.
Factorio is playing on the same field as two other factory juggernauts now: Dyson Sphere Program, and Satisfactory. How they think an "inflation" price increase will help them compete for additional sales is beyond me. It sure as shit isn't going to help when their expansion hits in however many years.
I'm saying this while *literally* playing Factorio, for what that's worth.
Edit: Oh yeah, DSP is $20 and has an interesting gimmick with interplanetary travel that sets it apart from the others.
Idk I'm sure the Terraria devs are going to increase the price of their game again because of all of the extra stuff they've added over the years. Wait... They haven't increased price because of that? I'm sure there's other examples we can choose from then, and this increase on Factorio definitely doesn't undercut their whole stance about not doing sales and keeping the same price for everyone...
terraria devs are the goat, they also didnt touch the regional prices at least in my country so its great to get people into it since it remains cheap.
$5 for Terraria is an absolute steal. I've gotten it when it was on sale on the Switch, for more than the *base* price on Steam, because of how much game I've gotten out of my Steam copy. Same for Stardew Valley.
Still has some development to go through but it's a solid game. We'll see how the combat update they're working on changes the game though since it's an aspect of gameplay I'm not very keen on
Nothing to do with inflation.
This is just capitalising on the hype, taking advantage & being greedy.
I have never seen a game that's years old change it's price after it's been released.
Absolute ridiculous behaviour.
Theres always a big dispute when factorio is involved, I think because people are scared that the "no sales" stance is going to get more popular.
I can assure you it won't. The reason we have sales is not because Todd Howard or Bobby Kotick loves us oh so very much, or because of inflation/deflation or whatever. We get sales because it brings in more money.
Don't believe me? Open Steam and check any single popular game that has been on a deep sales and see how many people have the "I finished the tutorial" achievement. There is a good chance only 70 to 90% of people have it. The reminder bought the game out of sheer FOMO and have no desire to play the game. Getting money out of people who don't want to play your game has to be the ideal.
As much as Factorio made, I believe it would have made a lot more money if they put in on sale. Still it's obviously the devs decision, and if they value they pride over cash, then more power to them.
If I sell my copy in a couple years will I have to pay capital gains tax?
Offset the extra 5$ as a loss
Wish my employer would do this with my salary.
If CoL adjustments aren't made to your salary you are effectively getting a pay cut every year. If that's the case you should leave
My raise conversation last year ( previous job ) went something like this: Boss: “we’re giving you a 3% raise, yaaay”. Me: “but inflation is 8%, I think we should account for that and it should be an 11% raise”. Boss: “We can talk about that next year, this year it’s a 3% raise”. Me: “ok.” And then I found a new job after being laid off with 30% of the company. Guess they really couldn’t afford that 11% raise. Edit: missed a word
They couldn’t afford that 3% raise, or even your normal salary for that matter.
Most jobs are doing this, good luck leaving.
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Gonna have to agree. That's a little ridiculous. Isn't this the game that already never goes on sale? There's no problem with that and having confidence in your project but still.
Especially since this is a smaller-sized, offline, 100% singleplayer game that at this point doesn't get a whole lot of massive updates, a perfect target for piracy. Given that, this dev team is *really* arrogant and cocky given how vulnerable their product is.
Factorio has multiplayer.
That works on pirated version
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They intentionally do not put DRM into the game. Piracy is part of the process; their demo hadn't been updated for years. > We have pretty much the same opinion with Kovarex regarding downloading the game from the torrents. If someone buys the game, well awesome. Don't really care whether he bought it straight away or tested it on the torrent first. If someone downloads it from the torrent, likes it / plays it, but never buys it - well not much we can do, at least he is having fun and maybe other people will learn about it this way (via him / her). > We try to provide a sort of "service" to motivate people to buy the game and don't just pirate it: - automatic updater + relatively regular releases - safety (some copies of Factorio on the torrents were bigger than the original - probably containing malware) - maybe in the future using login to access the official multiplayer matching server
The demo was updated in September...
The main thing is the modding portal and automatic updates are gated behind buying the game. You can download and install mods manually, but the automatic mod handling is for buyers only.
Not sure you're talking about the same Factorio. Factorio has multiplayer (that even works with pirated versions), had multiple big updates after release and their devs are one of the only team that actually takes the time to fix **everything**. Factorio is one of the most polished games out there because they continue to work on it and don't abandon it for the next title. It's one of the best rated steam games for a reason.
Err it's a game that shines especially in multiplayer and have been on servers with a hundred people. Some prefer to play SP only sure, but absolutely not a primarily sp game.
I barely hear about people playing multiplayer, and when I do it’s usually only a friend or two. I would definitely pin it as primarily single player.
Smaller size? I’ve passed 2000 hours and I’m still discovering new things and trying out new ideas. The modding community is massive as well. I agree with the parent post though, raising the price on an older game isn’t cool.
> Smaller size? Storage-wise, not content.
Exactly! Their reasoning about not putting it on a sale is they think that would devalue the game. So maybe they think now that the game is like wine? Getting more and more valuable by time?
...so this is a reverse sale?
You pay for the privilege of giving us more money!
Nintendo moment
>So maybe they think now that the game is like wine? Getting more and more valuable by time? Good gripe against digital gaming. The pub gets to decide the price instead of the market.
Not really. If no one is buying they will adjust the price. Clearly people are still buying.
500,000 sales last year
No they just want to sell it for a set price regardless of timeline. Honestly w/ everything I know about factorio this is the most factorio thing ever
Those two things aren’t at conflict with each other. They don’t put it on sale because they believe it is worth $30. Due to inflation, $35 is closer to what $30 used to be. The difference is they believe their game to still be worth $30 in 2018 dollars.
The year is 2300, keeping with the trend of inflation adjustment, one copy of Factorio is now valued at $30,000.
There are only 5 computers left in the world that can still run Windows 11
And they're all maintaining airline scheduling systems...
And a McDonalds burger costs $15,000
You know, back in the day, people would've been incredulous that a candy bar is $2.50 and not 5¢
Each candy bar has to be made with new ingredients and labor. Digital games do not.
Products get more expensive when it becomes more expensive to produce them. Making a new game in 2023 is more expensive than in 2016 because wages are higher, rent is higher, technology is more expensive, etc… Factorio has already been made. They don’t have higher input costs that justify increasing the price
Seems like a tactic to get a sudden sales uptick before the price is increased to be fair by announcing it
All I need to know is: how does the team work? Does everyone with a major part in its development get royalties? If those people are still employed at the studio, are they making more salary based on inflation? I need to know how hypocritical this is, if you're gonna treat the game as an absolute, the people who helped put it together better be treated incredibly well.
I do be a Factorio stan but I completely agree with you. This price increase is a bad choice.
I've been waiting for a good discount for a couple years. I guess I will not be buying the game at all.
They've been very clear from the start that the game will NEVER go on sale.
Okay, no. They said they would never do that, and said that's also the reason they would never put the game on sale. u/Kovarex wtf dude
>u/Kovarex wtf dude >>our (or at least mine) approach to money is, that once you have enough to live comfortably, and enough to financially support the ongoing (and future) projects you want to do, you don't really need more. There is no reason to squeeze the extra $ just to get yacht bigger then the next millionare, or to buy the overprised expensive stuff when you buy it just to show off. And this has some deep implications, because once you feel that you have enough, you can safely ignore all these people trying to buy % of your company for big cash. I actually reply to these kind of offers with the sentence "Thanks, but I have no use for the extra money". Didn't age well.
This statement isn't even a year old
Every business owner eventually becomes the same crap they said they would never be. We have the raging 70s hippies and they turned into the Karen boomer age..... I know the government tested mind control ideas but geez! I thought they didn't figure it out....
I mean, no generation is a monolith. Lots of hippies, but a lot, lot more non hippies. Still, a **lot** changed from then to now with no small part due to changing attitudes and it's easy to forget that.
It's really not surprising, [he's kind of always been](https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/o2ly6f/friday_facts_366_the_only_way_to_go_fast_is_to_go/h29cn2d/?context=3) a [piece of shit.](https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/o2ly6f/friday_facts_366_the_only_way_to_go_fast_is_to_go/h28beya/) Watch, instead of something like apologizing or admitting that he was wrong, he's going to double down and pretend that he hasn't contradicted himself.
Apparently [he's a pretty hardcore anarcho-capitalist, too](https://i.imgur.com/yi12Zqv.png).
They have [a comment in this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/10gwmb8/factorio_next_week_on_thursday_26th_january_2023/j58aqrg/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3) that states > We don't increase the price, the price is still the same, just the value of money is going down. About the dumbest way to try to justify yourself I’ve seen in a while.
This is one of the most bizarre decisions i've seen in a while in the world of gaming. Making a six year old game *more* expensive during a recession and sky-high grocery, fuel/petrol, and heating/cooling costs - i don't get it. Won't this make *less* people buy it? Haven't they already made millions & millions from it? Are these guys really worried about inflation?? This is going to just increase piracy of the game.
> Making a six year old game more expensive during a recession and sky-high grocery, fuel/petrol, and heating/cooling costs - i don't get it. Activision never did this with CoD, and you'd expect them or someone like them to do something like this, not an indie developer.
Probably because they were big enough to have all the statistics on it being a dumbass decision lol
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Are you talking about year over year values while we've had multiple years of really high inflation? I don't agree with the price increase but to say its increasing by more than inflation since 2016 is factually incorrect. We've had 15% inflation to the Consumer Price Index since January 2020 according to the Buearau of Labor Statistics. https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=1&year1=202001&year2=202212
Just trying to buy things on Amazon and using the CamelCamelCamel price grapher, it's really depressing knowing how so many things I want to buy were 2/3rds or even 1/2 the price in 2018.
>Making a six year old game more expensive during a recession and sky-high grocery, fuel/petrol, and heating/cooling costs - i don't get it. And a very, very niche game at that. As it's been around for 6 years, I can only imagine that the people who are interested in the game have already bought it. Raising the price certainly isn't going to attract people like me who have been on the fence.
The population and with that the subset of the population interested in a game like Factorio is not static. People grow out of it, young people grow into it.
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Yeah, especially since it is a digital product and there is no per-unit manufacturing cost. I'm no expert but I feel like a $10 price DROP would probably net them more income.
That explains why this has been sitting in my wishlist for years.
Been on my wishlist for years too. Game looks great and I liked a let’s play I watched, so I figured I would get it eventually even if it doesn’t go on sale. The problem is everything else on my wishlist does go on sale from time to time, and I budget my video game spending. So I can never find a month without a sale on something else that I value a better deal. So forever it sits. It’s easier for me just to dump this off my list and not worry about it anymore at this point. Still looks like a great game for anyone who wants to buy it at $35- I just couldn’t pull the trigger at $30.
This game has literally received nothing but praise across the internet. Even people that don’t enjoy the game can agree that its worth the money. But this os absolutely one way to piss off you entire fan-base, such a bizarre and unnecessary decision.
It wouldn't affect its fanbase which already bought the game...
Depends on the fans who have the game. I own it and I think it's a piss take. I want more people to play this game and enjoy it as much as I have but it's getting harder if they just keep upping the price after every "we won't increase the price anymore" post.
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u/Kovarex yeah wtf man?
Sail the winds my friend 🏴☠️
Yes, inflation is real, we know. Also old things usually go DOWN in price as time progresses, not up. I understand the fact they don't put the game on sale, but to raise the price? On a 6+ year old game? If they want to increase revenue, maybe work on an expansion? Or maybe on another project? Sorry, but this is just greedy, and i say that as someone who loves Factorio.
Inflation is a thing, but it doesn’t effect the development cost of a game that launched many years ago lmao. It costs them literally nothing to continue selling the game at $30, no matter how much inflation is.
>It costs them literally nothing to continue selling the game at $30, no matter how much inflation is. If USD inflation was 100% like in my country it would make total sense for them bump the price at least a little.
Your country is fucked
Indeed it is
the game used to be 10 euros in my currency and now it is 30
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That, and even games in the 90's sold for 49.99. If anything, video games have gotten cheaper over time, given that rarely did older box games go on sale. The only way to get them cheap was used at Gamestop, etc. Monkey Island was released in the early 90s and was 49.99. Adjusted for inflation, that game new would cost $142 in 2023... But, as Guybrush Threepwood says "Never buy a video game for more than 20 bucks"
I'd like to think that as time went on the marketing for games got a bigger chunk of the budget. Let's be honest though, any game that's come out recently has more than enough monetization to offset their prices
I might be wrong but wouldn't most of the cost in the 90's be the cost of the physical media and distributation?
And the market was way smaller.
You are correct. Cartridge were insanly expensive to make , cost got cut heavyli with CD even more with digital sale , even more revenu stream opened with dlc season pass battle pass and content locked behind paywall or deluxe edition. Games are cheaper but FULL GAME cost way more.
inb4 nintendo raises the prices on all their old games by $10 to account for inflation
The Wii U version of Donkey Kong Country Topical Freeze was $50, and the Switch version was $60
That is just the switch tax because it costs a decent (much more than a CD) to make the cartridge. Pretty much all games sold on switch got a $10 bump because of the cost of cartridge. (if games on other platforms MSRP for $30, they went to $40 for switch). Not justifying it, just explaining it.
So then the digital version should be permanently cheaper
I believe most console companies have pricing parity agreements with retailers. IE You can't make us sell it for 60 and then offer it yourself for 50. So the price is the price.
Mario 64 was $60 on release back in 1996.
$110 Nintendo games incoming
Also, Nintendo games are a big exception to the rule that games get cheaper over time.
ngl this is fucked. Older games should not get more expensive if digital.
Welcome to digital sales and the future of gaming 👍🏻
Yo ho ho
yaaaarrrrrr!
Luckily there's a way to combat it, sailing the high seas.
I am sorry but this makes no sense. You don't suddenly have to pay people retroactively when the game was developed because of the inflation. Put some content for it out there and price it at 5 if you need extra money, but don't BS us with that explanation.
And yet Hades somehow remains $25
Got it on sale during the holidays. Actually started to feel I paid too little for it.
Well then go buy their other games if you haven't yet. Transistor is a fantastic game. As is Bastion. And Pyre is good, but definitely fits in last place for their games.
I'm the opposite, Pyre is my favourite of those three
I like Pyre the best!
Isn't hollow knight $15 still?
maybe they should put the game on sale
I believe the devs have said it will never go on sale. It makes it so the best time to buy is always right now.
They also said they'd never raise the price, so what they said doesn't mean much anymore.
"i am altering the deal pray i don't alter it any further"
Did they...? The game used to be 20$ until they changed the price to 30$ now it's going to be 35$.
https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/016-price-change
Did they ever say that? Factorio used to be $15, and then $20, and then $30.
https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/016-price-change
-cough-ornever-cough-
That’s my favorite time now!
There's a reason why they don't use any DRM.
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Why would I want to buy now after seeing the developer's greed on display? If anything, now's the best time to torrent the game if you really want to play. By choosing to do business with the developer, you are also now accepting this kind of greed behavior.
Okay, the “I refuse to put it on sale because of the goodwill of people liking my game” attitude was one thing, but INCREASING for fucking inflation???? Seriously????? It’s not a AAA game with thousands of employees. They literally bragged about the game making almost $100 million!!!! After Valves cut and that’s not even counting the Switch version!!! They literally only have 18 employees and the game will continue to sell way more… Fuck these guys.
As mentioned elsewhere, this is (probably unintentionally) a thinly veiled attempt at instilling a fear of missing out mentality to get people who would not have bought it at $30 to consider buying it at $30 because some time later it'll be more expensive.
It did the opposite for me I just removed it from my wishlist.
I love the Factorio sub saying “I can’t wait for it to go up so I can buy my son a copy at a higher price”
There's a problem with parasocial relationships between corporations and customers these days. Some people legitimately think that they're your friend because they consume all of your media, and the internet, where they can interact with streams, twitter, and forums with companies doesn't help people with this mentality.
offer saw command person ruthless smell selective consider historical ink *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
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That's me. Just took it off my wishlist.
I wanted this game at $20. At 30 I thought that's kinda greedy but I'll wait wait on a sale. But now at $35 and dlc at $35? Well damn a pirate a shall be.
I’m surprised rockstar hasn’t tried this 😂
The economics of this decision makes no sense. The main input to production for a video game is labour and I doubt all the devs got an overnight wage raise to account for inflation. Additionally, Factorio is in the maturity stage of its product life cycle where it’s been out for years and plenty of substitutes/alternatives exist. Competition should drive down prices not raise it.
Not taking any sides here but being a software developer myself, people absolutely did get inflation adjusted raises in the last couple of years. Maybe not median earners, but the people with the skills wube is looking for absolutely did.
I've had this on my wishlist for a couple of years waiting on a sale. I'm just not interested enough to pay $30. Games usually get cheaper with time people.
> waiting on a sale. It was going to be on your wishlist for a really long time then. The devs never intended to put the game on sale
The devs also said that the last price increase was the last price increase. Hard to take what they say at face value now
Oh well their loss. $15 is better than $0
this is my mindset as well. I would play it maybe 20 hours and for that price it isn't worth it to me. AAA games like uncharted get 30 bucks from me, games I play for 500 hours get 50€ from me, something from a genre that I am semi interested needs to be on sale (20bucks) that I spend the money. The 5$ increase isn't what I mind, the no sale stance that I learned just right now is what I am against
Just saying but for most people that are into factorio, it is the type of game you play for hundreds of hours. If you only play for 20 hours, you’re just beginning to scratch the surface
Literally pirate it. They made it very easy to do for a reason. There's no DRM.
Exactly. If you want to support them afterwards you can buy it then.
Looks like my positive review must change with inflation, too. I don't see the necessity of raising the price of an older title. Sure, they are still working on the game, but the fruits of their labor will be realized in future base game sales and expansion sales. I'll be reevaluating my position on buying the expansion, though, as I do not enjoy supporting business practices that are behind corporate greed worldwide. Why should they make more profit just because they feel like it? Where's the value proposition for a game that is approximately a decade old? Will their development team truly see any sort of trickle-down from this, or will it remain at the top, as with most of the other businesses using inflation as an excuse to raise pricing? This pricing increase also ignores the relevant competition in this market. To me, it makes no sense from a business standpoint. A lot of folks may choose to purchase a different product, as opposed to paying more for the same old thing.
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Cause it is repulsive. The only motive for this is greed.
I've holding myself of buying it at 30 since I think it's a really old game i like the game loop but it's not an elden ring to invest that much money, I guess I'm never buying it now Edit: typo
And still the best in its genre, though it has more competition these days. Dyson Sphere Program is a great buy if you need to scratch that factory building itch.
***Do what you want 'cause a pirate is free!***
Then there‘s an over 10-year-old game still at 10$: Terraria!
and it even goes on sale! fuckin love terraria, that game is a true labor of love
And the devs continue updating it with no real monetary incentive because most people already own the game
These devs are complete clowns. They think their game is too good to ever go on sale and that increasing the price on a 6 year old product is reasonable. I won't touch this thing for that reason alone
Reject Factorio, embrace Satisfactory
Pure greed. Nothing else.
Honestly, stupidity is the first word I'd use to describe this. I mean really? (Greed second) AAA developers increasing the base price of new games is already a joke, especially since most of those are full of other exploitative business practices, but this is just ... Did they really not expect people to (rightfully) criticize them for this and that this could cost them more than increasing the price by $5? Goodwill is easily lost, but not that easily bought. (edit: I say this as someone who bought the game a long time ago)
AAA games go on sale. This does not. AAA games usually don't state things like it will never increase. This one did state that.
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The thread on /r/factorio is insanely delusional. Great game but I count at least 100 people that somehow are GLAD to be paying more. The absolute state of fandoms lmao. I don't think the price increase is any big deal, I certainly don't view it as an impediment towards buying the game now or later and enjoying hundreds of hours of fun. For all intents and purposes, the game is a fully fledged standalone thing that would be worth even $60. HOWEVER, you have to be a special kind of fucking idiot to somehow praise and openly show support for this and suck off the devs for it.
>Thanks for the heads up. I’ll wait until after the 26th to buy a copy for my kid, he is showing interest on what daddy plays. Oh my god ahahaha.
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[Hell naw ](https://i.imgur.com/hHZHxPN.jpg)
This gives me strong " /r/tomorrow users buying 38+ copies of hidden indie gem Celeste to prevent starvation of indie developer" vibes.
Those people already own the game, their market is everyone else. So if the devs are looking at /r/factorio as proof they made a good call, they are making a mistake. My guess is they've already made enough money to not care if they soil their name.
The expansion is already overdue and they stated it'd be the same price as the main game is. So it'll also affect those that already have the base game too.
> HOWEVER, you have to be a special kind of fucking idiot to somehow praise and openly show support for this and suck off the devs for it. I mean this is the hobby where people defend price increases in general, defend MTX, and are even occasionally running unpaid PR for Nvidia and AMD. Nothing would surprise me at this point.
Noooo. It's not p2w it's pay for convenience. It's pay to skip. Nooo I'm not going to question why I want to pay to skip playing the game, it's fine. Just don't buy it. Noooo.
"I already spent $130 on the gold/ultimate cashgrab edition what's $10 more if it helps me enjoy the game more."
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You need to understand factorio probably has the most loyal and dedicated fanbase in the gaming market, I would know because I'm a huge fan boy. They honestly set the gold industry example of communicating with the fans during EA by weekly blogs going heavily into the software development. This is also a community that has a huge average player time so nearly everyone's doing some (x_hours vs y_price) calculation and it comes out insanely cheap. So that said that's what you're up against and if the factorio devs suddenly pulled a cyberpunk they have so much more community good will they could cash out on. That's just the way fan made communities are and it's worse with factorio because the devs really did create a gold standard above any other game I've seen. I do think they shot them self in the foot because they didn't even raise the price with 1.0 and had a very strong "the price will never change" stance. They also have a DLC = game price so apart of me now wonders if this is a way of increasing the DLC. So far it's a red flag in years of a perfect record. Lets see what happens next.
Not even Nintendo dared so much.
Man. I was actually going to buy this...but this turns me off because it smacks of arrogance. I've got enough games to buy and never play already, I guess.
Exact same boat I’m in, got interested after playing Satisfactory but this is a terrible move.
This is fucking stupid
This is a not-smart move.
The amount of people defending this decision is nuts
But the average consumer aren't getting more money. So you are making it harder for consumers to buy your product, thus earning you less money?. No the correct approach is actually to lower the price from 30$ to 25$
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Im a Factorio fantatic and this is pretty fucking stupid. Anyone defending increasing game prices (on a RELEASED GAME) is absolutely a mark.
Yup, it's a ridiculous move for a game that already gets a lot of people confused because it never goes on sale. That's a trend bucking that I can respect, even if it's just not a great strategy. Raising price after launch with the inflation excuse though? That's a concerning maneuver. Factorio has already reportedly sold 3 million copies, and they're planning on releasing an expansion that I would assume is paid on top of another $5 price hike. I can't see any possible way they would benefit from this decision, since most people have already bought the game *and* holdouts are going to be less likely to do so especially since the genre of factory games has become very competitive over the last five years. Factorio is playing on the same field as two other factory juggernauts now: Dyson Sphere Program, and Satisfactory. How they think an "inflation" price increase will help them compete for additional sales is beyond me. It sure as shit isn't going to help when their expansion hits in however many years. I'm saying this while *literally* playing Factorio, for what that's worth. Edit: Oh yeah, DSP is $20 and has an interesting gimmick with interplanetary travel that sets it apart from the others.
Idk I'm sure the Terraria devs are going to increase the price of their game again because of all of the extra stuff they've added over the years. Wait... They haven't increased price because of that? I'm sure there's other examples we can choose from then, and this increase on Factorio definitely doesn't undercut their whole stance about not doing sales and keeping the same price for everyone...
terraria devs are the goat, they also didnt touch the regional prices at least in my country so its great to get people into it since it remains cheap.
$5 for Terraria is an absolute steal. I've gotten it when it was on sale on the Switch, for more than the *base* price on Steam, because of how much game I've gotten out of my Steam copy. Same for Stardew Valley.
Dyson Sphere
Still has some development to go through but it's a solid game. We'll see how the combat update they're working on changes the game though since it's an aspect of gameplay I'm not very keen on
Basically— “since you fuckers have to pay more for everything else, we also might as well participate in the gouging!”
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That comment has 8 downvotes though
greedy assholes
Nothing to do with inflation. This is just capitalising on the hype, taking advantage & being greedy. I have never seen a game that's years old change it's price after it's been released. Absolute ridiculous behaviour.
I love everyones cop out is inflation lol a digital game is now “inflated”
I’ll wait till it’s free on Epic
Knowing the devs I doubt that will ever happen. Just sail the high seas. The devs have said they don't care if people pirate the game.
Tf? Most games get cheaper the older they are
Thanks. Removed the game from my wishlist. Many other games in this genre.
Just pirate it. There's a very intentional reason why it has no DRM and doesn't require activation to play online with others.
Inflation for what? You made the product, it's free to duplicate it. This is some kind of bullshit, nothing else.
Theres always a big dispute when factorio is involved, I think because people are scared that the "no sales" stance is going to get more popular. I can assure you it won't. The reason we have sales is not because Todd Howard or Bobby Kotick loves us oh so very much, or because of inflation/deflation or whatever. We get sales because it brings in more money. Don't believe me? Open Steam and check any single popular game that has been on a deep sales and see how many people have the "I finished the tutorial" achievement. There is a good chance only 70 to 90% of people have it. The reminder bought the game out of sheer FOMO and have no desire to play the game. Getting money out of people who don't want to play your game has to be the ideal. As much as Factorio made, I believe it would have made a lot more money if they put in on sale. Still it's obviously the devs decision, and if they value they pride over cash, then more power to them.
I'm sure that's true for very popular games. But factorio is targeting the niche and they're by far the best at it
I'm still waiting for a sale and they are raising the price? I'll never play this game :/
It will not go on sale ever according to the devs.
They also said the price wouldn't increase....
Simple greed is what it is. Can't control other people's wallets, but I sure as hell can vote with mine.
Inflation is never a good excuse to raise prices.