I haven’t seen a single developer that thinks the current price of a game is high enough. They always cite how much it costs to make the game as the reason why they should be more expensive to buy.
And yet… Hollywood spends about the same to make a blockbuster film and movie tickets aren’t $70 nor do people in the film industry say they should be higher.
Also…like…who needs an ultra realistic videogame? Cel shading and other techniques usually age better anyways. I want games to be fun first and foremost. Eye candy is just candy without substance.
Some games like Elite Dangerous benefit from ultra realistic, but I’d hardly call that a mass market game, it’s more for simming.
The Coors Light of shooters could probably be cel shaded and be just as fun in 2024 as the next release 9-12 months later. And they could save a lot of overhead costs.
The Coors Light of shooters could probably be cel shaded and be just as fun in 2024 as the next release 9-12 months later. And they could save a lot of overhead costs.
The first is XIII (Gamecube), the second is Metal of Honor: Rising Sun (PS2). Both were released in 2003. I’d definitely say XIII holds up better visually.
They always cite how much it costs to make the game as the reason why they should be more expensive to buy.
They’re not wrong, but the audience just isn’t swallowing higher upfront prices. The only way they’re squeezing more out is with DLC, battle passes, mtx etc. which only work in specific types of games that have already saturated the market. It’s kind of an impossible situation atm.
You realize that sales come in varying magnitudes, right? Each individual decides what a game is worth to them, and if that means a 50% sale might have been sufficient for a $60 game, but that it’ll take a 65% sale to make an $80 game worth it, then so be it.
There’s a fundamental disconnect here and I’m not sure where it is, so let me just explain my position and maybe you can tell me where you’re confused.
Let’s take, for instance, a game which at full price is $40, a game that’s $60, and a game that’s $80.
In all of these cases, let’s assume I have decided that I am willing to pay $20.
In the first case, I will wait for a 50% sale, and buy the game.
In the second case, I will wait for a 66% sale, and buy the game.
In the third case, I will wait for a 75% sale, and buy the game.
If that sale magnitude doesn’t happen, I won’t buy the game. Similarly, if I’ve lost interest in the game by the time that sale magnitude happens, I won’t buy the game.
It’s very simple. Nobody is forcing you to pay $80 for a game, and nobody is forcing you to buy it just because it’s 50% off, if the 50% off price is not low enough that you feel it’s worth your money to buy it. It’s OK to just not ever buy a game.
And now increase the price a little more, until you never ever reach your 20 bucks target price point. Please just stop playing obtuse. You should know how percentages work.
Yes, because you know what? It is a solution, if everyone does it. If they started releasing games at $80, and everyone just said “Nope, sorry!” and refused to pay it, that practice would stop really fast. I have a huge game backlog, and there’s tons of great indie games with $10-$25 price tags that won’t be subject to this bullshit.
What’s your plan to discourage this practice, complain about it on Lemmy and then buy the games anyway? I’m sure that’ll be madly successful.
I can’t control what anyone else does, but I can control what I do, and I’m right there with the post I’m agreeing with: I’ll wait for a sale, and if that sale never comes, I won’t buy it. There’s no disagreement or contradiction there.
I mean, let them try? I, for one, basically stopped buying new games (with the occasional exception for an indie dev). By the time the worst bugs are fixed, it’ll be on sale for 50% off anyway.
Yeah, I don’t see any reason to buy (or pre buy!) any game at all. At launch you’re paying double for a beta version basically. Like you said, wait for the actual game to be released a few months later at a good price.
Good call mentioning pre-orders as well. I never did it back in the age of physical media, but there was at least a reason for it then. Now the only reason to do it is to get some bonus skins or other garbage with your buggy game.
I’ve loved every Besthesda game and preordered Fallout 76…learned from that mistake and never again. I’ll put games on my steam list and wait for a sale.
I just picked up Fallout 2 at GOG for $2.49. There are so many games you can get for less than the price of a coffee. The best way to fight against these prices is to simply not buy.
Did you know that Coffee Stain Studios, the publisher behind the beloved pro-consumer Deep Rock Galactic, belongs to Embracer Group? I’m sure this mentality will lead to nothing bad happening to the monetization of this game in the long run.
Who cares? There’s 10’s of thousands of high quality gaming hours across every genre already created. You don’t need anything they are currently making, certainly not for years
At this point I see anything above $40 as a red flag. Free games or $60 games and I’m almost guaranteed to be treated as the product instead of the other way around.
The more something costs the more I expect from it. Baldur’s Gate 3, was $60 on release. If you want that or more from me, my personal expectation is your game is if the same quality or better.
I’m not even going to wait for a sale. Because by the time a decent sale comes around an indie developer has made a better game for cheaper, and I’ve already bought it, and I’m playing it. Your old, overpriced game means nothing to me. There is no shortage of entertainment and the hype for these games often dies so fast you’re really not missing out.
Basically buy any game that Tim Cain and/or Brian Fargo were involved with, and you’re set.
They are older so they don’t rely on expensive hardware, they are usually replayable, they’ve usually won a lot of awards, and they are usually very cheap.
Controversial take but having the industry fixed at $60 only will increasingly encourage predatory models as inflation continues. Price should be reflective of the quality and content of a product, not a fixed standard.
I’d agree with you if studios producing actual high-quality games (like Elden Ring or Baldur’s Gate 3) were hurting for money, but they don’t appear to be. So what is the justification for the higher price? All I see is more money being shoveled towards investors, or used to buy (and bleed out/close) smaller studios.
I think I bought Shadow of the Beast for almost that much in 1988 or 89. Of course, it came with a t-shirt and cool Roger Dean poster, which added some to the cost.
Point being, games certainly were this expensive for a long time, and I’d agree with them being that expensive again, but for the money going to vulture capitalists who’ll soak me via DLC on top of that. And I won’t get a Roger Dean poster, even.
One half of my mind wishes developers did make more money because these games are so much more effort than the games that were the same price decades ago, but the other half knows that devs don’t see a dime of that hiked price.
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