Back in 1996 AAA games sold for $60 to $75. If we take the lowest price of $60 and adjust it for inflation, that would be $119 today. Computer games today are unrealistically cheap. And if you look at how much more effort goes into development, they’re pretty much free.
I think there is a bigger market for them now though. What was the most popular video game in the 90s and how many copies sold vs the biggest games now? And now with steam and other sevices you don’t even have to manufacture as many discs. Even freemium mobile games are making billions in revenue.
And yet they tend to be a worse experience, release before they are ready with DLC already ready to go, riddled with microtransactions and other awful issues. They aren’t worth more.
Back in 1996, the average computer cost $2-6k adjusted for inflation. Now they are also much more difficult and complex to make, are much more powerful, and cost less.
Yes, a bunch of effort has gone into development, but that development doesn’t disappear after the game is done. And now we have free, open source game engines that can be filled with assets made in free, open source 3d modeling software, using free, open source high level programming languages. A little bit of learning and the average person could make an early 2000s video game solo in a couple of weeks.
Sekiro still sell for 60 dollar. The industry figured out they can use scarcity in a form of limited time discount to encourage customer to make purchase, so there’s no need to lower the base price forever.
Very nice! I just picked up watch dogs and watch dogs 2 deluxe editions as a bundle for like $13 after tax.
I’m even eyeing the rdr2 sale on epic right nowcfor under 25.
There are so many good options that don’t look dated at all to me.
Honestly, crysis looked amazing on my 10 year old laptop. I kind of want to replay them again on my new one to see how much better everything looks on ultra.
I loved to bully the bad guys with the cop and gang calling feature in Watch Dogs 2.
I would just sit there and wait until the NPCs killed themselves. ;D
Have yet to play Watch Dogs 1.
Kind of have a track record of playing a series in reverse…
Gang wars were my jam while playing WD2. Cruising around the block scanning people for botnet recharges, and calling in reinforcements every time one side gets wiped out… Good times.
On the one hand, games have stayed the same price for a long time, well below the rate of inflation.
On the other, wages have also stayed well below inflation for a long time. I don’t expect they’ll see the growth they want when a game purchase takes a larger and larger bite out of someone’s paycheck.
It’s a good example for how inflation isn’t something constant that affects everything equally. Game development costs are mostly wages, if wages stay below inflation then development costs stay below inflation unless teams get larger, and especially game development is known for paying rather low wages.
@nanoUFO I’m still not used to new games costing $70 USD yet since I buy most of my games used. In my head, $70 games are still the “Deluxe Editions”. If someone released a $100 game, I’d probably think of it as the “Super Deluxe Edition” and wait for it to be $60.
I pretty much exclusively play and buy indie games nowadays but in Canada it’s around $80 to $90 for new games not including tax. Don’t think any AAA game would draw me for that kind of price. I could get selaco, crow country and probably world of goo 2 for that price.
That’s a significant portion of the cost of a brand new console! That’s two weeks worth of electricity for my house! That’s 6 months worth of my mobile phone service! Jesus wept.
I’m not paying more than £40 for a video game, and at that price it had better be a GREAT game.
I mostly wait until they’re in the £20-30 range anyway, even if that means waiting for sales. I’m not in a rush, I’ve got plenty of other games I can play in the mean time after all.
Not OP, but also from the UK. I pay £8 per month for 5 gigs of internet traffic and unlimited everything else. Last month I used less than 1 gig… I can probably switch to a £6 tariff with just 2 gigs, but I use closer to 5 from time to time and don’t want to switch back and forth all the time. For £25 I can get unlimited traffic.
Plus you’d think that with distribution costs, shelving costs, CD stamping costs and printing manuals, they’d already be cutting our costs… but it’s not about us.
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