uncharted 5 for $5,000?
Back in 2009 in Ontario Canada, thanks to currency conversion, new AAA games were already $70. Since then, thanks to the fluctuating dollar, I’ve seen them drop back to $60 (par) and then head back up to $80.
This doesn’t really affect me, because I’ll never buy a AAA game at launch, and have a hard time understanding why anyone even would.
There are so many great, independent games out there, often produced far more ethically than any AAA product, typically available for a lot less dollars. As usual, they get ignored for the games with the big marketing budgets, even by folks who are so into games that they can’t claim ignorance of these independent titles.
When I used to work at Wendy’s in 2004, our cheapest combo was about $5. Now it’s literally double that. Minimum wage out here hasn’t exactly doubled in the same amount of time.
This isn’t really a debate about inflation, unless it also acknowledges how we’ve all been fucked over by capitalism keeping our wages from rising.
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I’m a 35 year old dude with 2 kids. Buying a game on release is already always a mistake since I won’t actually get to play it for months anyway. I can’t think of many potential games where $70 for the base feels like something I’d do.
I think it will work fine for annualized franchises like sports games and CoD type games. A lot of the fanbase for those games only buy a few games a year anyway and it’s to keep current with the franchise they play.
I could see Sony trying it for their “prestige” style single player games like Last of Us and God of War. Those games come out, you play them and then you move on. No menus filled with micro transactions. And you wouldn’t want to miss out on The Discourse, would you?
I’m just not convinced it’s going to fly for most games though. Games come out at every point on the 0-60 price scale these days and things like steam sales have really trained a lot of the audience to wait until they see a price they like. I get a ton of free games that I’ll never find time to play on things like Epic and Twitch. The games market is weird and overflowing.
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Y’know, for all the talk about the increasing price of games, it’s actually pretty neat to think that you can buy a next gen system this fall and get a good chunk of the launch lineup for an extra $8 a month or less. That plus cross gen compatibility of controllers and this will be the first gen since the SNES and Genesis that you can get a fully functional system right out of the box.
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I’m not deep enough into the indie scene to pick up on the cool stuff that doesn’t achieve Gone Home/Celeste escape velocity. And, for the most part, the kinds of indies that get discussed on Waypoint Radio are either Not My Kind Of Jam or they’re PC-only games, which means I’m unlikely to get to them.
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It’s just about the only reason why I’m still considering jumping in on Day 1 for a Series X…it’ll all come down to final price and if they continue doing that Xbox All Access thing they started over the past year or so.
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Not for nothing, but the console indie scene is pretty robust at this point. I highly recommend grabbing a month of Gamepass or PSNow and going HAM on a bunch of smaller games.
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I do like the flexibility that indies have when pricing games. I’d love to know more about some of the hardcore wargames that don’t bother putting their games on Steam, GOG, etc. and sell on their own sites for like 70-100 bucks.
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I can’t remember the last game I paid full price for that wasn’t developed by Nintendo. Those games you might as we’ll buy right away because that price ain’t slipping anytime soon.
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A price hike was inevitable and, as someone mentioned upthread, accounting for inflation $70 today is less than $60 in 2006, and it stays at least roughly equal through 2011-2012 or so (depending on what calculation you’re using). It’s also substantially less than the $50 price point common in the NES and SNES eras. I buy new games rarely enough that the a $10 difference won’t change my calculation all that much. I do wish the surplus was going to worker salaries or improving workplace conditions rather than into Bobby Kotick’s pocket, but that’s a different conversation.
However, average worker wages have remained stagnant since 2006 as well. Combined with inflation, that just means that people have a smaller discretionary budget than they used to, because the prices for non-discretionary stuff has been going up (sometimes with inflation, sometimes far faster than inflation (rent)) that whole time. A $60 price tag on a discretionary purchase in 2020 is already asking people to spend more, relative to their budget, than they did in in 2006 even if the “price” hasn’t changed. Inflation doesn’t justify a price hike, it makes the price hike more punishing.
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As someone who rarely buys brand new games I’m okay with it. And I think games should have gone up in price here a decade ago. The thing for me is that brand new video games feel like something that belongs to the middle classes and up already. So price increases here aren’t a bother for me personally. Doubly so with the race to the bottom non nintendo games go on.
Edit: in Japan games have had variable pricing forever and it is absurd that doesn’t exist here. Dragon Quest is not hurt at all costing 2000¥ More than most regular aaa games.
I genuinely have no idea how it works in Japan but wouldn’t every company just raise their prices over here if someone managed to get away with selling their title at an extra 20 bucks?
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I agree with @tobascodagama that this price hike will make it so “mainstream” video games will increasingly cut out lower income consumers and families. Locking out some marginalized people and possibly making the video game industry revert back to a deeply white space (Well even more then it already is). Although that might be a reality that was going to happen anyway and it on the government rather than the companies to fix that. Maybe this will move some gamers over to Itch.io but I highly doubt that because Itch.io is not well known to the average person.
I also find the blanket prices of games worrying. It feels like a small group of big publishers have the power to set the price for all games. It gives Oligopoly vibes. I think different games should be prices relative to amount of money, time and energy went into it. Instead of the industry set 60, 30, 15 price tags depending on how many As the game is considered to be.
I know my personal video games spending will go down if the price hike is casted across the industry but maybe that is for the best.
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I feel like I heard this discussion on Weekend Confirmed (there’s a throwback for you) like…10 years ago? It’s sort of a mirror reflection of the mobile market: the entry point for the mobile market (assuming the presence of a cell phone - its own classist kettle of fish) is free, so suddenly paying $10 for a mobile game kinda seems ridiculous. On the boxed end of things, games coming in under $60 are generally seen as “budget” or “less than.” And if Wal-Mart can’t move them, Wal-Mart doesn’t want to stock them.
So three cheers for indie games on digital storefronts.
I paid a lot of money for Smash Bros Ultimate since I got the DLC expansion pass along with my game preorder. Basically it depends on the kind of game that it is. I know I’m going to love Smash and play hundreds of hours of it, so I’m happy with spending that money. With almost any other game, I’ll wait until it’s at least 30% off in a sale to buy them anyway.
I appreciate that games are more expensive to make now, but, what if maybe they didn’t need to be that expensive.
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So not exactly the same thing but related to next gen pricing, id really love to hear some thoughts on the Control ultimate edition news. Basically it’s a new 40$ version of the game the includes the expansions and a ‘free next gen port’ that will not be available to people who already own the game / season pass.
Honestly as someone who bought the game and season pass already I can’t help but feel kinda burned by this. I know we’re talking about a huge company here so at the end of the day their goal is to make money, but even with that caveat I have trouble wrapping my head around this decision. Why this vs either a straight up and down ‘you have to buy the game again on next gen’ or just giving the upgrade to everyone? Is there really a portion of their current audience that sees this decision and then goes out and buys the game again?
The other part of this is it raises a ton of questions as to what backwards comparability and ‘smart delivery’ mean for this generation. If more companies take this route the major selling point of this generation goes out the window. I was already going to wait to get a new console but with these kinds of questions around how bc is going to work I’m even less inclined to upgrade.
Idk, how do y’all feel?
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I guess it hurts less considering that Control will work as a back compat title (presumably) with the next gen consoles. But yea, it does feel scummy to only let an arbitrary portion of the fan base have access to the better looking version.
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I think the really shitty move was not announcing this months ago when they started selling the DLC and season pass. Or at least offering a $10 “upgrade” to anyone who bought said Season Pass and/or the individual DLC.
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Fuck 'em. I’ll watch the AWE DLC on Youtube.
