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.
So, Control’s release and DLC plans all happened about a year before folks were asking about compatibility and upgraded versions for next-gen consoles, so I get why it was never a promised feature back then. I don’t understand why they are making a break between those versions and the upcoming Complete version for the next-gen upgrade, but I also don’t jive with the anger over the decision.
Personally, I’ll be playing the AWE DLC when it comes out. I never really expected Control to move forward to the next console (and I honestly can’t even afford new hardware at launch) so I’m fine with finishing it out on the platform I originally paid for.
While we don’t yet know the full scope of backwards compatibility on both new consoles, there’s every indication that the EXISTING PS4 and XBO versions of Control will still be playable, as they currently are, on the new consoles. Additionally, Control isn’t exactly a game with many compelling reasons to come back to once you’ve finished the story content. Is a PS5 or XBSX version of Control going to add anything significant to the experience to make it worth playing again on another console? Aside from performance improvements, or utilizing PS5’s haptic feedback, probably not! It will be a way to ensure the game reaches new audiences, sure, but is the existing audience really served by getting a second native version of the game? Probably not!
As with many instances of the Gamers Getting Angry, this whole outrage reeks of entitlement.
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It’s just bad optics at the moment, since it’s a big focal point of this generational transition. Most people who bought the deluxe edition recently would probably not object to a $10 troll toll for an upgrade, I don’t think the negative PR was worth the few potential people who will begrudgingly rebuy.
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The whole thing reminds me of why Steam Machines was a great idea and how the loss of them as a real competitor in stores to consoles is a bummer.
Consoles at this point might as well be PCs. I get that real work goes into these ports but at the same time can’t help but feel like console players just keep getting the short end of the stick more and more.
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I hear you and hope my post didn’t come off as falling in that entitled camp. I tried to be careful with my language cause yeah nearly every other site I visit aside from here def sees people falling into that. Fwiw I was def a current gen player that was looking forward to playing the game again next generation in the same way I might want to upgrade a fav movie from a worn out vhs to Blu-ray; its a game that hit at a rough spot in my life and meant a lot to me and while I enjoyed it a ton on ps4 I had pretty significant performance issues, revisiting a version that runs better would be really nice.
Again I really hear you on entitlement, but I think there needs to be room to push back against what feels like shitty business practices especially when there’s little evidence this extra money will benefit the actual developers. I think there’s a difference between that and making entitled demands of the writers, programmers, actors etc of a game / studio.
More than anything though I think it’s interesting how this further shakes up the smart delivery promise of this console generation. I’m interested to see how or if other studios and publishers work around it going forward
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Is it entitlement when the publisher is crowing about a FREE* NEXT GEN UPGRADE? They’re the ones who created the expectation, because they wanted to brag about how GENEROUS they’re being, even though they’re not actually being generous at all.
*(with $40 purchase)
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Yes, it is entitlement, because the publisher has been explicit about what will and will not receive the upgrade.
This is just like when a popular game that was previously sold outside of Steam gets onto Steam: everyone who previously purchased the game suddenly expects to get a Steam key, even if that was never promised on the initial purchase. It is an expectation of being entitled to something just because newer customers will also Get A Thing.
