My hard limit for video games has stayed at 40 dollars for a while, and only for games I’m really excited about (which has been Hitman and pretty much nothing else in recent years). I do try to pick up less expensive indie games at full price to support the teams, but big AAA releases can wait for a sale.
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In Canada I’ll probably out on even more games than I already am, at least at launch. Already been paying $80 for new games for years, and companies have been itching to raise it further. Nintendo in particular has a habit of listing first-party stuff for $99.99 pre-orders with retailers just to dodge any pre-order price guarantees. They always drop the price back down to $79.99 closer to release, but they’ve been covering their bases waiting for the day prices go up. Currently have 13 Sentinels pre-ordered on Amazon and it’s pending at $93 or something.
Wouldn’t be as concerning if I didn’t still trend physical for single player games. “I’ll just get Control for $30 in six months” is less valid when physical copies of Control stopped existing 2 weeks after it came out. Doubly true for all the niche weeb shit I still play, but that’s been the case since like the PS2.
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After wracking my brain I think 80% of the games I’ve spent more than $40 on over the past few years have been first party Nintendo games? Mainly because sales on those are so much rarer and seem to take a lot longer to come.
I can count the others on one hand, I’m pretty sure (and they were usually more AA(?) than AAA, like Sekiro or Control, where I feel more like I’m supporting a developer than I would sending that money directly to Sony). Which is to say that outside of Nintendo’s walled garden, I don’t see myself actually spending this much on any individual game very often at all.
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Luckily (not really) i’m already poor so don’t buy $60 games anyway (Usually theyre £45-49 in the UK). I wrote something on Reddit the other day about how being a parent changed my gaming habits from playing the new thing to not caring about the new thing because I don’t have the time or the money and how that was a blessing in disguise because now I get to enjoy games without the release discourse surrounding them, not paying full price and playing for enjoyment not some need to be clued in.
It feels selfish to say ‘game prices rising doesn’t effect me, so it’s fine’ but it will effect a lot of smaller reviewers and freelancers (usually people from minority backgrounds with diverse voices) who wont get code. Secondly, as already said in the thread, are the devs and other workers going to feel any positive effects of this of is this all CEO and shareholder money? I think we know the answer to that.
So, no i’m not worried about games increasing in price since I only buy games way after release when they’re on sale. But I am worried about diverse voices being priced out of their work and conversations about games coming out.
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I’m fine as long as 2K becomes a worker-owned collective. Instead this is all going to some CEO or a few shareholders.
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I am in a fortunate situation where a $10 increase won’t really affect my ability to play new AAA games, but I do see myself potentially leaning into Game Pass more if the difference is “Pay $70 for this thing” versus “It’s already on Game Pass”
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I’m of two minds about this. On one hand, of course I’m not happy with corps fattening their bottom line like this. On the other, this is such a low impact change overall for most people who don’t buy new AAA games every month that I’m having a hard time mustering outrage.
I had a quick Google for the exchange rate which is apparently £55 and that’s definitely the norm over here in Blighty these days. Pretty much every Nintendo first party title on the Switch store is £59.99 and most places on the high street (excluding Tesco for some titles and Shop-to more often than not online) have AAA titles starting at around £55.
ETA: 20% on Value Added tax might well be the reason for that.
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Yes, for us in the UK, ‘$70 games’ means £55×1.2=£66, thanks to VAT.
Game should be priced whatever they need to be priced to ensure that they labour of those making them is fairly compensated. Which, in AAA games, is not going to happen at any price point.
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Which is why I am totally fine with MTX as a concept, but that money doesn’t go to the developers (except maybe in the case of Bungie).
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I think if this sort of change in pricing happens and then microtransactions become a lot less prevalent as a result, I could be happy with it. But I think we all know that publishers are not letting go of that golden goose anytime soon.
If $70 does become the norm, then I’m absolutely going to buy fewer AAA games at launch. It also seriously increases the already substantial value of Game Pass.
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I ended up doing the big game pass to ultimate conversion and so far do not regret it at all. I think all told it came out to $200 for 3 years? I have definitely gotten that value back already I feel like. Played a lot of big games I never would have bought like Gears of War and the Halo collection but a ton of smaller games as well.
With this price change I think it becomes harder to argue against subscription services like game pass. This then directly impacts decisions on what console you end up getting. I don’t play a ton of console games anymore but I have game pass ultimate so why would I not eventually just pick up an Xbox. I have a ton of games already available to play on it at no extra cost and it’s still great to have something hooked up to the TV for when friends are over.
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Games have been $70 in Canada for years and years now. With tax that can bring the cost of a new game over $80. With this news am I to expect to spend $90 on a new game?
No thanks, actually. I rarely buy big games new anymore. The last one was Control, and that’s because I’m kind of a fan of Remedy. There really isn’t even anything on my radar that I want to spend that kind of money on again any time soon.
On top of the fact that I find most AAA games to be boring and rote and feel they rip off other media poorly with only a base understanding of what made them good. I have absolutely zero issues skipping most big game releases and getting them a year later for half off.
Though granted, even at half off, at the prices they are talking about, it may still not be worth it.
If I knew the money was going to development, mmmmaybe I’d be more inclined, but I doubt that’s the case. The game industry still does not pay very well compared to similar jobs in other areas.
Unless you’re an exec.
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I have no earthly idea how Microsoft is making that work financially, but I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
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As much as my rational brain knows this is justified, my lizard brain still gets strong sticker shock from a $70 price tag. The nine-year-old in me still thinks that’s a lot of money. Of course it’s probably a moot point for me since the games I’m most interested in are in the $40 or under price bracket; I could probably count on one hand the number of $60 games I currently buy per year. I’m also guessing I’ll be somewhat insulated from it as a PC gamer, where it took longer for $60 to become the norm and it’s common for games to be discounted by 10% or more before they even launch. I guess there’s no way to neatly sum up my feelings on the topic, if only because I know it will primarily affect AAA games, and that’s where I’m least inclined to spend my money these days.
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I think it’s widely speculated that they’re taking at least a bit of a loss for now to get as many people subscribed as possible. Get enough people hooked into it, and eventually it becomes one of those recurring subscriptions that aren’t even thought about - they hit 10 million subscribers in April - extrapolate that out to anywhere from $10-15 per subscriber per month depending on if they’re doing Ultimate or not, and you’ve got $100-150 million in revenue being generated every month. Add in that Phil Spencer has said that Game Pass subscribers actually end up buying more games (likely from trying stuff and deciding they want to buy, or buying something before it leaves the catalog), and the finances start to work themselves out.
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Game Pass also does not include DLC or microtransactions normally. Going back to Crusader King’s 3, that game is going to have DLC and I imagine you’re going to pay separately for it.
Game Pass also gets you discounts and I think they put the games that are rotating out on sale. So if you really liked something you can keep playing it.
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Though the MS-published games have started to include their “Ultimate Editions” which include Season Passes and what not, in Game Pass Ultimate. Or at least they did for Gears 5 last year, and I would imagine that’s going to continue with their first-party output.
uncharted 5 for $5,000?
