Current Events > $70 Game Prices

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Why on earth would anyone make a topic specifically to defend paying higher prices for games?

name one $70 game that's been good

For some reason this exact topic comes up a lot in gaming. No other hobby I know does this. For some reason this hobby has a huge company fanboy problem and it leads to things like
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/b90b1d2e.jpg

Why on earth would anyone make a topic specifically to defend paying higher prices for games?

Because they support the gaming industry. Gone are the days when a game can go from a concept to a finished product in 3 years or so, Astro being the exception. AAA games when from a few dozen people in 3-4 years to a few hundred over the course of a decade. Prices had to rise. And people being resistant to raising prices led to the freemium/battle pass/seasons BS we have now. And that's infinitely worse them paying 70 bucks then to be nickel and dimed or have my time disrespected with asinine time investments to actually get access to all the content meant to be in the game.

Because they support the gaming industry. Gone are the days when a game can go from a concept to a finished product in 3 years or so, Astro being the exception. AAA games when from a few dozen people in 3-4 years to a few hundred over the course of a decade. Prices had to rise. And people being resistant to raising prices led to the freemium/battle pass/seasons BS we have now. And that's infinitely worse them paying 70 bucks then to be nickel and dimed or have my time disrespected with asinine time investments to actually get access to all the content meant to be in the game.

Ok but it was SOP on consoles before DLC. How many Street Fighter II releases are there? MGS 1-3 each had enhanced rereleases (though 1 didn't make it to North America). A number of SNES games had rebalanced/bugfix rereleases (two examples are Killer Instinct and Mega Man X(1)). Then there was a whole slew of "enhanced ports."

Also most of the budget ballooning lately is due to employee compensation

For some reason this exact topic comes up a lot in gaming. No other hobby I know does this. For some reason this hobby has a huge company fanboy problem and it leads to things like
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/b90b1d2e.jpg

Games should cost over $100 today, but gaming is highly competitive which hasn't allowed anyone to raise their prices until very recently. It has nothing to do with size of market, cost to make games, technology, etc that people like to bring up - it's entirely based on how competitive it is.

This has caused companies to find other ways to make money, usually through DLC and has also lead to launching unfinished and/or very cookie cutter products. If games were more expensive we would likely see a much higher ceiling for game quality and higher quality games all across the board.

The gaming industry is wide enough now that games will always be offered at all price points, including free. I think it's silly that there's a theoretical cap on quality because no one is allowed to sell a game over $70

I don't know how you can even type that with a straight face. There has never been a clearer time than right now that budget does not equal quality. Indie games have never been more popular and the AAA gaming side has never received so much controversy and backlash for outright laziness and greed

If you had tried to understand what I wrote, you would realize what you are saying and what I am saying are the same

Am I missing something? You write that more expensive games would lead to games being higher quality. I said that's demonstrably not true. And you're saying we agree?

Games right now are not expensive, they are about the cheapest they've ever been. I'm saying if price had increased regularly we would see higher quality games, but because it has not we see low quality games today.

Well we clearly don't agree and clearly you didn't bother to read what I said then if you think we do agree. Because demonstrably what we've observed is that if a gaming company like Blizzard or EA squeezes more money out, it doesn't result in a higher quality game. It only results in more money funneled to executives and reinvested into more quick cashgrab opportunities.

Games should cost over $100 today, but gaming is highly competitive which hasn't allowed anyone to raise their prices until very recently.

1. no they shouldn't
2. your reason of high competition is a driver of costs going down

1. no they shouldn't
2. your reason of high competition is a driver of costs going down
they were overpriced back in the 80s and 90s because there wasn't enough competition

this is basic economics

you don't look when the market is small and emerging and go "adjust for inflation that was more than today! so prices need to go up!"

no this where you realize how economics works and understand why they are cheaper today is literally how EVERY other good works too.....

Games right now are not expensive, they are about the cheapest they've ever been. I'm saying if price had increased regularly we would see higher quality games, but because it has not we see low quality games today.

Back in the SNES days you had games cost more due to higher production and shipping costs, it was when Sony entered the market and CDs were super cheap that production costs went down so Sony sold games at $50 both because they could with lower production and shipping costs but also to under cut Nintendo who was still using expensive carts.

this is false as games at the $70 price are lower quality then many games at the $40 price

You just misunderstood the post and thought I was saying something like "games should be more expensive because gaming is competitive"

NintendoFanGirl posted... Games should cost over $100 today, but gaming is highly competitive which hasn't allowed anyone to raise their prices until very recently.

well it definitely sounded like you said games SHOULD cost more

cause you literally said games should cost over $100

perhaps you worded it wrong?

I didn't say we agree, I said we were saying the same thing, which we were when you made that post. I don't believe blizzard or EA has ever released a $100+ game (base, not "platinum edition" or whatever) so I'm not sure what examples you're referring to

They don't release a $100 game because now they know psychologically gamers will stomach a $60-$70 game with microtransactions and season passes built in, resulting in magnitudes more money than if they had charged $100 for a game. And with all of this extra revenue they don't build better games. They simply pay their executives more, and research more psychologically addictive and morally gray ways to extract money in future games.

Meanwhile indie games with small teams of a dozen developers are winning game of the year awards.

So that is 1. subjective and 2. just more indicative of the problem if true. AAA game prices are typically capped to $60-$70, so AAA games in this price range will suffer the most from the quality crunching that I mentioned

It's made over $1.2billion. Cost $200million to make. 1 game $1billion profit.

100 millionBaldur's Gate 3 by Larian Studios, on the other hand, had a budget of $100 million. That's the same amount as any major Hollywood movie. Both games draw inspiration from the isometric RPGs of the 90s, particularly the ones developed by Black Isle Studios, which was the precursor to Obsidian

maybe it is subjective at some level

yet Elden Ring at $60 made amazing profit and is regarded by user score (buyers of it) as one of the greatest games

then you have games like Concord
games like Suicide Squad

it is not about what they are allowed to charge people

infact that is a stupid argument anyways because no one is forcing them to price games at $70, there is no legislation forcing that price

it is they know gamers won't pay more and they shouldn't pay more because all the reasoning is bullshit

And that's awesome (indie games winning awards). But AAA games really should have a higher price cap. Even if the average AAA game cost $100, there would still be plenty of games at the $60 price range or less

you would see the average AAA would be made with higher quality than the average AAA game right now.

Why the fuck should AAA games have a higher price cap? You're acknowledging that by some metric of game quality (game awards) indies are outperforming. It sounds like you're close to agreeing with me that the quality is 100% uncorrelated with the money game companies have. Although you said they were correlated before. And yet you're still insisting that we should pay more for lesser quality games? Why? Why would I ever do that? I'm not making donations to corporations, I'm trying to buy a high quality video game.

Do you even know what you're arguing at this point?

no you would not

great quality games come out and they make billions in revenue\profit and are highly regarded by gamers

the stinky AAA that come out and we all agree are low quality are not because "oh they weren't able to charge more than $70 for them!!!"

it is because those studios are either greedy themselves or exploited by greedy management

we know this because we have games like Black Myth Wukong

price is absolutely unrelated

star wars outlaws would not be a good game if they raised the price $50

It's obvious they should have a higher price because they are one of very few products in existence that doesn't increase with inflation, which in this case is problematic for reasons already stated

It's obvious they should have a higher price because they are one of very few products in existence that doesn't increase with inflation, which in this case is problematic for reasons already stated

Okay. I mean we've already completely backtracked from your original post in this thread that games would be better if we paid more. And now we're apparently just saying that we should pay more because we haven't been paying more.

I think I'm ok ending this discussion here, and I'm beginning to wonder why I responded to someone named NintendoFanGirl on the topic of gamers' problem fanboying for game companies.....

maybe it is subjective at some level

yet Elden Ring at $60 made amazing profit and is regarded by user score (buyers of it) as one of the greatest games

then you have games like Concord
games like Suicide Squad

it is not about what they are allowed to charge people

infact that is a stupid argument anyways because no one is forcing them to price games at $70, there is no legislation forcing that price

it is they know gamers won't pay more and they shouldn't pay more because all the reasoning is bullshit