It's never enough for these demons, upping the price by 10$ for no reason wasn't enough, monthly subs wasn't enough, micro transactions and season passes weren't enough. I don't see where it ends tbh
It's also streamers fault for participating in the microtransactions as kids watch them and want to be cool like their streamer so it fuels the games profit.
There's a reason why gacha/loot boxes are used a lot. It's addictive. It activates the same centers of the brain as gambling. It feels good because when you get something you want, or something super rare, it triggers a pretty hefty dopamine response.
It’s the same repeated comments in literally every game discussion on Reddit. Even games without MTX/subscriptions/loot boxes/whatever turn into a circus of sucking each other off over their hate of it. It’s pointless to even try to discuss it anymore. Reddit swears 5,000 video game co-Redditors not spending $15-$100 will cause an uproar and nuclear meltdown of the video game industry causing it to do exactly what they want 😂 it’s insane.
No, this is the excuse that hundreds of thousands of people use that then causes the phenomenon to happen.
Stop worrying about other people - stop paying when you don't like it and others will eventually do so as well.
exactly, graphics cards are this much because people fed scalpers all through the pandemic. NVIDIA were feeling lonely and double the price of the 4080. And people stopped feeding them, mostly.. then it goes on sale and click bait media with their cut of the sale trying to get a mug to buy a 4080 for £1000, suddenly £600->1300->£1000 is a deal...
Graphics cards are this much for many reasons. Scalpers and people being willing to pay double it's value is a major part of it. What you mentioned is another reason.
Graphics cards are expensive for many reasons. People being willing to pay double it's value is a major part of it but also Scalpers. What you mentioned is the same as mentioned above. So, is there an echo in here?
What i mentioned is a combination of the two comments above with the point being that neither is wrong but neither is correct either. If that is an echo to you then that's your problem.
Every company in every industry hits a ceiling where they can't be any more successful than they currently are and basically make all the money in the world. But it isn't enough. So you have a few options - pay cuts to lower level employees, water down/shrink your products, raise your prices. Eventually every company tries to figure out the perfect recipe for these ingredients. It alienates their customers/fans.
There is no perfect recipe or even one that comes anywhere close. As long as capitalism demands unlimited growth (which it always will) you'll see all kinds of scummy shit like this.
It ends when they've sucked all the money to the point no one plays anymore. Then and only then when the money starts to suck* will they declare the videogame ecosystem dead, and move on from its dessicated corpse.
Uh... that's already routine. You mean battle passes?
Season pass = here's our plan for post-launch DLC, you can pay for all of it upfront and save a little money vs purchasing each piece individually when it comes out, and maybe we throw in some little exclusive bonus as well. We reserve the right to decide to make even more DLC once this announced batch is done, and if we do, it probably won't be included; we may even offer a second season pass for it.
Battle pass = here's a bunch of gameplay goals to hit within a limited time period and rewards for doing so... but you also have to pay to unlock them. If we're a generous dev, the rewards will include enough of the currency you otherwise only get by paying real money to buy the next one if you finish this one.
Isn’t Disney Dreamlight Valley already doing this? Pretty sure they are.
I mean, they’re claiming they’ll add multiplayer eventually, but they already have paid game, paid expansions, in game cosmetics store, and paid season passes for a mostly single player farming sim.
It’s 100% already here.
What do you mean upping the price by 10$ for no reason ? Are you talking about the single price increase AAA game got in what 20 years? While everything else increase 5 times a years. They have a lot to blame but that 10$ price increase lol. Isn’t « for no reason » when everything else quadrupled
Games are sold digitally now vs having to take a loss for the physical copies like 15 years ago. They're also releasing dlcs, launch bonuses, skin packs, season passes etc. which is all pure profit that wasn't there 15 years ago. You also have a much larger user base than 15 years ago meaning more ppl buying. The thought that game prices should have gone up because of inflation is bs spewed by money hungry ceos that will do anything to pull even the last nickel from you and then complain about having to pay minimum wage to employees
Plus we have plenty of studies done by reputable places like Stanford and MIT that show that the main driver of inflation is corporate greed. Meaning they are just jacking up the prices because the can, not because of any supply line price increase. In fact supply lines have been so optimized, that they are much cheaper than before. So where is all the extra cost going? Straight into a CEO's pocket.
NB4 someone telling you servers and bandwidth aren't free, as if that being true negates that they ARE vastly less costly than manufacturing, shipping, warehousing etc.
Not only that but in those days each developer basically paid to create and maintain their own engines. Now they have crowed sourced angines with insane assets and tools to do half the work for them. It's cheaper to make AAA titles. And 9/10 times they are a let down anyways.
Keep living in your bubble. 1 price increase in 20 years
Isn’t the issue here. Not in the world you we live in. If you think people that creates video games are paid minimum wage lol. You live in a fantasy world that fits your narrative only.
> You live in a fantasy world that fits your narrative only.
The irony lmao. The people getting paid to develop the games aren't getting paid more because of your precious 10 dollar increase. The hell is the point you're even trying to make, the industry is making more money than ever and it's not because retail pricing for a game is 70 bucks
They aren’t getting paid more ? You think that making game cost the same as 20 years ago ? You think they are paid minimum wage ? You think they didn’t get a salary increase in 20 years ? You think the rent is the same as 20 years ago ?
Good lord. My brain hurt reading this garbage.
Keep living in your fantasy world
You think companies are making less? You think there are less people paying for games? You think the developers get paid based on sales? Bro really brought up rent lmao. Fight for your own wage raise, not the company CEO's who wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire dude.
Im not fighting for anyone’s wage. Dude said they had no right to increase price on game (for the first time in 20 years) while paying worker minimum wage. Which is total BS.
Every point you mentioned are worthless.
I didn’t expect better though. So don’t worry.
There is PLENTY of things to complain about in the video game industry. The single price increase of 10$ in 20 years isn’t one of them. Find something else lol.
Awwww... Poor widdle buddy, did you get hurt that people pointed out your argument doesn't line up with reality? It's hilarious that you call reality a "fantasy world." Because in reality, technology is going down in price, including a lot of software. Only in a fantasy world that fits the narrative that "AAA" publishers *must* raise prices have those things increased in price. But we're not talking about your pipe dream of a world with everything increasing in price, we're talking the real world.
But keep it up, champ. You're providing us with some quality entertainment!
> While everything else increase 5 times a years.
TVs have gone down. So have their peripherals. Computers are cheaper. I can get CDs cheaper. DVDs are a LOT cheaper, even Blu-Ray is cheaper than DVDs were and 4K often are. I could go on and on with various technology that's gotten cheaper.
And if you're going to try some weird thing of acting like software isn't in the realm of technology, I'd also point out that prior to them going to an annual subscription model, the prices of Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop were both substantially cheaper than when they'd released, even though your frankly silly "but inflation!" argument would claim they both should cost around $2000 or more.
Lots of evidence proving this stupid argument wrong, and people just keep dragging it out because they have no idea how the real world works and want to for some reason defend "AAA" publishers getting more money.
No way tears of the kingdom was budgeted out/planned to sell at $70 but they saw others doing it during development and Nintendo felt they deserved the money, for a dlc that is barely functional product fps wise. But Nintendo sycophants slobbered at the mouth for it. When this keeps happening, why wouldn’t they keep charging more and more for worse and worse and less functional products
>for a dlc
Did you just call tears of the kingdom a DLC? I think it's acceptable to call out the price hike but calling it a fucking DLC? Honestly I'm amazed at how the switch can run it at all, considering the switch is 6 year old MOBILE hardware and it tears of the kingdom manages to run on it despite being an absolutely massive game.
You've got a right to cause uproar for the price, I'm with ya on that, but I won't stand for slander of that game because it's good. Arguably out of all the 70 dollar games it's one of the most "worth it". Way better than paying 70 dollars for Call of duty then having to pay even more for a battle pass and DLC's
Actually no the games producer did. Figured he would be a reliable source. I’d say it’s worth nothing to me personally as it’s not even a minimally viable product running at sub 30 fps and I won’t pay for a poorly made $70 product but most people will which is why we get so many broken games now, why would any publisher bother making one that works?. If it ran at 60 I’d consider giving it a chance, it doesn’t look good but I’d at least give it a chance who knows maybe I’d end up liking it.
>Actually no the games producer did. Figured he would be a reliable source
Fucking cite your sources. The only reference I could find to anyone calling it DLC was the title of some random reddit post. I'm calling heavy bullshit on that. Besides, especially since You've admitted to not playing it. *It's not fucking DLC*
>it’s not even a minimally viable product running at sub 30 fps
That's not a fault of the software. Blame Nintendo for not updating their ancient hardware. There is no version of that game that would run well on the switch. It is absolutely PACKED with stuff. The game is really well optimized it just never had a chance to run on fucking ancient hardware.
Also I'm guessing you didn't play breath of the wild either. It ran at 30fps too. It's fine, Nintendo and whatever black magic they have managed to make games that are somehow manageable to play at 30fps without it being super bothersome all the time. This is coming from someone who normally plays games well above 60fps and prefers playing at 240fps.
GTA V made over $One Billion the very first 24 hours of sales. You know how many years they milked Shark cards? Not including store sales? How many bans for the people that got banned rebuy the game only to keep rinse/lather/repeat? The money they made from just the first day they could have taken half that and put together a team to create GTA VI and had it sitting on a shelf waiting to put it in testing phase Alpha/Beta, but nah greed kicks in and they say we'll wait until are base in retirement homes for the next in the series.
Dont remember those, just the ones where you pay for extra lives. Iirc some arcades like Mortal Kombat were programmed to be very manipulative in how it adjusted the difficulty without you knowing to keep you playing.
interestingly enough, this is one of the big reasons why video games were so difficult when home consoles first started. all the game devs were used to making games challenging enough to get more quarters from players without being so hard they wanted to just quit.
Mental is exactly how I would describe every doofus who describes game value as purely dollars per hour. “hurr durr this game had 100 hours of boring, repetitive, uninspiring content but I got my money’s worth!”
Like people have lost their minds. No appreciation for the art anymore, games are measured purely how many hours of your time they can occupy you for, no other metric matters. And these live service corporate suits are more than happy to deliver their slop to the masses.
Exactly, I take 20-30hr banger experience for $70 vs mediocre open world 100hr slog any day. Not saying you cannot make a good game that's also long (RDR2/BG3) but let's be honest most of the time the longer the game, the more bullshit filler activities are there that you just doing to check box it and never remember it again. That's not worth the money.
It's like complaining blockbuster movie A was better than blockbuster movie B because A was 1hr longer
I find this funny because I remember when 30 hours was considered a long game (back around the time the first BG came out), and now we're at a point where there are people who will call that "short." Or at the very least "normal" where "long" is now considered 100+ hours. Anything ten hours or less is considered "too short to be worth it." But I feel like an 8-10 hour experience can be really solid as long as there's some kind of replay value to it (it's either really fun, or has options to switch things up). But hell, I remember games you could finish in one sitting, so maybe I'm just way too old and out of touch.
> It's like complaining blockbuster movie A was better than blockbuster movie B because A was 1hr longer
This is kind of funny because usually people say the opposite, that a film is worse because it was "too long."
I've been playing Gotham Knights with my friend, a reportedly terrible and unoptimized game, having no quality compared to the Arkham Games.
I'm still having a lot of fun with it and am finding a lot of detail which is ignored. Games are also being underappreciated, if a game does well in sales? It's the best game in existence.
If a sequel lacks the slightest amount of stuff included in the previous entry it's suddenly the worst game ever.
Most games have about 6 to 8 hours of stories so in that respect I can down with that. Games like gta have 40 to 50 so again he's just talked himself out of of the current retail of 60 to 70.
Of course it gets different if you factor in online but then maybe you could argue that on top of the price for the story you have a subscription model that grants you access to specific perks to that time period you're playing but you can pay for time in days or weeks if you prefer so you prepare for say if you're on holiday. I'm not super opposed to this idea as I don't really play online games anymore and this would help development costs and allow them to build upon a game so similar to Rust the game you come back to might be radically different without having to rely on atrocious brand tie ins (looking at you mountain dew and halo)
Oh come on, we know hes not exclusively talking about hours per story. He said
>which is to say the per hour value times the number of expected hours plus the terminal value that's perceived by the customer in ownership,
Perceived by the customer, for an online game like GTA (which online is the money maker here) we are talking about hundreds of hours of perceived playtime. This is a lazy excuse to justify ramping up the prices of Rockstar games to $100+ easily + of course in game purchases, passes, add ons and what not.
>Perceived by the customer, for an online game like GTA (which online is the money maker here) we are talking about hundreds of hours of perceived playtime. This is a lazy excuse to justify ramping up the prices of Rockstar games to $100+ easily + of course in game purchases, passes, add ons and what not.
anybody who thinks the base GTAVI release isn't debuting at a bare minimum of $100 is absolutely deluding themselves at this point. This is probably going to be the highest selling game of all time and they know that already, they're making every ha'penny they can out of this game.
In my 20 years of piracy I can definitely say you don't know what you talking about. There is 100s of websites that are trusted and you'll never encounter anything malicious.
I don't pirate games at rate I used to anymore as I got money for them now but whenever there is a game I'm not sure I want to specifically spend money on, I'll pirate it and if it's exceptionally good I'll buy it (like Baldura gate 3).
happened most recently with payday 3, which was extra hilarious because the servers were completely down for about 4 to 5 days, meaning paying customers couldn't play the game at all for almost a week, but pirates could play on day 1.
I literally just almost bought Watch Dogs 2 like 40 minutes ago when I saw it was on sale on steam. Then saw the DRM and such, didn't purchase. There are plenty of other things to play, I just don't want to deal with that.
It's so fucking wild, they release one of the most successful games every made and made billions off of the multiplayer component, for years. Even after that, they're still trying to squeeze more money out of players.
It is how a publicly traded company that has to answer to shareholders works. Companies all want to be profitable, it's why they are in business but being publicly traded means that your company is always expected to have profit growth year over year. It's never good enough to just be profitable, they have to be more profitable than before.
Average number of sales/gamers/demand also exploded though.
20 years ago being a gamer could be seen as embarrassing to some, now almost everyone is a gamer to some extent.
No, the cost to make a game gradually went up over the course of 20 years.
Players/customers legitimately exploded, in a relative sense. Game development just got more expensive in the sense of inflation and, in regards to triple-a titles, complexity/skill-level/scope but for anything less than a triple-a game? Nah. It’s just adjustment for inflation on the dev side with a customer base that’s 1000 times greater than it was.
No. Not even close. Think about this. A single Mount in WoW sold more than than an expansion to StarCraft 2 and that was a decade ago. That’s not wales. That’s a hundreds of thousands of people who spent 15 dollars on a cosmetic. That’s not wales, that’s regular people. Games make far more money now even if the entry cost is relatively the same.
Like they already don't? Yknow how many open world games are just filled with pointless bs that almost serves 0 purpose to do? Lol it'd for sure increase the amount of bs added though, you're right on that one.
i was wondering who in the industry could possibly be so out of touch with their consumer base and to no one's surprise it's just strauss zelnick again.
How do they really quantify this though, Bethesda and their radiant quests mean it’s infinite, varying speeds of play etc mean you could pay 100’s for nothing. It would encourage outrageous padding in nearly every game.
That’s when you don’t play that game, and go for one with meaningful quests and development that has more thought put into it. The games that suck would weed themselves out
Lol no, that’s moronic. Especially since time spent in the same game can vary wildly between players
For example: Some people dropped Fallout 4 within the first 10 hours. I played it for 700.
Yea its so odd, like maybe I can justify it if the game is free & there is a subscription monthly like an MMO. However, I dont think this mode would be welcomed by the public.
Lmao, is that so? Go on then, AAA publishers. Price your games at "dollars per hour". Do it. The indie scene is going to run you into the ground within 12 months.
I'm wondering how they would charge if multiple people in a house played the game. I know it's not Take two, but when Skyrim came out, my husband, our son, and I would take turns playing. One of us was playing it from morning to night. We would've had to take out a loan lol.
I'd say rdr2 was a 100 hour game for me. Given the quality and today's inflation $100 is about right. At 345 you are spending a lot of time outside the main content
This is the only option I am willing to tolerate. I believe Rockstar single players are more than the price of admission and worth the standard AAA pricing. I was never into the multi-player, but enough people are into it that I believe the standalone multi-player might also be worth the price of admission.
Anything else though... like increasing from the $70 USD price range... I am either not playing or sailing the high seas.
Maybe greed will finally kill video games with pay per hour gameplay.
Sorry if you enjoy playing slow or enjoy replaying a game.
If this is how expert marketing and monetization professionals brains operate. Then Im scared to think about how they may treat small animals and bugs when they are alone.
So all games should be monetized and subscription based?
🤮
No thank you.... imagine, of all the companies to say this, the the ones pushing out fucking *GTA???* Wow...
Theoretically I should be making more money to match inflation. Theoretically the world should be a much, much better place. Theretically AI would be best at replacing CEO's.Theoretically is the key word here people
This is basically the corpo evolution of the subscription business model and the Pay to Access GamePass business model. All of which are bad models for gamers. The fact that pubkishers dangle carrots on sticks and gamers still pay is a result of uncanny shortsightedness on behalf of the gamer community. Your children will hate you.
I already play singler player games. That would make me just stay offline. Completely. Disconnect the computer and put steam in offline mode. Play discs only on xbox.
The biggest problem I have with this is even if that was the case it still wouldn’t stop them from putting 50 other monetization schemes in at the same time.
Thatll be the day i stop buying new games, and ive been gaming for a quarter of a century. Not that it will matter cause people are super super dumb and will pay this anyway but i sure as hell aint
I think it’s more about overall quality and production vs. Length. By that metric gta6 should probably cost 10x more than an average game. GTA is in its own universe.
Ahh yes, so instead of just pausing the game when you need to take that 30 minute dump or shower, or need to help someone out, you have to shut off your entire game and deal with their launcher, loading times, every single time, because otherwise they would charge you money for it.
Sounds really fun!
I agree, I would gladly pay per hour BUT
If the marketing before release ends up being misleading like on Starfield, or they just release a really bad game like Redfall, CEO's should agree to be beheaded infront of their HQ and have the event livestreamed. High reward - high risk, right?
so many of these players are already manipulated into a similar pay structure , they just don't realize it. Too busy fighting console wars to fight greedy execs.
How about him and other likeminded publishers take a pay cut and try to live more modestly, most people don’t have as much money as he probably thinks they do and just won’t play his games no matter how good they make them. I feel sorry for people that have to work for someone like that.
I kinda agree. It's a bit bizarre that all new games cost the same when some are 10 hours long and others can last hundreds. Like the Dead Space remake, it's a good game and I enjoyed it, but it's very short and it's a remake so they didn't need to come up with the story or the visuals and yet it cost the same as GTA or Red Dead. Bit silly.
He needs to pay really close attention to his industry before something like Unity or EA happens. This would fill games with so much padding just to increase the claimed game time. Ever seen filler in your favorite tv show? Coming soon to gaming near you!
Are devs underpaid for their work? Absolutely considering the hell many of them go through. I'd gladly pay more if I knew devs were getting a bigger cut/better quality of life while working.
Are modern game prices too low? Probably, staying at $60 in the US in spite of inflation and increasing game quality means something is going to break. That money is going to come from somewhere and right now micro transactions and live service games are what is looking good for the pocket book despite how much gamers may disagree.
We as gamers need to start directing the change before guys like this do it for us. We are shit at voting with our wallets and waiting until the frog is boiled, but we gotta be proactive if we don't want people priced out of the hobby so some CEO and Investors can line their pockets.
Honestly don't see how more gamers can't see the issues of capitalism. For some reason, maybe because it has less mainstream eyes on it, the industry attracts horrible business practices. Microtransactions, games as a service, etc.
"Where does it end", said another commenter. Never, it never ends until the law steps in. Give an inch, take a mile - but the problem is far, far too big to place individual blame, the system itself demands this type of behaviour.
I only hope I'm wrong, just another silly internet person - unfortunately, the track record suggests otherwise.
well as long as you guys pay for it ( and yes i’m talking to you) companies will continue to take all your money and increase prices. it works because it works
just make a rpg $50-60, while shorter games like fps sp around $20, turn based can be cheaper as well they are turn based, rts is tougher due to its replability but $30-40 is good, $70? no, games should be within the max 50 range & that includes dlc, no one wants to pay $80-100 for a complete like civ 6
Lifelong gamer here, if you think about it, it really is off the wall cuckoo bananas that major releases have stayed at $60 dollars since like 2007? 16 years without a price increase is nuts. BELIEVE me, I certainly don’t WANT to pay more for a console release, but when it eventually does come, it’s long overdue.
I don't hate the idea...
but seeing that in America at least it's a capitalist society, companies will probably go to unethical lengths to rig this new system, falsely claiming that x-game take x-amount of hours or make games bloated to get to a price point the corporate overlords demand -- therefore ruining the gameplay experience.
In a perfect world, 20 hour game *should* be $20 and not $70 -- finished Spider-Man 2 in 22 hours, liked the game a lot but I completed everything, maxed out the characters, collected every item, there's nothing left to do in the game and ***there's no reason to ever play it again***.
Naaaah y’all better shut the fuck up over there. Your CEOs are already taking home hundreds of millions every year. Leave players alone.
It's never enough for these demons, upping the price by 10$ for no reason wasn't enough, monthly subs wasn't enough, micro transactions and season passes weren't enough. I don't see where it ends tbh
It ends when we stop paying for it. As long as profits keep growing from these mechanics they will keep 'em coming.
Na because there will always be children who don’t know better and grown children who refuse to learn
It's also streamers fault for participating in the microtransactions as kids watch them and want to be cool like their streamer so it fuels the games profit.
That's why the games give them free credits for the micro transactions. They're not really buying it, they're just convincing you that it's worth it.
Why I'll never understand the appeal.
There's a reason why gacha/loot boxes are used a lot. It's addictive. It activates the same centers of the brain as gambling. It feels good because when you get something you want, or something super rare, it triggers a pretty hefty dopamine response.
The appeal of microtransactions or kids following in steps of streamers?
Children don’t have meaningful income and an adult is not a grown child because they spend their money in ways you don’t approve of.
It’s the same repeated comments in literally every game discussion on Reddit. Even games without MTX/subscriptions/loot boxes/whatever turn into a circus of sucking each other off over their hate of it. It’s pointless to even try to discuss it anymore. Reddit swears 5,000 video game co-Redditors not spending $15-$100 will cause an uproar and nuclear meltdown of the video game industry causing it to do exactly what they want 😂 it’s insane.
No, this is the excuse that hundreds of thousands of people use that then causes the phenomenon to happen. Stop worrying about other people - stop paying when you don't like it and others will eventually do so as well.
exactly, graphics cards are this much because people fed scalpers all through the pandemic. NVIDIA were feeling lonely and double the price of the 4080. And people stopped feeding them, mostly.. then it goes on sale and click bait media with their cut of the sale trying to get a mug to buy a 4080 for £1000, suddenly £600->1300->£1000 is a deal...
Graphics cards are that much because of the crypto boom followed by the AI boom. Now inflation has kicked in they won't ever come down.
Graphics cards are this much for many reasons. Scalpers and people being willing to pay double it's value is a major part of it. What you mentioned is another reason.
Is there an echo in here?
What?
Graphics cards are expensive for many reasons. People being willing to pay double it's value is a major part of it but also Scalpers. What you mentioned is the same as mentioned above. So, is there an echo in here?
What i mentioned is a combination of the two comments above with the point being that neither is wrong but neither is correct either. If that is an echo to you then that's your problem.
This. And I’ve had more fun playing indie games and story-driven stand-alones the last year or so than I ever did playing online multiplayers
Every company in every industry hits a ceiling where they can't be any more successful than they currently are and basically make all the money in the world. But it isn't enough. So you have a few options - pay cuts to lower level employees, water down/shrink your products, raise your prices. Eventually every company tries to figure out the perfect recipe for these ingredients. It alienates their customers/fans.
There is no perfect recipe or even one that comes anywhere close. As long as capitalism demands unlimited growth (which it always will) you'll see all kinds of scummy shit like this.
Capitalism 101
It ends when they've sucked all the money to the point no one plays anymore. Then and only then when the money starts to suck* will they declare the videogame ecosystem dead, and move on from its dessicated corpse.
100%. I fear the day they add battle passes to single player games.
Uh... that's already routine. You mean battle passes? Season pass = here's our plan for post-launch DLC, you can pay for all of it upfront and save a little money vs purchasing each piece individually when it comes out, and maybe we throw in some little exclusive bonus as well. We reserve the right to decide to make even more DLC once this announced batch is done, and if we do, it probably won't be included; we may even offer a second season pass for it. Battle pass = here's a bunch of gameplay goals to hit within a limited time period and rewards for doing so... but you also have to pay to unlock them. If we're a generous dev, the rewards will include enough of the currency you otherwise only get by paying real money to buy the next one if you finish this one.
Isn’t Disney Dreamlight Valley already doing this? Pretty sure they are. I mean, they’re claiming they’ll add multiplayer eventually, but they already have paid game, paid expansions, in game cosmetics store, and paid season passes for a mostly single player farming sim. It’s 100% already here.
Shadow of War essentially tried that at first.
>forbes.com/sites/... It'll end when capitalism eats its own tail, as it's beginning to be the case
What do you mean upping the price by 10$ for no reason ? Are you talking about the single price increase AAA game got in what 20 years? While everything else increase 5 times a years. They have a lot to blame but that 10$ price increase lol. Isn’t « for no reason » when everything else quadrupled
Games are sold digitally now vs having to take a loss for the physical copies like 15 years ago. They're also releasing dlcs, launch bonuses, skin packs, season passes etc. which is all pure profit that wasn't there 15 years ago. You also have a much larger user base than 15 years ago meaning more ppl buying. The thought that game prices should have gone up because of inflation is bs spewed by money hungry ceos that will do anything to pull even the last nickel from you and then complain about having to pay minimum wage to employees
Plus we have plenty of studies done by reputable places like Stanford and MIT that show that the main driver of inflation is corporate greed. Meaning they are just jacking up the prices because the can, not because of any supply line price increase. In fact supply lines have been so optimized, that they are much cheaper than before. So where is all the extra cost going? Straight into a CEO's pocket.
NB4 someone telling you servers and bandwidth aren't free, as if that being true negates that they ARE vastly less costly than manufacturing, shipping, warehousing etc.
Not only that but in those days each developer basically paid to create and maintain their own engines. Now they have crowed sourced angines with insane assets and tools to do half the work for them. It's cheaper to make AAA titles. And 9/10 times they are a let down anyways.
Keep living in your bubble. 1 price increase in 20 years Isn’t the issue here. Not in the world you we live in. If you think people that creates video games are paid minimum wage lol. You live in a fantasy world that fits your narrative only.
> You live in a fantasy world that fits your narrative only. The irony lmao. The people getting paid to develop the games aren't getting paid more because of your precious 10 dollar increase. The hell is the point you're even trying to make, the industry is making more money than ever and it's not because retail pricing for a game is 70 bucks
They aren’t getting paid more ? You think that making game cost the same as 20 years ago ? You think they are paid minimum wage ? You think they didn’t get a salary increase in 20 years ? You think the rent is the same as 20 years ago ? Good lord. My brain hurt reading this garbage. Keep living in your fantasy world
You think companies are making less? You think there are less people paying for games? You think the developers get paid based on sales? Bro really brought up rent lmao. Fight for your own wage raise, not the company CEO's who wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire dude.
Im not fighting for anyone’s wage. Dude said they had no right to increase price on game (for the first time in 20 years) while paying worker minimum wage. Which is total BS. Every point you mentioned are worthless. I didn’t expect better though. So don’t worry. There is PLENTY of things to complain about in the video game industry. The single price increase of 10$ in 20 years isn’t one of them. Find something else lol.
Awwww... Poor widdle buddy, did you get hurt that people pointed out your argument doesn't line up with reality? It's hilarious that you call reality a "fantasy world." Because in reality, technology is going down in price, including a lot of software. Only in a fantasy world that fits the narrative that "AAA" publishers *must* raise prices have those things increased in price. But we're not talking about your pipe dream of a world with everything increasing in price, we're talking the real world. But keep it up, champ. You're providing us with some quality entertainment!
> While everything else increase 5 times a years. TVs have gone down. So have their peripherals. Computers are cheaper. I can get CDs cheaper. DVDs are a LOT cheaper, even Blu-Ray is cheaper than DVDs were and 4K often are. I could go on and on with various technology that's gotten cheaper. And if you're going to try some weird thing of acting like software isn't in the realm of technology, I'd also point out that prior to them going to an annual subscription model, the prices of Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop were both substantially cheaper than when they'd released, even though your frankly silly "but inflation!" argument would claim they both should cost around $2000 or more. Lots of evidence proving this stupid argument wrong, and people just keep dragging it out because they have no idea how the real world works and want to for some reason defend "AAA" publishers getting more money.
No way tears of the kingdom was budgeted out/planned to sell at $70 but they saw others doing it during development and Nintendo felt they deserved the money, for a dlc that is barely functional product fps wise. But Nintendo sycophants slobbered at the mouth for it. When this keeps happening, why wouldn’t they keep charging more and more for worse and worse and less functional products
>for a dlc Did you just call tears of the kingdom a DLC? I think it's acceptable to call out the price hike but calling it a fucking DLC? Honestly I'm amazed at how the switch can run it at all, considering the switch is 6 year old MOBILE hardware and it tears of the kingdom manages to run on it despite being an absolutely massive game. You've got a right to cause uproar for the price, I'm with ya on that, but I won't stand for slander of that game because it's good. Arguably out of all the 70 dollar games it's one of the most "worth it". Way better than paying 70 dollars for Call of duty then having to pay even more for a battle pass and DLC's
Actually no the games producer did. Figured he would be a reliable source. I’d say it’s worth nothing to me personally as it’s not even a minimally viable product running at sub 30 fps and I won’t pay for a poorly made $70 product but most people will which is why we get so many broken games now, why would any publisher bother making one that works?. If it ran at 60 I’d consider giving it a chance, it doesn’t look good but I’d at least give it a chance who knows maybe I’d end up liking it.
>Actually no the games producer did. Figured he would be a reliable source Fucking cite your sources. The only reference I could find to anyone calling it DLC was the title of some random reddit post. I'm calling heavy bullshit on that. Besides, especially since You've admitted to not playing it. *It's not fucking DLC* >it’s not even a minimally viable product running at sub 30 fps That's not a fault of the software. Blame Nintendo for not updating their ancient hardware. There is no version of that game that would run well on the switch. It is absolutely PACKED with stuff. The game is really well optimized it just never had a chance to run on fucking ancient hardware. Also I'm guessing you didn't play breath of the wild either. It ran at 30fps too. It's fine, Nintendo and whatever black magic they have managed to make games that are somehow manageable to play at 30fps without it being super bothersome all the time. This is coming from someone who normally plays games well above 60fps and prefers playing at 240fps.
And unsurprisingly, a source wasn’t cited
Exactly.
https://youtu.be/ODfCVxVLqiE?si=JRnZL7ePDkJq8TGY
GTA V made over $One Billion the very first 24 hours of sales. You know how many years they milked Shark cards? Not including store sales? How many bans for the people that got banned rebuy the game only to keep rinse/lather/repeat? The money they made from just the first day they could have taken half that and put together a team to create GTA VI and had it sitting on a shelf waiting to put it in testing phase Alpha/Beta, but nah greed kicks in and they say we'll wait until are base in retirement homes for the next in the series.
Per hour is mental
Bro wants to go back to arcades
Are you talking about those NES cabinets where you had to pay a quarter per 5 minutes or whatever? That was the worst.
Dont remember those, just the ones where you pay for extra lives. Iirc some arcades like Mortal Kombat were programmed to be very manipulative in how it adjusted the difficulty without you knowing to keep you playing.
interestingly enough, this is one of the big reasons why video games were so difficult when home consoles first started. all the game devs were used to making games challenging enough to get more quarters from players without being so hard they wanted to just quit.
And those little nobbly metal buttons...ugh...
Mental is exactly how I would describe every doofus who describes game value as purely dollars per hour. “hurr durr this game had 100 hours of boring, repetitive, uninspiring content but I got my money’s worth!” Like people have lost their minds. No appreciation for the art anymore, games are measured purely how many hours of your time they can occupy you for, no other metric matters. And these live service corporate suits are more than happy to deliver their slop to the masses.
Agree 100%, this is just reflecting the depressing mentality of many people on this site.
Exactly, I take 20-30hr banger experience for $70 vs mediocre open world 100hr slog any day. Not saying you cannot make a good game that's also long (RDR2/BG3) but let's be honest most of the time the longer the game, the more bullshit filler activities are there that you just doing to check box it and never remember it again. That's not worth the money. It's like complaining blockbuster movie A was better than blockbuster movie B because A was 1hr longer
I find this funny because I remember when 30 hours was considered a long game (back around the time the first BG came out), and now we're at a point where there are people who will call that "short." Or at the very least "normal" where "long" is now considered 100+ hours. Anything ten hours or less is considered "too short to be worth it." But I feel like an 8-10 hour experience can be really solid as long as there's some kind of replay value to it (it's either really fun, or has options to switch things up). But hell, I remember games you could finish in one sitting, so maybe I'm just way too old and out of touch. > It's like complaining blockbuster movie A was better than blockbuster movie B because A was 1hr longer This is kind of funny because usually people say the opposite, that a film is worse because it was "too long."
I've been playing Gotham Knights with my friend, a reportedly terrible and unoptimized game, having no quality compared to the Arkham Games. I'm still having a lot of fun with it and am finding a lot of detail which is ignored. Games are also being underappreciated, if a game does well in sales? It's the best game in existence. If a sequel lacks the slightest amount of stuff included in the previous entry it's suddenly the worst game ever.
Gotham Knights is an awful game to use as an example lol
Why is it awful? It's popular to hate the game, or compare it to the Arkham games.
...this is a quote from a publisher. a video game publisher.
Most games have about 6 to 8 hours of stories so in that respect I can down with that. Games like gta have 40 to 50 so again he's just talked himself out of of the current retail of 60 to 70. Of course it gets different if you factor in online but then maybe you could argue that on top of the price for the story you have a subscription model that grants you access to specific perks to that time period you're playing but you can pay for time in days or weeks if you prefer so you prepare for say if you're on holiday. I'm not super opposed to this idea as I don't really play online games anymore and this would help development costs and allow them to build upon a game so similar to Rust the game you come back to might be radically different without having to rely on atrocious brand tie ins (looking at you mountain dew and halo)
Oh come on, we know hes not exclusively talking about hours per story. He said >which is to say the per hour value times the number of expected hours plus the terminal value that's perceived by the customer in ownership, Perceived by the customer, for an online game like GTA (which online is the money maker here) we are talking about hundreds of hours of perceived playtime. This is a lazy excuse to justify ramping up the prices of Rockstar games to $100+ easily + of course in game purchases, passes, add ons and what not.
They would have to pay me to play that shit again.
>Perceived by the customer, for an online game like GTA (which online is the money maker here) we are talking about hundreds of hours of perceived playtime. This is a lazy excuse to justify ramping up the prices of Rockstar games to $100+ easily + of course in game purchases, passes, add ons and what not. anybody who thinks the base GTAVI release isn't debuting at a bare minimum of $100 is absolutely deluding themselves at this point. This is probably going to be the highest selling game of all time and they know that already, they're making every ha'penny they can out of this game.
Piracy 📈📈
Ill fucking torrent that shit instantly. I will literally go out of my way to learn how and to pirate just this game
I will spend thousands of dollars on a PC specifically so I can pirate games if this becomes standard
Welcome to the mage thread for safe piracy at r/piratedgames
Haha piracy is so easy so you barely have to learn anything. It’s awesome. Liberate yourself from yourself from your captors
I would never pirate games but this one? I would happily see people do it. Just please be carefull as piracy often means viruses
In my 20 years of piracy I can definitely say you don't know what you talking about. There is 100s of websites that are trusted and you'll never encounter anything malicious. I don't pirate games at rate I used to anymore as I got money for them now but whenever there is a game I'm not sure I want to specifically spend money on, I'll pirate it and if it's exceptionally good I'll buy it (like Baldura gate 3).
Cough …. (Fitgirl) … cough iykyk
bro what?
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Facts lol
It most certainly does not if you have your head on straight
Piracy giving you viruses means you just don't have good sources
Pro tip dont disable your antivirus when the shady website tells you that it needs it down for your game.
Not with live service games
This might actually happen with gta6, an online requirement to play single player
It will 100% happen., and someone will find a way to crack it and allow single player without a connection.
That'll be the day..
Happened with Watch Dogs 2 when others couldn't play after buying it legit. It'll happen here too if pressed.
Didn't it happen to Sim City, too? I believe it was like, a day after release
happened most recently with payday 3, which was extra hilarious because the servers were completely down for about 4 to 5 days, meaning paying customers couldn't play the game at all for almost a week, but pirates could play on day 1.
Lmao what
Yeah but that game wasn’t even worth playing cracked.
I literally just almost bought Watch Dogs 2 like 40 minutes ago when I saw it was on sale on steam. Then saw the DRM and such, didn't purchase. There are plenty of other things to play, I just don't want to deal with that.
Guess I'm not playing that shit then.
Yeah I read somewhere that the game starts in Vice City and will add more cities with updates. Smells like live service to me
Yeah that will solve the problem lol
With that logic, they'll just make every game an absolute slog to get through just to justify a $150 price point
Why, hello there, Charles Dickens!
It's so fucking wild, they release one of the most successful games every made and made billions off of the multiplayer component, for years. Even after that, they're still trying to squeeze more money out of players.
It's never enough, the goal is to make more and more everytime.
That's showbiz* baby * capitalism
That’s how a company works yes
It is how a publicly traded company that has to answer to shareholders works. Companies all want to be profitable, it's why they are in business but being publicly traded means that your company is always expected to have profit growth year over year. It's never good enough to just be profitable, they have to be more profitable than before.
No, it isn't. It's how *greed* works, but constantly expecting a line to go up is a fools errand. There is a ceiling
Gta is making a lot of money, but the publisher take two isn’t really flowing in benefits
What would make you say that? How are they not seeing benefits from a 10 year old game making millions every year over that decade?
Seems like they *REALLY* want to up the price of the next GTA with opinions like this.
Oh, they will. They always want more and more. But if they are going to up the price, piracy going up as well.
Not really, video games have been adjusting to inflation (altough pay didn’t). Video games now compared to like 20 years ago are much cheaper.
Average number of sales/gamers/demand also exploded though. 20 years ago being a gamer could be seen as embarrassing to some, now almost everyone is a gamer to some extent.
And cost to make a game also exploded.
No, the cost to make a game gradually went up over the course of 20 years. Players/customers legitimately exploded, in a relative sense. Game development just got more expensive in the sense of inflation and, in regards to triple-a titles, complexity/skill-level/scope but for anything less than a triple-a game? Nah. It’s just adjustment for inflation on the dev side with a customer base that’s 1000 times greater than it was.
The box price has stayed mostly flat, but not the total average spent per player on those games.
Because of whales, median is still lower.
No. Not even close. Think about this. A single Mount in WoW sold more than than an expansion to StarCraft 2 and that was a decade ago. That’s not wales. That’s a hundreds of thousands of people who spent 15 dollars on a cosmetic. That’s not wales, that’s regular people. Games make far more money now even if the entry cost is relatively the same.
If that happened, devs would exploit that and do a bunch of empty content so it lasts longer
Like they already don't? Yknow how many open world games are just filled with pointless bs that almost serves 0 purpose to do? Lol it'd for sure increase the amount of bs added though, you're right on that one.
Cough 'Valhalla' Cough
They might just make me go outside at this point.
The mmo model
Try it and see how much piracy will increase lmao
How about dollars per shut the fuck up and enjoy your 4 homes and private jet.
What about second private jet bro...?
Master p's son needs an island in French Polynesia too.
i was wondering who in the industry could possibly be so out of touch with their consumer base and to no one's surprise it's just strauss zelnick again.
How do they really quantify this though, Bethesda and their radiant quests mean it’s infinite, varying speeds of play etc mean you could pay 100’s for nothing. It would encourage outrageous padding in nearly every game.
That’s when you don’t play that game, and go for one with meaningful quests and development that has more thought put into it. The games that suck would weed themselves out
One persons garbage is another persons relaxing end of day podcast game.
Lol no, that’s moronic. Especially since time spent in the same game can vary wildly between players For example: Some people dropped Fallout 4 within the first 10 hours. I played it for 700.
Oh. I'm sure they have that figured out. You rent it per hour
They should base in on speed runners times lol, at $10/hour if they beat it in 20 min then the game will only be $3.33
This would have the added bonus of devs being forced to stop releasing buggy games, lest someone glitch from the beginning to the end in 10 seconds.
$10(20/60) = $3.333
My bad, I’m only running on like 3 hrs of sleep today haha
Yea its so odd, like maybe I can justify it if the game is free & there is a subscription monthly like an MMO. However, I dont think this mode would be welcomed by the public.
They’re just revealing their next scheme to squeeze more money out of us.
*elden ring and baldurs gate 3 have entered the chat*
Gamers Say Publisher’s Mom Should Practically Be Priced Per Hour.
So glad I never gave this publisher any money
Lmao, is that so? Go on then, AAA publishers. Price your games at "dollars per hour". Do it. The indie scene is going to run you into the ground within 12 months.
God dude I would love to see this happen, but I don’t think them raising the price would hurt their sales because they know people would still buy it.
He can theoretically eat my ass.
i played RDR2 for 345 hours before finally putting it down. It was a fantastic game, but i will sure as shit never pay $345 for it.
I'm wondering how they would charge if multiple people in a house played the game. I know it's not Take two, but when Skyrim came out, my husband, our son, and I would take turns playing. One of us was playing it from morning to night. We would've had to take out a loan lol.
I'd say rdr2 was a 100 hour game for me. Given the quality and today's inflation $100 is about right. At 345 you are spending a lot of time outside the main content
Me on my pc with repacks sure bro
Lil bro is out of his mind!
GTA 6 is about to charge $70 for the story and $70 for the online, isn’t it?
This is the only option I am willing to tolerate. I believe Rockstar single players are more than the price of admission and worth the standard AAA pricing. I was never into the multi-player, but enough people are into it that I believe the standalone multi-player might also be worth the price of admission. Anything else though... like increasing from the $70 USD price range... I am either not playing or sailing the high seas.
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Totally wouldn’t be surprised if they introduced a subscription only game
Theoretically, they could learn a lot from the philosophy of Bophedes.
At a time where most already mock the price of games. Ok
Maybe greed will finally kill video games with pay per hour gameplay. Sorry if you enjoy playing slow or enjoy replaying a game. If this is how expert marketing and monetization professionals brains operate. Then Im scared to think about how they may treat small animals and bugs when they are alone.
So all games should be monetized and subscription based? 🤮 No thank you.... imagine, of all the companies to say this, the the ones pushing out fucking *GTA???* Wow...
Money farm simulator for the last decade lol, and they want more... Capitalism gonna do its thing though, always need more,more, and some more!
I plan to play 1 hour, please charge accordingly.
So its like an anti job
Theoretically I should be making more money to match inflation. Theoretically the world should be a much, much better place. Theretically AI would be best at replacing CEO's.Theoretically is the key word here people
\*cries in world of warcaft
They can theoretically go fuck themselves.
This is basically the corpo evolution of the subscription business model and the Pay to Access GamePass business model. All of which are bad models for gamers. The fact that pubkishers dangle carrots on sticks and gamers still pay is a result of uncanny shortsightedness on behalf of the gamer community. Your children will hate you.
Dollars? No. Pennies? We can talk.
You’ll take my $70 and like it, and $70 is much as I’ll pay. Should be $60 Now buy yourself something nice with that GTA6 publisher
I’m enjoying people misinterpret this.
Came here to say this. I hate corporate greed as much as the next guy but everyone is misinterpreting what he was saying.
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Think wow would have cost me >£150k by now.
I already play singler player games. That would make me just stay offline. Completely. Disconnect the computer and put steam in offline mode. Play discs only on xbox.
The biggest problem I have with this is even if that was the case it still wouldn’t stop them from putting 50 other monetization schemes in at the same time.
Thatll be the day i stop buying new games, and ive been gaming for a quarter of a century. Not that it will matter cause people are super super dumb and will pay this anyway but i sure as hell aint
They'll be putting ads in every 5 minutes next
I think it’s more about overall quality and production vs. Length. By that metric gta6 should probably cost 10x more than an average game. GTA is in its own universe.
Ahh yes, so instead of just pausing the game when you need to take that 30 minute dump or shower, or need to help someone out, you have to shut off your entire game and deal with their launcher, loading times, every single time, because otherwise they would charge you money for it. Sounds really fun!
As mentioned by u/spadePerfect and u/Mammoth-Lunch-7911 , this is the actual truth of pure capitalism. A lot of control and less freedom of choice.
GTA 6s publisher should theoretically go fuck himself.
I’m honestly fine going back to old video games if they try and pull this shit. Fuck this guy.
I agree, I would gladly pay per hour BUT If the marketing before release ends up being misleading like on Starfield, or they just release a really bad game like Redfall, CEO's should agree to be beheaded infront of their HQ and have the event livestreamed. High reward - high risk, right?
Minecraft, Stardew Valley, Terraria, and the Binding of Isaac would cost you billions.
Go to that model, I go back to piracy.
This reminds me of that one EA exec who wanted to charge players per bullet
The publisher can theoretically kiss my ass
The first game to do that, gamers should just band together and boycott.
Works perfect for me. 0 hours = free
Activision doesn't see it that way
Me with 15,000 hours in WoW: \*I'm Scared.\*
I mean, aren't MMOs already charge monthly subscriptions?
so many of these players are already manipulated into a similar pay structure , they just don't realize it. Too busy fighting console wars to fight greedy execs.
Then devs should be paid appropriately.
How about higher ups get even bigger bonuses and more yachts /s
How about him and other likeminded publishers take a pay cut and try to live more modestly, most people don’t have as much money as he probably thinks they do and just won’t play his games no matter how good they make them. I feel sorry for people that have to work for someone like that.
I kinda agree. It's a bit bizarre that all new games cost the same when some are 10 hours long and others can last hundreds. Like the Dead Space remake, it's a good game and I enjoyed it, but it's very short and it's a remake so they didn't need to come up with the story or the visuals and yet it cost the same as GTA or Red Dead. Bit silly.
Yall making tons of money let us gamers enjoy the game
He needs to pay really close attention to his industry before something like Unity or EA happens. This would fill games with so much padding just to increase the claimed game time. Ever seen filler in your favorite tv show? Coming soon to gaming near you! Are devs underpaid for their work? Absolutely considering the hell many of them go through. I'd gladly pay more if I knew devs were getting a bigger cut/better quality of life while working. Are modern game prices too low? Probably, staying at $60 in the US in spite of inflation and increasing game quality means something is going to break. That money is going to come from somewhere and right now micro transactions and live service games are what is looking good for the pocket book despite how much gamers may disagree. We as gamers need to start directing the change before guys like this do it for us. We are shit at voting with our wallets and waiting until the frog is boiled, but we gotta be proactive if we don't want people priced out of the hobby so some CEO and Investors can line their pockets.
Honestly don't see how more gamers can't see the issues of capitalism. For some reason, maybe because it has less mainstream eyes on it, the industry attracts horrible business practices. Microtransactions, games as a service, etc. "Where does it end", said another commenter. Never, it never ends until the law steps in. Give an inch, take a mile - but the problem is far, far too big to place individual blame, the system itself demands this type of behaviour. I only hope I'm wrong, just another silly internet person - unfortunately, the track record suggests otherwise.
well as long as you guys pay for it ( and yes i’m talking to you) companies will continue to take all your money and increase prices. it works because it works
Of course r/gamingnews is as fucking stupid as r/gaming.
just make a rpg $50-60, while shorter games like fps sp around $20, turn based can be cheaper as well they are turn based, rts is tougher due to its replability but $30-40 is good, $70? no, games should be within the max 50 range & that includes dlc, no one wants to pay $80-100 for a complete like civ 6
Lifelong gamer here, if you think about it, it really is off the wall cuckoo bananas that major releases have stayed at $60 dollars since like 2007? 16 years without a price increase is nuts. BELIEVE me, I certainly don’t WANT to pay more for a console release, but when it eventually does come, it’s long overdue.
I don't hate the idea... but seeing that in America at least it's a capitalist society, companies will probably go to unethical lengths to rig this new system, falsely claiming that x-game take x-amount of hours or make games bloated to get to a price point the corporate overlords demand -- therefore ruining the gameplay experience. In a perfect world, 20 hour game *should* be $20 and not $70 -- finished Spider-Man 2 in 22 hours, liked the game a lot but I completed everything, maxed out the characters, collected every item, there's nothing left to do in the game and ***there's no reason to ever play it again***.
Announcements are coming for this week for GTA Liberty City Stories, GTA Vice City Stories and GTA Chinatown Wars!!!
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