I would never pay that much for a game. I just wait a couple of years and buy them when they go on sale for under $20. I'm not going to pay a premium just to be a beta tester.
this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2024
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For context, here's what prices ran for NES games:
https://www.33rdsquare.com/how-much-did-the-nintendo-entertainment-system-cost-in-1986/
Here were some of the most popular titles and their prices in the mid-1980s:
- Super Mario Bros – $40-50
- The Legend of Zelda – $45 when new
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – $42 initial price
- Metroid – $35 at launch
- Kirby‘s Adventure – $39.99 original MSRP
I'm going to adjust for inflation to 2024:
https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
- Super Mario Bros - $115.36-$144.20
- The Legend of Zelda - $129.78
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - $121.13
- Metroid - $100.94
- Kirby's Adventure - $115.33
A large portion of the cost of those games was the mask ROM that had to be manufactured for each release.
There was no patches or updates. If there was an issue, then your very expensive mask is trash and a new one has to be made, which also significantly delays the release. The games had to be released in a finished and fully working state. A lot more work had to go into testing before release.
Development for old consoles was also much harder. You had to write very well optimized code to get it to run on the limited hardware that was available.
There was also a smaller market since video games were new. So higher costs, lower sales leads to higher prices.
You could argue that cloud servers are a cost like a cartridge. A stupid forced cost.
It's a cost that wouldn't be needed if they would let us host our own servers.
It's so infuriating
Comparing prices directly like this is almost irrelevant imo. And doesn't really dictate what the price of games should be.
Reasons old games should be pricier:
- Hardware involved (cartridges/electronics).
- Total number of customers were smaller, you have to subsidize development with less total sales.
Reasons why new games should be pricier:
- Development has inflated to hundreds of people and multiple years (instead of dozens of people and multiple months)
But at the end of the day, business just price what the market will bear. It's only indirectly related to the cost of production. The margins on some games are insanely high compared to others.
Don't forget distribution. It costs money to make a nice cartridge. It costs money to stamp a CD and put it in a pretty box. And that cost applies for every. single. copy.
Now compare that to digital distribution...
For context, here’s what prices ran for NES games
For another context: That was the time regular children got max 4 games per year and it was a momentous occasion. Games getting cheaper through CD-ROM (move away from cartriges) and inflation is the reason the customer base grew.
Compared to the market for games back then to now. Was the game industry bigger than movies and music combined?
Is gaming a niche now as it was back then?
Yeah and you could buy a house for 20k back then and that same house is 1.7 million now. So it's almost like people had more disposable income back then. Half of all Americans make less than 35k a year so that $70 price would be like if games back then cost $600.
Yes when they actually had to sell real things and not just a digital download. They also had to actually publish fully finished games as game updates were basically impossible.
70$ games don't even exist in my eyes. Anyone who asks 70+, will ask for more right away. It's just greed
I'm happy to pay it if the game is worth $70, but with games releasing in such a buggy state, they're not worth anywhere close to that. I don't care about FUD and am hurting for games to play, so the value is a given game to me is much lower.
So I wait until they're solid, and they're usually much cheaper by then. I'd like to pay Cities: Skylines 2, but the performance and content aren't there. That's a game I'd totally pay launch price for, but the quality isn't there.
I have limited gaming time, so I'm not going to spend it playing new releases with tons of bugs. I paid for new releases as a kid because games actually launched in a finished state. Games these days don't, so I don't buy them.
I can’t think of a single recent game that I would consider to be worth $70.
Maybe BG3, but that's about it honestly.
That was the recent game that came to mind, spent 60 hours on my current playthrough and only starting act 2 (of 3 for those that aren't familiar). It's such a well done game, I'll gladly buy Larian games full price until their quality drops.
The funny one to me is Microsoft. Starfield and Redfall? $70. Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, and Hellblade II? Cheaper than that. They're telling people that they think quantity is worth more than quality.
Dragons Dogma 2 sure did. I think they had about $40 of DLC ready day one. Same for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League
He told IGN that one of its upcoming titles, Space Marine 2, will retail for $70, but only because he’s concerned audiences would see a cheaper price as emblematic of poor quality.
Yipes. Saber should throw this minnow back in the water and cast that line out again for a bigger fish that knows anything about the videogame market.
When I see a $70 game my very first thought is an over-promised under-delivered mess barely beta quality that contains Denuvo or some other shitware that had higher priority to work at launch than the game itself. Not to mention a day one patch the size of the entire install, login servers that can't handle the load, graphical glitches, and constant framerate drops.
That $30 game is $70 because it's a hot genre and other no name shops a fraction of the size sold a million copies at $30 so this exec's massive studio with its executive team's millions of combined man-hours could sell it for $150 and gamers would buy it because the reputation alone is worth $100 per copy according to them.
man that's some dumb reasoning in an attempt to justify a $70 price tag. Just cause a games expensive doesn't make it automatic quality.
It may be dumb but it's been a proven concept repeatedly. Apple proves this every day. Designer clothes prove this.
So, make good games for lower price, where the graphics is secondary, is the way to go? Who would've guessed! Thing is, it's easier for suits to push all the money into graphics, than attracting and keeping passioned developers and iterate on a good concept. Hire and fire is easier for them.
It's about time they fall on the nose. Give me mid sized games, for lower price and release good expansion DLC. That does reduce the risk for publisher and ultimately gives more control to players as well. But it might not hit the next sales world record and so on paper it looks worse to them.
But hey, indie devs have gladly filled that hole.
But then how could poor Nvidia ever hope to sell any more gpus waaaay above MSRP??
Hearts in the right place but nVidia are the ones who set Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price, as they are the creator of the item (I think technically they're LSRP cuz they license the tech but same idea)
They just set it stupidly fucking high for a laugh
Yes. And it will be replaced by $80-100 games.
Hey, pass me some of that copium so I can be that delusionally optimistic!
Don't forget the heap of micro transactions thrown in!
$70 games will go the way of the Dodo, not because $60 games will signal their demise, but because $80 games with seasonally expiring battlepasses and subscription based non-ownership models will.
Sad reality and one day our kids will watch some documentary and wonder how it was possible we were all owning those bloody games back then
They're getting rid of the shareholders?
I am buying space marine when it's the price of a sandwich
Airport sandwich or deli sandwich?
gas station sandwich
What risk? FIFA, MADDEN etc get sequel after sequel, the only real risk is them trying to make shitty live service games to make a quick buck then inevitably giving up on it after it predictably fails.
IMO the issue is the fixation around a standard price point. The price should be correlated to the value a game offers.