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[FoxMcChief]

Actions do speak louder. Bought 3 games today launching at around $20.

Shadow of the Ninja
Valfaris 2
Gori

I’m knee deep in Quest 3 games. All less than $20. I’m about to pull the trigger on Track Craft and the Castlevania game.

Fuck any dev that thinks they can charge me $70+ for a single game.

 

[FoxMcChief]

Hey BG3 publishing director…….

 

[Crayon]

Some games are worth a hundred bucks. Problem is, I don't know which until I play them.

 

[Pegasus Actual]

its more or less already being done

Great, those guys will clean up, market forces will recalibrate to the lower price point and both rich publishers and brokies can be happy!

 

[OmegaSupreme]

Most games aren't worth 70 let alone anything more than that. They can ask for whatever they want. Nobody's going to pay much more. Not when most people are struggling just to live here in the west.

 

[Danjin44]

You can make amazing games without going crazy over budget, Armored Core VI is prove of that.

This even true with movie industry. That shitty ass Borderlands movie cost close to $120 million dollars to make while Godzilla Minus One with MUCH better special effects only cost 15 million.

 

[SportsFan581]

I guess I'll have to move from grabbing things a year or so after release to two years.

 

[genesisblock]

Today's reminder

Game prices have not even remotely kept up with inflation over the past 30 years. They SHOULD cost more just with inflation, without even considering what game budgets are in 2024 compared to what they were in 1995 etc.

How about keeping salaries up with inflation as well? I make 3x more than 10 years a go and I was able to save more of my % back then.

 

[Pimpbaa]

Only way I’m paying $70 or more for a game is if it’s another collaboration between Sony and Shift Up. Other than that, it’s sales and gamepass. Paid 70 bucks for too many games I didn’t like last year.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Then price the game accordingly.

Stores sell the game for $70 US because they make money off that price. Their cost price is probably around $50. If any company thinks $70 is too low, jack up the wholesale price to $70 or $80, and the store will adjust their retail to $90-100.

Be brave Larian. Do it.

 

[P:axMagellanic]

Buying games at full price is cuckoldry at this point.

Also, this prick has forgotten that they released an unfinished game.

 

[bbeach123]

Did he think the game gonna sell the same at higher price or something ?

 

[reezoo]

Anyone know the budget of Elden ring? That game doesn’t Aim for super graphics and delivers where it matters.

 

[LavitzSlambert]

What shameful clowns. These are the idiots you all keep championing. Urging GTA6 to raise prices so they can do it too. More brazen than EA and Bobby Kotick right now. No one else has said this.

"$70 is too cheap."
"Almost all games should cost more."
- Larian

One mega hit game and they instantly stab you in the back. Watch out for these guys. Ubisoft literally hasnt said this yet. Let that sink in. They are using their reputation and good will to fuck you and move the acceptable price. Real mask off moment.

Shades of CDPR.

 

[Nickolaidas]

No.

Reduce your budgets instead.

One writer. No consultancy firms. No CGI movies. Less appearances on Geoff's shows. Less fluff, less open world bullshit.

You'll make both cheaper AND better games that way.

 

[Generic]

Not too long ago, it was possible to get day-1 games for $11 a month, but consumers rejected the idea.

 

[Trogdor1123]

Today's reminder

Game prices have not even remotely kept up with inflation over the past 30 years. They SHOULD cost more just with inflation, without even considering what game budgets are in 2024 compared to what they were in 1995 etc.

I’ve always wondered about this. As a rule, I would agree but they literally sell 10x the number of games now and all are laced with ways to exploit the day 1 buyers. Yes games cost more, but costs are not my fault as a consumer.

 

[Generic]

Today's reminder

Game prices have not even remotely kept up with inflation over the past 30 years. They SHOULD cost more just with inflation, without even considering what game budgets are in 2024 compared to what they were in 1995 etc.

Games are overpriced. It's possible to watch a Hollywood blockbuster on theaters for 1/7 the price of a game. Also streaming services have hundreds of movies and shows to watch.

 

[samoilaaa]

If people didn't spend 50 gadzillion dollars and 87 years on a single game maybe you wouldn't need to attach so much DLC and raise prices to get it shipped out the door.


Games do not need to cost 100 million dollars to be good products.

it does need to cost that much when you have so much voice actors , animations , motion captor and a team of 200-300+ people that all need to be payed

 

[Mokus]

Today's reminder

Game prices have not even remotely kept up with inflation over the past 30 years. They SHOULD cost more just with inflation, without even considering what game budgets are in 2024 compared to what they were in 1995 etc.

If you're using the Inflation Calculator for the last ten years it's OK. But in the 90's too many things we're different to make 1:1 comparison.

 

[BigBeauford]

Maybe stop setting up your gaming headquarters in the most expensive cities on planet earth, and start developing games in the AA space. Devolver Digital is way ahead of the curve in this regard.

 

[Embearded]

Not too long ago, it was possible to get day-1 games for $11 a month, but consumers rejected the idea.

Games like BG3 will never be developed for subscription services.
Microsoft decided to spend their competition out of business and this is the only reason why you saw some high budget games in GP. If they were leading the industry that would have never happened.

 

[DragonNCM]

I'm ok with "GOOD GAMES COST MORE" but not every game that developers name AAA or "AAAA" & at launch shows that it is not even AA game.
For games like Elden ring or God of War or even Horizon I will gladly pay 100$ but not for games like Asscreed or Avatar or outlaws or Scull & bones.
I don't care if they develop game for 10y & on the end is shitshow, clearly problem is at developer doing irresponsible things.

 

[existensmaximum]

If they're going to increase game prices with physical games disappearing the they better start to:

- Offer refunds (like Steam does)
- Offer demos for every game
- Figure out how we can sell our digital games second-hand

 

[Bitstream]

Lets find a line somewhere in the middle, how about instead of charging more for each game, we can agree on a maximum acceptable length for different types of game experiences instead? A quick google shows that a 100% completion of BG3 would take 161 hours. What if instead of spending additional dev resources making a game this large, lets limit the length to, I don't know, 70 hours? This way gamers can get entertainment totaling down to about a dollar an hour and devs don't need to spend the additional years working on the same product.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

For BG3 I was sceptical if investing so much on voice acting, cut scenes etc was a good choice.

After playing it I do feel it was a good choice. Every dialogue option you choose will have different reaction from npcs and you don’t have to use your imagination.

With that said, I wouldn’t mind if they cut down on that. Ultimately actual game altering choices are fewer. Those need to be given most attention.

 

[FoxMcChief]

Is this the same guy that was so greedy that they only launched digitally?

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

This is just nonsense.

I don't care if a game costs $50M to make, or $200M to make. The devs and publishers have to reign in their expectations. If you are spending $200M to bring a game to market, then you must be ready to sell 5M copies to break even. And at least 6M to make a profit. Which means that your game must be really good.

You don't get to ask the industry to veto mediocrity by increasing the cost of the game.

And what these fuckers don't get, is that there is an opportunity cost at play here. You ask people to pay $70 for a game, and those people are going to be more discerning of your game. They would expect more of it. It really has to be good. And you have taken it out of the impulse buy product category. What do they think happens if games cost $100? Bunch of idiots if you ask me.

If I were them.... I would be dropping the price of the games to $50/$60 for the digital release, and make the physical release only a collectors edition and start pricing of that from $100 with all the goodies that one would expect to come with a collectors/limited edition. increase sales by reducing the barrier of entry on the one place where you can control direct-to-user sales (digital store), and increase the cost of the physical edition in the one way you are sure that people buying it are doing so to keep the game.

 

[Goalus]

Problem is: are people willing to pay that price?

An easy way to find out would be to just go for it.
Offer GTA6 for $100 and see what happens.

 

[ZehDon]

Today's reminder

Game prices have not even remotely kept up with inflation over the past 30 years. They SHOULD cost more just with inflation, without even considering what game budgets are in 2024 compared to what they were in 1995 etc.

Cute.

Average American salary in 1995 was $27,845.
Average American salary in 2023 was $59,428.
Adjusting for inflation, this means wages have stagnated over the past thirty years. (That's actually pretty bad).

A new Triple AAA game cost around $66.99 at launch in the US (Super Mario 64 as the example).
A new Triple AAA game costs $70.00 at launch in the US today.
This means retail games cost about half of what they cost in 1995.

The video game industry brought in approximately $33b in revenue (adjusted), while in In 2022, it was $182b in revenue.

Add this up, and you'll see that, despite retail games costing half what they used to, and workers have literally no additional money to spend, gaming companies somehow make 554% more money. This is because your terrible "reminder" doesn't equate for:

• Digital delivery and fatter margins
  • Steam
  • Xbox Live
  • Game Pass
• Predatory monetisation practices
  • Overpriced DLC
  • Content cut-and-sold as DLC
  • Repeatable microtransactions (XP boosters)
  • One-off microtransactions (cosmetics)
  • Loot boxes
• Consumer expansion
  • More people buy and play games today than ever before
• Mass consolidation
  • Fewer game companies splitting a larger pie

Games have been more expensive for a long time. The idea that games "need" to be more expensive is fueled solely by companies "needing" to make more money. They can't make less profits than last quarter, or their stock goes down, so they need to make more profits every year forever. That's obviously impossible, but they'll keep the lie going until they've crashed the industry. So, easiest way to make more money is just take more money from consumers while giving nothing back. But they already did that, so now the industry has reached a point where there's no more money left to steal, and they don't know how to innovate. So, we get corporate apologists riding in with this kind of non-sense: "games are too cheap!" while publishers rake in billions in profits every year.

Publishers got addicted to free microtransaction money, now they need another golden goose - and there isn't one. It's not up to us to bail them out.

 

[PeteBull]

To me they can even charge 99$/€, if game is good i will buy it, if its bad i will skip, if its avg or just okish i will buy used/rent/at big discount sometime down the line and pay 30$ or even below that, and thats fine too, my backlog is over 100 as of now, and im not talking games i wanna try out, im talking games i own/installed and checked out, enjoy and wanna keep playing, simply.

 

[Zathalus]

I’d be fine with a higher base if companies would only have one edition of the game and no further microtransactions. But publishers want to raise prices and keep those additional monetization schemes.

 

[ProtoByte]

Then why are publishers continuing to post record profits? Oh, because every major game is laden with additional monetisation efforts that take the already expensive AUD$125.00 base cost of a game and raises it up even higher. Meaning most major games cost a lot more than the base AUD$125.00 already. So much so that the fact that titles like BG3 and Elden Ring didn't have those is an obvious contributor in their enormous success.

First of all, blame the Australian prices on the cucked tariff policy and general economic illiteracy.

Second, you're correct: The record profits are coming from monetisation schemes. Do most people on GAF enjoy the GaaS frenzy the industry has been on for the last half generation? Because you're just spelling out the incentives from exactly that.

Third, maybe everyone's forgotten this, but a disproportionate amount of Baldur's Gate 3's funds came from Early Access practices. It also takes the BG name and the D&D IP. It's not exactly an out of the blue success with no caveats. Elden Ring is essentially Dark Souls 4 or Demon's Souls 5, not including Bloodborne and Sekiro. 13 years of unrelenting critical acclaim and online glazing are not easily repeatable things even for the same company, which the reference to AC6 will prove

You can make amazing games without going crazy over budget, Armored Core VI is prove of that.

AC6 just proves you can make games that don't sell that well (even with FromSoft's name, ironically) for cheaper in Japan. It is also mid.

This even true with movie industry. That shitty ass Borderlands movie cost close to $120 million dollars to make while Godzilla Minus One with MUCH better special effects only cost 15 million.

Godzilla Minus One also made just 115 million at the box office. Deadpool and Wolverine cost over 200 million and multiplied that number by almost 10. What does that "prove" in your opinion? Because I promise you, most studios would prefer D&W over GMO.

Again, you're also talking about different cost structures. The yen is worth nothing, Japanese actors don't demand as much money, and by all accounts the Japanese CGI studiobwas getting worked like a sweatshop at way cheaper prices than stateside VFX houses.

 

[Danjin44]

AC6 just proves you can make games that don't sell that well (even with FromSoft's name, ironically) for cheaper in Japan. It is also mid.

I don’t give rat ass if you didn’t liked the game, other people did.

 

[ahtlas7]

I still haven’t bought this clowns game because haven’t found it at a price I am willing to pay. And I’m sure there are many others with me. I’m sure they like bigger paychecks while I prefer to keep my money.

 

[Sept Terrion Of Nothing]

I can understand the inflation and other aspects have an effect on economy and making it harder for everyone around the world. Also I can understand that it makes "making a game" more pricey, they need more money to make games.

I'm not finance expert but when you give a reasonable price tag to your game, isn't it trigger consumer friendly sensation in player base and flock lots of people to that game (of course there are lots of variables when it comes to the selling but I'm just taking the situation on the base level)? And isn't that means more people buying your product and your earnings going up?

Literally asking here: Does it add additional cost for gaming companies to make more digital keys for the game? I mean lets say your price tag is 60$. Your game sold 100.000 unit. And on the other hand, lets say your price tag 40$ and your game sold 500.000 unit. Does this extra 400.000 keys add additional financal cost to the companies?

 

[xVodevil]

And I say games should ship in a finished state without any of our favorite launch issues like many huge releases in recent years Cyberpunk, TLOU, Jedi Survivor and so... you can have the best PC in the world and still unable to enjoy your game WTF is that?
After that we can talk price.

 

[alucard0712_rus]

It's been known since 2020

 

[Ultros]

Games should also release in a working state and not require tons of patches to work properly

 

[MagiusNecros]

I would only condone a higher price if the games released as a complete product. No DLC, no patches, no bugs, open mod support, accessible in every language both in subs and voice, no cash shop, no P2W, no GaaS.

Until then it would seem very few releases can reach that level of quality. And that games ranging from 5-15 years ago are better products then the ones they churn out today.

If anything with how great gaming tech is they should ideally cost much less to make if they didn't overfocus on graphical fidelity.

 

[Z O N E]

I mean, technically yes, they should be charging more, which is why I'm not surprised at studios pushing for a live service game.

Also, this is the big one...

Maybe don't house your main studios in expensive cities?

Insomniac, Naughty Dog, San Diego Studio, San Mateo Studio, Santa Monica Studio and XDev are based in California. You know, the place that is extremely pricey.

I don't understand why Microsoft and Sony don't just rent one big ass building and house all their studios in that one building.

 

[Akuji]

Market decides the price. U can try to sell ur game for whatever u want. Just check how many people are buying. 60 bucks for a game is alot for what is offered. U can buy like a thousend of Banger titles for like 15 bucks or less. Games dont age anymore like they used to. If you want to play tomb Raider 2013, its not the prettiest game ever but it looks alright.

If your game is multiplaye based then gl because u need Player numbers or the game feels dead. So you shouls have way lower prices.

The industry has no say in this. Some ultra big titles like gta could do it. But iam not sure they will, they want a shitload of players for gta online. So why have the entry cost so high.

But wont matter anyway.
Its 2024, making games has never been easier. What 1 Person can do in a day is more then what could be done by 1 Person back in 2005 in a week. Sometimes a month.

Games need to become a lot cheaper again or they will not grow as much as they could. Not the big titles. But alot of titles are way to expensive and thats why they fall so fast in price. Because thats all these Games are worth.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

I mean, technically yes, they should be charging more, which is why I'm not surprised at studios pushing for a live service game.

Also, this is the big one...

Maybe don't house your main studios in expensive cities?

Insomniac, Naughty Dog, San Diego Studio, San Mateo Studio, Santa Monica Studio and XDev are based in California. You know, the place that is extremely pricey.

I don't understand why Microsoft and Sony don't just rent one big ass building and house all their studios in that one building.

Maybe don’t make 100hrs RPG but a 50hrs one? Just a thought.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Maybe don't house your main studios in expensive cities?

Insomniac, Naughty Dog, San Diego Studio, San Mateo Studio, Santa Monica Studio and XDev are based in California. You know, the place that is extremely pricey.

I don't understand why Microsoft and Sony don't just rent one big ass building and house all their studios in that one building.

It’s a never ending cycle - people are where opportunities are, opportunities are where the talent pool is, etc. It’s going to be hard to change without state government pushing benefits to the industry and even then the things will continue to go up as talent moves in + you are fucking up the people that lived in other places for decades.

 

[Gaiff]

In a world where so many games come out half-baked? I dunno.

Star Wars Jedi Survivor is still an unplayable turd on PC. Many games release completely broken as well. In my case, Elden Ring was basically unplayable for a week until it was patched.

You can trust most AAA games to have some sort of major problem upon release even on consoles now when they used to be reliable. Black Myth Wukong for instance I hear plays like shit there.

It also seems developers are simply less technically competent than before. I see HZD at $50M and Forbidden West at ostensibly $200M and absolutely cannot understand why the sequel has 4 times the budget. It’s not 4 times as big (or even 2 times) or much improved or anything, really. Same for Spider-Man 2 that cost $300M and is just a marginal improvement over $100(?) Spider-Man and so on.

So, I dunno about charging more when publishers’ wanton spending is more of a problem than what games should cost and that they tend to sell unfinished products at full price.

 

[Negotiator101]

What shameful clowns. These are the idiots you all keep championing. Urging GTA6 to raise prices so they can do it too. More brazen than EA and Bobby Kotick right now. No one else has said this.

"$70 is too cheap."
"Almost all games should cost more."
- Larian

One mega hit game and they instantly stab you in the back. Watch out for these guys. Ubisoft literally hasnt said this yet. Let that sink in. They are using their reputation and good will to fuck you and move the acceptable price. Real mask off moment.

I agree but GTA is one of the only games that could do it and people would pay, they certainly wouldn't do it for BG3 regardless how good it is.

 

[ZehDon]

First of all, blame the Australian prices on the cucked tariff policy and general economic illiteracy.

I'll blame the prices on the people who set the prices because they're the ones who ... set the prices?

Third, maybe everyone's forgotten this, but a disproportionate amount of Baldur's Gate 3's funds came from Early Access practices. It also takes the BG name and the D&D IP. It's not exactly an out of the blue success with no caveats. Elden Ring is essentially Dark Souls 4 or Demon's Souls 5, not including Bloodborne and Sekiro. 13 years of unrelenting critical acclaim and online glazing are not easily repeatable things even for the same company, which the reference to AC6 will prove

Exactly: only established players can ever succeed big, which is why Helldivers 2 on PC flopped, Black Myth: Wukong was DOA, and -- oh. It's almost as if making a good game doesn't require $160m dollars, "13 years of unrelenting critical acclaim" or a $200 price tag. Good games require vision and talent. And there's a self-evident lack of that in the AAA.

 

[IDKFA]

I'm a huge GTA fan, but there is no way I'm spending £100 on GT6. I don't care how good it is.

 

[Madserb2023]

Ok. Let the market decide. Charge what you like and see if it sells. I think there is a limit and I believe we are seeing this with quite a few games of late selling below expectations. As price goes up reviews matter more and if games get less than 90 on Metacritic, people just won't buy it when they would have before. If games were $100, I wouldn't buy anything less than the very best. Would have to all be Witcher 3 quality. The pressure will only make it worse for developers. The worse part is I saw an article where some producers and executives at the top were earning $300,000 plus. Imaging several people earning that over an 8 year dev time. We know why they cost more.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

Ah yes Baldurs Gate 3 the game that took 25 patches to get fixed.
And I'm currently playing Kingdom come: Deliverance- a game that took 2 years to get fixed.

No I'm going to keep buying games years later and at a steep sale.