we're being priced out of our hobby.
- Thread starter 64gigabyteram
- Start date
SportsFan581
Member
I don't think we'll get priced out on PC. Outside of those that need the absolute latest and greatest performance, I think things will be ok. If the GPUs get too expensive, folks will buy less of them and keep their old cards instead. Developers need customers and will continue supporting a minimum spec that gives them a broad audience.
alabtrosMyster
Member
If you want cheap get the free games on Epic...
GamePass sucks, even as a subs service.
mathello
Member
What sucks is how much PC is different than consoles sometimes. Like Sometimes I can't get the game on the right screen after im already sitting down to play it. Or Shader compile shows up, or steam big picture launches another launcher and unlike steamdeck it gets stuck. No controller support for the other storefronts like epic and gog.
I switched to PC to save money still get all the games, but I definitely harmed the ease and quick quality for it.
Yesterday I was playing helldivers 2 and it was running at a bad framerate in default settings , and I could not change them because it was multiplayer time with my best friend, so I just played at 30 fps.
I switched to PC to save money still get all the games, but I definitely harmed the ease and quick quality for it.
Yesterday I was playing helldivers 2 and it was running at a bad framerate in default settings , and I could not change them because it was multiplayer time with my best friend, so I just played at 30 fps.
EverydayBeast
ChatGPT 0.001
rubik's dude
Member
Personal theory, but I feel like the reason why MK was so expensive at the time was because it had a huge arcade presence. Maybe they thought that making MK too affordable on home consoles would kill all the money they were making on the arcade versions.This is how games use to be priced, wow, kinda similar to today. MORTAL Kombat 74.99, I wish consoles were $199.99 today.
Silentium
Member
This thread makes literally no sense. Anyone with an adult job in a western country can easily afford to game.
Madserb2023
Member
Gaming is as cheap or as expensive as you want it to be like most hobbies. Buying three games is a lot cheaper than buying 50 games. I haven't bought the new Assassin's Creed yet but I will come Black Friday when its 50% off. What's becoming more unsustainable is buying dozens of games day one for full price which I did in the past. However, I just have a ginormous blacklog of games I will never finish.
HerjansEagleFeeder
Member
If you
- are fine with 1080p upscaled to 4K
- 60fps
- buy at least 6 games a year
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
I'm playing my backlog of PC games at this point, and no intention of buying new hardware. Not with the way things are in America.
Iced Arcade
Member
Price increasing of hardware and games is only going to push cloud gaming and subscription services ahead eventually. Wouldn't be surprised if it's not an intentional thing.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
This is how games use to be priced, wow, kinda similar to today. MORTAL Kombat 74.99, I wish consoles were $199.99 today.
I see these things being thrown around everywhere.
Y'all are forgetting the main context.
It took $30 or so to manufacture a single N64 cart.
It takes < $1.50 to manufacture a BR Disc, not to mention digital content has no disc manufacturing costs associated at all.
This comparison has never been in good faith.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Also, any game sold in retail store has Walmart, Amazon, best Buy etc... taking their cut (whatever it is... maybe 20-25%).
A $70 cartridge after rom cost, retailer cut, packaging and shipping, and also wholesale cut for any stores who dont get supplied direct leaves hardly any leftover for the game company. Most people buy digital now. A company with their own storefront gets it all, and any third party companies losing 30%, still gets 70% of the pot.
small_law
Member
You can still get into videos games for way less than golf or cars, but a high-end experience is crazy expensive. You're implicating every corner of consumer electronics with video games. It's a confluence of video, audio, computing, and networking. No other consumer electronics hobby is like that.
I've been getting into the audio end of things more and more and it's a strange place to be. Compatibility is an issue with consoles since Xbox and Switch don't support UAC/2. Playstation 5 does, but not everything is compatible. For PC, you can go crazy nuts and get whatever DAC/Amp combo you want. Then there's the actual headsets and headphones to consider. And microphones. It gets real crazy real quick.
I've been getting into the audio end of things more and more and it's a strange place to be. Compatibility is an issue with consoles since Xbox and Switch don't support UAC/2. Playstation 5 does, but not everything is compatible. For PC, you can go crazy nuts and get whatever DAC/Amp combo you want. Then there's the actual headsets and headphones to consider. And microphones. It gets real crazy real quick.
StereoVsn
Gold Member
Plus cost of living was overall cheaper. No myriad sub services, cell phone fees, much cheaper housing and health insurance, cheaper cars and fuel/electricity, and so on.
A couple on middle class income can't afford to buy a house now days. That wasn't the case during N64 era.
Danjin44
The nicest person on this forum
Raven77
Member
If you run the math and compare game prices in the 90s all the way up to current and correlate that to game development costs - even on the low end games would cost roughly $500 each with a 10% correlation.
If you even just use a 1% correlation game prices should be by all accounts at minimum $100 each.
The math: Take the overall % increase in game development cost and apply 10% of that to video game cost to the consumer - you get $500 per game. If a meager 1% of that - you get $100 per game.
The gaming community has had it so GREAT as far as price increases go compared to just about every other form of entertainment. Book prices have tripled in the past 15 years alone, movie tickets are through the roof, concert ticket prices are astronomical compared to 10 or 15 years ago.
We should all quit complaining.
You can disagree all you want, but the numbers show the full picture.
If you even just use a 1% correlation game prices should be by all accounts at minimum $100 each.
The math: Take the overall % increase in game development cost and apply 10% of that to video game cost to the consumer - you get $500 per game. If a meager 1% of that - you get $100 per game.
The gaming community has had it so GREAT as far as price increases go compared to just about every other form of entertainment. Book prices have tripled in the past 15 years alone, movie tickets are through the roof, concert ticket prices are astronomical compared to 10 or 15 years ago.
We should all quit complaining.
You can disagree all you want, but the numbers show the full picture.
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The_Mike
I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
That's what I've done the last year or so.
Got severall teras of retro games I have not enough time in my life to get through all that.
AndrewRyan
Member
The switch2 game price increases made me curious to know how much each game costs on average if you just buy the exclusives. Assuming $70/game plus system price, each game costs $186 if you buy five. Increase that to ten games and it goes down to $128 each.
It's interesting thinking about games this way. I'd like to try something similar for PC but it's tricky considering you're always upgrading hardware and use it for other things. But still am curious. Thinking of using the price of a new graphics card every 4 years divided by the total spent on games during that period.
It's interesting thinking about games this way. I'd like to try something similar for PC but it's tricky considering you're always upgrading hardware and use it for other things. But still am curious. Thinking of using the price of a new graphics card every 4 years divided by the total spent on games during that period.
TGO
Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
I'm guessing the UK prices for Switch 2 games will have the nice conversion of $90 > £90.
Giving that the national minimum wage isn't even £90 a day before tax, having to work 2 days just to buy a game...
I know people won't see it that way because they get their wages monthly, but that's what you'll be doing.
15 hours work + 1 Switch game.
It a joke.
Giving that the national minimum wage isn't even £90 a day before tax, having to work 2 days just to buy a game...
I know people won't see it that way because they get their wages monthly, but that's what you'll be doing.
15 hours work + 1 Switch game.
It a joke.
dragonyeuw
Member
Not to forget that the overall install base for consoles was way smaller. A successful console back in the 90s sold about what the Xbox One sold last gen, which is considered paltry nowadays when Sony and Nintendo firing on all cylinders can move well north of 100 million consoles along with DLC, online and all the other monetization methods.
But as others have said, $70 today doesn't land the same as $70 in 1995, because just the cost of being alive today is exorbitant, never mind having money for games or anything else superfluous.
simpatico
Member
Actually not yet, and it's entirely thanks to the incompetence of the gaming software industry. Very few of the really demanding games are good. 2070+ owners are doing fine for the foreseeable future.
Heimdall_Xtreme
Hermen Hulst Fanclub's #1 Member
If Playstation and Nintendo continue with their stupidity and self-centeredness... I'll get a high-end gaming laptop or an Asus ROG Ally Z1 extreme or the MSI claw and hack it... so they'll stop bothering me.
Overall, there are still games I want to play on PS1, PS2, especially PS3... So I don't give a damn about the new graphics.
Even better, because they support me by saving.
Overall, there are still games I want to play on PS1, PS2, especially PS3... So I don't give a damn about the new graphics.
Even better, because they support me by saving.
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64gigabyteram
Reverse groomer.
this thread popped off. wow
People can say "stop being poor" all they want but the page number does prove this is a problem more than one person is facing at least
People can say "stop being poor" all they want but the page number does prove this is a problem more than one person is facing at least
Heimdall_Xtreme
Hermen Hulst Fanclub's #1 Member
Yes dear friend.
But the problem is the stupid YouTubers who are also a nuisance... And the fat Orange, who is addicted to Coca-Cola.
Like Bukele and Milei's bootlickers.
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playbignbox
Member
Priced out because of a $10 increase? lol so much drama
saintjules
Member
It can be. Doordash hiring.
Heimdall_Xtreme
Hermen Hulst Fanclub's #1 Member
This is what the Madman of Milei did to him and he became like an ass.Should have invested into crypto, tiktok videos and stocks
So you gonna buy like 2 games and the console or something?
Right now is prime time for a new company to barge into the market. 4 years of development is enough for a new console.
I moved to steam deck because I have ran out of patience with Xbox having zero exclusives under the guise of "we lost the console war pls sub to Xbox game pass so we can gaslight you into thinking we made PC's"
Edit: Xbox sales were I live have crashed too, during the One era they were everywhere. Now the second hand market is dominated by jailbroken switches with the odd Steam Deck and PS5 in there (in small amounts)
I moved to steam deck because I have ran out of patience with Xbox having zero exclusives under the guise of "we lost the console war pls sub to Xbox game pass so we can gaslight you into thinking we made PC's"
Edit: Xbox sales were I live have crashed too, during the One era they were everywhere. Now the second hand market is dominated by jailbroken switches with the odd Steam Deck and PS5 in there (in small amounts)
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Amin_Parker
Member
This is sort of the plan that I'm taking moving forward. I only plan to buy two games from the legend of Zelda series and the Xenoblade series. And those games has to be brand new main line entries. I am not supporting spinoffs or remakes.
So basically what I'm saying is I'm no longer supporting the video game industry outside of the Nintendo Switch 2, the legend of Zelda and Xenoblade games.
And if I'm being completely honest with myself, the Xenoblade series is on a thin rope with me. And I say that simply because these games are costing an arm and a leg nowadays and I really just can't afford them anymore.
archangelmorph
Member
The inflation argument to justify the exorbitant cost of games today is silly btw.
Most consumer products do not scale pricing in line with inflation because if they did that linearly then they'd price themselves out of their respective markets. Price elasticity of demand is a thing (& has it's limits) and across all employment sectors globally wages have not grown with inflation and have in fact stagnated significantly since 2008 pretty much.
Secondly and separately; video games are some of the few consumer products that benefit greatly from the exorbitant privileges of marginal (physical) unit cost scaling as distribution media costs have scaled back considerably (e.g. high cost NES carts vs cheap optical media today). Not to mention literally zero unit cost scaling for digital distribution. Coupled with the economies of scale in distribution growth as the global market has risen from about $4.9B in aggregate turnover in the early 90s, to around $191B circa 2021 (that's a colossal ~38.9x increase in market size).
When your market has grown exponentially (with more gamers playing than ever before, well into the millions, and projected to grow further to about ~$600B by 2030), and your costs have collapsed over the years, there is literally no fucking justification whatsoever (other than well… greed fuckos!) to see unit prices increases over the same period. Even moreso when IAPs have created further, extremely lucrative monetisation streams for publishers beyond storefront consumer purchases of these products.
Most consumer products do not scale pricing in line with inflation because if they did that linearly then they'd price themselves out of their respective markets. Price elasticity of demand is a thing (& has it's limits) and across all employment sectors globally wages have not grown with inflation and have in fact stagnated significantly since 2008 pretty much.
Secondly and separately; video games are some of the few consumer products that benefit greatly from the exorbitant privileges of marginal (physical) unit cost scaling as distribution media costs have scaled back considerably (e.g. high cost NES carts vs cheap optical media today). Not to mention literally zero unit cost scaling for digital distribution. Coupled with the economies of scale in distribution growth as the global market has risen from about $4.9B in aggregate turnover in the early 90s, to around $191B circa 2021 (that's a colossal ~38.9x increase in market size).
When your market has grown exponentially (with more gamers playing than ever before, well into the millions, and projected to grow further to about ~$600B by 2030), and your costs have collapsed over the years, there is literally no fucking justification whatsoever (other than well… greed fuckos!) to see unit prices increases over the same period. Even moreso when IAPs have created further, extremely lucrative monetisation streams for publishers beyond storefront consumer purchases of these products.
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Hohenheim
Member
I'd take South of Midnight and Avowed over Horizon and God of War anytime.
I like all of them though, and very much looking forward to playing Forbidden West at some point.
But I really enjoyed Avowed and South of Midnight, liked Horizon a lot and found both "new" God of War games to be quite boring for much of the playtime.
DeltaPolarBear
Member
Renting will always be more expensive than owning. Cloud gaming is just renting a remote computer, and if hardware price goes up then so would the cloud infrastructure costs. So the price would go up in tandem.
You left out the rising game development costs. If someone read your post they would think development budgets are the same today as 40 years ago. When the complete opposite has happened.
YOu also left out that the dedicated gaming hardware audience has stagnated. A big reason game prices increased less than the rate of inflation over the decades was the hardware makers were able to grow the audience. That's not happening any more.
Also your market figures include mobile gaming which is a different beast and much larger. The subsequent prediction is worth the pixels it occupies.
YOu also left out that inflation affects labor costs. The massive sudden boost in inflation due to the pandemic has largely resulted in roughly corresponding increases in labor costs. Low end wages around me have gone up a lot. I like to point out that Taco Bell pays $15/hr to start. They weren't close to that 5 years ago.
last, contradictory to say, in your 2nd paragraph, that companies can't increase price with inflation without pricing themselves out of their market and then conclude the price increases had no justification other than greed. I mean you're saying companies can't raise price without f'n themselves but then did it anyway for less reason than inflation. That doesn't make sense.
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Setsuna Mudou
Member
it's a great video, more people should see this and open their eyes
JimmyRustler
Member
You want the goods or the jobs? If you want the latter, you need to buy less until the companies start producing on your soil.
archangelmorph
Member
Reasonable counter analysis.
Low end labour costs are largely irrelevant to the costs of game development. Game devs don't work on minimum wage salaries.
The rest of your arguments are reasonable, however even still, two overriding factors remain:
1. Game dev costs have exploded largely on the basis of the self-inflicted need for publishers to pursue the entirely unsustainable trend of "bigger, shinier, higher production values" across the board. Only Nintendo pivoted away from that after the GameCube and has since grown to become the most profitable platform provider in the industry (at the very least on a margin basis). When publishers by choice are burning $200-400m budgets on 5-7year dev cycle product builds, well that's on them. Risk diversification in creative industries has been a thing forever (e.g. see the film industry) but games publishers seem intent to ignore and pursue ultra high risk for ultra high reward and basically nothing else.
2. The games industry overall is still on a dollar profit basis (even when adjusting for inflation) 1-2 orders of magnitude more profitable than it has ever been in the history of the market. Even with the excessive dev budgets, crazy marketing spends and higher economic cost bases, it's still in a significantly more lucrative place. This would still be true if global net revenues were halved by slashing SKU costs by 50%.
So ultimately the overall point here still stands.
Lord Malachite
Member
How is the PS5 Pro pricing anyone out at $700 when its not even a requirement but an option. PS5 Pro is a very small segment of the overall PS5 market and the bog standard $450 All Digital / $500 Disc Included systems are the ones all games are designed for. Yes, many games are "PS5 Pro Enhanced" but are fully playable on the base PS5. In many cases, the enhancements aren't even a "night and day" difference from the standard to the Pro.
I've said this many times before, I'll say it again. The PS5 Pro is not a mainstream product. It is a niche product that exists to capture the highest end of the console market. It is for videophiles, professional gamers, and people with a large amount of FOMO and money burning a hole in their pocket.
Myself, I own a PS5 Pro, but I'm none of the above. I upgraded because I had already had to do an expensive repair to my launch Disc PS5 and I didn't have confidece I'd make it through another 4 years without another repair. Since Gamestop was offering over half what I paid for my PS5 at launch ($264) when I traded it, it seemed like a no brainer to get the Pro and safeguard myself against another failure. Having the Pro also means if PS6 is stupidly hard to get like the PS5 was at launch, I can always just put it off a bit as my hardware won't be as ancient by that point.
I've said this many times before, I'll say it again. The PS5 Pro is not a mainstream product. It is a niche product that exists to capture the highest end of the console market. It is for videophiles, professional gamers, and people with a large amount of FOMO and money burning a hole in their pocket.
Myself, I own a PS5 Pro, but I'm none of the above. I upgraded because I had already had to do an expensive repair to my launch Disc PS5 and I didn't have confidece I'd make it through another 4 years without another repair. Since Gamestop was offering over half what I paid for my PS5 at launch ($264) when I traded it, it seemed like a no brainer to get the Pro and safeguard myself against another failure. Having the Pro also means if PS6 is stupidly hard to get like the PS5 was at launch, I can always just put it off a bit as my hardware won't be as ancient by that point.