this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2023
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Games should not follow inflation at all?
N64 games were 50$ in the 90s, more limited releases (Ogre Battle 64 for example) were 60$.
Games pricing has stagnated, that's good for the consumers but bad for smaller developers...
Surely the difference in overheads involved in physical vs digital would mean profits are increasing at a higher rate then sale price
Maybe, development cost hasn't gone down though, not one bit!
Not really.
Optical discs are dirt cheap. This old answer from Quora says physical media (disc, case, artwork, inserts, etc) accounted for $2-$5 of the cost of a game.
And selling on steam costs 30%
IIRC 30% was also the standard box store cut. Steam just carried it on.
So that's like a 2.5 - 7% margin on a $70 game.. an extra 7% profit margin at the high end is pretty significant
Yes, if you're selling millions of units. But if you're buying just one, $2-$5 probably isn't going to matter to you. Not many people would buy a game at $68 they wouldn't buy at $70.
The medium games came in were more expensive
The gaming audience was much smaller
Games were only sold in stores
If you add all the season passes you're paying the same or even more with further microtransactions
Games in general now have a longer shelf life
AAA games in my country have been 69,99€ since the PS3 launch and now they're asking 79,99€. It's true development costs have ballooned, but I just don't think that's a good price/time ratio and rarely do I buy games over 15€. I really don't mind waiting a couple years.
Bad price/time ratio? I don't know many hobbies where you'll spend that kind of money for 100h+ of enjoyment...
You can buy musical instruments for that price software or hardware synthesisers, for example.
But that's exactly the point, I'd rather pay double, triple, quadruple for something I know I'll use for hundreds of hours (a monitor, a new keyboard, a Steam Deck) than 80€ for a game that will last me 12 to 30 hours (I only play offline story-based games).
Even if I considered game X, there are decades worth of games availabe for under 10€ that I would rather get now or buy a Humble Bundle while waiting for a sale.
The issue becomes of all publishers start to follow Nintendo's model and not dropping the prices much.
If you're going to count in inflation then I'm going to count in the poor quality of those games
Rose tinted glasses.
K