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There’s a problem with video game pricing that no one is talking about

Hemingwayoffbase

Hemingwayoffbase

Member
Here's the pattern for modern game releases:

Game comes out at high full price ($70-$100 depending on game/bonuses).

AT THAT SAME LAUNCH

Game is in the WORST state it will ever exist in. Pre patches. Pre balancing. Pre DLC. For all intents and purposes, "full release" basically means "early access."

HOWEVER

If I wait, the game will eventually go on sale and get patched. Meaning it will become both BETTER and CHEAPER.

So am I the only one who now just inherently SKIPS release dates? You're literally paying the most money for the worst product. It makes zero sense.

AND

If I'm NOT the only one falling into this pattern of waiting… what is that doing to the video game industry in general?
 
That's right, my friend, that's how it is with Final Fantasy Tactics, for example; it's the same game as the PSP version...

They're doing a re-release, and I'm avoiding it... besides, I already have it on PSP, and I never liked the game.

I'm waiting and considering buying Cronos the new dawn game
 
You are absolutely correct with this. I will usually buy a Nintendo game at launch since it's usually feature complete and rarely sees price drops. I just picked up the Metal Gear Collection for $40 and it just had another big update.
 
cutting_edge.png
 
You can also play the keyshops and get a nice discount on launch too.

But, yeah. You can play the waiting game and wait for it to drop to a decent price.
 
It's easy to hate corporations for asking those insane prices?

But are you brave enough to hate the common folk for paying those prices and signaling the industry that they should raise them even higher?

Buying a game is a voluntary transaction. And most of the time, people forget that the they're the other half of the problem.
 
It's a double edged sword. If you buy in the launch window, it will cost you more in the long run but the studio gets more money so they can make more dlc, games etc. if you wait it's cheaper for you but the studio are "less rewarded" for their efforts. Which is more important to you?
 
Dude this gets talked about here, often
 
Hemingwayoffbase said:
Here's the pattern for modern game releases:

Game comes out at high full price ($70-$100 depending on game/bonuses).

AT THAT SAME LAUNCH

Game is in the WORST state it will ever exist in. Pre patches. Pre balancing. Pre DLC. For all intents and purposes, "full release" basically means "early access."

HOWEVER

If I wait, the game will eventually go on sale and get patched. Meaning it will become both BETTER and CHEAPER.

So am I the only one who now just inherently SKIPS release dates? You're literally paying the most money for the worst product. It makes zero sense.

AND

If I'm NOT the only one falling into this pattern of waiting… what is that doing to the video game industry in general?
Click to expand...
No one talks about this? You mean no one under the rock where you live?
 
You either pay up front at launch ciz you can't wait or trust the dev.

Otherwise wait and see.

Or wait for patch.
 
Some can get away with it. I do think others are shooting themselves in the foot by pricing too high at launch.

For games where gaining traction at launch is by no means a given, I think it's underestimated how far goodwill resulting from reasonable pricing at launch can go toward delivering that traction and how critical that is.

I also think there's generally a false assumption that they will simply pick up those lower price sales later on when they lower the price. The amount I'm willing to pay for a given game at launch you can probably cut in half post-launch.
 
Hemingwayoffbase said:
So am I the only one who now just inherently SKIPS release dates? You're literally paying the most money for the worst product. It makes zero sense.
Click to expand...
Not everything in life is about optimising cost/value ratio, you have to enjoy the little things :)
Being there on day one means being part of the discourse, figuring out the game together with people who are as excited as you are to play it. There's joy in not knowing the best build, or how long the game is, how many bosses it has or what are the "top 10 tips you should know before starting the game" ... before you actually start the game.
 
There's so much in the backlog waiting to be played that in order for me to get a game day 1 it must the coolest thing ever.
 
TheAnt said:
Not everything in life is about optimising cost/value ratio, you have to enjoy the little things :)
Being there on day one means being part of the discourse, figuring out the game together with people who are as excited as you are to play it. There's joy in not knowing the best build, or how long the game is, how many bosses it has or what are the "top 10 tips you should know before starting the game" ... before you actually start the game.
Click to expand...

You can always experience that joy by not watching videos or reading articles until you play it. The internet is so compartmentalized these days that avoiding spoilers is easier than before where one's entire social circle and every article would be a mindfield.
 
Only time it's better to buy new right away and live with bugs is if youre a diehard fan who has to be a day one gamer, or if jumping into online sports leagues and leveling up in shooters so you arent the Xmas noob are that important for you.

If not, just wait it out.
 
I used to think like that, but there a few downsides these days.

  • Multiplayer population: if you want to play all modes, it's easier at launch. As the time goes by, everyone start to gravitate towards a single mode, and even then, population drop and waiting times get longer for everything.
  • Multiplayer expertise: it's easier to figure out the game when everyone is in the same level. Getting later will guarantee a more toxic and elitist community.
  • Timed license: some licensed shit is only available for a time and the is removed for ever due to license. Even entire games.
  • Some patches removes the actual fun stuff of the game in name of balancing. You buy later, you lose that.
  • Servers can also be turned off for some functionalities. Game still work, but a few things don't anymore.
So yeah, even single player games can be fucked over post launch these days. I got a Wii u in the year switch launched. Was frustrating that miiverse stopped working by then. I always wait, but I don't always get the best experience. It's 80/20.
 
I always wait 2 Years before i buy a game.
1. Games are 70% off minimum after 2 years
2. Games are in their best state possible after 1 Year.
3. After 2 Years, a lot of quality mods have emerged.
 
I stopped buying full price around 2014/15..ish with the only exceptions like Fromsoft games and Final Fantasy with DQ11 , Vrising ,Star Ocean 6 and E33 being the only other outliers in over 10 years . A fresh Souls game is always pretty interesting before they're patched especially for us multiplayer folk . I still got a plethora of highly rated games I haven't tried yet fully complete that I can probably get for cheap now like CP2077, BG3 and P5 . Thankfully I waited to get Divinity:os2 after having my eyes on it for years as it was on sale for $15 right when the ps5 version released.
 
i'll be getting resident evil requiem day 1 at full price. it'll be the first day 1 purchase i've made in most of a year, & will likely be the last one for 2026. to the extent i'm not really looking forward to anything other than requiem, it's not really gonna be all that hard...
 
My default mode is just to wait for a game to drop in price. Has been for years now. No game is worth more than 60€, imho. And being finished and in a good technical state is independent of the pricing. A fucking 10€ indie game should be working and be finished just as a fucking 80€ AAA game.

My backlog is massive, and I have a lot of older games that are basically endlessly replayable (to me). So, if the industry continues to raise prices while releasing shittier and shittier games, then I will just stop buying any new ones, I guess.
 
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I haven't bought a new game within 6 months of launch in years, actually I'd be hard-pressed to think back to the last game I bought in its first year. Firstly I'm cheap as fuck but to your point, by the time the game hits my pricepoint its undergone several patches. So yes, you are getting the worst version of a game at its highest price buying in the launch window.

Which, by the same token, is also why I hate this recent trend of being gaslit into buying new hardware as soon as it launches 'before it goes up in price'. So there's no more waiting for a product to release, and let it mature via software/hardware updates before committing to a purchase, because 'better buy it now cause market conditions' hangs over every fucking thing. This timeline sucks ass.
 
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Pretty sure the OP's point is brought up all the time with people.

If you're raising prices + releasing unfinished buggy games...you're training the audience to just wait for discounts.

We're in a gaming landscape now where games are coming out all the time, so I have litany of options + a backlog. Only games I'll usually buy day one are AA to indie..because they're priced lower.
 
TintoConCasera said:
There's so much in the backlog waiting to be played that in order for me to get a game day 1 it must the coolest thing ever.
Click to expand...
Yep, basically this. Considering the state if games at release now days, especially if they are UE5 based, it would take an absolute positive banger for me to move at launch.

Last one was KCD2 which was absolutely worth it. And EUV because I am a sucker for Paradox games and this was an absolute waste to buy at launch.
 
Durin said:
That game also had the decency to release something that looked stunning, and ran stunning out of the gate. If that happened more often, this would be a non-issue.
Click to expand...
Yep, KCD2 was definitely a rarity both in how good the game was and how well it ran at release.
 
Well you see, if you do not buy "day one" you don't get to talk about the game for the first 2 weeks after release "while the iron is hot". If you wait a year or more like I do for most games, and you jump into the OT and start talking about it, it is like a ghost town in there. So you are basically paying for "exclusive access" to a not so exclusive club full of impatient gamers, see also morons, who have to have the latest shiny thing.
 
Hemingwayoffbase said:
Here's the pattern for modern game releases:

Game comes out at high full price ($70-$100 depending on game/bonuses).

AT THAT SAME LAUNCH

Game is in the WORST state it will ever exist in. Pre patches. Pre balancing. Pre DLC. For all intents and purposes, "full release" basically means "early access."

HOWEVER

If I wait, the game will eventually go on sale and get patched. Meaning it will become both BETTER and CHEAPER.

So am I the only one who now just inherently SKIPS release dates? You're literally paying the most money for the worst product. It makes zero sense.

AND

If I'm NOT the only one falling into this pattern of waiting… what is that doing to the video game industry in general?
Click to expand...
And it will usually be a "complete edition" with all the DLC bundled. Elden ring "tarnished edition" is a good example.
 
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semiconscious said:
i'll be getting resident evil requiem day 1 at full price. it'll be the first day 1 purchase i've made in most of a year, & will likely be the last one for 2026. to the extent i'm not really looking forward to anything other than requiem, it's not really gonna be all that hard...
Click to expand...
RE9 and Crimson desert for me. That's it.
 
If the game is fun to play why should I wait? Unless its Cyberpunk level broken then I dont have any reason to wait.
 
Quasicat said:
You are absolutely correct with this. I will usually buy a Nintendo game at launch since it's usually feature complete and rarely sees price drops. I just picked up the Metal Gear Collection for $40 and it just had another big update.
Click to expand...
I think even Nintendo is guilty. I read Echoes of Wisdom had a patch that had to fix 200-300 assets. Like wtf?
 
Danjin44 said:
If the game is fun to play why should I wait? Unless its Cyberpunk level broken then I dont have any reason to wait.
Click to expand...
New game that looks fun: 80 bucks and could get more content, patches of all kinds and discounts later on.
Old game that looks fun: 5 to 20 bucks and it's feature complete.

For me the key is not falling to the hype and fomo and just playing whatever is fun to me. For people that have 100+ games on the backlog, getting a new game day 1 doesn't seem like that much of a good deal specially considering the higher prices and the lower standards when it comes to the state in which some games are released.

That said, I will never be able to not buy a new SMT game day 1. We all have out weak spots. :lollipop_content:
 
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This is how I buy most of my games, a few years out from launch for extreme sale prices. I very rarely buy a game on day one, let alone year one. It makes gaming so incredibly cheap and breezy! 😁
 
Trogdor1123 said:
So many games come out I don't know how people don't wait. There isn't enough time.
Click to expand...

I do think a lot wait for the first (small) price cut... but the vast majority of sales are launch and then.

Even like Silksong's Steam CCU is parabolic. That's pretty much what you see for SP only games.
 
TintoConCasera said:
New game that looks fun: 80 bucks and could get more content, patches of all kinds and discounts later on.
Old game that looks fun: 5 to 20 bucks and it's feature complete.

For me the key is not falling to the hype and fomo and just playing whatever is fun to me. For people that have 100+ games on the backlog, getting a new game day 1 doesn't seem like that much of a good deal specially considering the higher prices and the lower standards when it comes to the state in which some games are released.
Click to expand...
For me fomo has nothing to do with it, for example most people here hyping GTA VI and Crimson Desert but I have zero interest in those games but instead my most hype game are Pragmata and MHStories 3 which buying day one.

Both games released a demo which after playing it confirmed these games are going to be fun so I have zero reason to wait.
TintoConCasera said:
That said, I will never be able to not buy a new SMT game day 1. We all have out weak spots. :lollipop_content:
Click to expand...
Yeah same most Atlus game are day one for me as well.
 
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StereoVsn said:
Yep, basically this. Considering the state if games at release now days, especially if they are UE5 based, it would take an absolute positive banger for me to move at launch.

Last one was KCD2 which was absolutely worth it. And EUV because I am a sucker for Paradox games and this was an absolute waste to buy at launch.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it's crazy how many day 1 games I would buy way back, say late PSX to GCN - 360 era. Countless.. now though maybe 1-3 a year and I'm very selective.

I do, however, buy a ton of stuff at 10-30 range down the road.
 
Hemingwayoffbase said:
Here's the pattern for modern game releases:

Game comes out at high full price ($70-$100 depending on game/bonuses).

AT THAT SAME LAUNCH

Game is in the WORST state it will ever exist in. Pre patches. Pre balancing. Pre DLC. For all intents and purposes, "full release" basically means "early access."

HOWEVER

If I wait, the game will eventually go on sale and get patched. Meaning it will become both BETTER and CHEAPER.

So am I the only one who now just inherently SKIPS release dates? You're literally paying the most money for the worst product. It makes zero sense.

AND

If I'm NOT the only one falling into this pattern of waiting… what is that doing to the video game industry in general?
Click to expand...
You're right and I agree but FOMO and GAAS are what they count on. It's also why they show trailers a year in advance. To build hype and have you in a FOMO trap. What's this unfold with crimson desert which is about to launch. FOMO is all over the place game will release have major bugs and people bitching. 8-12 months from now the games 29.99 and patched up. You just have to be patient and wait a year which no one does!
 
Danjin44 said:
For me fomo has nothing to do with it, for example most people here hyping GTA VI and Crimson Desert but I have zero interest in those games but instead my most hype game are Pragmata and MHStories 3 which buying day one.

Both games released a demo which after playing it confirmed these games are going to be fun so I have zero reason to wait.
Click to expand...
Yeah but the thing is, even if I really like those games, I still have another 100+ games that I want to play that are cheaper or that I already own. I'm sure I'll get to the MH Stories games at some point, but I'm not in a rush as I have a lot of other stuff to play.

And hey, there's nothing wrong with getting games day 1 btw, all this is just to answer to your question of "why would I wait?".
 
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