Are we really supposed to buy the $80 price increase is because "games cost more to make" from Microsoft?

BacklashWave534 said:
This really just makes you sound like a corporate bootlicker. People are angry about being priced out of thier hobby and you are sitting here defending massive price increases.
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Like I give a shit. People are angry about a lot of things that are not based in reality or which they don't understand. It's the age of feels versus reals and it's far more satisfying for people to be able to be able to point a finger and be angry about something.

When it comes to these discussions people won't acknowledge simple facts. I'll post a chart of the average US wage outpacing the CPI and people will come up with some anecdote about how they've personally been fucked over. The labor statistics don't care!

ProtoByte said:
The whole post isn't financially literate, but this is a very annoying point to see continually made.
Record nominal profits != record real profits, and profit margins are trending at 40-50% lower than the PS4 gen.
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Unfathomably based and economically literate post. Finally someone who gets it.
 
Let me get a little autistic here and get more deep than what I should:

Things (like games) are prices not because of costs, but because the market decided its value (which is constantly being validated). The cost is only a way for the producer to decided if it should (or not) produce the, well, product. When we see games launching, getting awful scores and poor gamer reception, they will suddenly lower their price. Why? Because we, the market, decided the asking price is just too much for this particular product. This is why it is infuriating and terrible when I played Halo Infinite and saw people paying and using the $20 armor, they validated the price and let 343 keep with it (among MANY other cases).

After the pandemic gaming become a main stream general hobby: it is not weird to not only see people buy this year CoD for $70, but also the premium battle pass + this week wacky skin for $15. And this is why companies have tried to slowly up the price with whatever excuse sounds reasonable. The problem is the same as how CoD (and many other games) lost their aesthetic with stupid skins: mainstream consumers will jump the gate. Just make a good marketing campaign, many streamers talking about the game and they forget they are getting a $80 dollars digital license live service game (that will lost 80% of its feature when servers goes down because of costs) + $20 battlepasses (that encourage more spending with tokens) + wacky trending skins that can go from $10. And they are more than us. This will only stop when/if people move to another hobby and the people that stays say no to those prices by nor buying it.

And a final rant (sorry for the long post) i dont think game costs more: yeah they now have a huge RRHH department with managers whos salaries are probably 1/3 of the budgets plus marketing stuff that is also a heavy item on their list. Today companies will not only move to external game engines that will not require any investment in improvement, they will also use this for shitty hiring practices of devs that lower the cost. So this is bs (unsurprinsingly).
 
I'm amazed that something very obvious is going unnoticed: what if game devs salaries are out of market? Seriously, when I read salaries around 100K I'm thinking of a fucking exec (high ranking one) of any European large company. Everyone is accepting as normal something that is not. The same applies to many other outrageous costs that make budgets this fat.

In short, good games with high quality production values don't need to be expensive. People parroting this corpo bullcrap get on my nerves, really.
 
TintoConCasera said:
Neither of those decide the price of the games sold on their stores, that's up to publishers.

Steam already has some 80 buckos games, like the new DOOM. Guess it's the same at the PStore.
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Doom is still $70 USD though...

Idk, I don't have a strong opinion on game pricing. Game Pass has transformed what games I play. Games I'm excited for (like Doom) I'll buy the deluxe editions for, I've bought the Ragnarok Jötnar Edition without even having a physical disc.

For everything else I can wait on a sale. I feel like it would be real rich and hypocritical of me to complain about an $80 price after all the limited and collector's editions I've bought over the years, and after knowing my parents would spend up to the same on a new N64 game for me back in the late 90s
 
ProtoByte said:
The whole post isn't financially literate, but this is a very annoying point to see continually made.
Record nominal profits != record real profits, and profit margins are trending at 40-50% lower than the PS4 gen.
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Currency inflation, particularly the YEN, causes the numerical on-paper values to increase, meaning, over time, every company will almost certainly post "record profits" simply because the numbers themselves are larger. However, your latter comment is simply false. Sony themselves disagrees with you, declaring the PlayStation 5 its most profitable video game console generation. Ever. Hence my statement - I wasn't making baseless assessments, I was literally quoting Sony themselves.
 
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ZehDon said:
It was simple market inflation, wages would be keeping pace, leaving people with a largely net even buying power. Buying power, at least in most western countries, has been decreasing annually for several years now. Yet, profits continue to climb. Why? Companies are charging more for less, paying the same, and laughing all the way to the bank as people mutter "inflation, whacanyado?".
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Yep. People regurgitate the media's buzzwords without pulling back the curtain and diving into reality of the situations and how it doesn't "add up." Then again, they changed the definition of a recession when we hit an actual definition of a recession a few years ago. 🙄
 
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Angry_Megalodon said:
I'm amazed that something very obvious is going unnoticed: what if game devs salaries are out of market? Seriously, when I read salaries around 100K I'm thinking of a fucking exec (high ranking one) of any European large company. Everyone is accepting as normal something that is not. The same applies to many other outrageous costs that make budgets this fat.

In short, good games with high quality production values don't need to be expensive. People parroting this corpo bullcrap get on my nerves, really.
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Usa has higher living standards than European countries, so wages are higher
 
And how come Expedition 33 is cheap and offers good quality???

I mean, Mario Kart World looks like a late-year PS3 game; it would even justify the price more for a game like Need for Speed or Burnout.
 
kikkis said:
Usa has higher living standards than European countries, so wages are higher
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While that is true, the market is sending a clear message: those salaries are not sustainable. Salary/headcount is an efficiency problem. Nobody will convince me that a "lead writer" or whatever the fuck they fancy to call themselves must earn as much as a top exec in a multinational company. And again, the market is proving me right. Consumers should not pay for this, the same as taxpayers should not pay for politicians's hookers.
 
Heimdall_Xtreme said:
And how come Expedition 33 is cheap and offers good quality???

I mean, Mario Kart World looks like a late-year PS3 game; it would even justify the price more for a game like Need for Speed or Burnout.
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A cheaper price is part of E33's marketing beat and is certainly fueling part of its incredible word-of-mouth. Maybe they simply forecasted that they'd have greater revenue at $50 than $70 if the reviews and sentiment hit where they projected.
 
Angry_Megalodon said:
While that is true, the market is sending a clear message: those salaries are not sustainable. Salary/headcount is an efficiency problem. Nobody will convince me that a "lead writer" or whatever the fuck they fancy to call themselves must earn as much as a top exec in a multinational company. And again, the market is proving me right. Consumers should not pay for this, the same as taxpayers should not pay for politicians's hookers.
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I don't think game dev is known for high wages and no writer in game dev never earns even near top exec. If you don't pay devs in usa appropriate wage they just move to other industries
 
Angry_Megalodon said:
While that is true, the market is sending a clear message: those salaries are not sustainable. Salary/headcount is an efficiency problem. Nobody will convince me that a "lead writer" or whatever the fuck they fancy to call themselves must earn as much as a top exec in a multinational company. And again, the market is proving me right. Consumers should not pay for this, the same as taxpayers should not pay for politicians's hookers.
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This you?
Angry_Megalodon said:
Uncharted's success is mostly based on spectacular set pieces and likable characters. Both fall under "good writing".
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If a multi-billion dollar franchise like Uncharted owes its success to "good writing", then I believe you've made an excellent case for why its lead writer(s) should be paid as much as a top executive. They're literally responsible for "most of" its success, according to you, where as a "top executive" isn't.

Personally, I don't think high salaries for the top talent that literally creates the billion dollar earners is a bad thing. I think it's entirely justified, and downright ethical. But when a game like Concord gets a USD$400m budget, or a game like whatever that vampire GaaS thing that killed Arkane was called gets pushed into the market, I think it's also time to start asking some hard questions.
 
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The biggest problem I have with this is when they say rising dev costs. That's my gripe with the industry atm. It's over saturated with devs and bloat in their projects. Start making smaller scale games that are 15-30 hours in length and don't charge full price. There is clearly a market for this and arguably the two best games in the last year (Astro bot and Claire obscure expedition 33) are this precisely. Yet everything needs to be these massive games, in which your typical average joes won't have time to complete or will take too much time they end up dropping and not getting full value for anyway.
 
Remember that Xbox's first $70 game was Redfall. Games don't need to be priced in relation to costs, they should be priced in relation to quality. Medium development cost games (relatively) like Split Fiction, Clair Obscur, and Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, show that the real differentiator is TALENT. They are selling millions as quality games, at a more than fair price. Large AAA studios with a bunch of average people producing mediocre games, do not deserve an $80 price, and the market will reject them.
 
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Everyone in here sounds like an ActBlue donor all of the sudden.

Yes there has been wage inflation.People tend to notice the price inflation more than the wage inflation though. It's why Kamala got BTFO'd in the election.

www.epi.org

Average wages have surpassed inflation for 12 straight months

Average hourly wage growth has exceeded inflation for 12 straight months, according to new Bureau of Labor Statistics data released this morning. This real (or inflation-adjusted) wage growth is a key indicator of how well the average worker’s wage can improve their standard of living. As...
www.epi.org www.epi.org

Angry_Megalodon said:
I'm amazed that something very obvious is going unnoticed: what if game devs salaries are out of market? Seriously, when I read salaries around 100K I'm thinking of a fucking exec (high ranking one) of any European large company. Everyone is accepting as normal something that is not. The same applies to many other outrageous costs that make budgets this fat.

In short, good games with high quality production values don't need to be expensive. People parroting this corpo bullcrap get on my nerves, really.
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They're called Europoors for a reason.
 
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The excuse is games cost more to make and have been 59.99 for a long time and since everything costs more now, games should cost more.

They'd have a point if they were barely making money and especially if they were losing money. They aren't. They are making money hand over fists. They simply want to make MORE money hand over fists. It's all about appeasing the stock holders and executives.
 
Believe what you want. But believe this. Video Games are and always has been a digitial drug, ever since the arcades. Developers or Publishers Finding ways to make the player insert another quarter. As gamers we were lucky that we had a break from this shit from the NES up until subscriptions and microtransactions became king.

Companies are predators looking to extract as much from you as possible, keep pushing the boundries to see how much the addicts will pay to increase the bottom line. if their install base shrinks, increase costs to rape and pillage the remaining loyal pleople. It's business 101.

It's an illusion gaming is a hobby. It may have been once. But now it's about bending over customers for the shareholders.

Just pure greed and profits. Everyone company is guilty. We are an easy audience to take advantage of.

Where is our cheaper console hardware as almost every other generation has had?
Why aren't digitial games cheaper than physical brick and mortar stores? The excuse used to be about protecting those stores.
 
Ozzie666 said:
Believe what you want. But believe this. Video Games are and always has been a digitial drug, ever since the arcades. Developers or Publishers Finding ways to make the player insert another quarter. As gamers we were lucky that we had a break from this shit from the NES up until subscriptions and microtransactions became king.

Companies are predators looking to extract as much from you as possible, keep pushing the boundries to see how much the addicts will pay to increase the bottom line. if their install base shrinks, increase costs to rape and pillage the remaining loyal pleople. It's business 101.

It's an illusion gaming is a hobby. It may have been once. But now it's about bending over customers for the shareholders.

Just pure greed and profits. Everyone company is guilty. We are an easy audience to take advantage of.

Where is our cheaper console hardware as almost every other generation has had?
Why aren't digitial games cheaper than physical brick and mortar stores? The excuse used to be about protecting those stores.
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You're goddamn right, Prince of Darkness. Specially now these companies realize the market is not growing but shrinking instead, they will do all they can to squeeze their audience dry.
 
SJRB said:
Fuck Microsoft, nothing but L's for those fucking losers.

And FUCK NINTENDO, THOSE STUPID FUCKS for setting the bar with their early PS4 looking dogshit games going for 80 bucks, greedy cunts.


a70q0pbkq9j91.gif
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You will rapidly change your mind as soon as Sony does the same.

Fuck Sony, bunch of miserable losers!
 
poppabk said:
So physical games aren't going up in price?
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They certainly are. Same price and you get a box, the retailer gets a cut, and you also get to resell, trade, gift, or burn the game if you like. Better than giving full amount for a digital license, they get all your money and you can't get one single cent back if you no longer care for the game.
 
QLQ said:
They certainly are. Same price and you get a box, the retailer gets a cut, and you also get to resell, trade, gift, or burn the game if you like. Better than giving full amount for a digital license, they get all your money and you can't get one single cent back if you no longer care for the game.
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You've got two hours to figure out if you like it and if not you get a full refund no questions asked.
Plus it's all instant - no waiting for a delivery from amazon or having to go to a store. It's instantly in your library and shared with your family without having to worry about a disk.
But I still don't understand what this has to do with the topic at hand seeing as physical games are also going up in price and in some cases more than digital.
 
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poppabk said:
You've got two hours to figure out if you like it and if not you get a full refund no questions asked.
Plus it's all instant - no waiting for a delivery from amazon or having to go to a store. It's instantly in your library and shared with your family without having to worry about a disk.
But I still don't understand what this has to do with the topic at hand seeing as physical games are also going up in price and in some cases more than digital.
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Spread'em wide. Enjoy.
 
wait, so they're not just increasing new games, but all the current released games are going to be raised in price also that was released like last month?
 
TropicanaTwista said:
The biggest problem I have with this is when they say rising dev costs. That's my gripe with the industry atm. It's over saturated with devs and bloat in their projects. Start making smaller scale games that are 15-30 hours in length and don't charge full price. There is clearly a market for this and arguably the two best games in the last year (Astro bot and Claire obscure expedition 33) are this precisely. Yet everything needs to be these massive games, in which your typical average joes won't have time to complete or will take too much time they end up dropping and not getting full value for anyway.
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Silksong is going to be another feather in 2025's cap showing how a small, dedicated team can provide immense value with low development costs. I'm not sure how much they will ask, but I don't think they are going to release at $70 or $80. I think it will be priced at $50 or $60, launch on Game Pass, and do unbelievably well.
 
Topher said:
This is all opportunistic bullshit. Using current events to justify price hikes for stuff that has nothing to do with any tariffs or political nonsense. Applies to any of these corporations raising prices on games.

Record profits incoming
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Including more layoffs. Nothing much more scummy than making record profits and laying off thousands of workers to keep the gravy train running.
 
ZehDon said:
Well, a lot of people defended Sony going from USD$60 to USD$70. I said it was bullshit then, and I say it's bullshit now.
Fewer people then defended Nintendo going from USD$70 to USD$90. I said it was bullshit then, and I say it's bullshit now.
The same people who defended Sony are now attacking Microsoft for going from USD$70 to USD$80. I say it's the same bullshit it's always been.

I've said in a different thread but I'll repeat it here: video games have entered the extraction phase of the enshitification process. These companies - Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony - aren't charging more money because they have to. There is no pressing survival need to charge AUD$130.00 for a fucking video game. Sony in particular are making record profits. No, they're charging more money because they have to show growth in revenue every quarter. Forever. If more people aren't buying their stuff - and there isn't because the industry has stopped growing - they now have to jack up the prices to make more revenue. It doesn't matter if fewer people buy their shit - it only matters if they make more revenue for this quarter. And then when a new game launches and it sells less because they've priced a percentage of their audience out of the market, they'll layoff developers to keep their profit margins up, jack up the prices again, and repeat. Sony started it, Nintendo followed them, and now Microsoft is jumping on board.
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It's not that price hikes aren't bullshit, it's just how economy works.

It's not even exclusive to gaming.
When I came living in my appartment back in 2013, my rent was €485.
Starting july this year, I will have to pay €608.

You can't expect everything to remain the same forever.
 
Killjoy-NL said:
It's not that price hikes aren't bullshit, it's just how economy works.

It's not even exclusive to gaming.
When I came living in my appartment back in 2013, my rent was €485.
Starting july this year, I will have to pay €608.

You can't expect everything to remain the same forever.
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Your rent went up 25% in twelve years - that's actually a little under inflation. Games have gone up 30% in five years. That's not "economies" - that's greed.
 
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ZehDon said:
Your rent went up 25% in twelve years - that's actually a little under inflation. Games have gone up 30% in five years. That's not "economies" - that's greed.
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Principle remains te same.

And while games gone up 30%, it's just €20, dude. (€59,99 vs €79,99)

If €20 is an issue, you need to reassess your priorities in live or play f2p/live service games because they're a lot cheaper and offer continuous content.

Edit:

Besides, games vs rent is apples to oranges. Can't be compared 1:1.
 
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Killjoy-NL said:
Principle remains te same.

And while games gone up 30%, it's just €20, dude. (€59,99 vs €79,99)

If €20 is an issue, you need to reassess your priorities in live or play f2p/live service games because they're a lot cheaper and offer continuous content.

Edit:

Besides, games vs rent is apples to oranges. Can't be compared 1:1.
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It depends on how many games one buys. $20 is nothing, but if someone buys 20 of them per year it adds up.
 
EverydayBeast said:
New $80 games lead to $50 used games, the written law doesn't say you have to buy games new, probably many buy used.
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This is why they are pushing digital. Corporations have more control with this model. Then we will see what greed really means.

I keep being baffled by players/consumers pushing for the all digital future and dissing on physical. Pure lunacy.
 
Killjoy-NL said:
Principle remains te same.
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The principle you floated was: "things just get more expensive". I demonstrated how video games got more expensive way faster, showing evidence of corporate greed. The principle is self-evidently not the same.
Killjoy-NL said:
And while games gone up 30%, it's just €20, dude. (€59,99 vs €79,99)

If €20 is an issue, you need to reassess your priorities in live or play f2p/live service games because they're a lot cheaper and offer continuous content.
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Pick your lane, friend. "Things get more expensive" or "things aren't that expensive". Which is it?
Killjoy-NL said:
Edit:

Besides, games vs rent is apples to oranges. Can't be compared 1:1.
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If games and rent can't be compared, why did you compare them? I wouldn't have compared a basic necessity with a luxury good myself, but you decided it was a great idea for some reason?
 
ZehDon said:
The principle you floated was: "things just get more expensive". I demonstrated how video games got more expensive way faster, showing evidence of corporate greed. The principle is self-evidently not the same.

Pick your lane, friend. "Things get more expensive" or "things aren't that expensive". Which is it?

If games and rent can't be compared, why did you compare them? I wouldn't have compared a basic necessity with a luxury good myself, but you decided it was a great idea for some reason?
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The principle remains te same regardless.

Since everything gets more expensive in life, companies have to account for many things, like rent, bills, taxes, resources, salaries, etc.

Rent is just rent, so it's logical that rent doesn't increase at the same rate as a videogame.

Are people here really that simple minded that they can't understand these things?
 
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Killjoy-NL said:
The principle remains te same regardless.

Since everything gets more expensive in life, companies have to account for many things, like rent, bills, taxes, resources, salaries, etc.

Rent is just rent, so it's logical that rent doesn't increase at the same rate as a videogame.

Are people here really that simple minded that they can't understand these things?
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What point are you even trying to make here - "stuff costs more money sometimes"? And you're calling other people "simple minded"?
 
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