Baldur's Gate 3 dev calls Randy Pitchford's $80 Borderlands 4 comments "gross"

Madflavor said:
He's right. It's just incredibly insensitive and dickheaded thing to say. I'm not getting priced out of my hobby, but $80+ games are a price point where I have to know for a fact that I'm going to get a lot of value out of the game, and it's something I'm really excited for, in order to pay that amount. If it's not a part of one of my favorite franchises, or GTA VI for that matter, I don't see myself spending that kind of money. Shit is expensive across the board, and I got a family that takes priority.

I'm sick of hearing the excuse "oh well back in the 90s games could be upwards of $120"

The thing about the 90s, for those who forget or those who weren't around, the economy was really fucking good in the 90s. It was a time where jobs were plentiful, technology was booming, there was low inflation, and strong economic growth. The 90s were a golden age for America. So sure games were expensive back then, but everything else was cheap or reasonable. Juxtapose that today where there's high inflation across the board, the cost of living is sky high, and there's low job growth. An $80 game wasn't a kick in the nuts back in the 90s as it was today.
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People also were not buying nearly as many games in the 90s. And every game had a brick and mortar retailer cut to account for, on top of physical media that could be expensive on Nintendo games at least.

Pubs and devs do not want the 90s market back. They don't even want the kind of work ethics back that people had in the 90s. So they can fuck right off with pointing to the 90s to justify their greed and try making consumers pay for their stupid choices like checking boxes instead of hiring the best talent, chasing ghost markets, and pretending work from home wouldn't hurt their productivity.
 
On one side, all this drama over price increases as if publishers were doing something they have no right to. On the other, publishers trying to justify the price with external factors instead of adding value to the product and creating an experience that goes one step further to justify the value.

These discussions about prices are so tiresome... if the game doesn't offer enough value to make you pay $80, just don't buy it, buy another game (there are several options) or wait for the price to drop.
 
So, I have watched the Borderlands 4 footage and none of what they've shown so far looks like $80 to me. If you want $80+ from me, you need to impress me. The more you charge, the pickier I get. You want $100? Fine. But your game better be a 10/10, no DLC and no bugs, no Day 1 patches. Can't deliver that? Then get fucked.
 
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Real fans will manage to pay $80 for it. Well, real fans didn't deserve the shit show called Borderlands 3 too. So fuck off, I'm not paying 80 until they prove to me that its worth it.
 
$80 price tags are a good way to not devalue your product, and therefore I fully support this.

Subscription services like Game Pass offer incredible value for cheap which doesn't seem to be very welcome among the users here - as it devalues the games it offers. It's good news that publishers are finally starting to combat this trend by making sure that their games go up in value - which is reflected by $80 (or $100 in the case of GTA6) price tags.
 
nnytk said:
Does a high price tag really make more money? Seeing the success of Claire Obscur makes me wonder. It's a 50 euro game that sold really, really well and is on game pass.

Pricing games lower seems like a better path to "more sales" and "positive buzz" than going for 80 bucks.
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Clair Obscur is the right way but publishers can't let that sweet greed go and how else are they gonna pay the 1000 devs they "totally" need for their broken launch of a product that they will need 3 more years to fix to a playable state...

Clearly no game can't be done properly with just 50-100 devs... *Looks at Clair Obscur again*
Oh wait,guess you can add stupid and mismanaged to greed and you finally get the "modern game publisher"

The industry wide crash for the big publishers can't come soon enough!!!

And with 80$-90$ pricing in this economy we're basically at mach 10 going for it!
Ric Flair Wrestling GIF by WWE
 
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Madflavor said:
He's right. It's just incredibly insensitive and dickheaded thing to say. I'm not getting priced out of my hobby, but $80+ games are a price point where I have to know for a fact that I'm going to get a lot of value out of the game, and it's something I'm really excited for, in order to pay that amount. If it's not a part of one of my favorite franchises, or GTA VI for that matter, I don't see myself spending that kind of money. Shit is expensive across the board, and I got a family that takes priority.

I'm sick of hearing the excuse "oh well back in the 90s games could be upwards of $120"

The thing about the 90s, for those who forget or those who weren't around, the economy was really fucking good in the 90s. It was a time where jobs were plentiful, technology was booming, there was low inflation, and strong economic growth. The 90s were a golden age for America. So sure games were expensive back then, but everything else was cheap or reasonable. Juxtapose that today where there's high inflation across the board, the cost of living is sky high, and there's low job growth. An $80 game wasn't a kick in the nuts back in the 90s as it was today.
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People that compare the 90's gaming also forget that games back then came with big chunky manuals in sturdy cases and multiple discs,now you get the honor of paying 70$ for an empty low quality plastic case with a code in it....Woooo so much value!

People that defend this practice can fuck off right into the sun along with the publishers whom asses they imprinted their lipprints on!!
 
StreetsofBeige said:
Given inflation over decades, Pitchford isnt really wrong as lots of shit goes up in price..... although oddly some shit like apples and bananas I swear are the same price for 20 years.

Problem is video game employees love social media or answering questions with the smuggest dopiest answers.

Weird people.
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2 to 3 decades ago, most people didn't have a PC and consoles would sell around 20 to 30 million in total.

You can't compare the inflation when sales are much much higher now. GTA sales were around 10 to 20 million vs 200 million for GTA V
 
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Inflation is a dumb metric to care about when it comes to entertainment luxury, especially with wages and spending power not matching it.

Even dumber for Pitchford to say it when Borderlands 3 didn't really light the world on fire with its the bad guys are streamers setup.
 
With an 80€ price and the rootkit they are now including with their games, I'll probably just skip Borderlands 4.
Both things make the price way to steep for me. Especially the bundled malware.
 
nnytk said:
Does a high price tag really make more money? Seeing the success of Claire Obscur makes me wonder. It's a 50 euro game that sold really, really well and is on game pass.

Pricing games lower seems like a better path to "more sales" and "positive buzz" than going for 80 bucks.
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I'd say it depends on the game.
An extra $10 probably isn't going to keep the vast majority of people from buying the next GTA or Smash Bros or Call of Duty, but it will make the publisher an additional $10 for each copy sold, which can really add up when you are selling tens of millions of units.

For the average game that isn't part of some massively popular franchise though, I think many publisher who attempt to charge $80 are going to find out they aren't, in fact, on the same tier as GTA and Mario Kart.
 
His comment was pretty retarded but so is this response.

Sane, level-headed response: "$80 is too much for a game. I'll wait for a sale, Randy can go eat a dick"


Perpetually offended keyboard warrior response: "OMG what is he trying to say? That buying a video game is more important than paying for food, rent, and healthcare? This is so gross and offensive."


Come on.
 
Goalus said:
$80 price tags are a good way to not devalue your product, and therefore I fully support this.

Subscription services like Game Pass offer incredible value for cheap which doesn't seem to be very welcome among the users here - as it devalues the games it offers. It's good news that publishers are finally starting to combat this trend by making sure that their games go up in value - which is reflected by $80 (or $100 in the case of GTA6) price tags.
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Shareholder and not a gamer spotted
 
Never understood devs bitching about inflation when these days there are significantly more gamers than in the 90s, so the profit margins are astronomically higher. And that doesn't even include mtx, something the 90s couldn't even dream about. So yea, this inflation bullshit is just that, bs.
 
Sinozen said:
Inflation is real, it's hurting everyone, but these price jumps just reek of entitlement. Instead of working to fix their own budgets they just pass it off on the customer. The executives are the worst because they're not personally feeling any of it with their cushy salaries. Everyone can feel that with how they communicate.

I hope that people vehemently reject these companies pretending as if their customers are the piggy bank. They sincerely deserve as dose of reality because what they're peddling is anti consumerism.
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This is a very good post. And a point that I think echoes my feelings. While I didn't love the jump to $70 games I could look at it and say "okay, budgets have gone up alot since games went to $60. Maybe companies need to do something to offset the costs that come with that." I don't love it. But I get it.

What we have seen since the jump to $70 is bloated project after bloated project fail time and time again. And fail in ways that are truly embarrassingly bad. Suicide Squad and Concord immediately come to mind and there's been tons more. Dragon Age and Skull and Bones jump to mind too.

There's also been other games that have "failed" despite some level of sales success. FFXVI and Rebirth all sold what, around 3 million and were deemed a failure by Square? That's bonkers to me. Games should not be deemed failures if they sell 3 million copies. Then you look at a game like Callisto Protocol that came out as new IP in a niche genre and sold around 2 million copies and was also deemed a failure. Say what you will about Callisto Protocol, but I enjoyed it and while it wasn't perfect I have a hard time digesting the fact 2 million in sales for a new horror IP is failure.

Meanwhile, we get Clair Obscure come out and wipe the floor with these bigger budget flops. And so while managing costs and with a small team. There's no way the game can be considered a failure with 2 million copies sold and what we know about how it was developed. And there's other games like Chained Echoes, Balatro and others that come out reasonably priced and do gangbusters. Sure they aren't cutting edge graphically, but they're good games that managed costs and deliver an end product that is very targeted.

What I'm getting at here is that these game developers keep delivering flop after flop at a rate that seems higher than in the past. Even games that aren't failures to the level of Concord and Suicide Squad are flopping in their eyes. And their response is to raise prices and treat the consumer like they are just lucky to have access to slop simulator 37.

Maybe these devs need to do some reflecting. The basic concept of economics is supply and demand. When price goes up, demand goes down. Unless your product is inelastic, meaning it isn't sensitive to price. These game developers seem to think they can do whatever they want price and content wise aand the demand will always be there. We have started to see it won't be.

It's one thing for Nintendo to charge $80 and implement shitty business practices. They do have a strong brand loyalty among their IPs. Same goes for GTA6. But not every game is going to Be able to get away with it but they think they can.

I paid less than $20 to get all the borderlands games. I got 2 as games with gold in the 360 era. And picked up they Handsome Collection for $10. And Borderlands 3 for like $5. I won't touch Borderlands 4 at all.

These devs seem to be sticking it to their players and expecting them to just suck it up. I don't see it working out the way they think it will. Players have too many options these days.
 
Randy pitchfork sounds like a complete ass. Dudes always saying some borderline shit.

They haven't done anything new to borderlands in years. It's a sinking ship. They just pounded this ip into the ground with telltale and the movie and all these mediocre sequels.

I'll still play a far cry but I'm over borderlands. Always liked the cell shading and atmosphere but it's super played out at this point
 
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