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[iQuasarLV]

Y'all be complaining about huge backlogs and high game prices at the same time.

You mean my back log of games where I got 25 games for a $10 donation to charity, or 5 resident evil games for $15, or my steam profile that says my average purchase price for a game over my lifetime has been $13? Those backlogs?!

 

[JimmyRustler]

You mean my back log of games where I got 25 games for a $10 donation to charity, or 5 resident evil games for $15, or my steam profile that says my average purchase price for a game over my lifetime has been $13? Those backlogs?!

Yes. You have enough games to play until the price drops a little - which is usually does quite fast.

And no, I'm not talking down on anyone here as I do the same. IMO there is no point in buying games esrly anyway given the state most of them launch in.

 

[IAmRei]

well well, everything is on raise now, what can we do...
I guess, this could be the reason for playing more backlog

and older games which i haven't play yet

 

[Super Lemon Drop]

It's painfully clear how many people here don't invest. Companies need to provide returns to their investors. Investors care about rates of return, not just dollar values. Companies have to continue to deliver or eventually investment dries out. Even us little guys with our 401ks or IRAs are looking for returns.

And that's the fucking problem. A once simple and fun form of entertainment has become someone's investment. Corporations and investment groups have monetized video games. The apathy and continued financial participation by the customer base has empowered it. Hell, people defend it.

Big business has ruined video games.
Gamers have ruined gaming.

We will continue on this path until it can no longer sustain itself. Corpos and investors will cut their losses and take their rich asses to the next investment trend. Gamers will have footed the bill for the shittiest meal. Then we see what happens next in the medium. It will die, or it will continue in some form or another for better or worse.

 

[iQuasarLV]

Yes. You have enough games to play until the price drops a little - which is usually does quite fast.

And no, I'm not talking down on anyone here as I do the same. IMO there is no point in buying games esrly anyway given the state most of them launch in.

One is a self deprecating boast.
The other is yet another fucking bitch about another entity trying to take that extra nibble out of your pound of flesh.

I'll be the first to say I take home shy of $60k year and that is the average that has been the same for "" unskilled workers since 2001.
Console prices never drop for Nintendo or the Sony store.

What has dropped?

My purchase power has dropped 25% in the last five years (thanks inflation).
My costs for mortgage increased $600 this year in taxes, and utilities have gone up 25% in service charges and rates for use since 2018. Couple that with lost purchase power and I am paying 50% more just to keep the lights on in my own home. Just got a letter today that water is petitioning the state PUC to increase basic service charges for the 2nd time in 3 years, and my electricity company is enacting a $5 uptick for basic service charge starting in July. For nothing!

I am paying almost $1000 / year more than last year to live my life as its been since 2018. That is a PS5 Pro, a Switch 2, a new GPU, gone because everyone is trying to move from a single pound to two or more pounds.

But hey lets just downplay the bitching of entertainment entities trying to push a 33% hike on the consumer.

This shit is highway robbery. Its not like everything in the world took a hit and those who were just outside of paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyles are right back in it because everyone wanted to push their losses onto the time-puncher.

What I don't have is a team of lawyers and accountants pushing numbers everyday to find ways I can manipulate the laws, and loopholes of tax codes, or compromise product quality to keep a margin. This is what separates the average consumer from these corporate greed turds.

I recently took a jaunt over to research movie ticket price history because I stopped going in 2018 because they were trying to ask me to pay a matinee ticket fee of $18 popcorn was $11 and large fountain drink $6. I am sure its worse since then,but movie theaters have reversed course because no one is showing up anymore. This is where this shit will go because it is going to do what I did with the movie theaters, told them to fuck right off.

Yea, some people here like to low key defend / apologize / or berate in defense of corporations because it is part of their life. They invest in them, work for the same entity pulling in $125k/yr or more. But you know what that is top 25% of the US. You are not the majority, you are in a good spot with a buffer. The rest of us griping or bitching are wondering how we can pay for food when a loaf of bread is now approaching $4 for store brand when it was $1.49 in 2021, or a single onion is $3.

Along comes some bigwigs saying its high time we paid our dues for an entertainment medium thats been soft locked for 20+ years.

I like that people throw inflation around like it is some magic cure-all explanation for the price hikes. Take that $80 price tag and throw it in a calc from just 2016 and see what it is inflated to in 2025. Yea $120! Imagine if we saw $120 for games in 2016 cause that is what is being asked now, and we're somehow just supposed to swallow it and ask for more. Lets see how well $80 sits in 2034 when we go from $80 to $120 a game because retroactive infaltion and all that. pfft. I mean we're all Doctor Who with a TARDIS and can fly around timelines and making calls for the future, or are we only able to look backwards and see how bad we have been screwed, royally screwed, but just ignored it in the moment to moment because it didn't FEEEEEL bad in the right-now.

I saw the PS5 announcement and game prices and gave up on consoles in 2020 because that shit was stupid then, and now its going faster-futher-better than before. Because we were conditioned to accept it at $70 but wait here comes $80 dollar games. Same games of the last 5 years but $10 more. You can can do that right. Its only a single latte or a door-dash purchase fee. If only us greedy consumers could only exercise better financial responsibility. If only

 

[Rockman33]

I understand what he is saying but at the same time

-Way more copies of games are sold today then before

-Way more games are sold digitally than physical, that's a huge percent more to the game developers than before.

Both these metrics really change the percent of sales per game then ever before. And yet all we ever hear about is how much more games cost to produce now.

 

[Setsuna Mudou]

Most people on consoles want high end AAA graphics though. That's the point of buying the $700 PS5 Pro.

Most people don't buy any "pro", much less for $700, which is the lowest price. Prices outside the US are much higher than $700.

edit: Also, majority of the people on console are playing on switches that is the furthest thing from high end. The best selling games of the past few years don't have any high end graphics (BG3, Elden Ring, Zelda, etc). Anyone wanting really high end AAA gfx is playing on an extremely expensive PC, not on a console.

 

[T-0800]

I don't demand or need games with expensive cutscenes. There you go I just saved you a bunch of money.

 

[Field]

I don't demand or need games with expensive cutscenes. There you go I just saved you a bunch of money.

Nintendo has no expensive cutscenes but high prices.

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

I'd suspect it'd be more apt if these companies lowered the production costs by making good use of ai, cutting unnecessary bloat like orchestral soundtracks and so on and have people be able to buy games at the rate they have been instead of making everything more expensive in economic turbulent times but hey that's just me and i know nothing about economics.

 

[JimmyRustler]

One is a self deprecating boast.
The other is yet another fucking bitch about another entity trying to take that extra nibble out of your pound of flesh.

I'll be the first to say I take home shy of $60k year and that is the average that has been the same for "" unskilled workers since 2001.
Console prices never drop for Nintendo or the Sony store.

What has dropped?

My purchase power has dropped 25% in the last five years (thanks inflation).
My costs for mortgage increased $600 this year in taxes, and utilities have gone up 25% in service charges and rates for use since 2018. Couple that with lost purchase power and I am paying 50% more just to keep the lights on in my own home. Just got a letter today that water is petitioning the state PUC to increase basic service charges for the 2nd time in 3 years, and my electricity company is enacting a $5 uptick for basic service charge starting in July. For nothing!

I am paying almost $1000 / year more than last year to live my life as its been since 2018. That is a PS5 Pro, a Switch 2, a new GPU, gone because everyone is trying to move from a single pound to two or more pounds.

But hey lets just downplay the bitching of entertainment entities trying to push a 33% hike on the consumer.

This shit is highway robbery. Its not like everything in the world took a hit and those who were just outside of paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyles are right back in it because everyone wanted to push their losses onto the time-puncher.

What I don't have is a team of lawyers and accountants pushing numbers everyday to find ways I can manipulate the laws, and loopholes of tax codes, or compromise product quality to keep a margin. This is what separates the average consumer from these corporate greed turds.

I recently took a jaunt over to research movie ticket price history because I stopped going in 2018 because they were trying to ask me to pay a matinee ticket fee of $18 popcorn was $11 and large fountain drink $6. I am sure its worse since then,but movie theaters have reversed course because no one is showing up anymore. This is where this shit will go because it is going to do what I did with the movie theaters, told them to fuck right off.

Yea, some people here like to low key defend / apologize / or berate in defense of corporations because it is part of their life. They invest in them, work for the same entity pulling in $125k/yr or more. But you know what that is top 25% of the US. You are not the majority, you are in a good spot with a buffer. The rest of us griping or bitching are wondering how we can pay for food when a loaf of bread is now approaching $4 for store brand when it was $1.49 in 2021, or a single onion is $3.

Along comes some bigwigs saying its high time we paid our dues for an entertainment medium thats been soft locked for 20+ years.

I like that people throw inflation around like it is some magic cure-all explanation for the price hikes. Take that $80 price tag and throw it in a calc from just 2016 and see what it is inflated to in 2025. Yea $120! Imagine if we saw $120 for games in 2016 cause that is what is being asked now, and we're somehow just supposed to swallow it and ask for more. Lets see how well $80 sits in 2034 when we go from $80 to $120 a game because retroactive infaltion and all that. pfft. I mean we're all Doctor Who with a TARDIS and can fly around timelines and making calls for the future, or are we only able to look backwards and see how bad we have been screwed, royally screwed, but just ignored it in the moment to moment because it didn't FEEEEEL bad in the right-now.

I saw the PS5 announcement and game prices and gave up on consoles in 2020 because that shit was stupid then, and now its going faster-futher-better than before. Because we were conditioned to accept it at $70 but wait here comes $80 dollar games. Same games of the last 5 years but $10 more. You can can do that right. Its only a single latte or a door-dash purchase fee. If only us greedy consumers could only exercise better financial responsibility. If only

You do know that the people involved in making these games have the same problems that you do and therefore need higher salaries as time goes on? How is this supposed to be financed if game prices remain the same?

 

[Mr Hyde]

I'm ain't buying any game for 80 dollars and certainly not for 90 dollars. These companies are fucking delusional and I hope their pricing strategy blows up in their fucking faces.

 

[FewRope]

Tales about inflation again. Nobody gives a shit about decreased buying power. Industry crash incoming.

And the industry deserves it tbh

 

[Miles708]

Only suckers buy full price. It has always been the case, but now you buy at launch only if you are stupid.

And if the game doesn't come down in price, oh well, my backlog is in the dozens, I will survive.

I'm outta this race, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and all publishers can all go to the depths of hell where they belong.

 

[PeteBull]

Maybe companies should focus on cutting their costs first?

Why have useless DEI departments and pay millions in DEI consultancy fees? Games can be produced in much less.

Thats our job, as customers we simply gotta embrace capitalism and not support bad products, its super ez to do too, just sit on our asses and dont buy bad/woke games, we doing amazing job so far actually, so have faith, brother, it will be painful and long process but i think by ps7(so 2036 or so) we will have no AAA woke games, and barely any AA woke games either, gotta give the companies salty taste of losing few hundo milions of usd few times first so their learn they lessons hard way tho

 

[Three]

I love how you've intentionally rephrased the title of the article. We all know who Shu is you know, but I can see why you did it.

 

[Physiognomonics]

Bullshit and he is wrong.

The problem is everybody (from hardware to software) are increasing their margins and want more money out of gaming. Which they do as they constanlty beat their own records, at least for Sony and Nintendo.
They want the easy way to make money by following trends (DEI), but also open-world 1st person shooter with tons of expensive cinematics (actors etc), which greatly increase the cost while overall making worse games. And those games are objectively worse.
They want to make a few AAA games using one industry template that worked once, hoping they could reproduce the formula and got to the bank (Ubisoft open-world, TLOU1, Fortnite etc.). They are chosing the easy way, like any managers would do and it obviously doesn't work.

I remember in end of PS4 era, in 2019, they were beating profits and margins records by selling their own AA or AAA-ish games and their biggest games would be barely considered AAA now as they had tight budgets. TLOU could be considered AA right now, and this is the reason it was a great game. Case in point the DEIed GoW Ragnarok, doubled 2018's budget. And the game was worse, obviously. What happened after 2019, why did they change their working formula (making record profit from their 1st party games)? They got greedy and chased trends and we can see the result right now (we needed some time as for a few years their PS4 sales were masking how low their games were selling on PS5). But now they have become what MS was in the end of X360 era. The default console for third party games losing tons of money from their 1st party project.

And Nintendo have decided to follow the same path. Record profits with Switch 1, but it's not enough, so let's make everything AAA and increase prices. It won't work either for them.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Y'all be complaining about huge backlogs and high game prices at the same time.

They don't value playing games. They value buying games.

 

[TKOFromTokyo]

How can you praise the efforts to increase margin in one thread and demonize it here?

Whatever makes the money flow without getting caught out by the public media I guess. Did you sell your stocks in Boeing when the first engine fell of a 737?

"The spice must flow"
Where is our Leto Atreides II?

Your comment makes no sense. Businesses have to increase returns to provide value to investors versus other investment options. I'm not demonizing that at all. A company must do that without compromising the safety of their product, and for me personally, they should do it without compromising the quality of their product. I'm not going to address your childish quip when lives were lost in the Boeing.

 

[QLQ]

Hey bro, sell your game for 50 instead of 70 but sell 5 times as many copies with this one weird trick.

Attractive characters.

No woke.

Done

FF16 and FF7 Rebirth not lighting the charts on fire even for $50. Your recipe is not enough. What about Split Fiction? isn't that woke with unattractive characters? It's selling pretty hot.

 

[Embearded]

Games should not be categorized in 2-3 different price points.
Every game should have a specific price decided for it.

 

[Sooner]

It was probably time to move to $70. But, $80 came too fast after and feels overly aggressive.

 

[JimmyRustler]

They don't value playing games. They value buying games.

Call me crazy but I think we'd all be better off with much higher game prices. Everyone would play fewer games but enjoy them more. You know, like we used to. The paradox of choice.

 

[ProtoByte]

But the amount of users has also increased exponentially which each of console generation.

No it has not. If it didn't top out with the 6th gen and the PS2, it certainly did with the 7th gen. That's now 20 years ago.

Did he answer why do KCD2 at 60€ and Expedition 33 at 45€ shits on every game they have released at 70-80€ and will shit on their future 90€ games too?

AAA games made with European dev staff and government grants... also making Expedition 33 is a real cost cutter.

Maybe companies should focus on cutting their costs first?

Why have useless DEI departments and pay millions in DEI consultancy fees? Games can be produced in much less.

Anyone who thinks endless millions are going into paying DEI consultants doesn't understand how this works. Yes, there's unnecessary money and time that goes into that, but it's barely statistically significant; cutting all out will not change the reality about dev costs, and not even strip out leftism in vidya. Face the facts guys, a disproportionate amount of game devs are left of center.

I get what you are saying, but these are not companies at risk here.

It might look that way on the outside but look at Ubisoft. They only avoided an existential crisis by capitulating to Tencent - more than a decade after fighting tooth and nail not to be similarly subsumed by Vivendi.
I would actually argue that Microsoft gaming is on a thin edge, and even multiplatformism + 80 dollars will not save them.

Things will absolutely be very precarious going into the 10th gen of consoles.

 

[ArtHands]

I'm ain't buying any game for 80 dollars and certainly not for 90 dollars. These companies are fucking delusional and I hope their pricing strategy blows up in their fucking faces.

I feel like the more they increase the price, the more their sales is going to be.

 

[CLW]

So is the 2nd Great Gaming Market CRASH

 

[TKOFromTokyo]

And that's the fucking problem. A once simple and fun form of entertainment has become someone's investment. Corporations and investment groups have monetized video games. The apathy and continued financial participation by the customer base has empowered it. Hell, people defend it.

Big business has ruined video games.
Gamers have ruined gaming.

We will continue on this path until it can no longer sustain itself. Corpos and investors will cut their losses and take their rich asses to the next investment trend. Gamers will have footed the bill for the shittiest meal. Then we see what happens next in the medium. It will die, or it will continue in some form or another for better or worse.

I don't disagree with you. My experience is that most things that I enjoy die over time as they become mainstream. Whether it's video games, movie directors, music, authors, etc. Truthfully, the PS2, Xbox, and GCN era was the last one I truly enjoyed before all of the compilations we've seen the past several years. One thing I think Nintendo really gets right is making gaming accessible to the masses. There's nothing wrong with people liking games that take 100+ hours to complete. They just aren't for me. I'm not a fan of open world games.

 

[MonkD]

No it has not. If it didn't top out with the 6th gen and the PS2, it certainly did with the 7th gen. That's now 20 years ago.

You're right. Gaming topped out in an era before online multiplayer was available on console, before smartphones and before stable internet connections where as widespread as today. C'mon man. I'd argue that most people who grew up in the early 90s might've not even had a console until the 6th gen. Gaming did not top out 20 years ago.