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Once again, I'm here to remind you that every argument in favor of $70 games is wrong.

Kumomeme

Member
How Dare You Greta GIF
 

Kenpachii

Member
Not much of a problem, if people find it to expensive they will pirate there games again or buy second handed for consoles. Simple as that. There loss.
 
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jigglet

Banned
If I spent the last 10 years rallying against why a $10 increase in a hobby that had me buying 5 games a year was a bad thing (zmg $50 a year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), I'd look at myself in the mirror and think: why the flying fuck did I take an arts degree.

(answer: the arts degree was a great excuse to get high, but you knew in your heart of hearts it was never going to pay the bills)
 
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Three

Member
I dunno, when i go to a movie theater and i pay 10 dollars for a ticket i get quality and i didnt even need to pay 7x that

you are getting fleeced, and you should demand better. Didn't you hear that the customer is always right?
You pay £10 or whatever for 1.5hrs and can't even replay it. You buy a game you get many more hours of entertainment and it's yours. You can even resell it if you bought physical. Value and quality is up to the individual.
 
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The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
Would pay $/€70 for a game if I got it forever on all platforms past, present and future.
I buy Halo 6 on Xbox Series X2, I get it and any future version of Halo 6 when I pay $/€70.
You mean a remaster or the availability of playing your purchased halo 6 on next generation?

Microsoft is already full supporting bc all the way back to the first xbox.

You even get a PC version of the game.

Don't know why Ezekiel_ Ezekiel_ find it so funny though.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
If I as creator want to charge more than you, the end user, are willing to pay, that's my right. Tough titties.

You aren't entitled to my work, there's no conceivable scenario where you absolutely need it in order to prevent suffering or deprivation in your life, and so there's no moral question about access being withheld.

You can't even argue exploitation based on material or manufacturing cost when its a creative work, where value is somewhat intangible and based on provenance and reputation. i.e. its not just A thing, it's a thing BY that creator.

Bottom line: You aren't entitled. You have no inalienable right, your option is to pay or don't pay. Choice is yours.
 

Mr Reasonable

Completely Unreasonable
I'm still the end buyer paying that price aren't I you muppet.
Hardly seems appropriate to throw around insults when someone is trying to help. Nonetheless, since I obviously didn't make it clear enough - American price $70 + 20% tax (that is included in the uk price) = $84. Roughly what you said the Brits pay, and British prices include tax.
 

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
Back in the N64/PS2/Gamecube/etc eras publishers had to split every single sale with retailers as well as royalty fees, etc.

Now they get a much larger cut of the sale via the vastly dominant digital platform that cuts out the middlemen. Also saves them money on manufacturing costs.

But those savings are never brought up. It’s just gamers arguing that we should be handing over more money for $70 starter editions, that come with Battle Passes and extra paid content. All to a far larger audience then ever before.

That’s not even getting to the money these publishers collect by selling their game to Microsoft for Game Pass, Sony for Plus, Epic to be on their shitty store, Etc.

You want to spend $70, all the power to you. Personally I can’t even count on one hand the number of games I’ve played that deserve that kind of money taken out of my wallet.
 

FalsettoVibe

Gold Member
This thread is one big reason why gaming will never be as fun and interesting as back in the PS2 days. Have fun with your MTX filled NFT games. We got noone but ourselves to blame because while we „gamers“ don‘t want to pay a dime for games the commoners keep sinking money into MTX….
This.
 

Three

Member
But those savings are never brought up. It’s just gamers arguing that we should be handing over more money for $70 starter editions, that come with Battle Passes and extra paid content. All to a far larger audience then ever before.

That’s not even getting to the money these publishers collect by selling their game to Microsoft for Game Pass, Sony for Plus, Epic to be on their shitty store, Etc.

You want to spend $70, all the power to you. Personally I can’t even count on one hand the number of games I’ve played that deserve that kind of money taken out of my wallet.
All to a far larger audience than ever before isn't accurate though. Game sales have declined not gone up. The audience has gone up but largely from people who play f2p games and pay for mtxs. Games with zero microtransactions are not making more money than before.
 
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Mr Reasonable

Completely Unreasonable
All to a far larger audience than ever before isn't accurate though. Game sales have declined not gone up.
Didn't know that, very interesting. I wonder, if like music and films, if the records that were set in the past for number of purchases will ever be broken.
 
Hardly seems appropriate to throw around insults when someone is trying to help. Nonetheless, since I obviously didn't make it clear enough - American price $70 + 20% tax (that is included in the uk price) = $84. Roughly what you said the Brits pay, and British prices include tax.

Where the fuck are you paying 20% sales tax?
 

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
All to a far larger audience than ever before isn't accurate though. Game sales have declined not gone up. The audience has gone up but largely from people who play f2p games and pay for mtxs. Games with zero microtransactions are not making more money than before.

I don’t believe game sales have declined one bit.
The industry has never been like it is now where three consoles are doing well, the PC market is massive, and mobile is gigantic. There’s more games released now then ever before. No previous generation compares.

Especially when you look at those old generations that are brought up.
 

Banjo64

cumsessed
Hardly seems appropriate to throw around insults when someone is trying to help. Nonetheless, since I obviously didn't make it clear enough - American price $70 + 20% tax (that is included in the uk price) = $84. Roughly what you said the Brits pay, and British prices include tax.
Pointless comparison really.

Can’t you buy a wooden mansion with 40 acres of land in most American states for about £4k?

In the UK you have to pay about £800k for a bedsit on the outskirts of Stoke-on-Trent.

I kid (a little).
 

John Wick

Member
Sony are bang out of order charging $70 for The Last of Us. It should be $50 with multiplayer thrown in. Otherwise £30. Even then I see no point in them making it as the PS4 remake was good enough.
But with the way things are it's inevitable that most games will rise to $70 if not more. World is gone crazy. Do we expect console prices to go up?
 
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Mr Reasonable

Completely Unreasonable
Pointless comparison really.

Can’t you buy a wooden mansion with 40 acres of land in most American states for about £4k?

In the UK you have to pay about £800k for a bedsit on the outskirts of Stoke-on-Trent.

I kid (a little).
Not anymore. Google average house prices in the USA.
 

John Wick

Member
Hardly seems appropriate to throw around insults when someone is trying to help. Nonetheless, since I obviously didn't make it clear enough - American price $70 + 20% tax (that is included in the uk price) = $84. Roughly what you said the Brits pay, and British prices include tax.
I never pay full price. Do people not shop around for deals? Use sites like hotukdeals etc.
Sometimes waiting a week or two can make a ten pound difference.
 

Three

Member
I don’t believe game sales have declined one bit.
The industry has never been like it is now where three consoles are doing well, the PC market is massive, and mobile is gigantic. There’s more games released now then ever before. No previous generation compares.

Especially when you look at those old generations that are brought up.
Hardware sales combined isn't that much higher than other gens but PC, console and especially mobile hardware sales doesn't represent software sales if people are playing F2P games like Fortnite, Rocket League, Apex Legends, CoD Warzone, Roblox etc.
 
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Banjo64

cumsessed
Not anymore. Google average house prices in the USA.
I did when I made my comment (just so I didn’t look silly!), there’s websites that break it down by state.

The US is so vast that the average house price in some of the southern/middle states is extremely low but then the overall numbers are boosted by the insane cost of living in places like California - it makes any cost of living comparison with the UK moot.

From an English perspective; yes we’ve had £70 games before with the N64. I’d argue that those games were worth it due to cartridge costs, no MTX and groundbreaking 3D graphics. Following on from that the price of games dipped in the PS2-PS3 era to around £40 for a new game day one. Is £70 acceptable in the UK for a stripped back TLOU when we are entering a recession and Sony are making money hand over fist with PSN/PS Plus? Not in my opinion. Am I poor or do I need another hobby? Not at all, a fool and his money are easily parted and Sony will have to do much better than TLOU Part 1 for me to buy a game day one at that price.
 

Mr Reasonable

Completely Unreasonable
I did when I made my comment (just so I didn’t look silly!), there’s websites that break it down by state.

Well, if you wish to cherry pick and find the cheapest place in the USA and put it up against a Million Pound house in Stoke on Trent, then I guess it works. The fact is that the average house price in the USA is higher than the average house price in the UK.
 

Mithos

Member
You mean a remaster or the availability of playing your purchased halo 6 on next generation?

Microsoft is already full supporting bc all the way back to the first xbox.

You even get a PC version of the game.

Don't know why Ezekiel_ Ezekiel_ find it so funny though.
If they release a Halo 6 named game anytime in the future, I've already paid for Halo 6, I mean they claim they are selling a license and not a product, so lets go all in on that.

So yeah, Halo 6 or Halo 6: Remastered or Halo 6: Remake, sake game different name.
If this becomes a thing I'll absolutely pay that asked €70+ for a game.

Edit:
Also, YES, if they are selling me a license to play Halo 6 for €70+ it should be platform agnostic. (a small thumbs up on MS for at least for that)
 
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Banjo64

cumsessed
Well, if you wish to cherry pick and find the cheapest place in the USA and put it up against a Million Pound house in Stoke on Trent, then I guess it works. The fact is that the average house price in the USA is higher than the average house price in the UK.
Well yeah like I said it was a bit of a joke comparison, and that’s why I said comparisons are moot. There’s other factors like salaries and healthcare and other additional costs that also further render the comparison pointless.

As an example, for the role of senior manager you can expect to earn £62,500 on average in the UK, whereas the in the USA the same position has an average salary of $136,048 (£98,113).

I can only speak for the perspective of an average Englishman when I’m telling you the worth of a game to me. I’m sure $70 is offensive/inoffensive to many Americans depending on their individual circumstances also.
 

BlackTron

Member
Inflation calculators like that miss the mark on most consumer products. Inflation rarely tracks in that linear of a fashion outside of "necessity" items.

A quick look at the BF archive will quickly demonstrate many items that didn't rise in price nearly as much as the calculators would have you believe is acceptable. At Walmart in 2004 a 20" bike would cost $25, in 2020 $29, via the inflation calculator $34 (in 21 they wildly outpace the calculator at $60). For many items the prices have lowered (a TV is cheaper today than in the past and so on). While other items (like food) will out pace the calculator.

Games have a lot more revenue streams available today and have much longer tales thanks to digital. Also, most of the big gaming companies are earning a higher percentage of profit today than they were in the 90s.

With that said, games are freakishly expensive to make now, so, if charging the early adopters a bit more allows devs to be less risk adverse that's great.

It's alarming to me how few people seem to get this. Inflation is simply tracking what a dollar is worth. Value of a dollar fluctuates all the time to begin with, but companies don't like to change their prices constantly because it's bad for marketing, bad for retail organization and appears petty. In the same way a restaurant can't print new menus every day just because of a cost fluctuation. I'm sure there were times that Japanese companies wanted to add a few dollars to their games because they feel the weak dollar directly when they transfer their money to yen, but didn't.

The value of a dollar changes regardless of whether the items it's being used to buy change in price. If inflation increases, and the prices of those goods don't increase at pace, then you're simply paying less money than before for the same item, and the company is taking a hit. It won't be such a "theoretical" idea when that company tries to exchange that money for its own currency and finds that it gets less of it because the value of the dollar was destroyed. Or when its own employees want more money to compensate for their own increased costs due to inflation.

When we talk about inflation, it's all other things being equal. Sure, prices can go down or up for a multitude of reasons. It could be more efficient production, or supply and demand, or anything else. Those things don't change the value of a dollar though. They're independent of inflation's effects. Yes, many companies try to absorb the hit, but there's a limit, if inflation keeps rising they will eventually bump it.

Let's say that due to more efficient management and processes, Sony managed to shave off $5 of 2017 money. That would equate to a game being about $65 today. Sony actually continued selling games at the same $60 despite losing money on inflation for years, and waited for the gen change to do anything about it because it was just smarter timing to hit everybody with it.

Nintendo's evergreen $60 titles are essentially "Player's Choice" cheaper versions now due to inflation. They would be smart to simply let them sit as they are and whistle nonchalantly.
 

Banjo64

cumsessed
It's alarming to me how few people seem to get this. Inflation is simply tracking what a dollar is worth. Value of a dollar fluctuates all the time to begin with, but companies don't like to change their prices constantly because it's bad for marketing, bad for retail organization and appears petty. In the same way a restaurant can't print new menus every day just because of a cost fluctuation. I'm sure there were times that Japanese companies wanted to add a few dollars to their games because they feel the weak dollar directly when they transfer their money to yen, but didn't.

The value of a dollar changes regardless of whether the items it's being used to buy change in price. If inflation increases, and the prices of those goods don't increase at pace, then you're simply paying less money than before for the same item, and the company is taking a hit. It won't be such a "theoretical" idea when that company tries to exchange that money for its own currency and finds that it gets less of it because the value of the dollar was destroyed. Or when its own employees want more money to compensate for their own increased costs due to inflation.

When we talk about inflation, it's all other things being equal. Sure, prices can go down or up for a multitude of reasons. It could be more efficient production, or supply and demand, or anything else. Those things don't change the value of a dollar though. They're independent of inflation's effects. Yes, many companies try to absorb the hit, but there's a limit, if inflation keeps rising they will eventually bump it.

Let's say that due to more efficient management and processes, Sony managed to shave off $5 of 2017 money. That would equate to a game being about $65 today. Sony actually continued selling games at the same $60 despite losing money on inflation for years, and waited for the gen change to do anything about it because it was just smarter timing to hit everybody with it.

Nintendo's evergreen $60 titles are essentially "Player's Choice" cheaper versions now due to inflation. They would be smart to simply let them sit as they are and whistle nonchalantly.
Do you think Sony should be passing on the increased operating costs to the consumer or should they not tap in to the billions they now make through their 30% cut on PSN and 50 million PS Plus subscribers?
 

Hugare

Member
  • "It's inevitable. People will pay it."
"This is actually the least BS reason. No, I won't. I'll just wait for titles to drop in price or during a Steam sale.
Good luck getting that new standard to stick."

So, about the last part. Bad news: the new standard is already here for good.

"No, I won't. I'll just wait for titles to drop in price or during a Steam sale.". Good for you. But this wont change shit.

Maybe you did the same when games were $60, and how well did that boycott go, OP?

It's all about the same old supply and demand argument, There's no hidden reason, no "games are getting hard to develop" and etc., it's all about people are willing to pay more, so why the hell not?

Prices will keep going up until eventually people get enough of it, sales drop, then prices will adjust
 

Topher

Gold Member
Do you think Sony should be passing on the increased operating costs to the consumer or should they not tap in to the billions they now make through their 30% cut on PSN and 50 million PS Plus subscribers?

Which one do you think will help Sony beat its projected earnings each quarter?
 

BlackTron

Member
Do you think Sony should be passing on the increased operating costs to the consumer or should they not tap in to the billions they now make through their 30% cut on PSN and 50 million PS Plus subscribers?

This doesn't take too many mental gymnastics to comprehend. $60 in 2017 is $72.50 in today's money. In other words Sony is selling games for a few bucks less now than in 2017. So if you think that games should not be $70 now, that is taking the same position as being mad that games did not go DOWN to $50 had inflation not taken place.
 
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Banjo64

cumsessed
This doesn't take too many mental gymnastics to comprehend. $60 in 2017 is $72.50 in today's money. In other words Sony is selling games for a few bucks less now than in 2017. So if you think that games should not be $70 now, that is taking the same position as being mad that games did not go DOWN to $50 had inflation not taken place.
Ah ok, so in that case I wonder if Sony have increased the pay of their employees by 18% or anywhere close? After all, their salaries now are worth much less than they were in 2017.
 
I just explained how games are now less niche (which means now there's more people buying them) and how they saved money from not having to produce ROMs anymore.

Aren't those enough to cover today's bigger dev budgets?

Also, even thought the actual game dev budgets have increased, that still doesn't stop game publishers earning more profits that they ever did, and their CEOs being richer than ever.

Also, i don't buy development budgets have increased that much for all games. Sure, big games like Cyberpunk or GTA V, that use more assets and take 5+ years to make, could cost more. But i don't know why all "AAA" games need to cost as much as that.
- Argues passionately against $70 games
- Has a Neo Geo avatar

Bro.... 😂
 

BlackTron

Member
Ah ok, so in that case I wonder if Sony have increased the pay of their employees by 18% or anywhere close? After all, their salaries now are worth much less than they were in 2017.

I have no idea, but actually, yeah I would expect higher wages than in 2017. Depends though. I know a guy who owns a school bus company who got reamed with gas prices because he had contracts set up. So he had essentially no operating profit due to being locked into contracts agreed upon when prices were better. This is an inherent risk. Maybe some employees have employment contracts and they have to absorb the difference. Just like Sony absorbed the difference for years of inflation without going past $60. I would certainly suspect the compensation of new hires to be different.

Employees are not the only expense. What about the retailer's profit margin? What about distribution costs of physical games and hardware due to inflation/higher gas prices/ increased truckers wages? We could go on all day, there is no 1:1 system of exactly when and how prices ought to change, but to make it VERY simple for everyone, everything else being equal, $60 in 2017 equals $72 today. Again, not that hard. Once you realize that, your argument shifts as to why Sony should be making their games cheaper. Adjusted for inflation, there was never a price increase, they just decided to be nice for a long time.
 
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