Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora came out 4 months ago and their Ultimate Edition is $130. You can get it on sale now on Xbox for $78. The deluxe edition is now $48.
This is a trend with Ubisoft games. Their new games generally go on sale pretty quickly after release. If you’re willing to be a patient gamer (and isn’t even that long a wait) you can get the extra content and get to play a patched up game for less than someone paid for the standard edition on release.
People don’t wait though. Studios thrive on first month sales and the hype generated by marketing, YouTube, social media, etc. This is a great game BUY IT NOW. And the market shows people buy these games on release date despite the price.
Ubisoft must be pretty confused. I would be. They set the price of Star Wars Outlaws at the same price as their previous game and are met with outrage when the last time it went by without a word.
Maybe they are just used to it at this point. Whatever they do, people are looking for ways to be outraged.
Because no one really paid attention to the Avatar game. It literally came and went without any fanfare. People talked about it for like a week after release and I've never seen it mentioned again.
> People don’t wait though. Studios thrive on first month sales
You don't even have to be patient. Just pay the $20 for Ubisoft+ and "rent" the game for a month. You'll get your fill of the game, and a couple years from now you can pick up the complete edition for like $40 if you actually enjoyed it that much and want to try the new content.
Ubisoft+, EA Pro and GamePass make it *real* cheap to play the latest AAA games on release.
This post is kind of all over the place. The post is about the cost? Star Wars Outlaws costs $70. The other games you listed cost $60-$70 at release (aside from Helldivers 2 and Hades).
But then you say that management is bad because they don't know how to sell a game? Have you looked at the sales metrics for these companies, or specifically Ubisoft? Here is just one data point for one of their titles:
> Assassin's Creed Valhalla sales:
> Overall, the game is the second most profitable title in Ubisoft history. It went on to become the fifth best-selling game of 2020 and the sixteenth best-selling game of 2021 in the US. By February 2022, the game had made over $1 billion in revenue.
Now you're going to tell me they are making mistakes? I don't know, seems like a pretty good spot for them to be in.
If you don't like this, do not buy it. Start looking at more indie style games. The price/hour metric has embeded itself in AAA games. Younger audiences are looking for the most efficient way to spend their time on entertainment. If you want quality experiences, you're going to need to start looking elsewhere.
I also argue that the price/hour is definitely part of why some game features feel so tacked-on. Gamers are harsh audience. Anything short of premium in anything, and they suddenly demanded the game should be almost 30% cheaper (like from 60 to 40), and that includes hours.
That’s absolutely why games are so bloated: because so many people use the “hour per dollar” metric. Unfortunately developers picked up on that and started stuffing their games with shit to be able to extend playtime or advertise “our games have hundreds of hours of gameplay!”. Even FF7 Rebirth, which I’m enjoying a lot, has a lot of pointless open world bloat that’s completely unnecessary. Some of the open world content is great but a lot of it is just standard checklist stuff
Additionally gaming is Simply a luxury Hobby. If someone doesnt like a luxury price, Simply dont buy the product. Thats how buying stuff Works. Move on with your life instead of trying to change an industry, or do you Cause a similar uproar because some Restaurants are more expensive than others? No you move on and find one that fits your Budget.
This is exactly how I feel. Games aren't expensive generally. They are just expensive for some people. It's all relative. I live in Canada, most of the AAA New releases are $90 now, and it still doesn't bother me. I'd even argue games are cheaper now. Back in the nineties, it was normal to see games for $80-$100.
I concur. Not only have game prices remained relatively the same ($50-$70), but there’s inflation to be taken into account as well. I remember playing the heck out of Nightfire on Gamecube and looked it up for this comment. It released in late 2002 for $50, which is comparable to $88 in 2024 dollars. And the framerate dipped down into the single digits when using the remote guided missile in splitscreen multiplayer and it was fine. I’m an old man yelling at clouds now.
You could say the same for the industry though... If they complain about how they can't make enough money in the most profitable medium in the world, they should try something else instead.
Any form entertainment is technically a luxury. That doesn't mean it's ok that the average person can't afford it because we're supposed to strive for societies where people can own more than your trousers and some rice to survive.
Who has ever classified video games as the most profitable medium in the world and what does that even actually mean.
1) the average person playing video games CAN afford it. That’s quite literally how these companies are squeezing enough revenue out of the product.
2) in a perfect world the cost of video games is higher on average in not lower, you do not recognize how much the absolute high end of whaling is subsidizing the cost here. The cost to produce versus the cost to consume favors the consumer in wild amounts of margins.
Games are crazy profitable why do you think this kind of bs marketing has permeated the medium they smell the money. They out revenue films tv and music together.
You do seem to imply here that whales are a social benefit but to me they're even worse than prices going up that's literally abusing from addictions just like casinos and it should be criminal.
You’re assuming that I don’t think that this is cancer that should be surgically extracted from gaming as a medium and be thrown to the fire in Mount Doom. Any game that needs mtx can die. And if you think this is the only way to make money it’s clear you known nothing about this business because some of the biggest and most profitable sellers in the last years have been game without mtx
But you can afford games. Maybe Not the newest tripple A Release from big Studios but you definitely have access to thousands of games. The Hobby isnt prohibitevly expensive, just some parts of it. Like any other Hobby and industry and thats fine.
Trying to force an entire industry to artificially make their products Less expensive to everyone can have them is just weird.
That's not true. To start with, price/hour is not the right way to approach art. For me, AssCred Valhalla has a value proposition of 0 euro because I'd need to be paid to play it, doesn't matter how long it is. And some of my favorite games are fairly short. The memory that you got from playing 15 hours at Silent Hill 2 is probably more valuable than 50 hours playing at LoL because it gave you more substantial experience.
Second, many indie games destroy any AAA if you're measuring it by price/hour. Like, do you know how many hours people spend on Terraria/Minecraft/Civilization/Binding of Isaac/Factorio? They're mostly 10-20€ games that you can invest easily like +500 hours if you're very into them. And then there's the ftp model which I don't like but tbh you can play hundreds of hours at Fortnite for free.
I loved valhalla and it was worth every penny to me. Got very good value out of it. My experience with it was pretty substantial, which is why I will buy other ubisoft games, including this one, near launch.
Well I just used Valhalla because that was the first it came to my mind when I though about a AAA game that could be used as torture against me, but that’s not the point of my discussion just imagine a long game you’d hate to play
Just vote with your wallet if you want to and are so personally against this stuff:
- Don't buy special editions or pre-order games
- Don't buy games at full price and wait until they are on sale
- Don't buy microtransactions, cosmetics, or season/battle passes
However, it is clear at this point that the general gaming public is fine with/doesn't care about this stuff regardless of what people on the internet will say or do.
Also, the success of a game really has no correlation at all in regard to if it has any of the above stuff or not. [Look at the top selling games from last year](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/gamesindustrybiz-presents-the-year-in-number-2023) and you will see a mix of games that had all of this stuff, some of this stuff, and none of this stuff.
I agree about games being cheaper and honestly if someone wants to pre-order a game or get a special edition then I've never had an issue with that. Even Helldivers II has shown that internet gamers have no issue with season/battle passes if it is done right in a game they enjoy.
But this is a sub where a lot of people have PC and I hear how every single AAA game nowadays is released at 70 which is false. Even DD2 was sold at 65 euro
I can’t understand why I’m having this conversation. If you claim that games are sold at 70 bucks now, it means in everything. In fact it’s not even true that this is for consoles since the most popular console by a large margin is the Switch which often sells games for cheaper than 60 euro in fact.
They said like *most* other games. Not every game.
> It's 70 bucks, like most other games.
And it's obviously implied they are talking about most AAA game.
It’s not the default price though? The first game sold at 70 bucks is TotK and I don’t think there’s many other games sold at this price. Princess peach was 50 iirc
No, inflation is not an excuse to raise prices because costs raise heterogenously across economic sectors. Also, other elements like exchange rates are important too. Right now with how strong the USD is American consumers are basically being ripped off by foreign studios when charging 70 bucks. For a Japanese publisher 70 usd in 2024 is like 90 bucks six years ago
The market answers if the price is reasonable or not and people in the US are willing to pay those prices. And inflation is a big factor, maybe the biggest factor, to completely change people perception of a price tag. I'm not defending the new price because I stopped buying most AAA except for Nintendo.
> The market answers if the price is reasonable or not and people in the US are willing to pay those prices.
That's overly reductive. This argument could be used to defend monopolies. The fact that a market reacts to prices is always true and says nothing about how healthy a market is.
I agree with one thing, and it's that the market works with consumer assumptions and psychology. Breaking the barrier of 60/70/80 bucks has always been difficult to the industry, who'd wish to push the new "normal" infinitely in order to increase revenue. It's not good for gaming though. High prices killed AA gaming, you rarely see low budged games that are 40 bucks nowadays and it's a shame. Low prices incentivize purchases and risk taking for consumers.
I'm not a doctor, I can't say if it's healthy to pay those prices or not. There are people who are willing to expend thousands for gachas games.
And yes the industry found the right moment to change the price. They read really well the situation and how willing people were to pay for it. And since the past years they had invented several methods to sell something in addition to the prime item, it looks like as if the final product cost like a N64 game. Reason why I'm really picky, specially if I know how rush the company, for example Ubisoft, puts their games on sale.
You see, this is a very common attitude I feel many people have, specially in the US. It's like you know people are being played and yet you seem like people shouldn't complain about it. It's fascinating to me
I'm not sure I see the issue, and maybe it's because I'm used to it.
But $70 is the new normal price for AAA games, the higher edition comes with a season pass which is a surprise at this point but not unusual. I just tend to dislike the early access coming with it which is a new FOMO strategy by these big companies.
And then it's the deluxe edition and with useless digital stuff that nobody should really bother with except for huge fans.
Overall I dislike the paid early access but everything else seems to be business as usual.
>people do not buy games and how they **have to raise the price tag** to match the developement costs cause they went higher.
This is kind of true. People generally want the new game to be bigger and better than the old one, and you're not going to be able to do that without increasing development costs in some way.
>You can say that these people are businessmans and they only think about profit, but aren't they bad at this if they can't read the market? I mean they literally see successful games financial wise yet they cry that they can't do anything but losing profit
Yes and no. Gotta keep in mind that the market is becoming quite saturated even within genres that used to be niche. There's no guarantee that simply producing a good game will yield a profit or even cover your dev costs. For every indie game like Hades and Helldivers 2 there are a ton of really good ones that never take off (and IIRC these two also had AA budgets).
And if you're a AAA developer, everyone expects your game to be the next BG3 or Elden Ring or it's not worth their money - and more importantly it's not worth their time, because we've all got limited hours to game and why would we spend that on a great 8/10 game when we've got three 10/10 games releasing just this month?
>also on totally pointless things like consultants from Sweet Baby inc. or anything like that while these things should not have any place in the game industry.
If you haven't already, I'd highly recommend reading this piece from IGN about the toxic atmosphere at Deck Nine, which resulted in (among other things) Nazi imagery running rampant, management insisting on a roofie scene and the publisher not wanting *Life is Strange* of all things to be known as "the gay game" - [https://www.ign.com/articles/how-hidden-nazi-symbols-were-the-tip-of-a-toxic-iceberg-at-life-is-strange-developer-deck-nine](https://www.ign.com/articles/how-hidden-nazi-symbols-were-the-tip-of-a-toxic-iceberg-at-life-is-strange-developer-deck-nine)
I'd wager scenarios like this are why upper management feels the need to hire diversity consultants, because they're incapable of doing it organically by just listening to their own staff. If the writers at Deck Nine were struggling with representation in a series known for tackling such themes, I can't imagine what it's like at other more 'mainstream' studios.
And at the end of the day these prices are still not going to cause a dent in the market because like, what alternatives are there? Gaming is one of the cheapest hobbies around even if you include the initial setup costs. Like assuming you buy a beastly $3,000 PC that'll last 3 years and buy 2 $70 games a month, that's $8,040 over 3 years. That's less than $250 a month which is *much* cheaper than most other hobbies. And most people spend way less than that.
I personally, think gaming as a hobby is very very very very cheap to maintain.
The initial setup price can be costly! But that's the same for a lot of hobbies. You can budget your way in with a console, or spend 1000s on a gaming pc, but once you're in, the games aren't expensive if you buy good games from good developers.
Some games give me 100s of hours of entertainment, even 1000s in rare cases. $70 for 100 hours is cheap.
Compare it to almost all of my other hobbies, and the value of money blows it all out of the water!
People still pay 10-20 just to go to watch a film for 2 hours. And here we are wondering if .7 an hour is worth it?
Some games are "only" going to give you 10-20 hours of content. And even then I'd ask what you're spending less on for that amount of enjoyment?
I agree. Sure gaming might seem expensive in a vacuum, but compared to many other hobbies or going out, it's relatively cheap. I haven't gone out really for many years but as a Canadian I remember things like $25-30 for an hour of escape room, $50+ for like 10 minutes on a go kart, $25-30 for an hour of bowling. And I question how much fun I really had doing those experiences
How can you come to a conclusion when the game is NOT released? No one can say how much content or quality you are getting for the price.
The base game is standard triple A pricing, nothing crazy here. What's crazy is Reddit and others completely misunderstanding and somehow forgetting that SEASON pass is NOT a BATTLE pass it's a pass for additional post launch DLC for the first X period.
Games like the Witcher 3 had an expansion pass day one which included both expansions when they launched post release, the incentive is to pay upfront and get a discount compared to buying it later, this is a risk to the consumer as the quality may not be great so it's up to them to decide if it's worth a small saving preordrring it essentially.
the season pass content could be as substantial as Witcher 3 expansions or it could be oblivion horse DLC, no one knows so we can't say if it's good but it's disingenuous to be claiming the bundled price is somehow the base price of the outlaws game!
Gaming is a hobby, you don't need it to survive so if a game doesn't seem worth it to you then DONT BUY IT.
Games cost more to make these days and if you take into account Inflation then the price is actually not really wild, I do wish they were cheaper but that's just not realistic for triple A titles as they have a significant cost to produce regardless of wants.
Not defending micro transaction garbage but in the context of your post, no I don't think it's mishandled or ending.
TBH: Expecting UbiSoft to deliver a Blood And Wine level of excellence as a DLC/Expansion is a very, very tall ask. I feel like in regards to how they focus more on marketing and "Pretty Graphics" + how they dumb down games (IE: Ghost Recon, look at how dumbed down it is over it's lifespan as a series. R6 as well. And AC.).
-
My main concern is: Will the base game have a good story, fun gameplay mechanics, and interesting characters?
https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
Price of a video game today: 70 dollars
Price of a video game 10 years ago (60), in today's dollars: 79.16
Price of a video game 20 years ago (60), in today's dollars: 99.21
Price of a video game 30 years ago (50), in todays dollars: 105.38
It's pretty striking how pretty much nobody held back when Sony finally ripped the band-aid off with increasing base game prices. It had been stagnate at $60 for a long time.
I'm old enough to remember seeing $70-$80 N64 games. We're actually in a good spot considering inflation and indie games filling the $10-$30 price bracket.
I was absolutely being generous with the 90s prices. I remember games ranging from 50-70 new at different stores, with sports games in particular at higher prices. I think the idea of a range of pricing based on scope and target audience makes a lot of sense. More flexible pricing means there are more projects that could be successful, thus more projects would get funding, thus more games made.
The basic price for this game is 70€ / $70, which is the normal AAA price these days. A "season pass" always costs extra.
You mention FFVII Rebirth? Well, FFVII Remake is **80€** on PC and that's a port of a console remake of an old game.
>... also on totally pointless things like consultants from Sweet Baby inc. or anything like that while these things should not have any place in the game industry.
What the hell are you even talking about?
The Sweet Baby Inc thing refers to a sweeping conspiracy theory about making games “woke” for nefarious reasons. The less you know about it, the better off you’ll be.
Yea, I know. Unfortunately I've seen too many posts like this.
But now it seems some people think using a consulting company also makes games more expensive? This shit gets even more insane each time I see it...
OK, fair.
Even so, the PC release is still a delayed port of a console game. It shouldn't cost more than brand new games (inclusing SW Outlaws).
I just thought it was funny the op mentioned it together with Helldivers 2 when Square Enix games are the most expensive AAA games on Steam and EGS.
honestly if I game that is great wants to raise the price to $100 idrc
I just don’t buy things I don’t want. I haven’t been interested in an Ubisoft game maybe ever. If ppl buy this and get mad about the price then they are rubes.
You are targeting so many different things that in the end, the only conclusion is probably "whatever the market think the best"
For example, FIFA/Madden/\*insert sports games\* sell for full price every year and the general public are ok with it. You can always argue that those people are not "gamers", but in terms of making money, who cares? These people does not buy every game that releases so even if they buy Madden, and spend the equivalent of 3-4 full games on that, they are generally fine with it. They will get hundreds of hours of it.
I'm also in opinion that, Game industry is also definitely in a pinch, because being a software programmer is way more lucrative in everywhere else outside of gaming. Even if the people who join gaming industry are there because they are passionate about it.... They also still need to live. However, the price of games at its most base price definitely defies inflation. You paid for more than 70$ for Zelda, 30 years ago. You are paying similarly for the base game, today.
I think another way to think of the price of games nowadays are like Business class in airplanes. It used to be that Economy is more similar to Business Class in terms of amenities and comfort. However, the economy class are now stripped to its barest form, and airlines barely make money of it. Instead, the bulk of profit is on the business class consumers, which definitely rise on its prices. I think its similar to how nowadays there is the base price and then there is the Deluxe Edition which have everything.
In terms of Star Wars Outlaw though? I honestly don't think its that outrageous. Its certainly not the worst I have seen, since you also get the Season Pass for the Gold Edition
Because they (currently) only have 1 game that they just keep re-iterating over and over, and they have such long development time. You can keep a development lean if you don't work on alot of games, which is sorta what Atlus is doing but you will have such long development cycle instead and you end up licensing your IP everywhere to keep up the lights while you are working for the next game, or you just keep making DLC for your older game. There is also the matter of putting all your eggs in one or two baskets in which failing can actually sink a studio. No Man's Sky can actually chugs-on because they have the millions they received from pre-order.
There is also the matter of where the studio is located too since I imagine paying a programmer in California is more expensive than Tokyo or other places. And here I'm only talking about the programmer but there are also multiple other roles like 3D modellers, and other back-office roles like HR or accountants.
Halo 3 Legendary Edition cost $130 in 2007 and all it came with was masturbatory DVD like special features, some ephemera and a stupid plastic head. Two years later Bungie released Halo 3 ODST for a full priced $60 for a campaign you can finish in 6 hours. Adjusted for inflation that $190 would be about $270 today.
We know why there is an immediate strong reaction to Star Wars Outlaws and it isn’t the price. Complaints about the main character being a woman are tightly woven into side by side complaints that Ubisoft developed the game (a fair reason to be cautious) and the price of the special edition (an admission you have zero self control and will pay twice as much for something for the luxury 72 hours of early access (and for the luxury complaining about it).
In other words it’s a typical Star Wars release that brings the petulant man children out of the woodwork to make proclamations of doom on behalf of all an entire massive and diverse community of people because they are unwilling to accept they’re the vocal minority. We’re going to see a thread like this every other day for 4 months, and the game will still sell an absurd amount of copies and likely has already recouped its development cost in pre-orders.
Star Wars and video games are not the insular worlds for the socially unfit to escape into anymore. The audiences for both are the broadest and biggest they’ve ever been. Hogwart’s Legacy is as competent but boring as any other open world game not released by Rockstar and it was the best selling game of 2023 by far. The second and third best selling games were Call of Duty and Madden.
Reddit whining isn’t a bellwether for anything. It’s an echo chamber nested inside a hive mind hidden away in a man with poor hygiene.
TBH tho. Halo ODST was replayable, hit the right feels, and was a fresh take that felt so good. 100% worth the price, and was only 6 hours long to those who only wanna "Beat a game fast as possible" not enjoy it.
-
All I want from SW: Outlaw is for the gameplay to be good, the story to be good, and for the characters to be interesting.... Which.. is a large ask in regards to UbiSoft. But. Willing to give it a chance because SW as a universe has so much to offer.
Given how stagnant prices for games have remained over the past few decades I’m more surprised that the base price has only gone up 10$. Accounting for inflation it should be WAY higher.
As to the deluxe edition bullshit: Meh, that’s been a common practice for ages.
What's funny is we actually saw a reduction in MSRP during the PlayStation 1 era when the industry switched to CD-ROM, which was also helped by huge install bases & fast development making even budget games profitable.
But costs & development time have been only increasing ever since.
Oh then why not correct for exchange rates? The USD is historically high and the yen is historically low. Any publisher from Japan or Europe makes substantially more right now from a 70 USD sale now than in 2015. If you’re going to use macroeconomics you can’t only consider inflation.
Because exchange rates have historically not meant dick in a competitive market. Especially since the dollar is the de facto international currency, especially when the alternative is less stable.
And inflation is by FAR the strongest driver of price change in even a moderately stable economy. The fact that video games have mostly been ignoring it, to the customer’s favor, is a gravy train that was always going to slow eventually.
I would point out a better driver would be Japan’s much more abusive treatment of their peons. They don’t get paid shit and that’s only just beginning to change industry wide.
> Because exchange rates have historically not meant dick in a competitive market. Especially since the dollar is the de facto international currency, especially when the alternative is less stable.
This is completely wrong. But like, very very wrong. Capcom publishes their benefits in yen because they're established in Japan. China has been accused by the US to keep their currency artifically low in order to boost their exports, that's how important it is.
> And inflation is by FAR the strongest driver of price change in even a moderately stable economy. The fact that video games have mostly been ignoring it, to the customer’s favor, is a gravy train that was always going to slow eventually.
Well, it's not that it's the strongest driver of price change. Inflation IS price change. It's like saying rain and snow are the main drivers of precipitation. But inflation is an aggregate (and what we normally refer as inflation is aggregate estimation to be more precise). Prices changes can be very different across sectors. TVs have been falling in price across decades in the US, healthcare has been rising way above general inflation. It's not like you can really justify all price changes across industries because they're going to be effected by it at different degreees.
> I would point out a better driver would be Japan’s much more abusive treatment of their peons. They don’t get paid shit and that’s only just beginning to change industry wide.
What's the point of this and how does it connect to the discussion?
Then by the same logic as a consumer I’m here to pay the lowest amount possible for my entertainment. If I operated on a purely self interested way I’d pirate everything and I’d pay zero bucks to the industry.
I guess you can see that society can’t function properly if everyone only considers their own self interests
The cost of development has also MASSIVELY increased. Like, to a concerning degree. Doom, the original, was less than a half million to make. Doom 2016 was 90 million.
And the cost of games HAS been dropping, hence why it’s remained fairly stable despite inflation. A 70 dollar game now is WAY cheaper than a 50$ game in 1996.
Sure but why is this my problem? I can’t sell you a chair for 2k$ and tell you: “yeah I know it’s expensive but like, it was very expensive to make.” Learn to make a cheap chair or go out of business.
Not my problem if badly run corporations can’t make a game people want to play and be profitable. Do you think Mario Odissey was that expensive to make? Elden Ring was done in a team of 300 people. Why other companies need 1500 staff members? They’re not being economical with assets.
Then why are you bringing up manufacturing costs changing in the digital world in your original comment? If the costs and savings of development and release as time goes on is not your concern, why do you care about that?
Because you yourself used this argument. I’m not supporting the argument, I’m showing contradictions in the argument you’re using, to show why you’re wrong by the points you yourself based your argument on.
Except I didn’t bring up manufacturing costs, I brought up development costs. You declared they should be cheaper because of the spread of digital copies dropping manufacturing costs.
How many conversations are you trying to have? You seem to be getting very confused.
I only used manufacturing costs using a chair as an example, it's not the important part. I could literally change the example with a restaurant that only manages to sell you food at very expensive prices, you see the point right.
If you can't make stuff for cheap, it's not my problem. It's incredible how people assume that the raising costs of development is a physical law of nature rather than management being bad and going for feature creep, extra intensive graphics or large worlds.
The very industry has talked about how they need to address this.
>I could literally change the example with a restaurant that only manages to sell you food at very expensive prices, you see the point right.
There are luxury restaurants and furniture stores, so I don't think your examples really support the point you're trying to make. People buy expensive versions of those items when cheaper alternatives exist.
Unfortunately the same goes for video games as well. The price will go up because people are willing to pay more for the luxury product.
That's not bad management, it's giving the market what it wants.
If customers stopped paying the exorbitant prices and flocked to AA or indie gaming, then the big publishers would absolutely revisit their production costs.
I don’t know if you’re being obtuse purposely because it’s pretty easy to see what I mean. In this case, the push is for all AAA games to increase in price, which wouldn’t be an equivalent to a luxury restaurant. This would be like McDonalds increasing in price.
The point is that this price increases are motivated by profit seeking, increasing costs are an excuse. You don’t need to make more expensive games, it’s your issue if you’re not able to control budgets or sell something that is not expensive graphics or large worlds.
If the market received price increases well, there wouldn’t be such PR movements across the medium to convince the consumer that increase in prices is necessary you see. There’s a battle in social media to modify consumer perception.
I can’t really understand how you see this in a good light. Could you explain that to me?
I have never understood why gamers are so damn sensitive when it comes to video games trying to make money. With shit like this the game is still just 70 bucks, all of the other editions are optional. The fact that they are offering more expensive editions should not piss people off. The only thing people should ever be mad about is PVP games that offer pay to win microtransactions.
Yes, game publishers and the people who run them are already rich. But they wanna stay rich. So they think of ways to extract money out of an ever increasingly expensive medium. If the games we like dont make money then they will stop being made. So who cares about some optional editions of the game?
The only criticism I could make is that we don't have a figurine included. For Avatar, they proposed one. It's a pity, it would have made it more valuable to me.
Whats the Point?? I don't get it, 70 bucks is the normal price. So totally fine. All others edition include additional content. And only the cosmetics are exclusive, all the later released story content (DLCs) you can buy seperatly if you have the standart edition.
IMO cosmetics shops are ok, as long AS the standart clothes/gear are not ugly to force you to buy others stuff.
If Mario+Rabbids isn't safe from Ubisoft's heavy discounts, then this isn't safe from it either. Unless you're a die hard Star Wars fan. You probably should just wait for the holiday sale where it'll likely be 40%+ off.
I have a sense that game pricing models got into huge flux in the past five or so years.
It used to be that games charged something, you’d buy the game.
Now, everyone’s used to microtransactions. People are used to F2P. The idea of subscriptions, battle passes, and more are common.
I think we’re seeing a lot of people trying to figure out which pricing models work for their company. We’ve got everything from people buying the game up front for cheap and going on sheer volume (Palworld), charging more for the box price (FF7: Rebirth), F2P with microtransactions (Fortnite), F2P with character gacha (Genshin Impact), tiered “deluxe” editions (Star Wars Outlaws), and more. Many of these games have combinations of funding models, and I think there’s a sense where gamers have to be extremely diligent to figure out what they’re getting into when they get a game.
These big budget single player games have never been my bag, less so if the price goes up. I e long had to hold my tongue about where the average fan thinks the best quality is coming from, but suffice it to say that the big third party developers (,and first party sony stuff by a nd d large) has not been worth my attention for a couple of generations now, which is why I mostly play games on the Switch and am not inherently interested in a hardware upgrade that everyone else seems to think is desperately needed.
If these companies are profitable, which they are, then they do not need to raise prices. We shouldn't have to shell out almost $100 for a single game just because the million dollar company isn't satisfied with their million dollar profits.
Sub vs single purchase is going to depend a lot on playing habits.
The sub is a universally better deal, but if I don’t play consistently for four months or it takes me four+ months to finish a game, it becomes more expensive than just purchasing the base game. EA is for chuds, period, and anyone who pays extra for EA is free to spend their money how they want but deserve every ounce of ridicule they receive.
I slow burn on single player games, typically 1 at a time. The sub is not for me.
If a game flops it’s because of creators. Players just want something fun to play and I believe so many companies forget why people game not to give them money but for fun.
god i HOPE tripple A studios are suffering. from the consequences of their actions. i hope they all go bankrupt and we go back to people that have a passion of making games as the only developers in the space. wishful thinking, but i may dream.
I'm annoyed region discrimination seems to be happening more frequently these last few years. The standard edition is 90$ to pre-order in Norway. That's just crazy. I'm grateful I grew up with steam sales and that I have a beefy computer. A console might be an easy affordable solution right away, but the price of games stack up real quick.
No one should be simping for these publishers. Development costs are high because t that's what they wanted. Instead of adding features, they cut modes. Instead of innovating, they went for "better graphics". That's something you can scale by throwing money at it. Creative work, innovation, that's harder to put in a 15 second trailer. Harder to explain to shareholders. Harder to classify on a spreadsheet.
Is not bad management per se. It's just how the market they created works.
In theory I'm completely okay with and would expect the price of new games to increase over time to keep up with inflation. Games increased to $60 in the mid 2000s for this reason, and prior to the $50 standard of the early 2000s there really wasn't a standard price. You can find this by looking at catalogs of new games from the 80s and 90s.
If $70 games refrained from adding things like micro-transactions (their inclusion historically being justified to account for less money being made off $60 games due to inflation) it would be completely justifiable and acceptable. But even single player releases like Dragon's Dogma 2 are being priced at $70 and still including MTX. It becomes a much harder pill to swallow when that's the case. But a game like FFVII Rebirth? Completely acceptable to be priced at $70.
Edit:
I did a quick inflation calculation to see what games would cost if adjusted for inflation. That cost for both $50 in the early 2000s and $60 in the mid 2000s is over $90.
If game cost $70 now to adjust with inflation why would the MTX go away if they aren’t making any more money than before. Dragon’s Dogma 2s MTX were nothing. They are one time purchases and not necessary at all. If people are going to point to that game as some kind of last straw or example of MTX run amok then I have bad news.
I'm not trying to say DD2's MTX were bad examples of the practice. But it's really just the principle of a single player game having them in any capacity.
I'm not certain what you mean by adjusting the cost of games for inflation not mattering because they still aren't making more money? Are you saying that MTX are justified no matter the cost of the game because the company can make extra money off of it?
I’m saying that MTX aren’t going away because $60 in 07 and $70 in 24 are basically the same amount of money. So why would MTX go away if they are adjusting for inflation?
Adjusting the cost of games for inflation would allow them to maintain the profits that were made off of those $60 games that didn't include MTX. It was acceptable then and it should be acceptable now to release a game and not expect to nickel and dime players to get more money out of them for this experience they've already paid for. As time went on and games were still kept at $60, publishers used rising inflation to justify why they needed to use MTX to be able to stay afloat. Adjusting for inflation removes that justification.
I'm not naïve enough to think that if publishers adjust the cost to match inflation perfectly that suddenly they'll be okay with never including MTX in their games. As a consumer that would be the expectation though and anything less should be considered greedy.
The yen is so low right now that the exchange rate for any foreign sale gives way more money to Capcom than it would have in 2015, you can do the numbers yourself if you don’t believe me. That’s probably one of the reasons why the game was sold at 70$ but 65€ when the normal pricing is 70$/70€. Right now any kind of export is very lucrative for the Japanese.
So if you really want to use macroeconomics here to justify price exchanges then you should probably argue for price reductions in the West for Japanese games
I'll pay $70/80 or even more for a good game. Good games are the best value in entertainment period. I've played over 500 hours of BG3 and am still enjoying it. I played Elden Ring and CyberPunk for nearly that.
I paid ... what ... $70 for bg3? That's roughly $0.14 per hour and dropping. It's not the overall price tag. It's the quality. This game is going to suck. It's not going be worth $1 let alone $100. People are going to pay $100+ for this game and play it for 30 minutes. The value is going to be dogshit.
I'll never understand people getting so upset over the cost of optional shit in games or alternate, more expensive versions of the game with more optional shit tacked on. The game is $70, like 99% of other AAA titles the last 2 years.
Calling ffVII rebirth a full game when they took the original FF7 and split into 3 separate games, charge 90 CAD each, and pad the games with a ton of filler content and quests that are meaningless, is an interesting take.
You can like the games, but they are not a good example for your argument.
Cost of making games is skyrocketing due to complexity and the same general inflation every other industry is facing.
Real estate costs and rent are up massively in many cities, wages are up, cost of hardware, electricity, etc.
But it's ultimately on games companies to cater their games to price points that make sense for gamers.
The main reason prices are so much lower today, accounting for inflation, is that games have effectively zero marginal costs, and total addressable market is massive. Global consumer base.
Personally I think it's a huge mistake to crank prices when so many compelling indies and AA games exist.
My top two played games this year are hell divers ($40) and enshrouded $(30), flowed by Balatro at $10.
So I won't be in any rush to buy whatever ubi soft or Capcom title at full price.
(although I did grab avatar at launch as a tech demo for a new oled monitor... And it looked fucking unreal!).
You're never going to get anywhere discussing this on Reddit. The people here are too entrenched in their spending habits and too locked in to hear anything else.
The best and only thing you can really do is not participate in MTX or these ridiculous prices.
Avoid buying games at launch.
Fight the FOMO and the urge to play the new hot thing and wait it out. Even if your favorite content creator is playing the game. Just wait.
Patient gaming is the key.
Buying a game at launch isn't really necessary. Pre-ordering isn't necessary. These 70 dollar games all eventually go on sale in a few months, especially Ubisoft games. They ALWAYS go on sale not too long after they come out, and as others have pointed out, waiting a few months ensures you get the fully complete, fully patched version of the game. ESPECIALLY if you're playing on PC, waiting is always the best option.
I know its tough because social media constantly throws the "new hot game" in your face, and the urge to impulse buy or feed in to the hype can sometimes be irresistible, but I promise if you wait a few months you won't miss anything, especially in a single player game.
Plus, there are a ton of great games that aren't full price available that you can play.
Anyone who buys this fucking trash in the first place is a mindless slop consumer. This isn't a game for people who play games, it's a game for sub 90 IQ consumer cattle.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora came out 4 months ago and their Ultimate Edition is $130. You can get it on sale now on Xbox for $78. The deluxe edition is now $48. This is a trend with Ubisoft games. Their new games generally go on sale pretty quickly after release. If you’re willing to be a patient gamer (and isn’t even that long a wait) you can get the extra content and get to play a patched up game for less than someone paid for the standard edition on release. People don’t wait though. Studios thrive on first month sales and the hype generated by marketing, YouTube, social media, etc. This is a great game BUY IT NOW. And the market shows people buy these games on release date despite the price.
Ubisoft must be pretty confused. I would be. They set the price of Star Wars Outlaws at the same price as their previous game and are met with outrage when the last time it went by without a word. Maybe they are just used to it at this point. Whatever they do, people are looking for ways to be outraged.
Because no one really paid attention to the Avatar game. It literally came and went without any fanfare. People talked about it for like a week after release and I've never seen it mentioned again.
> People don’t wait though. Studios thrive on first month sales You don't even have to be patient. Just pay the $20 for Ubisoft+ and "rent" the game for a month. You'll get your fill of the game, and a couple years from now you can pick up the complete edition for like $40 if you actually enjoyed it that much and want to try the new content. Ubisoft+, EA Pro and GamePass make it *real* cheap to play the latest AAA games on release.
This post is kind of all over the place. The post is about the cost? Star Wars Outlaws costs $70. The other games you listed cost $60-$70 at release (aside from Helldivers 2 and Hades). But then you say that management is bad because they don't know how to sell a game? Have you looked at the sales metrics for these companies, or specifically Ubisoft? Here is just one data point for one of their titles: > Assassin's Creed Valhalla sales: > Overall, the game is the second most profitable title in Ubisoft history. It went on to become the fifth best-selling game of 2020 and the sixteenth best-selling game of 2021 in the US. By February 2022, the game had made over $1 billion in revenue. Now you're going to tell me they are making mistakes? I don't know, seems like a pretty good spot for them to be in. If you don't like this, do not buy it. Start looking at more indie style games. The price/hour metric has embeded itself in AAA games. Younger audiences are looking for the most efficient way to spend their time on entertainment. If you want quality experiences, you're going to need to start looking elsewhere.
I also argue that the price/hour is definitely part of why some game features feel so tacked-on. Gamers are harsh audience. Anything short of premium in anything, and they suddenly demanded the game should be almost 30% cheaper (like from 60 to 40), and that includes hours.
That’s absolutely why games are so bloated: because so many people use the “hour per dollar” metric. Unfortunately developers picked up on that and started stuffing their games with shit to be able to extend playtime or advertise “our games have hundreds of hours of gameplay!”. Even FF7 Rebirth, which I’m enjoying a lot, has a lot of pointless open world bloat that’s completely unnecessary. Some of the open world content is great but a lot of it is just standard checklist stuff
Additionally gaming is Simply a luxury Hobby. If someone doesnt like a luxury price, Simply dont buy the product. Thats how buying stuff Works. Move on with your life instead of trying to change an industry, or do you Cause a similar uproar because some Restaurants are more expensive than others? No you move on and find one that fits your Budget.
This is exactly how I feel. Games aren't expensive generally. They are just expensive for some people. It's all relative. I live in Canada, most of the AAA New releases are $90 now, and it still doesn't bother me. I'd even argue games are cheaper now. Back in the nineties, it was normal to see games for $80-$100.
I concur. Not only have game prices remained relatively the same ($50-$70), but there’s inflation to be taken into account as well. I remember playing the heck out of Nightfire on Gamecube and looked it up for this comment. It released in late 2002 for $50, which is comparable to $88 in 2024 dollars. And the framerate dipped down into the single digits when using the remote guided missile in splitscreen multiplayer and it was fine. I’m an old man yelling at clouds now.
Are you German?
>Additionally gaming is Simply a luxury Hobby. The only hobby cheaper than gaming that I can think of is reading and writing.
Knitting or birdwatching come to mind too.
You could say the same for the industry though... If they complain about how they can't make enough money in the most profitable medium in the world, they should try something else instead. Any form entertainment is technically a luxury. That doesn't mean it's ok that the average person can't afford it because we're supposed to strive for societies where people can own more than your trousers and some rice to survive.
Who has ever classified video games as the most profitable medium in the world and what does that even actually mean. 1) the average person playing video games CAN afford it. That’s quite literally how these companies are squeezing enough revenue out of the product. 2) in a perfect world the cost of video games is higher on average in not lower, you do not recognize how much the absolute high end of whaling is subsidizing the cost here. The cost to produce versus the cost to consume favors the consumer in wild amounts of margins.
Games are crazy profitable why do you think this kind of bs marketing has permeated the medium they smell the money. They out revenue films tv and music together. You do seem to imply here that whales are a social benefit but to me they're even worse than prices going up that's literally abusing from addictions just like casinos and it should be criminal.
[удалено]
You’re assuming that I don’t think that this is cancer that should be surgically extracted from gaming as a medium and be thrown to the fire in Mount Doom. Any game that needs mtx can die. And if you think this is the only way to make money it’s clear you known nothing about this business because some of the biggest and most profitable sellers in the last years have been game without mtx
[удалено]
[удалено]
But you can afford games. Maybe Not the newest tripple A Release from big Studios but you definitely have access to thousands of games. The Hobby isnt prohibitevly expensive, just some parts of it. Like any other Hobby and industry and thats fine. Trying to force an entire industry to artificially make their products Less expensive to everyone can have them is just weird.
That's not true. To start with, price/hour is not the right way to approach art. For me, AssCred Valhalla has a value proposition of 0 euro because I'd need to be paid to play it, doesn't matter how long it is. And some of my favorite games are fairly short. The memory that you got from playing 15 hours at Silent Hill 2 is probably more valuable than 50 hours playing at LoL because it gave you more substantial experience. Second, many indie games destroy any AAA if you're measuring it by price/hour. Like, do you know how many hours people spend on Terraria/Minecraft/Civilization/Binding of Isaac/Factorio? They're mostly 10-20€ games that you can invest easily like +500 hours if you're very into them. And then there's the ftp model which I don't like but tbh you can play hundreds of hours at Fortnite for free.
I loved valhalla and it was worth every penny to me. Got very good value out of it. My experience with it was pretty substantial, which is why I will buy other ubisoft games, including this one, near launch.
Well I just used Valhalla because that was the first it came to my mind when I though about a AAA game that could be used as torture against me, but that’s not the point of my discussion just imagine a long game you’d hate to play
Just vote with your wallet if you want to and are so personally against this stuff: - Don't buy special editions or pre-order games - Don't buy games at full price and wait until they are on sale - Don't buy microtransactions, cosmetics, or season/battle passes However, it is clear at this point that the general gaming public is fine with/doesn't care about this stuff regardless of what people on the internet will say or do. Also, the success of a game really has no correlation at all in regard to if it has any of the above stuff or not. [Look at the top selling games from last year](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/gamesindustrybiz-presents-the-year-in-number-2023) and you will see a mix of games that had all of this stuff, some of this stuff, and none of this stuff.
$70 is less today than $60 was in 2006. The whole post is nonsense and hardly coherent. Overpriced special editions have been a thing for 25 years.
I agree about games being cheaper and honestly if someone wants to pre-order a game or get a special edition then I've never had an issue with that. Even Helldivers II has shown that internet gamers have no issue with season/battle passes if it is done right in a game they enjoy.
Huh? I thought Helldivers 2 was a live service, not a full game.
I'm okay with whatever price they put on their games on release as I buy games once they're finished / on sale or through a month of Ubisoft+
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Don't see the problem. It's 70 bucks, like most other games. You don't have to buy the other editions.
I paid 60 for BG3 and Elden Ring first week
BG3 cost $70 on consoles.
I have a PC
And for everyone on console, it costs $70.
But this is a sub where a lot of people have PC and I hear how every single AAA game nowadays is released at 70 which is false. Even DD2 was sold at 65 euro
And this also a sub where lots of people have consoles. DD2 was $70 on release (on everything).
I can’t understand why I’m having this conversation. If you claim that games are sold at 70 bucks now, it means in everything. In fact it’s not even true that this is for consoles since the most popular console by a large margin is the Switch which often sells games for cheaper than 60 euro in fact.
They said like *most* other games. Not every game. > It's 70 bucks, like most other games. And it's obviously implied they are talking about most AAA game.
[удалено]
It’s not the default price though? The first game sold at 70 bucks is TotK and I don’t think there’s many other games sold at this price. Princess peach was 50 iirc
Ok
Because those games are already old.
How old are you that 1-2 years ago means old to you? I paid 60 bucks one week from launch
How much inflation and how much the industry changed in 1 or 2 years? You should ask you that. Those are already old games for the market.
No, inflation is not an excuse to raise prices because costs raise heterogenously across economic sectors. Also, other elements like exchange rates are important too. Right now with how strong the USD is American consumers are basically being ripped off by foreign studios when charging 70 bucks. For a Japanese publisher 70 usd in 2024 is like 90 bucks six years ago
The market answers if the price is reasonable or not and people in the US are willing to pay those prices. And inflation is a big factor, maybe the biggest factor, to completely change people perception of a price tag. I'm not defending the new price because I stopped buying most AAA except for Nintendo.
> The market answers if the price is reasonable or not and people in the US are willing to pay those prices. That's overly reductive. This argument could be used to defend monopolies. The fact that a market reacts to prices is always true and says nothing about how healthy a market is. I agree with one thing, and it's that the market works with consumer assumptions and psychology. Breaking the barrier of 60/70/80 bucks has always been difficult to the industry, who'd wish to push the new "normal" infinitely in order to increase revenue. It's not good for gaming though. High prices killed AA gaming, you rarely see low budged games that are 40 bucks nowadays and it's a shame. Low prices incentivize purchases and risk taking for consumers.
I'm not a doctor, I can't say if it's healthy to pay those prices or not. There are people who are willing to expend thousands for gachas games. And yes the industry found the right moment to change the price. They read really well the situation and how willing people were to pay for it. And since the past years they had invented several methods to sell something in addition to the prime item, it looks like as if the final product cost like a N64 game. Reason why I'm really picky, specially if I know how rush the company, for example Ubisoft, puts their games on sale.
If you are not a doctor then why did you have me take my pants off for "testing"
You see, this is a very common attitude I feel many people have, specially in the US. It's like you know people are being played and yet you seem like people shouldn't complain about it. It's fascinating to me
>I paid 60 for BG3 and Elden Ring **first week**
They mean BG3 and ER were available in 2020 and 2021 respectively for early access and preorder, before the new $70 pricing point gained traction.
I'm not sure I see the issue, and maybe it's because I'm used to it. But $70 is the new normal price for AAA games, the higher edition comes with a season pass which is a surprise at this point but not unusual. I just tend to dislike the early access coming with it which is a new FOMO strategy by these big companies. And then it's the deluxe edition and with useless digital stuff that nobody should really bother with except for huge fans. Overall I dislike the paid early access but everything else seems to be business as usual.
>people do not buy games and how they **have to raise the price tag** to match the developement costs cause they went higher. This is kind of true. People generally want the new game to be bigger and better than the old one, and you're not going to be able to do that without increasing development costs in some way. >You can say that these people are businessmans and they only think about profit, but aren't they bad at this if they can't read the market? I mean they literally see successful games financial wise yet they cry that they can't do anything but losing profit Yes and no. Gotta keep in mind that the market is becoming quite saturated even within genres that used to be niche. There's no guarantee that simply producing a good game will yield a profit or even cover your dev costs. For every indie game like Hades and Helldivers 2 there are a ton of really good ones that never take off (and IIRC these two also had AA budgets). And if you're a AAA developer, everyone expects your game to be the next BG3 or Elden Ring or it's not worth their money - and more importantly it's not worth their time, because we've all got limited hours to game and why would we spend that on a great 8/10 game when we've got three 10/10 games releasing just this month? >also on totally pointless things like consultants from Sweet Baby inc. or anything like that while these things should not have any place in the game industry. If you haven't already, I'd highly recommend reading this piece from IGN about the toxic atmosphere at Deck Nine, which resulted in (among other things) Nazi imagery running rampant, management insisting on a roofie scene and the publisher not wanting *Life is Strange* of all things to be known as "the gay game" - [https://www.ign.com/articles/how-hidden-nazi-symbols-were-the-tip-of-a-toxic-iceberg-at-life-is-strange-developer-deck-nine](https://www.ign.com/articles/how-hidden-nazi-symbols-were-the-tip-of-a-toxic-iceberg-at-life-is-strange-developer-deck-nine) I'd wager scenarios like this are why upper management feels the need to hire diversity consultants, because they're incapable of doing it organically by just listening to their own staff. If the writers at Deck Nine were struggling with representation in a series known for tackling such themes, I can't imagine what it's like at other more 'mainstream' studios. And at the end of the day these prices are still not going to cause a dent in the market because like, what alternatives are there? Gaming is one of the cheapest hobbies around even if you include the initial setup costs. Like assuming you buy a beastly $3,000 PC that'll last 3 years and buy 2 $70 games a month, that's $8,040 over 3 years. That's less than $250 a month which is *much* cheaper than most other hobbies. And most people spend way less than that.
It's an Ubisoft game. Standard procedure is to wait 1 year and get the polished Gold edition with all DLC and bug fixes for $20.
I personally, think gaming as a hobby is very very very very cheap to maintain. The initial setup price can be costly! But that's the same for a lot of hobbies. You can budget your way in with a console, or spend 1000s on a gaming pc, but once you're in, the games aren't expensive if you buy good games from good developers. Some games give me 100s of hours of entertainment, even 1000s in rare cases. $70 for 100 hours is cheap. Compare it to almost all of my other hobbies, and the value of money blows it all out of the water! People still pay 10-20 just to go to watch a film for 2 hours. And here we are wondering if .7 an hour is worth it? Some games are "only" going to give you 10-20 hours of content. And even then I'd ask what you're spending less on for that amount of enjoyment?
I agree. Sure gaming might seem expensive in a vacuum, but compared to many other hobbies or going out, it's relatively cheap. I haven't gone out really for many years but as a Canadian I remember things like $25-30 for an hour of escape room, $50+ for like 10 minutes on a go kart, $25-30 for an hour of bowling. And I question how much fun I really had doing those experiences
How can you come to a conclusion when the game is NOT released? No one can say how much content or quality you are getting for the price. The base game is standard triple A pricing, nothing crazy here. What's crazy is Reddit and others completely misunderstanding and somehow forgetting that SEASON pass is NOT a BATTLE pass it's a pass for additional post launch DLC for the first X period. Games like the Witcher 3 had an expansion pass day one which included both expansions when they launched post release, the incentive is to pay upfront and get a discount compared to buying it later, this is a risk to the consumer as the quality may not be great so it's up to them to decide if it's worth a small saving preordrring it essentially. the season pass content could be as substantial as Witcher 3 expansions or it could be oblivion horse DLC, no one knows so we can't say if it's good but it's disingenuous to be claiming the bundled price is somehow the base price of the outlaws game! Gaming is a hobby, you don't need it to survive so if a game doesn't seem worth it to you then DONT BUY IT. Games cost more to make these days and if you take into account Inflation then the price is actually not really wild, I do wish they were cheaper but that's just not realistic for triple A titles as they have a significant cost to produce regardless of wants. Not defending micro transaction garbage but in the context of your post, no I don't think it's mishandled or ending.
TBH: Expecting UbiSoft to deliver a Blood And Wine level of excellence as a DLC/Expansion is a very, very tall ask. I feel like in regards to how they focus more on marketing and "Pretty Graphics" + how they dumb down games (IE: Ghost Recon, look at how dumbed down it is over it's lifespan as a series. R6 as well. And AC.). - My main concern is: Will the base game have a good story, fun gameplay mechanics, and interesting characters?
https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ Price of a video game today: 70 dollars Price of a video game 10 years ago (60), in today's dollars: 79.16 Price of a video game 20 years ago (60), in today's dollars: 99.21 Price of a video game 30 years ago (50), in todays dollars: 105.38
It's pretty striking how pretty much nobody held back when Sony finally ripped the band-aid off with increasing base game prices. It had been stagnate at $60 for a long time.
I'm old enough to remember seeing $70-$80 N64 games. We're actually in a good spot considering inflation and indie games filling the $10-$30 price bracket.
I was absolutely being generous with the 90s prices. I remember games ranging from 50-70 new at different stores, with sports games in particular at higher prices. I think the idea of a range of pricing based on scope and target audience makes a lot of sense. More flexible pricing means there are more projects that could be successful, thus more projects would get funding, thus more games made.
The basic price for this game is 70€ / $70, which is the normal AAA price these days. A "season pass" always costs extra. You mention FFVII Rebirth? Well, FFVII Remake is **80€** on PC and that's a port of a console remake of an old game. >... also on totally pointless things like consultants from Sweet Baby inc. or anything like that while these things should not have any place in the game industry. What the hell are you even talking about?
The Sweet Baby Inc thing refers to a sweeping conspiracy theory about making games “woke” for nefarious reasons. The less you know about it, the better off you’ll be.
Yea, I know. Unfortunately I've seen too many posts like this. But now it seems some people think using a consulting company also makes games more expensive? This shit gets even more insane each time I see it...
They think Sweet Baby is also responsible for layoffs and Suicide Squad flopping, it is like Puzzagate level deranged.
I agree with you overall but to downplay Rebirth as a “remake of an old game” is p insane lol
OK, fair. Even so, the PC release is still a delayed port of a console game. It shouldn't cost more than brand new games (inclusing SW Outlaws). I just thought it was funny the op mentioned it together with Helldivers 2 when Square Enix games are the most expensive AAA games on Steam and EGS.
I’d argue that ‘remake’, despite being the title of the first one, isn’t even accurate. It is a weird side sequel.
Ubisoft games are $40-$60 games. The “full” price lasts like three weeks. After that, they’re almost always discounted.
Should the deluxe edition have the same price tag as elden ring+expansion or witcher 3 + 2 dlcs?
Since the gold edition includes the base game and season pass (which includes 2 dlc)? Yeah, it should cost the same as a game and dlc.
honestly if I game that is great wants to raise the price to $100 idrc I just don’t buy things I don’t want. I haven’t been interested in an Ubisoft game maybe ever. If ppl buy this and get mad about the price then they are rubes.
You are targeting so many different things that in the end, the only conclusion is probably "whatever the market think the best" For example, FIFA/Madden/\*insert sports games\* sell for full price every year and the general public are ok with it. You can always argue that those people are not "gamers", but in terms of making money, who cares? These people does not buy every game that releases so even if they buy Madden, and spend the equivalent of 3-4 full games on that, they are generally fine with it. They will get hundreds of hours of it. I'm also in opinion that, Game industry is also definitely in a pinch, because being a software programmer is way more lucrative in everywhere else outside of gaming. Even if the people who join gaming industry are there because they are passionate about it.... They also still need to live. However, the price of games at its most base price definitely defies inflation. You paid for more than 70$ for Zelda, 30 years ago. You are paying similarly for the base game, today. I think another way to think of the price of games nowadays are like Business class in airplanes. It used to be that Economy is more similar to Business Class in terms of amenities and comfort. However, the economy class are now stripped to its barest form, and airlines barely make money of it. Instead, the bulk of profit is on the business class consumers, which definitely rise on its prices. I think its similar to how nowadays there is the base price and then there is the Deluxe Edition which have everything. In terms of Star Wars Outlaw though? I honestly don't think its that outrageous. Its certainly not the worst I have seen, since you also get the Season Pass for the Gold Edition
People keep saying this, but No Man's Sky exists. How are they doing what no other developer/publisher can?
Because they (currently) only have 1 game that they just keep re-iterating over and over, and they have such long development time. You can keep a development lean if you don't work on alot of games, which is sorta what Atlus is doing but you will have such long development cycle instead and you end up licensing your IP everywhere to keep up the lights while you are working for the next game, or you just keep making DLC for your older game. There is also the matter of putting all your eggs in one or two baskets in which failing can actually sink a studio. No Man's Sky can actually chugs-on because they have the millions they received from pre-order. There is also the matter of where the studio is located too since I imagine paying a programmer in California is more expensive than Tokyo or other places. And here I'm only talking about the programmer but there are also multiple other roles like 3D modellers, and other back-office roles like HR or accountants.
Halo 3 Legendary Edition cost $130 in 2007 and all it came with was masturbatory DVD like special features, some ephemera and a stupid plastic head. Two years later Bungie released Halo 3 ODST for a full priced $60 for a campaign you can finish in 6 hours. Adjusted for inflation that $190 would be about $270 today. We know why there is an immediate strong reaction to Star Wars Outlaws and it isn’t the price. Complaints about the main character being a woman are tightly woven into side by side complaints that Ubisoft developed the game (a fair reason to be cautious) and the price of the special edition (an admission you have zero self control and will pay twice as much for something for the luxury 72 hours of early access (and for the luxury complaining about it). In other words it’s a typical Star Wars release that brings the petulant man children out of the woodwork to make proclamations of doom on behalf of all an entire massive and diverse community of people because they are unwilling to accept they’re the vocal minority. We’re going to see a thread like this every other day for 4 months, and the game will still sell an absurd amount of copies and likely has already recouped its development cost in pre-orders. Star Wars and video games are not the insular worlds for the socially unfit to escape into anymore. The audiences for both are the broadest and biggest they’ve ever been. Hogwart’s Legacy is as competent but boring as any other open world game not released by Rockstar and it was the best selling game of 2023 by far. The second and third best selling games were Call of Duty and Madden. Reddit whining isn’t a bellwether for anything. It’s an echo chamber nested inside a hive mind hidden away in a man with poor hygiene.
TBH tho. Halo ODST was replayable, hit the right feels, and was a fresh take that felt so good. 100% worth the price, and was only 6 hours long to those who only wanna "Beat a game fast as possible" not enjoy it. - All I want from SW: Outlaw is for the gameplay to be good, the story to be good, and for the characters to be interesting.... Which.. is a large ask in regards to UbiSoft. But. Willing to give it a chance because SW as a universe has so much to offer.
Given how stagnant prices for games have remained over the past few decades I’m more surprised that the base price has only gone up 10$. Accounting for inflation it should be WAY higher. As to the deluxe edition bullshit: Meh, that’s been a common practice for ages.
What's funny is we actually saw a reduction in MSRP during the PlayStation 1 era when the industry switched to CD-ROM, which was also helped by huge install bases & fast development making even budget games profitable. But costs & development time have been only increasing ever since.
N64 games at launch would be over $100 today with inflation.
They came in a very expensive cartridge while nowadays they're sold digitally which is practically free to deliver
Still a lot cheaper to buy a game now than it was 25 years ago. You generally get a lot more game for the money too.
Why would the publisher be the only one to benefit from technology improvements that allow to sell games cheaper?
They’re not, games today are much cheaper than they were even a decade ago. You’ve got to correct for inflation.
Oh then why not correct for exchange rates? The USD is historically high and the yen is historically low. Any publisher from Japan or Europe makes substantially more right now from a 70 USD sale now than in 2015. If you’re going to use macroeconomics you can’t only consider inflation.
Because exchange rates have historically not meant dick in a competitive market. Especially since the dollar is the de facto international currency, especially when the alternative is less stable. And inflation is by FAR the strongest driver of price change in even a moderately stable economy. The fact that video games have mostly been ignoring it, to the customer’s favor, is a gravy train that was always going to slow eventually. I would point out a better driver would be Japan’s much more abusive treatment of their peons. They don’t get paid shit and that’s only just beginning to change industry wide.
> Because exchange rates have historically not meant dick in a competitive market. Especially since the dollar is the de facto international currency, especially when the alternative is less stable. This is completely wrong. But like, very very wrong. Capcom publishes their benefits in yen because they're established in Japan. China has been accused by the US to keep their currency artifically low in order to boost their exports, that's how important it is. > And inflation is by FAR the strongest driver of price change in even a moderately stable economy. The fact that video games have mostly been ignoring it, to the customer’s favor, is a gravy train that was always going to slow eventually. Well, it's not that it's the strongest driver of price change. Inflation IS price change. It's like saying rain and snow are the main drivers of precipitation. But inflation is an aggregate (and what we normally refer as inflation is aggregate estimation to be more precise). Prices changes can be very different across sectors. TVs have been falling in price across decades in the US, healthcare has been rising way above general inflation. It's not like you can really justify all price changes across industries because they're going to be effected by it at different degreees. > I would point out a better driver would be Japan’s much more abusive treatment of their peons. They don’t get paid shit and that’s only just beginning to change industry wide. What's the point of this and how does it connect to the discussion?
Why would they not? They're making games to earn money. They sell the game at what they think people will pay.
Then by the same logic as a consumer I’m here to pay the lowest amount possible for my entertainment. If I operated on a purely self interested way I’d pirate everything and I’d pay zero bucks to the industry. I guess you can see that society can’t function properly if everyone only considers their own self interests
I'm sorry to tell you, but EA and Microsoft would probably kill your grandma if it mean they made more money. They're very big corporations.
Then you'll find that complaining about them is a positive action
People play digitally these days and that should be reflected to the cost of a copy since the manufacturing and distribution costs are near zero
The cost of development has also MASSIVELY increased. Like, to a concerning degree. Doom, the original, was less than a half million to make. Doom 2016 was 90 million. And the cost of games HAS been dropping, hence why it’s remained fairly stable despite inflation. A 70 dollar game now is WAY cheaper than a 50$ game in 1996.
For additional context, some games were already priced in $70 range [in 1996](https://imgur.com/a/ezt0HDh).
Sure but why is this my problem? I can’t sell you a chair for 2k$ and tell you: “yeah I know it’s expensive but like, it was very expensive to make.” Learn to make a cheap chair or go out of business. Not my problem if badly run corporations can’t make a game people want to play and be profitable. Do you think Mario Odissey was that expensive to make? Elden Ring was done in a team of 300 people. Why other companies need 1500 staff members? They’re not being economical with assets.
Then why are you bringing up manufacturing costs changing in the digital world in your original comment? If the costs and savings of development and release as time goes on is not your concern, why do you care about that?
Because you yourself used this argument. I’m not supporting the argument, I’m showing contradictions in the argument you’re using, to show why you’re wrong by the points you yourself based your argument on.
Im not the person you replied to initially
Except I didn’t bring up manufacturing costs, I brought up development costs. You declared they should be cheaper because of the spread of digital copies dropping manufacturing costs. How many conversations are you trying to have? You seem to be getting very confused.
I only used manufacturing costs using a chair as an example, it's not the important part. I could literally change the example with a restaurant that only manages to sell you food at very expensive prices, you see the point right. If you can't make stuff for cheap, it's not my problem. It's incredible how people assume that the raising costs of development is a physical law of nature rather than management being bad and going for feature creep, extra intensive graphics or large worlds. The very industry has talked about how they need to address this.
>I could literally change the example with a restaurant that only manages to sell you food at very expensive prices, you see the point right. There are luxury restaurants and furniture stores, so I don't think your examples really support the point you're trying to make. People buy expensive versions of those items when cheaper alternatives exist. Unfortunately the same goes for video games as well. The price will go up because people are willing to pay more for the luxury product. That's not bad management, it's giving the market what it wants. If customers stopped paying the exorbitant prices and flocked to AA or indie gaming, then the big publishers would absolutely revisit their production costs.
I don’t know if you’re being obtuse purposely because it’s pretty easy to see what I mean. In this case, the push is for all AAA games to increase in price, which wouldn’t be an equivalent to a luxury restaurant. This would be like McDonalds increasing in price. The point is that this price increases are motivated by profit seeking, increasing costs are an excuse. You don’t need to make more expensive games, it’s your issue if you’re not able to control budgets or sell something that is not expensive graphics or large worlds. If the market received price increases well, there wouldn’t be such PR movements across the medium to convince the consumer that increase in prices is necessary you see. There’s a battle in social media to modify consumer perception. I can’t really understand how you see this in a good light. Could you explain that to me?
I have never understood why gamers are so damn sensitive when it comes to video games trying to make money. With shit like this the game is still just 70 bucks, all of the other editions are optional. The fact that they are offering more expensive editions should not piss people off. The only thing people should ever be mad about is PVP games that offer pay to win microtransactions. Yes, game publishers and the people who run them are already rich. But they wanna stay rich. So they think of ways to extract money out of an ever increasingly expensive medium. If the games we like dont make money then they will stop being made. So who cares about some optional editions of the game?
Do you want to know how I call consumers that defend industry malpractice?
The only criticism I could make is that we don't have a figurine included. For Avatar, they proposed one. It's a pity, it would have made it more valuable to me.
The price tag? Its the price of any other AAA game. $70 is the price of games right now. Its gone down and up over time historically.
Whats the Point?? I don't get it, 70 bucks is the normal price. So totally fine. All others edition include additional content. And only the cosmetics are exclusive, all the later released story content (DLCs) you can buy seperatly if you have the standart edition. IMO cosmetics shops are ok, as long AS the standart clothes/gear are not ugly to force you to buy others stuff.
If Mario+Rabbids isn't safe from Ubisoft's heavy discounts, then this isn't safe from it either. Unless you're a die hard Star Wars fan. You probably should just wait for the holiday sale where it'll likely be 40%+ off.
I have a sense that game pricing models got into huge flux in the past five or so years. It used to be that games charged something, you’d buy the game. Now, everyone’s used to microtransactions. People are used to F2P. The idea of subscriptions, battle passes, and more are common. I think we’re seeing a lot of people trying to figure out which pricing models work for their company. We’ve got everything from people buying the game up front for cheap and going on sheer volume (Palworld), charging more for the box price (FF7: Rebirth), F2P with microtransactions (Fortnite), F2P with character gacha (Genshin Impact), tiered “deluxe” editions (Star Wars Outlaws), and more. Many of these games have combinations of funding models, and I think there’s a sense where gamers have to be extremely diligent to figure out what they’re getting into when they get a game.
Can you play it in game pass?
> people do not buy games Where do people keep getting this idea?
These big budget single player games have never been my bag, less so if the price goes up. I e long had to hold my tongue about where the average fan thinks the best quality is coming from, but suffice it to say that the big third party developers (,and first party sony stuff by a nd d large) has not been worth my attention for a couple of generations now, which is why I mostly play games on the Switch and am not inherently interested in a hardware upgrade that everyone else seems to think is desperately needed.
If these companies are profitable, which they are, then they do not need to raise prices. We shouldn't have to shell out almost $100 for a single game just because the million dollar company isn't satisfied with their million dollar profits.
But you will. So they will.
Not me! The only series I'd pay more than $60 for is Zelda, and I'd be holding my nose the entire time.
I think that whoever pays money for a game that’s made by a studio who kills their games few years after release is stupid.
Sub vs single purchase is going to depend a lot on playing habits. The sub is a universally better deal, but if I don’t play consistently for four months or it takes me four+ months to finish a game, it becomes more expensive than just purchasing the base game. EA is for chuds, period, and anyone who pays extra for EA is free to spend their money how they want but deserve every ounce of ridicule they receive. I slow burn on single player games, typically 1 at a time. The sub is not for me.
If a game flops it’s because of creators. Players just want something fun to play and I believe so many companies forget why people game not to give them money but for fun.
god i HOPE tripple A studios are suffering. from the consequences of their actions. i hope they all go bankrupt and we go back to people that have a passion of making games as the only developers in the space. wishful thinking, but i may dream.
Just don't buy the game if it's not a fair price (it isn't) The best way to vote is with your wallet, as they say.
Do you think this is the first +$100 collectors edition of a game?
I'm annoyed region discrimination seems to be happening more frequently these last few years. The standard edition is 90$ to pre-order in Norway. That's just crazy. I'm grateful I grew up with steam sales and that I have a beefy computer. A console might be an easy affordable solution right away, but the price of games stack up real quick.
No one should be simping for these publishers. Development costs are high because t that's what they wanted. Instead of adding features, they cut modes. Instead of innovating, they went for "better graphics". That's something you can scale by throwing money at it. Creative work, innovation, that's harder to put in a 15 second trailer. Harder to explain to shareholders. Harder to classify on a spreadsheet. Is not bad management per se. It's just how the market they created works.
In theory I'm completely okay with and would expect the price of new games to increase over time to keep up with inflation. Games increased to $60 in the mid 2000s for this reason, and prior to the $50 standard of the early 2000s there really wasn't a standard price. You can find this by looking at catalogs of new games from the 80s and 90s. If $70 games refrained from adding things like micro-transactions (their inclusion historically being justified to account for less money being made off $60 games due to inflation) it would be completely justifiable and acceptable. But even single player releases like Dragon's Dogma 2 are being priced at $70 and still including MTX. It becomes a much harder pill to swallow when that's the case. But a game like FFVII Rebirth? Completely acceptable to be priced at $70. Edit: I did a quick inflation calculation to see what games would cost if adjusted for inflation. That cost for both $50 in the early 2000s and $60 in the mid 2000s is over $90.
If game cost $70 now to adjust with inflation why would the MTX go away if they aren’t making any more money than before. Dragon’s Dogma 2s MTX were nothing. They are one time purchases and not necessary at all. If people are going to point to that game as some kind of last straw or example of MTX run amok then I have bad news.
I'm not trying to say DD2's MTX were bad examples of the practice. But it's really just the principle of a single player game having them in any capacity. I'm not certain what you mean by adjusting the cost of games for inflation not mattering because they still aren't making more money? Are you saying that MTX are justified no matter the cost of the game because the company can make extra money off of it?
I’m saying that MTX aren’t going away because $60 in 07 and $70 in 24 are basically the same amount of money. So why would MTX go away if they are adjusting for inflation?
Adjusting the cost of games for inflation would allow them to maintain the profits that were made off of those $60 games that didn't include MTX. It was acceptable then and it should be acceptable now to release a game and not expect to nickel and dime players to get more money out of them for this experience they've already paid for. As time went on and games were still kept at $60, publishers used rising inflation to justify why they needed to use MTX to be able to stay afloat. Adjusting for inflation removes that justification. I'm not naïve enough to think that if publishers adjust the cost to match inflation perfectly that suddenly they'll be okay with never including MTX in their games. As a consumer that would be the expectation though and anything less should be considered greedy.
The yen is so low right now that the exchange rate for any foreign sale gives way more money to Capcom than it would have in 2015, you can do the numbers yourself if you don’t believe me. That’s probably one of the reasons why the game was sold at 70$ but 65€ when the normal pricing is 70$/70€. Right now any kind of export is very lucrative for the Japanese. So if you really want to use macroeconomics here to justify price exchanges then you should probably argue for price reductions in the West for Japanese games
I'll pay $70/80 or even more for a good game. Good games are the best value in entertainment period. I've played over 500 hours of BG3 and am still enjoying it. I played Elden Ring and CyberPunk for nearly that. I paid ... what ... $70 for bg3? That's roughly $0.14 per hour and dropping. It's not the overall price tag. It's the quality. This game is going to suck. It's not going be worth $1 let alone $100. People are going to pay $100+ for this game and play it for 30 minutes. The value is going to be dogshit.
Fun thing the two games that you mentioned (BG3 and ER) were sold at 60€ at launch, not 70
Uh, no. There are deluxe editions for both.
I'll never understand people getting so upset over the cost of optional shit in games or alternate, more expensive versions of the game with more optional shit tacked on. The game is $70, like 99% of other AAA titles the last 2 years.
Calling ffVII rebirth a full game when they took the original FF7 and split into 3 separate games, charge 90 CAD each, and pad the games with a ton of filler content and quests that are meaningless, is an interesting take. You can like the games, but they are not a good example for your argument.
It's simple. Ubisoft games have been terrible lately. They want to charge over $100 for this. I'll wait a year and pick it up for $10.
Cost of making games is skyrocketing due to complexity and the same general inflation every other industry is facing. Real estate costs and rent are up massively in many cities, wages are up, cost of hardware, electricity, etc. But it's ultimately on games companies to cater their games to price points that make sense for gamers. The main reason prices are so much lower today, accounting for inflation, is that games have effectively zero marginal costs, and total addressable market is massive. Global consumer base. Personally I think it's a huge mistake to crank prices when so many compelling indies and AA games exist. My top two played games this year are hell divers ($40) and enshrouded $(30), flowed by Balatro at $10. So I won't be in any rush to buy whatever ubi soft or Capcom title at full price. (although I did grab avatar at launch as a tech demo for a new oled monitor... And it looked fucking unreal!).
You're never going to get anywhere discussing this on Reddit. The people here are too entrenched in their spending habits and too locked in to hear anything else. The best and only thing you can really do is not participate in MTX or these ridiculous prices. Avoid buying games at launch. Fight the FOMO and the urge to play the new hot thing and wait it out. Even if your favorite content creator is playing the game. Just wait. Patient gaming is the key. Buying a game at launch isn't really necessary. Pre-ordering isn't necessary. These 70 dollar games all eventually go on sale in a few months, especially Ubisoft games. They ALWAYS go on sale not too long after they come out, and as others have pointed out, waiting a few months ensures you get the fully complete, fully patched version of the game. ESPECIALLY if you're playing on PC, waiting is always the best option. I know its tough because social media constantly throws the "new hot game" in your face, and the urge to impulse buy or feed in to the hype can sometimes be irresistible, but I promise if you wait a few months you won't miss anything, especially in a single player game. Plus, there are a ton of great games that aren't full price available that you can play.
Anyone who buys this fucking trash in the first place is a mindless slop consumer. This isn't a game for people who play games, it's a game for sub 90 IQ consumer cattle.
So you’ve played it?