Will Teardown ever be discounted?

[Dark Sun Gwyndolin]

Back in the early access stage, I bought the game for $18 CAD, but ended up refunding it. Since then, I've gotten a lot more into immersive sims and toybox games, but the price has jumped up to a sky-high $40 CAD. Will Teardown ever go on sale? It's a hard sell for me at full price knowing it used to be half that. As a Steam gamer, I've generally gotten used to the idea that games get cheaper with time, so having a game go up by such a dramatic amount is a shock.

Or is it like Factorio, in that it only gets more expensive with time, and if you didn't buy in early? Tough.

[Ankagara]

The base game will probably stay this price, considering the additional content and costs are packaged as DLCs. I believe there will probably be a big steam sale this month, so wait for that?

[tarmo888]

It has been on sale with discount many times, even with this higher price.

[Dark Sun Gwyndolin]

Originally posted by tarmo888:

It has been on sale with discount many times, even with this higher price.

How steep? I've only ever seen 20% or so; I'm waiting for a 50% sale before I buy it.

[PrestonLK]

Originally posted by Fear Denies Faith:

Originally posted by tarmo888:

It has been on sale with discount many times, even with this higher price.

How steep? I've only ever seen 20% or so; I'm waiting for a 50% sale before I buy it.

So far the game has never had a discount larger than 25%

[LoneDeranger]

Originally posted by Fear Denies Faith:

Originally posted by tarmo888:

It has been on sale with discount many times, even with this higher price.

How steep? I've only ever seen 20% or so; I'm waiting for a 50% sale before I buy it.

2027..

[Justin]

I have to ask, when did $40 for a game with hours of content become sky-high? Were any of you alive or old enough to be buying games back in the N64 era? Those things were $60-70+ in the 1990's...

[Dark Sun Gwyndolin]

Originally posted by Justin:

I have to ask, when did $40 for a game with hours of content become sky-high? Were any of you alive or old enough to be buying games back in the N64 era? Those things were $60-70+ in the 1990's...

When it was $20 CAD during early access. $30 would be reasonable for the full game, for me $40 is not. Furthermore, I generally wait for a sale of at least 33% or more before even considering a $20+ game.

[Justin]

Originally posted by Sushi Dragon:

Pretty sure they were 40$ in the 1990s. I think the difference is with globalization and internet releases allow more sales and cheaper marketing. This is why prices can be kept extra competitive. I do think Teardown is worth it but it also sounds like DLC1 is a flop, so unless they patch it up, then it's gonna get messy unfortunately.

I think you just answered my initial question about not being alive or old enough. Mario 64 and Pilotwings were $69.99 at launch but shortly lowered to a bargain price of $59.99. Turok was $75 at launch. It wasn't just N64 either, there were SNES games that were $70 at launch. PSX on the other hand, yeah, most games were $39.99 or $49.99 at worst. Still, those converted to 2023 value just proves how much cheaper games are now vs in the past. The modern gamer has been ridiculously spoiled by games with an epic ton of content that are way cheaper than they probably should be. Game development costs are a heck of a lot more today than back then, yet prices have not really been raised proportionally to the increased development costs.

$40 for a game in 2023 is a bargain for anyone old enough remember those days.

[Dark Sun Gwyndolin]

Originally posted by Justin:

Originally posted by Sushi Dragon:

Pretty sure they were 40$ in the 1990s. I think the difference is with globalization and internet releases allow more sales and cheaper marketing. This is why prices can be kept extra competitive. I do think Teardown is worth it but it also sounds like DLC1 is a flop, so unless they patch it up, then it's gonna get messy unfortunately.

I think you just answered my initial question about not being alive or old enough. Mario 64 and Pilotwings were $69.99 at launch but shortly lowered to a bargain price of $59.99. Turok was $75 at launch. It wasn't just N64 either, there were SNES games that were $70 at launch. PSX on the other hand, yeah, most games were $39.99 or $49.99 at worst. Still, those converted to 2023 value just proves how much cheaper games are now vs in the past. The modern gamer has been ridiculously spoiled by games an epic ton of content that are way cheaper than they probably should be. Game development costs are a heck of a lot more today than back then, yet prices have not really been raised proportionally to the increased development costs.

For what its worth, I HAVE seen an overall increase in Indie game prices over the past few years. Its hard to say for sure because there's no strict benchmark like the $60 value for AAA games, but I definitely feel like I see more 30's and 40's and fewer 20's and 10's. Games take longer to be substantially discounted as well. Impossible to know for sure, since there are so many Indie games of wildly varying content and quality.

[Justin]

Imagine coming home with a brand new $50 game, that will never receive any updates or patches, may contain game breaking bugs or even bugs that prevent you from being able to achieve 100% completion, doesn't include any type of mod support, and only had 2-3hrs of content at best. You didn't know any of this up front because there were not 1000 youtube reviews you could have watched before parting with your money.

[evanloohaklm]

Originally posted by Justin:

Imagine coming home with a brand new $50 game, that will never receive any updates or patches, may contain game breaking bugs or even bugs that prevent you from being able to achieve 100% completion, doesn't include any type of mod support, and only had 2-3hrs of content at best. You didn't know any of this up front because there were not 1000 youtube reviews you could have watched before parting with your money.

Okay, I imagined it, now what?

[Justin]

Be thankful you can buy a quality game at $40 in 2023.

https://www.thingslife.com/toys-r-us-video-game-ads-from-1996/
Genesis games at $59.99 and the few that were 69.99, IN 1996! Ya'll have no idea how good you have it today.

[Dark Sun Gwyndolin]

Originally posted by Justin:

Be thankful you can buy a quality game at $40 in 2023.

https://www.thingslife.com/toys-r-us-video-game-ads-from-1996/
Genesis games at $59.99 and the few that were 69.99, IN 1996! Ya'll have no idea how good you have it today.

And the price of video games in the past affects me how, exactly? That's in the past for me; I'm a Steam gamer now, and I typically buy games that are either heavily discounted or cheap to begin with. At its current price, Teardown is more than I'm willing to pay, and the fact that its cheaper than some other arbitrarily defined game is irrelevant.

[Justin]

It very clearly illustrates how cheap $40 for a game in 2023 is and how insane it is to complain about $40 being "expensive" for a game. What are you not comprehending here? Those genesis games would be ~$130 when adjusted for inflation. Go ahead and tell me with a straight face, that Teardown @ $40 doesn't include more content than almost every single game in that ad...or rather yet, my original question of how $40 is "sky-high".....its not, period.

[Dark Sun Gwyndolin]

Originally posted by Justin:

It very clearly illustrates how cheap $40 for a game in 2023 is and how insane it is to complain about $40 being "expensive" for a game. What are you not comprehending here? Those genesis games would be ~$130 when adjusted for inflation. Go ahead and tell me with a straight face, that Teardown @ $40 doesn't include more content than almost every single game in that ad...or rather yet, my original question of how $40 is "sky-high".....its not, period.

To put it simply, money is not infinite. Trailmakers, a similar game to Teardown, is $7 CAD at its current steepest sale (all stores, not just Steam). Now it could be fair argument that Teardown is better than Trailmakers, but is it 5x better?

The point I'm trying to make is that value for money is a highly subjective matter, and my stance on Teardown is influenced by two factors: I had previously bought Teardown for $20 and refunded it. Therefore, buying it for $40, when I might not like it this time anymore than last time, feels extremely silly.

It also competes against other purchases. For the full price of Teardown, I could buy a half-dozen games of roughly equivalent content. Purchasing Teardown means NOT purchasing $40 of different games.