What's with the price increasing?

[Malarkey]

Not mentioning Russia at all because I saw that the price was way higher... But I remember this game starting at 20.00 USD, how the fk has it gone up almost to double the price in a few years???

The game is quite popular as it is, yet every several months (maybe a year) I come to check if it's on sale or whatnot, yet I see it being even MORE expensive than last time... I feel like every time I click on the store page, the price goes up another 5.00 USD... Inflation is not hitting the other 99.999% of the other games on steam so hard as this BS overinflating game. I've seen every 5.00 USD price increase starting from 20.00 USD.

Absolutely greedy and ridiculous, keep your ♥♥♥ game then geez...

[brian_va]

it went to 30 for full release, and about a year ago it went up to 35 USD due to inflation.

if you want to argue inflation isn't real or the devs are greedy or whatever else, then others will be along soon enough.

[Hurkyl]

Originally posted by Malarkey:

Not mentioning Russia at all because I saw that the price was way higher... But I remember this game starting at 20.00 USD,

In early 2018, the devs finally decided the game was nearing completion, and so it was time to finally set the launch price of $30 USD. (they misjudged and didn't wind up launching until 2020)

At the start of 2023, they adjusted the price for inflation.

In other currencies, they've update the regional pricing as Steam changes their recommendations, but those are the only two changes to the USD price for quite a long time. It was less than $20 some point further back, though.

The Russia thing was an apparent typo, and the extra 0 in the price was quickly removed; within a day, I think?

The game is quite popular as it is, yet every several month I come to check if it's on sale or whatnot

They've made it very clear they do not intend to do any sales and set the price accordingly, so you've been wasting your time for over 5 years now.

They may still reduce the price at some point in the future. The expansion is coming out later this year, in case that affects whatever predictions you'd like to make.

And some years further down the line when the market for the base game has saturated and/or it's not their sole revenue stream, they may let inflation depreciate the price. Speculation is that they had been planning to do that with the $30 price, but the excessive inflation made that less tenable for them.

I feel like every time I click on the store page, the price goes up another 5.00 USD

Negativity bias. If you have indeed been checking every few months, this doesn't come anywhere near vaguely resembling reality.

Inflation is not hitting the other 99.999% of the other games on steam

As an aside... would you even know since so many games hide their actual price behind sales? We've literally had someone come here and praise some other company for lowering prices on their games, when in reality the game in question had literally raised its price by a whopping 50% that very week. But the person had absolutely no clue, because all they could see is that the list price of the game was higher than what they were selling it for that week.

Absolutely greedy and ridiculous

That is indeed the impression you give off. I think it's more likely that you are just reacting badly to the shock of reality differing from your expectations, but *shrug*, mind reading is hard.

[Chindraba]

Originally posted by Hurkyl:

*shrug*, mind reading is hard.

It's especially difficult when reading a closed book with blank pages.

[malogoss]

Not gonna lie, I built an addiction to threads like this one. I see one, I read the OP, it makes me laugh, the replies often make me laugh too and 3 or 4 days later, I'm already craving the next one. Keep them coming!

[Hurkyl]

Originally posted by Hurkyl:

I feel like every time I click on the store page, the price goes up another 5.00 USD

Negativity bias. If you have indeed been checking every few months, this doesn't come anywhere near vaguely resembling reality.

To nitpick myself, that's a possible explanation but there can be others. E.g. if every time you checked and saw $30, you thought "didn't it used to be $20?", a single price change would have felt like many more.

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by malogoss:

Not gonna lie, I built an addiction to threads like this one. I see one, I read the OP, it makes me laugh, the replies often make me laugh too and 3 or 4 days later, I'm already craving the next one. Keep them coming!

this one is even from someone whose handle literally means BS (and in case they change their handle in the future, at the time of posting it was "Malarkey" - not even bothering with a mask this one lol)

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by Malarkey:

The game is quite popular as it is,

There's you answer if nothing else. You can stop blowing smoke any time.

[Drizzt]

but for anyone else reading - the OP's take is equal to their handle - utter BS - or if i am being charitable: ignorant, bad faith, entitled, childish misinformation

what actually happened was:
1. game released on Steam Early Access for $20 in 2016
2. price increased to $30 in 2018 in expectation of the v1.0 release from Early Access
3. v1.0 released in 2020 with no price increase
4. price increased by $5 in Jan 2023 to account for the inflation since 2018 (which had been extraordinarily high due to multiple global economic downturns)

that is the entire history of the price in US $ - so the idea that the price is constantly increasing is utter BS - they had one price increase aligning with the planned release from Early Access (which is expected since Early Access games are priced lower due to risk and less content etc) - and then one small price increase due to unprecedented inflation, which kept the same value proposition ($30 in 2018 was equivalent to $36 in 2023)

any other price changes were for non USD prices, and so far as i am aware mostly aligned with Steam's regional pricing - as well as attempting to counter problems with cross currency selling of the game

since all countries have their own economies, the buying power of the local equivalent of $1 varies wildly - and so even places where the exchange rate made the price lower than the USD price could still be relatively expensive for the people in that country - but that would be the same for all internationally traded products - and is the same for all video games - unless they manually change their prices for every country - which is both prohibitively complex to continually do - as well as fuelling third party resellers buying up keys in low cost regions

anyway - the OP is at the very least extremely ill informed

obviously people are free to decide for themselves - but should be permitted to do so based on the true accounting of the pricing history

[Geirfinna Lieselotte]

Boohoo can't spend 35 bucks for thousands hours of play

[MetalSpaceDust]

What's with the troll?

[Tat011]

I wonder if it's actually just one guy making all these threads. Lol

[Biometrix]

Originally posted by Malarkey:

The game is quite popular as it is, yet every several month I come to check if it's on sale or whatnot, yet I see it being even MORE expensive than last time...

That means you can buy it NOW and get it at the cheapest it will ever be. It's not going to be on sale. Thread closed.

[🆄🅽🅲🅻🅴 🅹🅾]

Private profile points farmer.

[Howling-MoMo]

should have gotten it in EA then

[RiO]

Originally posted by Malarkey:

Inflation is not hitting the other 99.999% of the other games on steam

I take it you missed when back in fall 2022 all triple-A publishers announced to the press that they would be adjusting the MRP on their upcoming in-production releases for Q4 2022 - Q1 2023 from 60 USD to 70 USD?

I take it you also missed that the major argument they had for doing so was to counter the effects of economic downfall and increased cost of development, both due to inflation?

I take it you are capable of understanding that with Wube having only Factorio on the market, they had no choice but to raise price on their existing product - as there was no new product being readied for a timely release they could raise price for before entry to market?

And would you look at that:
60 USD is to 30 USD as 70 USD is to 35 USD.
What a coincidence!