Game publishers don't understand how inflation works

[biesoid]

Inflation doesn't mean people have more money to spend on games, it means cost of food, electricity, gas etc. rises, so people have less money to spend on entertainment and they will eventually give up and quit the hobby.

[76561198407601200]

Publicado originalmente por biesoid:

Inflation doesn't mean people have more money to spend on games, it means cost of food, electricity, gas etc. rises, so people have less money to spend on entertainment and they will eventually give up and quit the hobby.

And people forget that game developers also have to pay those same necessities.

[Crazy Tiger]

Publicado originalmente por biesoid:

Sony stopped reporting number of subscribers few months ago, because they planned to raise subscription prices, so they know they will be losing users, they're still doing this hoping customers will stop eating to pay $80 for a privilege of playing multiplayer in their $70 games.

Which is perfectly fine. People who can't afford it or don't want to pay that amount will simply not do so. People who are fine with it will continue using and paying for it.

Publicado originalmente por Paratech2008:

Patience is a virtue. Wait 6 months and some games drop 50% or more. There are few benefits to buying games day one.

Bundles are cheap and there are other options to legally buy games cheap.

Yup. Patience is a good thing. I've got games on wishlists for years now because they never got the discount I want to see. I doubt I'll be getting them anytime soon.

[BJWyler]

Publicado originalmente por Eagle_of_Fire:

There is a thing called inflation. Has been mentioned quite a bit already. You can't just directly compare the salary of someone 30 years ago and make a direct comparison.

You're right, we can't, which is why we are not making that comparison. What we can, and have been doing is comparing the relative increase in cost to produce the product to the relative increase in price to purchase the product.

In 1990, if I paid one programmer to make my game, it cost me 50k a year. Today, to pay that one programmer would cost me 100k. That's twice the expense to make my game. In 1990, I charged $45 for my game. Today, if I wanted to recoup my same relative expense, I would have to charge $90 for my game.

So yes, inflation and the rising cost of living have increased salaries by 100% to maintain the same amount of buying power, but that means the cost of producing a game has doubled in terms of salary without the actual cost rising to match that, as everything else has.

Publicado originalmente por Muppet among Puppets:

If microtansactions were for covering the cost, they would not stay permanently. And every game would need them.

Not necessarily. A studio's or publisher's expenses don't magically disappear when they launch their game. And different studios will have different overhead costs so won't necessarily all require the same amount of income - hence why some games can be sold for cheaper than others.

Publicado originalmente por biesoid:

Publicado originalmente por Nebsun:

Inflation means the value of money decreases - and since the value of everything else remains the same, the monetary price for everything across the board increases.

If you earn $2000 you still earn $2000 even when there's inflation. After paying bills and buying food you have less money to waste on games.

Exactly. That's life. That's why choices in what to buy have to be made when making a budget. The gaming industry is not a charity. Just because your costs have gone up doesn't mean they should sell their product cheaper to you just because. What you neglect to factor in is that a developer needs to buy eggs too. So those eggs that are costing you twice as much with inflation is also costing them twice as much. And you want them to make less income just so you don't have to choose between eggs and a game? Nah, brah.

[R-]

if they rise up the prices there will be only bots in the multiplayer games because nobody is playing

Publicado originalmente por Crazy Tiger:

Publicado originalmente por biesoid:

Sony stopped reporting number of subscribers few months ago, because they planned to raise subscription prices, so they know they will be losing users, they're still doing this hoping customers will stop eating to pay $80 for a privilege of playing multiplayer in their $70 games.

Which is perfectly fine. People who can't afford it or don't want to pay that amount will simply not do so. People who are fine with it will continue using and paying for it.

[biesoid]

Publicado originalmente por BJWyler:

Publicado originalmente por biesoid:

If you earn $2000 you still earn $2000 even when there's inflation. After paying bills and buying food you have less money to waste on games.

Exactly. That's life. That's why choices in what to buy have to be made when making a budget. The gaming industry is not a charity. Just because your costs have gone up doesn't mean they should sell their product cheaper to you just because. What you neglect to factor in is that a developer needs to buy eggs too. So those eggs that are costing you twice as much with inflation is also costing them twice as much. And you want them to make less income just so you don't have to choose between eggs and a game? Nah, brah.

I never wrote that developers aren't impacted by inflation, you're missing the point and stop calling me brah and bub.

[nullable]

Publicado originalmente por R-:

if they rise up the prices there will be only bots in the multiplayer games because nobody is playing

Now when you say "nobody", do you really imagine out of hundreds of millions of PC gamers that none of them is going to buy games? Or is this "nobody" your inability (human inability) to truly comprehend very large numbers? Because let's not kid ourselves, you can't really model what a million gamers are going to do, in your head. Let alone all gamers.

And projecting your own choices onto everyone just ain't going to cut it.

Fewer people might play some games, and that may not be that big of a problem.

[BJWyler]

Publicado originalmente por biesoid:

Publicado originalmente por BJWyler:

Exactly. That's life. That's why choices in what to buy have to be made when making a budget. The gaming industry is not a charity. Just because your costs have gone up doesn't mean they should sell their product cheaper to you just because. What you neglect to factor in is that a developer needs to buy eggs too. So those eggs that are costing you twice as much with inflation is also costing them twice as much. And you want them to make less income just so you don't have to choose between eggs and a game? Nah, brah.

I never wrote that developers aren't impacted by inflation, you're missing the point and stop calling me brah and bub.

No you didn't. You also didn't say that they were also impacted by inflation as much as anyone else. You just chose to ignore that simple little fact because it doesn't fit your narrative that games should be sold cheaper ... just because. So it seems I'm not missing any point, but actually hitting the point right on the mark, dude.

[Crazy Tiger]

Publicado originalmente por R-:

if they rise up the prices there will be only bots in the multiplayer games because nobody is playing

Publicado originalmente por Crazy Tiger:

Which is perfectly fine. People who can't afford it or don't want to pay that amount will simply not do so. People who are fine with it will continue using and paying for it.

Yep. Which is fine. Their loss.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Publicado originalmente por R-:

if they rise up the prices there will be only bots in the multiplayer games because nobody is playing

Don't let me burst your bubble but raising prices won't stop the massively huge player base for very popular franchises like CoD from buying the game regardless. There's still millions of players playing their games.

[Phénomènes Mystiques]

Inflation is merely an attempt to steal more wages from workers. Inflation also kills people in poverty (legal genocide)...

[Lystent]

Here is what I understand about the situation:

World food supply goes down, so prices go up. That leaves almost everyone having to pitch in more money to eat. That is where the OP would be at.

But it doesn't end there. Developers are facing the same issues, and so are just about any other worker. So they have to get their rates raised just to keep up, and to supply the additional funds for the workforce, their end products take the brunt by getting their prices raised.

For games, that means the more expensive developers are using more expensive software on more expensive computers ran by (compounded by another supply loss) more expensive power.

That would mean it isn't always that they want to raise prices, but that they had to, to cover their own ends.

But that is not all; not all resource demands are met, and that includes that of the farmers who would've otherwise had no trouble with helping supply food. I suspect the "domino effect" may not be sufficient enough to explain how gnarly I believe the situation is.

[Satoru]

Publicado originalmente por alumlovescake:

when a game has made 1000x its budget and is years old it should only ever go down and down

I think people seem to forget that price reductions on older games was not because 'they were older' it was because 'they took up shelf space'

And today publishers can acccurately track in real time how their games sells. So if a publisher wants to keep a game at a certain price, they do so wtih the knowledge that

1) it costs everyone zero to maintain that price
2) they are able to see how many sales they do at that price point
3) it costs them nothing to change the price

If they thought lowering the price point would give enough sales, they would do so. The fact that they do not, tells you that they are happy with whatever money they are making on it right now, at that price. You not liking that price isn't super relevant. Because the people setting the price, with 100% transparency, think its fine

[Satoru]

Publicado originalmente por Wynters:

Inflation is merely an attempt to steal more wages from workers. Inflation also kills people in poverty (legal genocide)...

I don't think you really understand what inflation actually is. From a macro economics perspective a small amount of inflation is actually desirable. Government monetary policy is always about balancing different levers that do different things and stimulate or curb different parts of the economy. Some factors you don't have that much control over, other factors you do. Do you want deflation or stag-flation? Becuase those are far far worse