Why are games so expensive now?

[Potion of Plentiful Friendship]

I was looking at the price of starfield $70 and DLC for Total War warhmmaer 3 which is $25. There was a time when bug-free games were $25-30. There wasn't anything as internet updates and games did not feel broken or crash that much. This may have to do with the cost of running a studio now and people spending exorbitantly on high-end GPUs. Personally, I am still running a gtx 1080 and refuse to buy expensive games. I just wanted to know what does the community think about this.

[D. Flame]

Escrito originalmente por brian9824:

Also can you cite your sources that say if they charge $10 more their sales drop from 20 million to 100k. I'd be interested to see how you arrived at that claim

No one claimed that, Einstein. Games back then were a super niche hobby. Selling 100k copies was actually pretty good. Then CoD the scene and was pushing like 5 million, which was seen as the goal to chase. Now you got games pushing 20 million copies in sales. It's not difficult to put 2 and 2 together here for ♥♥♥♥ sake. How the hell you ended up out in left field boggles my mind. You have to be pretending at this point right?

[Brian9824]

Escrito originalmente por D. Flame:

Escrito originalmente por brian9824:

Also can you cite your sources that say if they charge $10 more their sales drop from 20 million to 100k. I'd be interested to see how you arrived at that claim

No one claimed that,

Escrito originalmente por D. Flame:

$70 * 100,000 people = $7,000,000.
$60 * 20,000,000 people = $1,200,000,000
.

You literally posted the numbers.....

Again you keep using the nonsensical arguments trying to use a handful of games to somehow prove the entire game industry does what you claim. A fraction of a percent of games do what you are whining about, and you don't even need their battle passes, cosmetics, etc unless you want extra stuff

[D. Flame]

Escrito originalmente por brian9824:

Escrito originalmente por D. Flame:

No one claimed that,

Escrito originalmente por D. Flame:

$70 * 100,000 people = $7,000,000.
$60 * 20,000,000 people = $1,200,000,000
.

You literally posted the numbers.....

Again you keep using the nonsensical arguments trying to use a handful of games to somehow prove the entire game industry does what you claim. A fraction of a percent of games do what you are whining about, and you don't even need their battle passes, cosmetics, etc unless you want extra stuff

I posted the numbers and you completely miss interpreted them.

It would be like if I posted 2+2 and you came out shouting about how "22" makes no sense as an answer, because you misinterpreted the "+" as an append rather than the math operator for addition.

My numbers are right. Your understanding of them is not.

Hope this helps.

[Bishop]

Because the consumer is willing to pay insane amounts of money for products. That's the simple answer. For some reason gamers have no real standards and are willing to buy games day one so that they don't miss out on the newest over-hyped release. If people practiced a bit of restraint and didn't buy micro-transactions, season passes, or overpriced games then they wouldn't exist.

[Brian9824]

Escrito originalmente por D. Flame:

Escrito originalmente por brian9824:

You literally posted the numbers.....

Yes, you posted numbers you made up that are not based on anything scientific and which you manipulated to try to prove some sort of crusade you have. We already know that

We also know for games like Diablo 4 you don't need to buy battle passes or cosmetics, yet you still treat them like they are mandatory to play the game when they add nothing at all. They are extra's that can be offered, nothing more.

I also find it intresting how you ignore FREE mods that games are built to support now that can add hundreds or thousands of hours of gameplay on top of the base game, but then again that wouldn't fit the narrative you've created of the evil game developer sitting in his volcano lair counting his piles of money while laughing at the poor gamers being forced at gunpoint to buy cosmetic armors...

[Brian9824]

Escrito originalmente por Chross:

Because the consumer is willing to pay insane amounts of money for products. That's the simple answer. For some reason gamers have no real standards and are willing to buy games day one so that they don't miss out on the newest over-hyped release. If people practiced a bit of restraint and didn't buy micro-transactions, season passes, or overpriced games then they wouldn't exist.

They'd always exist. Nothing wrong with season passes or micro transactions as a concept. Some games use them well, others use them poorly. I've bought quite a few season passes for games that I enjoy like Borderlands and Borderlands 2 that add entire new classes, skills, etc that added 100+ hours of entertainment for me.

Back in the old days you beat a game and thats it, you couldn't get new levels or content for a game you enjoyed, now you can and its a great thing IMO

[Zeno]

Escrito originalmente por Daedrik:

I was looking at the price of starfield $70 and DLC for Total War warhmmaer 3 which is $25. There was a time when bug-free games were $25-30. There wasn't anything as internet updates and games did not feel broken or crash that much. This may have to do with the cost of running a studio now and people spending exorbitantly on high-end GPUs. Personally, I am still running a gtx 1080 and refuse to buy expensive games. I just wanted to know what does the community think about this.

Video games are more expensive today due to the rising costs of development, including graphics, storylines, and the overall complexity of modern gaming experiences.

[D. Flame]

Escrito originalmente por CyberShark:

Escrito originalmente por Daedrik:

I was looking at the price of starfield $70 and DLC for Total War warhmmaer 3 which is $25. There was a time when bug-free games were $25-30. There wasn't anything as internet updates and games did not feel broken or crash that much. This may have to do with the cost of running a studio now and people spending exorbitantly on high-end GPUs. Personally, I am still running a gtx 1080 and refuse to buy expensive games. I just wanted to know what does the community think about this.

Video games are more expensive today due to the rising costs of development, including graphics, storylines, and the overall complexity of modern gaming experiences.

false, if this were true, there would not be such high quality indie games available

[Zeno]

Escrito originalmente por D. Flame:

Escrito originalmente por CyberShark:

Video games are more expensive today due to the rising costs of development, including graphics, storylines, and the overall complexity of modern gaming experiences.

false, if this were true, there would not be such high quality indie games available

Indie games are generally lower in graphic quality and take a lot longer to develop, often by independent developers not doing this as their main source of income.
Also, Indie games are not necessarily cheaper than triple AAA titles.

[D. Flame]

Escrito originalmente por CyberShark:

Escrito originalmente por D. Flame:

false, if this were true, there would not be such high quality indie games available

Indie games are generally lower in graphic quality and take a lot longer to develop, often by independent developers not doing this as their main source of income.
Also, Indie games are not necessarily cheaper than triple AAA titles.

Doesn't matter. Even if just a few of them look just or good as better as AAA games, it still proves that the graphics don't cost what these huge publishers claim.

It takes longer because they are doing it as a hobby in their free time, often alone. This just proves that these companies are over stating their labor costs. Yes, making it a full time job can speed things up, but that is not enough multiply the costs by millions.

And some guy making a game in his garage on the suburbs is not spending $100s of millions of dollars on a game he is making as a hobby.

[Zeno]

Escrito originalmente por D. Flame:

Escrito originalmente por CyberShark:

Indie games are generally lower in graphic quality and take a lot longer to develop, often by independent developers not doing this as their main source of income.
Also, Indie games are not necessarily cheaper than triple AAA titles.

Doesn't matter. Even if just a few of them look just or good as better as AAA games, it still proves that the graphics don't cost what these huge publishers claim.

It takes longer because they are doing it as a hobby in their free time, often alone. This just proves that these companies are over stating their labor costs. Yes, making it a full time job can speed things up, but that is not enough multiply the costs by millions.

And some guy making a game in his garage on the suburbs is not spending $100s of millions of dollars on a game he is making as a hobby.

If you deliver a high quality game, you get high quality money.
This plus inflation and demand.

Its pretty simple.

[Brian9824]

Escrito originalmente por D. Flame:

Escrito originalmente por CyberShark:

Indie games are generally lower in graphic quality and take a lot longer to develop, often by independent developers not doing this as their main source of income.
Also, Indie games are not necessarily cheaper than triple AAA titles.

Doesn't matter. Even if just a few of them look just or good as better as AAA games, it still proves that the graphics don't cost what these huge publishers claim.

It takes longer because they are doing it as a hobby in their free time, often alone. This just proves that these companies are over stating their labor costs. Yes, making it a full time job can speed things up, but that is not enough multiply the costs by millions.

And some guy making a game in his garage on the suburbs is not spending $100s of millions of dollars on a game he is making as a hobby.

It's more then just graphics, which again your ignoring everything that doesn't fit the view you established.

Programming is far more complex now on modern games then it was on older systems. The amount of code and complexity in games far outweigh what used to exist, the needs for voice acting, graphics, engine licensing fees, music licensing, etc all cost way more then it did back in the day with simple 8 bit graphics and sounds. Just debugging software now is a nightmare.

Here are some more facts for you that you will probably ignore.

Original Mario bros had about 22,000 lines of code
Dwarf Fortress designed by one person had 700,000 lines of code
GTA V has around 100 MILLION lines of code

So i'm sure you can imagine the difference in complexity between 22,000 and 100 million lines of code and the work that goes into creating it....

Comparing a AAA game to something a indie dev produces is like comparing a home made racer to a formula 1 racer. Also no one has claimed that the difference between the two has to be hundreds of millions.

Many indie games are sold in the $20-40 range, many AAA games are sold in the $40-60 range. Not a big difference in price overall and completely to be expected with the difference in development and costs. There are games that bleed over between the classification.

The entire point is that its unequivocably true that games are far more complex, they require more features to be a success. After all look at a game like Contra. 1 hour to beat, 1.5 hours to 100% it and it cost over $100 by today's dollar.....

[D. Flame]

Escrito originalmente por brian9824:

-snip-

You're just making excuses and moving the goal posts. Practically no one coding games anymore. They are using game engines to build the games. Just like how you are using a GUI instead of browsing this site in command line (text) interface.

[Brian9824]

Escrito originalmente por D. Flame:

Escrito originalmente por brian9824:

-snip-

You're just making excuses and moving the goal posts. Practically no one coding games anymore. They are using game engines to build the games. Just like how you are using a GUI instead of browsing this site in command line (text) interface.

So we can add game design to the list of subjects you don't understand.

Do you honestly think games code themselves? An engine is just a set of tools, it doesn't create the game, you have to use the engine to write the code. You can build anything from a sports game to a RPG to a FPS to an 8 bit indie game all using the same engine. It all depends on how the programmers design it and use the engine.

Just like you give some food ingredients to a 15 year old high school student and a michelin star chef and you will get different results...

I mean you've already had your claims repeatedly debunked by industry experts and the evidence you've shown... well you haven't shown any to back up any of the ridiculous claims you've made.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/are-video-games-really-more-expensive
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/07/the-return-of-the-70-video-game-has-been-a-long-time-coming/

The game price has been DECREASING steadily when adjusted for inflation for the last 30+ years

[D. Flame]

Escrito originalmente por brian9824:

Escrito originalmente por D. Flame:

You're just making excuses and moving the goal posts. Practically no one coding games anymore. They are using game engines to build the games. Just like how you are using a GUI instead of browsing this site in command line (text) interface.

So we can add game design to the list of subjects you don't understand.

Do you honestly think games code themselves? An engine is just a set of tools, it doesn't create the game, you have to use the engine to write the code.

When you navigate to this forum, do you open a command prompt, program a text based connection interface, establish a connection via IP address instead of a URL, etc.?

No, of course you don't. You click on the app, and it does all the work behind the scenes, and it presents it to you in a GUI.

One of us doesn't understand it, but that one isn't me.