Why are games so expensive now?

[76561198095142420]

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.

[Komarimaru]

Most of my friends are on "Potato" PC's. Only myself and a few friends from LTT are on what people consider "High End" Hardware. Even then, I skipped the 40 series from Nvidia, and still on a 3080TI overclocked faster than a 3090TI from EVGA.

I buy every other generation, since from personal experience, that gives me the best gaming experience and is cheaper in the end for better visuals.

And even then, I don't use 4K for gaming, I use it for 3D Rendering, Photoshop etc. Mainly game at 1440p since that gives me the 120 FPS minimum goal I aim for.

[skibidilobotomizer]

I agree.. but why are they always more expensive than console same title?

[nullable]

1wise.logic の投稿を引用：

I agree.. but why are they always more expensive than console same title?

Always?

There might be a few details you're omitting.

[76561198095142420]

dragons dogma 2 = $70 with microtransactions.

[Thermal Lance]

I wouldn't mind the price increase if AAA publishers would actually make their games worth that kind of money. Not turn them into borderline unfinished products or MT ridden ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

[76561198095142420]

Thermal Pineapple の投稿を引用：

I wouldn't mind the price increase if AAA publishers would actually make their games worth that kind of money. Not turn them into borderline unfinished products or MT ridden ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

By finished do you mean atleast 40 fps on a 4090 ?

[nullable]

Thermal Pineapple の投稿を引用：

I wouldn't mind the price increase if AAA publishers would actually make their games worth that kind of money. Not turn them into borderline unfinished products or MT ridden ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

Well people say that, the trick is in practice consumers will never think the game is worth it because they'd always rather pay less than more.

[Silverkite]

uniposca hires

[Kargor]

nullable の投稿を引用：

the trick is in practice consumers will never think the game is worth it because they'd always rather pay less than more.

Yeah. I'm an extremely bad customer, and even if some company decided to put all their top-level staff into a plane and send them to my city so we can discuss what they could do to make me pay full price for a game -- I wouldn't know what to tell them.

[Ganger]

Was looking at purchasing Dragon's Dogma 2 but the price on steam is £53.98. I though £50 was the max price in the UK for games that are not named COD, I was totally wrong.

[crunchyfrog]

Games generally have not been expensive or at least haven't grown in line with most country's inflation.

Back in the 1980s, games for consoles like the Atari VCS or ColecoVision were £25-30. This was a time when the average weekly wage was £100.

In the late 1990s, PS1 games were about £30-40 depending on where you got them. At that time the average weekly wage was way over £200 (I can't recall exactly).

But the point here is really that inflation doesn't dictate price, but just a general "what the market can bear".

Here's the kicker - if price is a factor to you, why are you looking at brand new releases? Do what I do and have done for decades.

I'm disabled and on benefits. I realised years ago that this simple formula works well.

You wait. You buy games when they're either on sale or you buy used or in clearance sales. Here in Britain I can buy used games from CEX or any of the online retailers. I can also buy clearance stock from them cheap too. Stuff that is new buy is no longer selling in number, so therefore cheap.

Or on Steam you can simply wait for sales. I do.

I never spend more than about £15 for a game. It doesn't matter how long I wait because of this simple formula.

If I have say £100 to spend on games, I can buy one brand new game and have £40 left over, or I can go and buy a whole load of games from the stores I mentioned above or in the sales. Last Steam sale I spent about £40 and got 9 games.

Now those 9 games will last me some time. And because of this, it means the time I need before I need to buy more games is longer. Which means the NEXT games needn't be new releases either.

See how this works?

[TGC> The Games Collector]

Companies do take sales in account when making these prices.

They just sell em for a ridiculous price so they can seem generous with their 66% discount, while that's basically the price the game should be sold for.

[crunchyfrog]

TGC> The Games Collector の投稿を引用：

Companies do take sales in account when making these prices.

They just sell em for a ridiculous price so they can seem generous with their 66% discount, while that's basically the price the game should be sold for.

Basic consumerism.

When something is released and it's time sensitive to some degree, you should ALWAYS bear that in mind.

With games that may be online or PvP it can be a factor to get in early. With single player games though, it makes no difference.

[Brian9824]

crunchyfrog の投稿を引用：

Games generally have not been expensive or at least haven't grown in line with most country's inflation.

Back in the 1980s, games for consoles like the Atari VCS or ColecoVision were £25-30. This was a time when the average weekly wage was £100.

In the late 1990s, PS1 games were about £30-40 depending on where you got them. At that time the average weekly wage was way over £200 (I can't recall exactly).

But the point here is really that inflation doesn't dictate price, but just a general "what the market can bear".

Here's the kicker - if price is a factor to you, why are you looking at brand new releases? Do what I do and have done for decades.

I'm disabled and on benefits. I realised years ago that this simple formula works well.

You wait. You buy games when they're either on sale or you buy used or in clearance sales. Here in Britain I can buy used games from CEX or any of the online retailers. I can also buy clearance stock from them cheap too. Stuff that is new buy is no longer selling in number, so therefore cheap.

Or on Steam you can simply wait for sales. I do.

I never spend more than about £15 for a game. It doesn't matter how long I wait because of this simple formula.

If I have say £100 to spend on games, I can buy one brand new game and have £40 left over, or I can go and buy a whole load of games from the stores I mentioned above or in the sales. Last Steam sale I spent about £40 and got 9 games.

Now those 9 games will last me some time. And because of this, it means the time I need before I need to buy more games is longer. Which means the NEXT games needn't be new releases either.

See how this works?

I mean i mostly wait too. Few exceptions like something I REALLY want to play - like Star Ocean 2 remake, or something online all my friends are playing then I might make an exception, but its rare i'll spend $60 on a game.

[crunchyfrog]

brian9824 の投稿を引用：

crunchyfrog の投稿を引用：

Games generally have not been expensive or at least haven't grown in line with most country's inflation.

Back in the 1980s, games for consoles like the Atari VCS or ColecoVision were £25-30. This was a time when the average weekly wage was £100.

In the late 1990s, PS1 games were about £30-40 depending on where you got them. At that time the average weekly wage was way over £200 (I can't recall exactly).

But the point here is really that inflation doesn't dictate price, but just a general "what the market can bear".

Here's the kicker - if price is a factor to you, why are you looking at brand new releases? Do what I do and have done for decades.

I'm disabled and on benefits. I realised years ago that this simple formula works well.

You wait. You buy games when they're either on sale or you buy used or in clearance sales. Here in Britain I can buy used games from CEX or any of the online retailers. I can also buy clearance stock from them cheap too. Stuff that is new buy is no longer selling in number, so therefore cheap.

Or on Steam you can simply wait for sales. I do.

I never spend more than about £15 for a game. It doesn't matter how long I wait because of this simple formula.

If I have say £100 to spend on games, I can buy one brand new game and have £40 left over, or I can go and buy a whole load of games from the stores I mentioned above or in the sales. Last Steam sale I spent about £40 and got 9 games.

Now those 9 games will last me some time. And because of this, it means the time I need before I need to buy more games is longer. Which means the NEXT games needn't be new releases either.

See how this works?

I mean i mostly wait too. Few exceptions like something I REALLY want to play - like Star Ocean 2 remake, or something online all my friends are playing then I might make an exception, but its rare i'll spend $60 on a game.

The last time I spent full price on a game was the mid 1980s.

I can't even recall exactly what game it was. Likely some ZX Spectrum game or one of the other computers of the time.

Back then it was a different time as all we had to go on was magazine reviews, box art, and if you were lucky maybe a friend had it and you tried it out.

Otherwise it was largely blind. And to go with that we started seeing the first cheapo compilations of "greatest hits" type of releases. Once they happened, I quickly realised the merit of simply waiting. I always amassed games so I always had a backlog anyway.