11 ms·

If memory serves, the nominal price of most video games has not changed in about 30 years. US dollars are, at least officially, worth 2.5x less now than when Ma

by sk2020 5y ago

If memory serves, the nominal price of most video games has not changed in about 30 years. US dollars are, at least officially, worth 2.5x less now than when Mario came with Duck Hunt. I’m not that shocked that alternative monetization strategies are employed (micropayments are a big one). Seems like there could be a demand for an independent standards committee that certifies games as shenanigan-free. My children are starting to play games themselves, so I’d like a service like that. I would pay a premium to know my kids aren’t going to be prompted to put in my credit card information and won’t be assailed with toxic marketing ploys.

nightski 5y ago
The user base has grown exponentially since then and it is far easier to impulse buy games than ever before (30 years ago I had to drive to a store to buy a boxed copy). There are far more gamers than before. Steam has also shown that by giving deep discounts even though per-unit profit goes down they are able to make tons more money. The monetization schemes are mostly just a way to squeeze every drop out of the customer possible. They use them because they work, not because they aren't profitable already.
- google234123 5y ago
  Exponentially is definitely the wrong word here
  - wincy 5y ago
    My real estate agent said home prices were increasing exponentially and I said I really hoped my house wasn’t going to be worth billions next year.
p_j_w 5y ago
I'd rather see prices on games get raised than this sort of shit. The problem is every time prices go up everyone brings out the pitchforks, so we get this shit instead. It's largely turned me off of video games, especially big budget multiplayer focused games.
- mrguyorama 5y ago
  It's not an either/or situation. If publishers can raise the price of video games, they will NOT stop with ads and battlepasses and microtransactions etc. Why would they ever do that when those things make them more money than people actually purchasing the games in the first place?
- zerocrates 5y ago
  I'm not hugely opposed to price increases: these things happen. But the reality is you'll just get both. Now that it's determined that players will accept ads, microtransactions, gacha, etc., why not raise prices and also get those revenue streams. FIFA costing $70 will not stop the all-encompassing focus on Ultimate Team. (For perpective, just the Ultimate Team modes in their sports games supply about a third of EA's total revenue.) It's like when people say "if you're not paying for a service, then you're the product" to describe when user data is sold, when in actuality many services you do pay for happily sell your data all over the place.
lovich 5y ago
I can’t remember the internet exact year but I do remember the wailing and gnashing of teeth when they went from $50 standard to $60 standard sometime after 2000. Other than that one exception though, I believe you’re correct on prices.
- falcolas 5y ago
  They're up to $70 now on consoles.
falcolas 5y ago
A very old argument. The counter is: the audience for videogames has massively expanded. The secondary counter is: $70 is merely the entry point into games. Even before you look at microtransactions, you have battle passes, dozens of deluxe versions, and season passes. If this was really an issue - game prices not keeping up with inflation - publishers wouldn't be posting profits (not revenue, profits) in the billions of dollars. And on a more explicit point: God of War, a game with no microtransactions or any other BS, made their company over $500M in revenue in a year, for a game that cost them under $100M to make. So while I'm not surprised these multi-billion-dollars-of-profit companies are so ready to squeeze as much money as they can out of us, I don't attribute it to Tiny Tim begging for enough money to live, but to Ebenezer Scrooge hording as much money as he possibly can, no matter the societal cost (or cost to himself).
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Thaxll 5y ago
  > And on a more explicit point: God of War You're taking the most succesful game on the most successful platform as an example, not sure it's very relevant for the thousands of games that get released every year...
  - officeplant 5y ago
    Not every game is going to find success. We could do with a lot less of the major publishers ideas of "pay us $80 after the battle pass for the same shit you've been playing for 4 years with a new paint job". If an independent company like New Blood can find success simply by making good games and being a good company then major publishers can follow suit or die off.
  - kbenson 5y ago
    And yet it's not the thousands of games that are released each year that include extra advertising, but the the largest and often most successful ones, because they know they can get away with it, and they're the ones with a built in audience to sell to advertisers.
marcodiego 5y ago
You're ignoring how much bigger the market is today.
- qweqwweqwe-90i 5y ago
  Cars have increased in price while the market has increased...
  - mywittyname 5y ago
    Cars are waaaaaaay fucking better than they were in the past. My dad had a Mustang in the mid 90s, paid about $20k for it, it had 225hp, cloth seats, crappy stereo, got like 16mpg, handled like crap with skinny 16" tires, and was a completely unsafe tin can of a car. I have a newer one that I paid $35k for, it has 460hp, leather interior, a banging sound system, dozens of airbags, computer-controlled wizbangery that makes the car a breeze to drive, massive tires, and somehow gets 20mpg. Adjusted for inflation, these cars cost the same, but the newer one is such an incredibly massive improvement in every aspect.
    - google234123 5y ago
      Games are waaaaaaay fucking better than they were in the past. …
      - mywittyname 5y ago
        It makes sense that games would get so much cheaper over time, considering much more sophisticated manufactured goods have improved considerably while getting cheaper after inflation. Cars have a higher development investment, as well as marginal costs per unit considerations. Adding a feature to a car, like a carbon fiber hood over a steel one, incurs an added unit cost, while adding a level or something to a game has almost no marginal cost increase.
        juanuys 5y ago
nkozyra 5y ago
> If memory serves, the nominal price of most video games has not changed in about 30 years. They have. Mario was $50, games generally run $60+. The big difference? You don't need to manufacture a cartridge anymore.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
  You have to correct for inflation. 1986 Mario would be $120 today.
  - falcolas 5y ago
    The generation-specific costs (cartridges) and margins (physical retailer cuts, boxes, licensing fees) would have also been corrected for inflation. A bit of research shows an approximate $7 for developer cut of each sale at the 1988 figures. Given the approximate inflation adjustment, that becomes $18.20. Given that cartridge, physical retailers, and boxes are mostly gone, and even even with the deep licensing fees of the platforms today (30%), a $50 game will make the developer almost twice as much revenue as it did in 1988.
- vkou 5y ago
  The other big difference is that the typical AAA title isn't made on a budget of < $200,000 anymore.
  - falcolas 5y ago
    And yet, somehow, they're still making billions in profits. That implies that sales are still sufficient to pay back the development and marketing process, and still make profits. My example I've used elsewhere in this thread: God of War, a game without microtransactions, making $500M in the first year for under $100M in development costs.
- kbenson 5y ago
  No, Mario was $25 MSRP. See here[1] for some old copy showing prices, the majority at $25, a few at $30 and $35. 1: https://www.quora.com/How-much-did-the-game-Super-Mario-Bros-cost https://www.quora.com/How-much-did-the-game-Super-Mario-Bros...
nitwit005 5y ago
A price drop is expected with an audience expanding from millions to billions, even if the cost of the average game has shot up.
- qweqwweqwe-90i 5y ago
  The best video games back then sold millions... just like today/
HideousKojima 5y ago
The barriers to entry for developing, publishing, and distributing a game have also plummeted, meaning there is far more competition in the gaming industry. This should lead to lower priced games.
- qweqwweqwe-90i 5y ago
  Is this really true? Blockbuster games back in the day were universally made by tiny teams.
  - mywittyname 5y ago
    I'm not one of your downvoters, but these devs still had entire manufacturing, marketing, distribution, and executive teams behind them. Sure, developing the game could take a person a few weeks, but no one person was going to get that onto the shelves of Walmart alone. That's the big difference today. A person can develop a good game in a reasonable time frame, but they can also put that game on a virtual shelve in front of about a billion gamers world wide.

by sk2020 5y ago

nightski 5y ago

The user base has grown exponentially since then and it is far easier to impulse buy games than ever before (30 years ago I had to drive to a store to buy a boxed copy). There are far more gamers than before. Steam has also shown that by giving deep discounts even though per-unit profit goes down they are able to make tons more money. The monetization schemes are mostly just a way to squeeze every drop out of the customer possible. They use them because they work, not because they aren't profitable already.

google234123 5y ago
Exponentially is definitely the wrong word here
- wincy 5y ago
  My real estate agent said home prices were increasing exponentially and I said I really hoped my house wasn’t going to be worth billions next year.

p_j_w 5y ago

I'd rather see prices on games get raised than this sort of shit. The problem is every time prices go up everyone brings out the pitchforks, so we get this shit instead. It's largely turned me off of video games, especially big budget multiplayer focused games.

mrguyorama 5y ago
It's not an either/or situation. If publishers can raise the price of video games, they will NOT stop with ads and battlepasses and microtransactions etc. Why would they ever do that when those things make them more money than people actually purchasing the games in the first place?
zerocrates 5y ago
I'm not hugely opposed to price increases: these things happen. But the reality is you'll just get both. Now that it's determined that players will accept ads, microtransactions, gacha, etc., why not raise prices and also get those revenue streams. FIFA costing $70 will not stop the all-encompassing focus on Ultimate Team. (For perpective, just the Ultimate Team modes in their sports games supply about a third of EA's total revenue.) It's like when people say "if you're not paying for a service, then you're the product" to describe when user data is sold, when in actuality many services you do pay for happily sell your data all over the place.

lovich 5y ago

I can’t remember the internet exact year but I do remember the wailing and gnashing of teeth when they went from $50 standard to $60 standard sometime after 2000. Other than that one exception though, I believe you’re correct on prices.

falcolas 5y ago
They're up to $70 now on consoles.

falcolas 5y ago

A very old argument. The counter is: the audience for videogames has massively expanded. The secondary counter is: $70 is merely the entry point into games. Even before you look at microtransactions, you have battle passes, dozens of deluxe versions, and season passes. If this was really an issue - game prices not keeping up with inflation - publishers wouldn't be posting profits (not revenue, profits) in the billions of dollars. And on a more explicit point: God of War, a game with no microtransactions or any other BS, made their company over $500M in revenue in a year, for a game that cost them under $100M to make. So while I'm not surprised these multi-billion-dollars-of-profit companies are so ready to squeeze as much money as they can out of us, I don't attribute it to Tiny Tim begging for enough money to live, but to Ebenezer Scrooge hording as much money as he possibly can, no matter the societal cost (or cost to himself).

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Thaxll 5y ago
> And on a more explicit point: God of War You're taking the most succesful game on the most successful platform as an example, not sure it's very relevant for the thousands of games that get released every year...
- officeplant 5y ago
  Not every game is going to find success. We could do with a lot less of the major publishers ideas of "pay us $80 after the battle pass for the same shit you've been playing for 4 years with a new paint job". If an independent company like New Blood can find success simply by making good games and being a good company then major publishers can follow suit or die off.
- kbenson 5y ago
  And yet it's not the thousands of games that are released each year that include extra advertising, but the the largest and often most successful ones, because they know they can get away with it, and they're the ones with a built in audience to sell to advertisers.

marcodiego 5y ago

You're ignoring how much bigger the market is today.

qweqwweqwe-90i 5y ago
Cars have increased in price while the market has increased...
- mywittyname 5y ago
  Cars are waaaaaaay fucking better than they were in the past. My dad had a Mustang in the mid 90s, paid about $20k for it, it had 225hp, cloth seats, crappy stereo, got like 16mpg, handled like crap with skinny 16" tires, and was a completely unsafe tin can of a car. I have a newer one that I paid $35k for, it has 460hp, leather interior, a banging sound system, dozens of airbags, computer-controlled wizbangery that makes the car a breeze to drive, massive tires, and somehow gets 20mpg. Adjusted for inflation, these cars cost the same, but the newer one is such an incredibly massive improvement in every aspect.
  - google234123 5y ago
    Games are waaaaaaay fucking better than they were in the past. …
    - mywittyname 5y ago
      It makes sense that games would get so much cheaper over time, considering much more sophisticated manufactured goods have improved considerably while getting cheaper after inflation. Cars have a higher development investment, as well as marginal costs per unit considerations. Adding a feature to a car, like a carbon fiber hood over a steel one, incurs an added unit cost, while adding a level or something to a game has almost no marginal cost increase.
      - juanuys 5y ago

nkozyra 5y ago

> If memory serves, the nominal price of most video games has not changed in about 30 years. They have. Mario was $50, games generally run $60+. The big difference? You don't need to manufacture a cartridge anymore.

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
You have to correct for inflation. 1986 Mario would be $120 today.
- falcolas 5y ago
  The generation-specific costs (cartridges) and margins (physical retailer cuts, boxes, licensing fees) would have also been corrected for inflation. A bit of research shows an approximate $7 for developer cut of each sale at the 1988 figures. Given the approximate inflation adjustment, that becomes $18.20. Given that cartridge, physical retailers, and boxes are mostly gone, and even even with the deep licensing fees of the platforms today (30%), a $50 game will make the developer almost twice as much revenue as it did in 1988.
vkou 5y ago
The other big difference is that the typical AAA title isn't made on a budget of < $200,000 anymore.
- falcolas 5y ago
  And yet, somehow, they're still making billions in profits. That implies that sales are still sufficient to pay back the development and marketing process, and still make profits. My example I've used elsewhere in this thread: God of War, a game without microtransactions, making $500M in the first year for under $100M in development costs.
kbenson 5y ago
No, Mario was $25 MSRP. See here[1] for some old copy showing prices, the majority at $25, a few at $30 and $35. 1: https://www.quora.com/How-much-did-the-game-Super-Mario-Bros-cost https://www.quora.com/How-much-did-the-game-Super-Mario-Bros...

nitwit005 5y ago

A price drop is expected with an audience expanding from millions to billions, even if the cost of the average game has shot up.

qweqwweqwe-90i 5y ago
The best video games back then sold millions... just like today/

HideousKojima 5y ago

The barriers to entry for developing, publishing, and distributing a game have also plummeted, meaning there is far more competition in the gaming industry. This should lead to lower priced games.

qweqwweqwe-90i 5y ago
Is this really true? Blockbuster games back in the day were universally made by tiny teams.
- mywittyname 5y ago
  I'm not one of your downvoters, but these devs still had entire manufacturing, marketing, distribution, and executive teams behind them. Sure, developing the game could take a person a few weeks, but no one person was going to get that onto the shelves of Walmart alone. That's the big difference today. A person can develop a good game in a reasonable time frame, but they can also put that game on a virtual shelve in front of about a billion gamers world wide.