5 ms·

If games are so expensive to make and sell so cheap, how come are the game companies getting bigger and making record profits year after year? Not that the medi

If games are so expensive to make and sell so cheap, how come are the game companies getting bigger and making record profits year after year? Not that the median game developer seems to be much better off for it, though. Besides, many of those $10 games that are $30 on the Switch are made by smaller teams or even solo creators. Just because some video game properties have grown into giant franchises with multimedia companies pouring tens and hundreds of millions dollars and armies of people into them, that doesn't mean the majority of video game titles around are like that. Come to think of it, in the light of the countless recent stories of overwork and abuse in the games industry and the scandalous quality issues plaguing high-profile releases in recent years, I'm not even sure if we should be incentivizing games having a lot of work go into them. How come is it entitlement to not buy things that cost more than you think they are worth, anyway? Expensive things don't become cheap just because they're cheaper than four decades ago nor because they happen to be created and marketed by large corporations with lots of employees. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlfyxWaeGCE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlfyxWaeGCE

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
> If games are so expensive to make and sell so cheap, how come are the game companies getting bigger and making record profits year after year? Not that the median game developer seems to be much better off for it, though. That's a fair point. My first guess is lootboxes and microtransactions being used to make up the difference, as well as underpaying employees. For big studios it is common to lay off developers immediately after a big release. Regardless, I don't think that same logic applies to smaller studios. > How come is it entitlement to not buy things that cost more than you think they are worth, anyway? That isn't what I was saying, though I admit I didn't make it very clear. If you don't want to buy something because the cost isn't worth it to you, that's perfectly fair. What I am annoyed by and think is entitled is any kind of objective-sounding judgement that 'games are too expensive'.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago

> If games are so expensive to make and sell so cheap, how come are the game companies getting bigger and making record profits year after year? Not that the median game developer seems to be much better off for it, though. That's a fair point. My first guess is lootboxes and microtransactions being used to make up the difference, as well as underpaying employees. For big studios it is common to lay off developers immediately after a big release. Regardless, I don't think that same logic applies to smaller studios. > How come is it entitlement to not buy things that cost more than you think they are worth, anyway? That isn't what I was saying, though I admit I didn't make it very clear. If you don't want to buy something because the cost isn't worth it to you, that's perfectly fair. What I am annoyed by and think is entitled is any kind of objective-sounding judgement that 'games are too expensive'.