6 ms·

Speaking of keeping up with inflation: AAA video games have been $59.99 for like fifteen years. Sony has been flirting with finally inflation correcting this a

Speaking of keeping up with inflation: AAA video games have been $59.99 for like fifteen years. Sony has been flirting with finally inflation correcting this and a lot of people freaked out for some reason. I wonder if 2023 will be the year this takes hold.

Analemma_ 4y ago
Yeah, I hate price hikes as much as anybody, but the fact that gamers pitch a fit if anyone contemplates moving the magic $60 price point is not sustainable. In real terms, games have been getting 2-3% cheaper every year for like two decades, with a huge cut this year due to inflation. It has to move eventually.
- nocsi 4y ago
  Why? Games are easier to develop today than they’ve ever been. The only class of game that can push the $69.99 envelope are those making AAA games. Games and movies are the two cheapest forms of entertainment. They’re not going to mess with the formula, especially since both these industries do really well in a depression
  - Waterluvian 4y ago
    Indeed it may be a shrewd business decision to effectively cut prices. But no other industry is expected to cut prices due to economies of scale.
  - p1necone 4y ago
    > Why? Games are easier to develop today than they’ve ever been. The only class of game that can push the $69.99 envelope are those making AAA games. Nobody is selling indie games for $60/$69.99 (except maybe physical releases to cover manufacturing costs, and collectors edition type stuff). The barrier for entry may be lower, but AAA game development costs are massively higher now than they were ~10+ years ago.
  - Insanity 4y ago
    making games is easier but they grew in scope. Also, wouldn't books be cheaper for entertainment?
    - majewsky 4y ago
      I've paid 20 bucks for Minecraft, and got over 4000 hours of entertainment out of it. If there's a book with a similar cost-benefit ratio, I'm not aware of it (except for public-domain or open-source e-books obviously, can't beat free).
      - Waterluvian 4y ago
        The dictionary is the Minecraft of the literary word. Buy one and knock yourself out!
      - iainmerrick 4y ago
        D&D manuals?
  - nemo44x 4y ago
    They’re cheaper to distribute but not necessarily cheaper to bake at the highest levels.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  For what it's worth, it's commonplace in Japan for new release domestic-made games to sell for upwards of 20,000 to 30,000 JPY (roughly $200~$300) USD depending on how much premium flair is tacked on; even base games going upwards of 15,000 JPY (roughly ~$150 USD). On the one hand they are expensive compared to standard western fare, but on the other they do look more representative of the kind of money game devs should be getting.
oneeyedpigeon 4y ago
> AAA video games have been $59.99 for like fifteen years SNES games were $50-60 and that was thirty years ago!
- bityard 4y ago
  Pretty sure I paid $80 for some RPG or another (possibly Chrono Trigger) right after release back in the day.
  - magila 4y ago
    RPGs were more expensive than other games due to a combination of high development cost, high cartridge cost (RPGs took a lot of ROM storage), and relatively small market (action games were more popular).
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      Factored in with translation costs (or god forbid an included manual) and it's crazy these things even made it to the US in the first place. No wonder NES/SNES RPGs are in such short supply.
  - code_duck 4y ago
    Phantasy Star for the Sega Master System was $70 - in 1988. Adjusted for inflation that’s about $180.
Philip-J-Fry 4y ago
I'm convinced that's more that games were very overpriced for a long time. Or at least they were expensive because sales were generally lower. Games used to be ridiculously expensive. Big publishers like EA, Activision, Take Two, etc. All still made/make killer profits on games. Development costs more today, but games are also selling a lot more plus there's other revenue streams like microtransactions and subscriptions. They really aren't struggling for cash. Nintendo has the right idea. They just basically never drop the price of their games. Whereas most other publisher's reduce prices by 50% within just a month or two. Big games often have long tails.
- LegitShady 4y ago
  I don't think the games were overpriced until you factor in overmonetization through season passes, DLC, and microtransactions in many games that release at full price. The full price would have been fair, the rest of the anti consumer business model means the full price is userous.
- AussieWog93 4y ago
  >I'm convinced that's more that games were very overpriced for a long time. Dunkey (famous YouTuber) made a pretty interesting short video essay on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvPkAYT6B1Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvPkAYT6B1Q His takeaway that video game pricing doesn't make any sense, and never has. $60 for a beautiful work of art that you'll remember for the rest of your life is the deal of a lifetime, whereas $60 for a forgettable, shameless cash grab is a complete rip-off. I'm run a retro games business now, and the pricing honestly makes a lot more sense from an economic point of view. $300 for EarthBound is still a better deal than $8 for Final Fantasy XIII-2.
  - seanhunter 4y ago
    > $60 for a beautiful work of art that you'll remember for the rest of your life is the deal of a lifetime, whereas $60 for a forgettable, shameless cash grab is a complete rip-off. This exactly. I can't remember what I paid for Factorio or Subnautica or Valheim but 100x what I paid still would be amazing value vs 1/100th of what I paid for Fallout 4 would still be too much.
juve1996 4y ago
AAA video games have been jumping on the microtransactions bandwagon. Raising the entry price may not make financial sense anymore.
- password321 4y ago
  Most AAA games don't actually include microtransactions. The ones that do are mostly free for that very reason.
  - juve1996 4y ago
    Many AAA games have microtransactions. Look at FIFA - a 60 dollar game, and for FUT, more money on packs. Apex Legends is a free example of a AAA game with microtransactions. Overwatch initially had cost and dropped it. COD MW2 is another example. In any case that makes the argument even stronger - the fact that games are offered free, shows that raising the price isn't as profitable as making games with microtransactions and simply making them free. The revenues are simply in another stratosphere.
  - komali2 4y ago
    Far Cry and Shadow of Mordor immediately come to mind as full priced games with microtransactions.
moonchild 4y ago
Probably, market growth has sustained it. I do expect it will saturate at some point, but it's not clear to me that has happened yet. Though the growth of the market has been non-constant—probably sigmoid-ish, and it is certainly on the decline now.
aikinai 4y ago
Way more than fifteen years. They’ve been $59.99 at least since the nineties.
- axlee 4y ago
  I remember super NES games being 450F (french francs) back in the 90s, which would be around ~100€ nowadays. Ain't no games selling for that much. A PS2 costed 3000F, which would be 640€ nowadays, so a lot more than the PS5's 550€.
  - joveian 4y ago
    Space Quest III had this screenshot: https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6llg6z-mw9o/UfMX2SJk8XI/AAAAAAAAA7I/paySwBe2Vmc/s1600/16_60bucks.png https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6llg6z-mw9o/UfMX2SJk8XI/AAAAAAAAA... From this story outline with spoilers (don't listen to this person, Astro Chicken was the best part): https://playedbypanthro.blogspot.com/2013/07/space-quest-iii-pirates-of-pestulon.html https://playedbypanthro.blogspot.com/2013/07/space-quest-iii... Caption: "$59.99?? in 1989?? I surely hope not!" It was, though :(. There are some "I am rich" editions of games that sell for around $100 now but the base game is still $59.99 (and sometimes all the extras have little to no effect on the game). And sales are generally quicker and deeper now (games are often 50% off or more by the time the most obvious bugs are fixed) and wait a few years and they are often $5 or less.
jszymborski 4y ago
I know these companies keep posting crazy numbers and make wild pre-sale money, but I do wonder how many people are like myself who: (1) play video games with friends most weeks (2) buy new games regularly (3) have not purchased a game over 40 CAD since I was in high school, with the average being closer to 20 CAD. My friends and I just don't have the appetite to drop 80 CAD on new releases, and just play other games until the big releases go on sale, which usually happens relatively quickly. I feel like after Cyberpunk and No Man's Sky and Fallout 76 that the "do not buy pre-sales" wisdom is quite well known and regarded. I do wonder if there is some chance that people will increasingly just wait-and-see when it comes to new releases. Although that's probably just wishful thinking. I just know that I'm happy waiting for sales to play a year old game with all the patch fixes.
- swatcoder 4y ago
  You’re not alone, but there’s a specific experience to participating in the launch buzz of a new AAA game, just like there is with a new blockbuster film. Even if the buzz for the game or film turns sour, or you personally hate it, there’s something to enjoy in being a part of a big cultural event in your community. Each launch/opening is as much about the festival as much as it is about the product. There will always be people willing to pay to attend that festival, and always companies willing to compete for the opportunity to host it.
  - komali2 4y ago
    The best recent example of this I have is the Elden Ring release. The first couple months of playing that alongside a global community of people parsing the story and discovering obscenely fleshed out secrets (to entire different maps no less!) was one of my favorite videogame experiences. I totally understand the slow gamer philosophy though, I think it's important that there's people out there doing that. The slow gamer that picks up Elden Ring on sale in 5 years and runs it at 4k60 on equipment half the price of mine will have their own uniquely special experience, not the least because the game will have been changed through patches and the community's understanding of the game will be more fleshed out... And we'll all get to enjoy their excited first time play through posts on the subreddit or wherever, which will be a delight after the game has faded into memory over years.
sangnoir 4y ago
Does that include day-1 DLC?
- bombcar 4y ago
  To be fair to games today, things like Doom 2 would probably just be DLC now.
doublepg23 4y ago
Speak of the devil, leaks are suggesting Nintendo is pricing the new Zelda at $69.99 https://twitter.com/Wario64/status/1623119561846579200 https://twitter.com/Wario64/status/1623119561846579200
- ace2358 4y ago
  It’s already listen on Australian retailer JB Hi-Fi for $79 AUD [1]. Funnily enough they also sell breath of the wild for the same price. Should I expect it go up in price before release? [1] https://www.jbhifi.com.au/products/nintendo-switch-the-legend-of-zeldatears-of-the-kingdom?queryID=83b50685d6204621c1f4e1b8de3503b1&objectID=609877 https://www.jbhifi.com.au/products/nintendo-switch-the-legen...
Lev1a 4y ago
> Keeping up with inflation > AAA video games have been $59.99 for like fifteen years Be warned, the author/presenter of the following linked video is quite a character, but they do actually make sense: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7kaK2-725w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7kaK2-725w (2020) deals with those BS excuse as the very same trotted out for years, debunked even by quotes from top gaming execs, the corporate financial filings and exposees on the industry. - $60 has for years just been the shell price with predatory monetization practices raking in more money than ever - the same excuses have been used a few years ago to justify cramming "micro"-transactions down the collective throat of customers, nickel and diming them for the complete experience after having already paid for the shell price; now it's still being said that games' prices haven't increased in decades, while only the entry prices on the box haven't changed - the audience size has only gotten larger - distribution has largely gone digital, saving costs of physical distribution - wages have been stagnant while inflation rose, even some employees of these very same games companies aren't making enough to eat in that very same company's cafeteria - tax evasion by the games companies through pretending their IP is registered in empty offices/basements the world over means they gift themselves hundreds of millions of you US taxpayers money every year.
LegitShady 4y ago
It may cost more to make games, but people don't have more money to pay for games, so raising the price might end up a net loss. I bet there are a lot of people analyzing scenarios.
maxsilver 4y ago
> AAA video games have been $59.99 for like fifteen years. AAA video games haven't actually been $59.99 for over a decade. AAA games for the last decade or so have had an "entry-level" / beginnners plan (at that $59 price point) but content that previously would have been in the base game has been sectioned off into upsells / DLC / add-ons for an extra $15 to $40/ea. I don't personally care much (indie games have gotten so good, I barely play AAA stuff much anymore) -- but in the interest of honesty, inflation correction has already been happening in gaming this entire time. However, the "add on another extra 15% just for the CEO alone" increase that other industries did in 2021/2022 hadn't happened in gaming yet, and that's what the higher base price is for here.
nemo44x 4y ago
They were $59.99 (and more) in the late 1980’s. Of course the media they are on has gone to $0 but the cost to bring to market is much higher. Much larger audience today of course.
xboxnolifes 4y ago
I think the reason video games have been able to stay at $60 for so long is because the industry has been growing. Even though the unit price stayed at $60, the number of customers has grown year after year, and software has it's notoriously low marginal cost.
llanowarelves 4y ago
Man, some of my sibling commenters are out of touch. Tens of millions of dollars funding for log analysis / picture / messaging b2b startups, selling $100/host/month is fine, using mostly off the shelf tools (every part of the stack, even the UI components, nice). But wanting $60 for a game that you spent $60m+ and 4 years to make, is "corporate greed" and send people into passionate youtube video style opposition. Despite needing to sell over a million copies to break even in a hit-driven business (how many b2b or even b2c businesses here do that?). I would love to see people try to work with those rough economics (and no, it's not "reduce the price by half and sell 2x as much" when you want to make something AAA with a niche (apparently 1 million is niche) audience. This is why when the price is not allowed to rise, the quality drops: it has to appeal to more people, lowest common denominator). Instead, they are making $300k a year tweaking load balancers for picture, chat, advertisement, and api connector apps, when they arent trying to automate away artists with AI, the only decently paying job artists had being in games. It is no wonder there's so many "live service" games now. They simply see how much, how predictably, and how risk-averse they can be with the payment of people paying into SaaS-tech is and got inspired.
- rockbruno 4y ago
  I would have no problem with that if you paid a sum and got the full game. However the situation we have today is that you pay $60 for what is essentially 10% of the actual game and is constantly milked for the rest of it. The scenario you're presented is how this situation worked in the past, but today the industry has changed into something else entirely.
  - phendrenad2 4y ago
    Okay, which of the top 10 best-selling games of 2022 are 10% of an actual game? https://www.statista.com/statistics/1285658/top-ranked-video-games-sales-annual/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1285658/top-ranked-video...
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
ornornor 4y ago
Where I live, a new AAA game costs 80 CHF/USD and sometimes even over 90 CHF/USD. I really wonder who actually pays those prices for games. You could buy a whole spare console after only 4–5 games.
lemoncookiechip 4y ago
AAA games increased pretty much across the board to 70€£$ last year (adopted by most publishers, you can Google it since there's a lot of different articles for each publisher). But the reality is that they've been increasing in price for two decades now. People like to forget all the special editions that include all the removed content from the base game (some are so bad, you need a spreadsheet to know what is in what version of the game), all the DLC, microtransactions, expansion packs, season pass, lootbox, pre-order bonuses, subscriptions... (the list of monetization goes on). The reality is that games stopped being 60 a long time ago, the 60$€£ is what you pay for the base game. And lets not even get into the fact that we're glorified beta tester these days, and require an online connection to get the constant patches to make games playable.
phendrenad2 4y ago
According the USA BLS inflation calculator [1], $60 in 1990 is $140 in 2023. I'd love to see what a game company could do with a $140/unit price point. Then again, it would probably be equivalent to what we have now with a base game ($60) and several DLCs ($40*3). [1] - https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

Analemma_ 4y ago

Yeah, I hate price hikes as much as anybody, but the fact that gamers pitch a fit if anyone contemplates moving the magic $60 price point is not sustainable. In real terms, games have been getting 2-3% cheaper every year for like two decades, with a huge cut this year due to inflation. It has to move eventually.

nocsi 4y ago
Why? Games are easier to develop today than they’ve ever been. The only class of game that can push the $69.99 envelope are those making AAA games. Games and movies are the two cheapest forms of entertainment. They’re not going to mess with the formula, especially since both these industries do really well in a depression
- Waterluvian 4y ago
  Indeed it may be a shrewd business decision to effectively cut prices. But no other industry is expected to cut prices due to economies of scale.
- p1necone 4y ago
  > Why? Games are easier to develop today than they’ve ever been. The only class of game that can push the $69.99 envelope are those making AAA games. Nobody is selling indie games for $60/$69.99 (except maybe physical releases to cover manufacturing costs, and collectors edition type stuff). The barrier for entry may be lower, but AAA game development costs are massively higher now than they were ~10+ years ago.
- Insanity 4y ago
  making games is easier but they grew in scope. Also, wouldn't books be cheaper for entertainment?
  - majewsky 4y ago
    I've paid 20 bucks for Minecraft, and got over 4000 hours of entertainment out of it. If there's a book with a similar cost-benefit ratio, I'm not aware of it (except for public-domain or open-source e-books obviously, can't beat free).
    - Waterluvian 4y ago
      The dictionary is the Minecraft of the literary word. Buy one and knock yourself out!
    - iainmerrick 4y ago
      D&D manuals?
- nemo44x 4y ago
  They’re cheaper to distribute but not necessarily cheaper to bake at the highest levels.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
Dalewyn 4y ago
For what it's worth, it's commonplace in Japan for new release domestic-made games to sell for upwards of 20,000 to 30,000 JPY (roughly $200~$300) USD depending on how much premium flair is tacked on; even base games going upwards of 15,000 JPY (roughly ~$150 USD). On the one hand they are expensive compared to standard western fare, but on the other they do look more representative of the kind of money game devs should be getting.

oneeyedpigeon 4y ago

> AAA video games have been $59.99 for like fifteen years SNES games were $50-60 and that was thirty years ago!

bityard 4y ago
Pretty sure I paid $80 for some RPG or another (possibly Chrono Trigger) right after release back in the day.
- magila 4y ago
  RPGs were more expensive than other games due to a combination of high development cost, high cartridge cost (RPGs took a lot of ROM storage), and relatively small market (action games were more popular).
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    Factored in with translation costs (or god forbid an included manual) and it's crazy these things even made it to the US in the first place. No wonder NES/SNES RPGs are in such short supply.
- code_duck 4y ago
  Phantasy Star for the Sega Master System was $70 - in 1988. Adjusted for inflation that’s about $180.

Philip-J-Fry 4y ago

I'm convinced that's more that games were very overpriced for a long time. Or at least they were expensive because sales were generally lower. Games used to be ridiculously expensive. Big publishers like EA, Activision, Take Two, etc. All still made/make killer profits on games. Development costs more today, but games are also selling a lot more plus there's other revenue streams like microtransactions and subscriptions. They really aren't struggling for cash. Nintendo has the right idea. They just basically never drop the price of their games. Whereas most other publisher's reduce prices by 50% within just a month or two. Big games often have long tails.

LegitShady 4y ago
I don't think the games were overpriced until you factor in overmonetization through season passes, DLC, and microtransactions in many games that release at full price. The full price would have been fair, the rest of the anti consumer business model means the full price is userous.
AussieWog93 4y ago
>I'm convinced that's more that games were very overpriced for a long time. Dunkey (famous YouTuber) made a pretty interesting short video essay on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvPkAYT6B1Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvPkAYT6B1Q His takeaway that video game pricing doesn't make any sense, and never has. $60 for a beautiful work of art that you'll remember for the rest of your life is the deal of a lifetime, whereas $60 for a forgettable, shameless cash grab is a complete rip-off. I'm run a retro games business now, and the pricing honestly makes a lot more sense from an economic point of view. $300 for EarthBound is still a better deal than $8 for Final Fantasy XIII-2.
- seanhunter 4y ago
  > $60 for a beautiful work of art that you'll remember for the rest of your life is the deal of a lifetime, whereas $60 for a forgettable, shameless cash grab is a complete rip-off. This exactly. I can't remember what I paid for Factorio or Subnautica or Valheim but 100x what I paid still would be amazing value vs 1/100th of what I paid for Fallout 4 would still be too much.

juve1996 4y ago

AAA video games have been jumping on the microtransactions bandwagon. Raising the entry price may not make financial sense anymore.

password321 4y ago
Most AAA games don't actually include microtransactions. The ones that do are mostly free for that very reason.
- juve1996 4y ago
  Many AAA games have microtransactions. Look at FIFA - a 60 dollar game, and for FUT, more money on packs. Apex Legends is a free example of a AAA game with microtransactions. Overwatch initially had cost and dropped it. COD MW2 is another example. In any case that makes the argument even stronger - the fact that games are offered free, shows that raising the price isn't as profitable as making games with microtransactions and simply making them free. The revenues are simply in another stratosphere.
- komali2 4y ago
  Far Cry and Shadow of Mordor immediately come to mind as full priced games with microtransactions.

moonchild 4y ago

Probably, market growth has sustained it. I do expect it will saturate at some point, but it's not clear to me that has happened yet. Though the growth of the market has been non-constant—probably sigmoid-ish, and it is certainly on the decline now.

aikinai 4y ago

Way more than fifteen years. They’ve been $59.99 at least since the nineties.

axlee 4y ago
I remember super NES games being 450F (french francs) back in the 90s, which would be around ~100€ nowadays. Ain't no games selling for that much. A PS2 costed 3000F, which would be 640€ nowadays, so a lot more than the PS5's 550€.
- joveian 4y ago
  Space Quest III had this screenshot: https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6llg6z-mw9o/UfMX2SJk8XI/AAAAAAAAA7I/paySwBe2Vmc/s1600/16_60bucks.png https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6llg6z-mw9o/UfMX2SJk8XI/AAAAAAAAA... From this story outline with spoilers (don't listen to this person, Astro Chicken was the best part): https://playedbypanthro.blogspot.com/2013/07/space-quest-iii-pirates-of-pestulon.html https://playedbypanthro.blogspot.com/2013/07/space-quest-iii... Caption: "$59.99?? in 1989?? I surely hope not!" It was, though :(. There are some "I am rich" editions of games that sell for around $100 now but the base game is still $59.99 (and sometimes all the extras have little to no effect on the game). And sales are generally quicker and deeper now (games are often 50% off or more by the time the most obvious bugs are fixed) and wait a few years and they are often $5 or less.

jszymborski 4y ago

I know these companies keep posting crazy numbers and make wild pre-sale money, but I do wonder how many people are like myself who: (1) play video games with friends most weeks (2) buy new games regularly (3) have not purchased a game over 40 CAD since I was in high school, with the average being closer to 20 CAD. My friends and I just don't have the appetite to drop 80 CAD on new releases, and just play other games until the big releases go on sale, which usually happens relatively quickly. I feel like after Cyberpunk and No Man's Sky and Fallout 76 that the "do not buy pre-sales" wisdom is quite well known and regarded. I do wonder if there is some chance that people will increasingly just wait-and-see when it comes to new releases. Although that's probably just wishful thinking. I just know that I'm happy waiting for sales to play a year old game with all the patch fixes.

swatcoder 4y ago
You’re not alone, but there’s a specific experience to participating in the launch buzz of a new AAA game, just like there is with a new blockbuster film. Even if the buzz for the game or film turns sour, or you personally hate it, there’s something to enjoy in being a part of a big cultural event in your community. Each launch/opening is as much about the festival as much as it is about the product. There will always be people willing to pay to attend that festival, and always companies willing to compete for the opportunity to host it.
- komali2 4y ago
  The best recent example of this I have is the Elden Ring release. The first couple months of playing that alongside a global community of people parsing the story and discovering obscenely fleshed out secrets (to entire different maps no less!) was one of my favorite videogame experiences. I totally understand the slow gamer philosophy though, I think it's important that there's people out there doing that. The slow gamer that picks up Elden Ring on sale in 5 years and runs it at 4k60 on equipment half the price of mine will have their own uniquely special experience, not the least because the game will have been changed through patches and the community's understanding of the game will be more fleshed out... And we'll all get to enjoy their excited first time play through posts on the subreddit or wherever, which will be a delight after the game has faded into memory over years.

sangnoir 4y ago

Does that include day-1 DLC?

bombcar 4y ago
To be fair to games today, things like Doom 2 would probably just be DLC now.

doublepg23 4y ago

Speak of the devil, leaks are suggesting Nintendo is pricing the new Zelda at $69.99 https://twitter.com/Wario64/status/1623119561846579200 https://twitter.com/Wario64/status/1623119561846579200

ace2358 4y ago
It’s already listen on Australian retailer JB Hi-Fi for $79 AUD [1]. Funnily enough they also sell breath of the wild for the same price. Should I expect it go up in price before release? [1] https://www.jbhifi.com.au/products/nintendo-switch-the-legend-of-zeldatears-of-the-kingdom?queryID=83b50685d6204621c1f4e1b8de3503b1&objectID=609877 https://www.jbhifi.com.au/products/nintendo-switch-the-legen...

Lev1a 4y ago

> Keeping up with inflation > AAA video games have been $59.99 for like fifteen years Be warned, the author/presenter of the following linked video is quite a character, but they do actually make sense: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7kaK2-725w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7kaK2-725w (2020) deals with those BS excuse as the very same trotted out for years, debunked even by quotes from top gaming execs, the corporate financial filings and exposees on the industry. - $60 has for years just been the shell price with predatory monetization practices raking in more money than ever - the same excuses have been used a few years ago to justify cramming "micro"-transactions down the collective throat of customers, nickel and diming them for the complete experience after having already paid for the shell price; now it's still being said that games' prices haven't increased in decades, while only the entry prices on the box haven't changed - the audience size has only gotten larger - distribution has largely gone digital, saving costs of physical distribution - wages have been stagnant while inflation rose, even some employees of these very same games companies aren't making enough to eat in that very same company's cafeteria - tax evasion by the games companies through pretending their IP is registered in empty offices/basements the world over means they gift themselves hundreds of millions of you US taxpayers money every year.

LegitShady 4y ago

It may cost more to make games, but people don't have more money to pay for games, so raising the price might end up a net loss. I bet there are a lot of people analyzing scenarios.

maxsilver 4y ago

> AAA video games have been $59.99 for like fifteen years. AAA video games haven't actually been $59.99 for over a decade. AAA games for the last decade or so have had an "entry-level" / beginnners plan (at that $59 price point) but content that previously would have been in the base game has been sectioned off into upsells / DLC / add-ons for an extra $15 to $40/ea. I don't personally care much (indie games have gotten so good, I barely play AAA stuff much anymore) -- but in the interest of honesty, inflation correction has already been happening in gaming this entire time. However, the "add on another extra 15% just for the CEO alone" increase that other industries did in 2021/2022 hadn't happened in gaming yet, and that's what the higher base price is for here.

nemo44x 4y ago

They were $59.99 (and more) in the late 1980’s. Of course the media they are on has gone to $0 but the cost to bring to market is much higher. Much larger audience today of course.

xboxnolifes 4y ago

I think the reason video games have been able to stay at $60 for so long is because the industry has been growing. Even though the unit price stayed at $60, the number of customers has grown year after year, and software has it's notoriously low marginal cost.

llanowarelves 4y ago

Man, some of my sibling commenters are out of touch. Tens of millions of dollars funding for log analysis / picture / messaging b2b startups, selling $100/host/month is fine, using mostly off the shelf tools (every part of the stack, even the UI components, nice). But wanting $60 for a game that you spent $60m+ and 4 years to make, is "corporate greed" and send people into passionate youtube video style opposition. Despite needing to sell over a million copies to break even in a hit-driven business (how many b2b or even b2c businesses here do that?). I would love to see people try to work with those rough economics (and no, it's not "reduce the price by half and sell 2x as much" when you want to make something AAA with a niche (apparently 1 million is niche) audience. This is why when the price is not allowed to rise, the quality drops: it has to appeal to more people, lowest common denominator). Instead, they are making $300k a year tweaking load balancers for picture, chat, advertisement, and api connector apps, when they arent trying to automate away artists with AI, the only decently paying job artists had being in games. It is no wonder there's so many "live service" games now. They simply see how much, how predictably, and how risk-averse they can be with the payment of people paying into SaaS-tech is and got inspired.

rockbruno 4y ago
I would have no problem with that if you paid a sum and got the full game. However the situation we have today is that you pay $60 for what is essentially 10% of the actual game and is constantly milked for the rest of it. The scenario you're presented is how this situation worked in the past, but today the industry has changed into something else entirely.
- phendrenad2 4y ago
  Okay, which of the top 10 best-selling games of 2022 are 10% of an actual game? https://www.statista.com/statistics/1285658/top-ranked-video-games-sales-annual/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1285658/top-ranked-video...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

ornornor 4y ago

Where I live, a new AAA game costs 80 CHF/USD and sometimes even over 90 CHF/USD. I really wonder who actually pays those prices for games. You could buy a whole spare console after only 4–5 games.

lemoncookiechip 4y ago

AAA games increased pretty much across the board to 70€£$ last year (adopted by most publishers, you can Google it since there's a lot of different articles for each publisher). But the reality is that they've been increasing in price for two decades now. People like to forget all the special editions that include all the removed content from the base game (some are so bad, you need a spreadsheet to know what is in what version of the game), all the DLC, microtransactions, expansion packs, season pass, lootbox, pre-order bonuses, subscriptions... (the list of monetization goes on). The reality is that games stopped being 60 a long time ago, the 60$€£ is what you pay for the base game. And lets not even get into the fact that we're glorified beta tester these days, and require an online connection to get the constant patches to make games playable.

phendrenad2 4y ago

According the USA BLS inflation calculator [1], $60 in 1990 is $140 in 2023. I'd love to see what a game company could do with a $140/unit price point. Then again, it would probably be equivalent to what we have now with a base game ($60) and several DLCs ($40*3). [1] - https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm