$65 for a video game!?!? Outrageous!

[EllipsisBreak]

We've been through this plenty of times before. Old cartridge games were more expensive because they cost a whole lot more to manufacture than discs do. Cartridge games could essentially contain console hardware inside them. And those prices were too much for the market to fully bear. That's why rentals were such a big deal.

We also need to consider wage stagnation. And the fact that modern games have found more monetization strategies beyond the initial purchase. And the record profits of the companies that supposedly need a price hike now.

There is so much more to this conversation than "look at these old prices!", and at some point we need to accept that context matters.

 

[Sumio Mondo]

Guess Jim Ryan was right all along then.

 

[StraySheep]

I see it's time for our weekly 8/16-bit prices thread that thinly veils being an apologetic defense towards overpaid CEOs getting wealthier.

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While ignoring the monumental increase in consumers and the fact that there are long term benefits to the industry not jacking up the price of games. But whatever back in the old days...

 

[Shifty360]

They weren't loaded with micro-transactions

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They were generally much smaller and obviously much more basic.

 

[Nephilim]

I can't think of a game past generation i didn't get my moneys worth.

Games like RDR2, God of War or the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 are easily worth the full price tag to me.
Games are expensive to make and they get better and more refined over the ages.

 

[OmegaDL50]

We've been through this plenty of times before. Old cartridge games were more expensive because they cost a whole lot more to manufacture than discs do. Cartridge games could essentially contain console hardware inside them. And those prices were too much for the market to fully bear. That's why rentals were such a big deal.

We also need to consider wage stagnation. And the fact that modern games have found more monetization strategies beyond the initial purchase. And the record profits of the companies that supposedly need a price hike now.

There is so much more to this conversation than "look at these old prices!", and at some point we need to accept that context matters.

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On the subject of carts having console hardware inside them. I think an interesting case can apply to Neo-Geo AES and MVS carts alone. It was the first case of a console that identical experience in terms of visuals and gameplay from its arcade version to a home release, an unfortunate by-product of the home console sharing the same hardware as the arcade hardware was the pricing reflected as such.

Of course this isn't the only example such when things like the Nintendo Vs. System existed. Although in the case of the Vs. Systems some of the games could be very different from their console counterparts. Super Mario Bros. being a good example in this case.

Of course specialized hardware such as CPS Changer and Superguns can achieve the same effect but I find it interesting with the total shift of console hardware getting to the point of being able outpace the capabilities of arcade hardware which led to being able to release more and more arcade perfect ports over the years.

The Genesis / Megadrive was also interesting example as it recieved a lot of cutdown System16 ports. (Golden Axe, Altered Beast, Alien Syndrome, etc) and then there was the Super Scalar (Outrun and Hang-On / Super Hang-On).

Interestingly enough there was the Sega C-2 Arcade Board which was based on Megadrive / Genesis hardware, and then there was this - https://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=707 which basically used actual Genesis Carts with a special bios that made them unable to load on actual Megadrive / Genesis hardware.

The biggest difference in this case is there was games exclusive to the Sega C-2 that weren't released for the home console, unlike the case for the MVS / AES sharing an almost identical library.

 

[AHA-Lambda]

I mean, games was a much more niche market back then, selling far less and having less methods of monetization

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.

 

[plain]

I think my dad bought Mario Bros several times. Those cartridges were massively unreliable.

 

[KillLaCam]

They were generally much smaller and obviously much more basic.

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product of the times

 

[Nuclear Muffin]

They were generally much smaller and obviously much more basic.

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They came on literal hardware of their own; with custom chips, mappers, RAM, CIC Lockout chips and expensive MASK ROM.

That is what you were really paying for with those high prices. Some games had custom chips that were more powerful than the actual console CPUs they actually ran on!

On a side note, this is also why handheld games were generally so much cheaper than cartridges for consoles. They were typically (but not always) ROM chips and not much more (This is also why pirated GB/GBA games were far more common than for console games; they even skimped on the anti-piracy hardware chips that the console game carts would have!)

 

[PandemicOdin]

They were like 4 hours content that took you forever because of the extremely harsh and punishing difficulty.

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This is underrated, I swear when I was younger I used to think games like Mischief Maker, Glover, etc were longer because I was young, stupid and the games took me forever to beat. Both games are ~5hrs on "How Long to Beat". Might have taken me a year if I beat them at all lololol

 

[Samaritan]

This is why I kind of chuckle whenever I see people complaining about the $70 price bump this generation. Are a ton of games loaded with micro transactions and DLC? Absolutely. But considering the cost of development today, and compared to the price of games in the late 80s and early 90s, we still have it pretty good.

 

[T-800]

With how quickly games drop in price now I don't really care where they set the starting price. I can wait.

 

[elyetis]

Oh I remember those times, expensive cartbridge, huge second hand and rental market, no microtransaction, a console industry which still made less money than the arcade industry.

Clearly we need to get closer to those older price because nothing about the industry changed since then except an increase in developpement price.

Does those boot taste good ? I understand how sad one can be that a company like EA only doubled it's revenue over the past 15 years.

 

[ejo]

i'm old enough to remember those prices. i'd either have to save my allowance (took months) or my parents would buy me 1 game a year. times were tough man.

 

[KDR_11k]

TMNT the Arcade Game is worth that price

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I paid the equivalent of $10 for the C64 version of that game.

 

[Deleted member 679]

Make the PS5 $130 and I promise I'll never complain about $70 games, deal?

 

[KillLaCam]

Oh I remember those times, expensive cartbridge, huge second hand and rental market, no microtransaction, a console industry which still made less money than the arcade industry.

Clearly we need to get closer to those older price because nothing about the industry changed since then except an increase in developpement price.

Does those boot taste ? I understand how sad one can be that a company like EA only doubled it's revenue over the past 15 years.

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The best post here

 

[Rick44-4]

They were still considered new mind blowing technology back then though

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But they still cost way less to make than equivalent games now.

 

[Atlas_XIX]

Oh I remember those times, expensive cartbridge, huge second hand and rental market, no microtransaction, a console industry which still made less money than the arcade industry.

Clearly we need to get closer to those older price because nothing about the industry changed since then except an increase in developpement price.

Does those boot taste ? I understand how sad one can be that a company like EA only doubled it's revenue over the past 15 years.

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This is exactly what I was thinking people showing old prices with all context removed.

 

[KDR_11k]

Oh I remember those times, expensive cartbridge, huge second hand and rental market, no microtransaction, a console industry which still made less money than the arcade industry.

Clearly we need to get closer to those older price because nothing about the industry changed since then except an increase in developpement price.

Does those boot taste good ? I understand how sad one can be that a company like EA only doubled it's revenue over the past 15 years.

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Yeah, I remember going through flea markets and picking up used games for the equivalent of 5-10 bucks because that was all I could afford.

 

[KtSlime]

Making games does not.

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Making the same game with modern technology is cheaper and faster, the problem is eyes bigger than stomachs, so they make games that are way beyond the scope of past games, and probably over budget for what they should be aiming for with modern technological advancements. That's fine if they want to do that, but that does not mean it is harder to make a game than it was in the past.

 

[Rick44-4]

I'd love to pay $65 or $70 nowadays. Instead Sony is asking 80€ for Demon's Souls, which amounts to $95 (tax included). So better be happy with your prices, you already (or rather, still) get a special treatment for whatever reason. Your $60 games were already laughably low in comparison to other countries.

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Makes me laugh when I see all these Americans complain, their pricing is actually reasonable and has hardly gone up in the last 20 years.

 

[Deleted member 7051]

Renting games 5 bucks for a week existed too.

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Yeah, rentals were huge. Being able to just go to Blockbuster and grab a few games to play for the month was awesome when I was a kid and I always used to make a list of the games I really liked, which my parents would then buy later on special occasions.

 

[Joseph Joestar]

I paid 150 DM for N64 games back then thats about 120€ per game.

 

[Combichristoffersen]

$54 for the garbage NES version of Bart vs the Space Mutants is a complete ripoff.

 

[Wtfpigeons]

History of the Cost of Living

Learn the relationship among the cost of living, the government’s Consumer Price Index, inflation, and Americans’ household incomes.

www.investopedia.com

Light reading on economics for you. It's better to understand everything than a poster.

 

[Frunkalicious]

And yet publishers make way more money now, despite more expensive development expenses. It's almost as if the market is bigger and games sell in higher numbers.

But sure, let's argue about cartridge prices, micro transactions and inflation lol

 

[Deleted member 862]

It's well known that things only ever get more expensive and there's no other factors

Spoiler

 

[youwei]

loving the full games back then and the gold version is the final version
no such things as patches

 

[Just That Simple]

loving the full games back then and the gold version is the final version
no such things as patches

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The "full" games that definitely did not have a lot of unfinished/cut content on the cart.

 

[Gnorman]

loving the full games back then and the gold version is the final version
no such things as patches

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I remember games that had bugs or crashed at the same point every time and couldn't be completed. Works both ways.

 

[Dragonyeuw]

The publishers aren't coming out and saying they're losing money hence the prices need to increase. Quite the opposite, so clearly 'rising costs' has not led to 'lower revenue/profits'. Yes I get it, businesses want their annual bottom line to increase year over year. But has this led to reduction in crunch and better working conditions for the developers? Because we know its led to CEO fat cats lining their pockets a little more. If I could give my extra money directly to 'developer X' so he/ she can have a decent Christmas with their family, all for it. But since its going to 'CEO Y' to install another platinum toilet on their 4th luxury yacht, worlds smallest violin whenever I hear 'games cost more than ever'. Not an untue statement, but let's not act like various monetization systems haven't accounted for this as evidenced by the boasting of increased profits for many of the major publishers.

But no matter. Raise the god damn prices until things implode. People dont have the same buying power, in case these folks haven't noticed whats happening in the world at the moment. I'm getting into old man shouting at the clouds territory where I'm retreating to my retro games and when I want the new shit, I wait till its $15 on steam/fanatical/CDkeys etc. Frankly a 5th playthrough of Contra III is more interesting to me than picking up the latest triple AAAAAHHHHH ( Jim Sterling voice) me-too game.

 

[Viale]

For those of you complaining about micro transactions, do you really spend that much on them out of curiosity? I feel like I buy/play most big games in a year, almost never pay for micro transactions and never feel like I'm losing out much if I avoid them entirely.

Granted, I don't play titles like fifa or cod where it seems more egregious(maybe?)

 

[Jazar]

Back in those days I used to rent a lot of console games.

 

[rochellepaws]

Will never understand how so many will rush to defend millionaire CEOs deciding they want to earn even more from you. I hate that the motivation exists for this comparison to even be a thing let alone for it to be referenced so frequently.

As already said here the buying habits were extremely different back then. Consoles and accessories were cheaper, rentals were common and collections were tiny.

 

[Pilgrimzero]

Man, I was just making a fun thread about Nintendo era stuff, didn't realize people would read more into it.

I Didn't even consider that my jokey title would cause issues. I should have known better I guess.

 

[Dragonyeuw]

I know I rented alot of games back in the day, way more than I owned and I don't think I ever had more than 5-10 games at a time for any system till I was an adult out of college with disposable income. Plus one of my best friends had nes/snes/ genesis same as I did and we were borrowing games and/or playing at each others house every other weekend. Frankly I miss the days of being able to concentrate on just a handful of games (due to being a kid relying on family to buy me a game for xmas/-birthday). I'm actually selling off some games now that I bought cheap thinking I'd play them and I can't be bothered anymore.

 

[Vic20]

I Didn't even consider that my jokey title would cause issues. I should have known better I guess.

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It's ERA

 

[watdaeff4]

Neither is Demon's Souls babyyyyy

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No instead it has a bundled MT disguised as a "digital deluxe edition" one item in that being key if you want and easier way to get the platinum unless you want to spend a lot of time and frustration trying to farm for it

To the main topic I grew up a NES kid and it's so much more complex than just "see it's cheaper now when you adjust for inflation"

Discs are wasaaaay cheaper to make than cartridges (plus now with the strong digital market these is even more pronounced)

Also gaming has a much larger consumer base now

 

[Mona]

those were better games though

 

[werezompire]

I've always felt complaints about modern patches & DLC and how the past was so much better to be misguided.

Yes, in the past, there were no patches, which meant that if the game you bought had bugs, you were stuck with them. Lufia 2 is one of the best RPGs of the 16-bit era, but I would have loved to have gotten a patch that fixed its numerous issues (for goodness sake, there was a mandatory story area that had a completely glitched tilesheet so it just looked like gibberish). Likewise, FF6 is a beloved classic, but it had a major bug that was very easy to run into (all you have to do is use a certain character's special ability against certain enemies) and destroyed your saves. Quest for Glory 4 was an amazing game, but it was also a buggy mess. And so on.

Sure, knowing that you couldn't patch a game might have made developers a little more careful about QA back in the day, but also games in the past were a lot smaller & simpler under the hood than games now.

In the past, you couldn't pay money for DLC, no, if you wanted those new characters in Street Fighter 2, you had to rebuy the whole game. If you think DLC is a rip-off, don't buy it. If you think a game isn't worth playing without spending a ton of money on DLC, don't buy it.

 

[Voytek]

We never bought NES games. We either rented or borrowed.

 

[Mukrab]

Sony games cost 95 dollars in europe..

 

[New Donker]

Yup that's why my parents pretty much only got my brother and I games on our birthdays or Christmas. We'd also get a game if we managed straight As the entire year.

Once PSX hit, games dropped in price. My brother and I were able to pull out money doing odd jobs where we could buy like 1-2 psx games a month

 

[Euler007]

That's like what, four bananas?

 

[Oneself]

The prices being majority different is such chaos, I love it

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I find this way more disturbing than I thought.

 

[Hale-XF11]

Even though the games were expensive back then, they mostly held their value, so when you were done with a game, you could easily get back a good chunk of your money by selling it and putting it towards the next big game. I made a killing whenever we had garage sales.

 

[DominicanGlory]

They weren't loaded with micro-transactions

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They were also 1-2 hrs long on average

 

[atomsk]

Adjusted for inflation, $65 is ~$125 today so count your blessings?

Also I do remember buying Battletoads on my birthday. It was at a BEST. No not a Best Buy. BEST.

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I got my copy of Earthbound at a BEST, still has the sticker on the box.