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There are very few games I am keen on paying $90 CAD for, especially games drowning in MTX.
A game like Cyberpunk I would happily pay, but a yearly COD release? Fuck off with that. I think games need more of a sliding scale with pricing.
Game pass continues to be just what the wallet ordered.
A game like Cyberpunk I would happily pay, but a yearly COD release? Fuck off with that. I think games need more of a sliding scale with pricing.
Game pass continues to be just what the wallet ordered.
Are development costs really so high for a franchise like COD that regurgitates out a new version every year?
God I hate Activision. I hated working there, and I'm glad I refuse to make Bobby Kottick even more of a rich asshole than he already is by not buying their products.
I try not to trashtalk companies, but fuck Activision. Fuck Konami too, but for almost different reasons (I also hated working there, but I hate them more for how much they're wasting their amazing IPs).
I try not to trashtalk companies, but fuck Activision. Fuck Konami too, but for almost different reasons (I also hated working there, but I hate them more for how much they're wasting their amazing IPs).
The market is bigger now so sales have increased, that argument only works if the market is the same size, it is huge now compared to then.
Microtransactions and Battle passes are a thing now, both of which CoD use. On top of it being such a huge seller.
This is nothing but greed.
Unadulterated greed.
Bobby Kotick is one of most overpaid CEO's compared to his workers.
Now if you could convince me (you won't) that this price increase would go directly to the workers and not the executives, then maybe I would go for it.
Bobby Kotick is one of most overpaid CEO's compared to his workers.
Now if you could convince me (you won't) that this price increase would go directly to the workers and not the executives, then maybe I would go for it.
You should come to Europe and pay 90 dollar a game if you like it so much.
Just like this generation, I will continue to not purchase most games at launch. It has saved me a ton of money. Fuck off, Activision.
This always gets brought up every new generation and talks of price increases start and its a faulty comparison.
Cartridges were expensive. You paid a premium for cartridges. Everyone knew this. That's why N64 games were $70 and Playstation 1 games were $49.99. Sony had smaller licensing fees and CD's were much cheaper to manufacture than those cartridges back in the day. Its probably also the reason why you don't see the type of deep discounts on Switch software as you do for the same title on another system.
But that's just a small part of it.
The market is bigger. Its more worldwide. They sell a fuckton more games than they did 20 years ago. Probably 40-50% of all sales are also now digital. You don't have anywhere near as high manufacturing costs. They sell DLC. They sell shiny little guns and outfits and all kinds of other MTX shit they didn't sell 20 years ago.
The price increase is because they know video games are an addiction for some and a lifelong hobby for others and most people will pay it whether they like it or not.
Its greed, plain and simple. In a capitalistic system, your number one objective is to return more money to your stockholders. To grow.
How much do the AAA games cost to make now?
Ive been a gamer since NES - and as long as I'm getting my money's worth I'm down, never been a mtx guy, so if I get single and multiplayer gameplay of 100+ hours from a game, it's worth it
Ive been a gamer since NES - and as long as I'm getting my money's worth I'm down, never been a mtx guy, so if I get single and multiplayer gameplay of 100+ hours from a game, it's worth it
That sucks, for 1st day buys I will have to ask myself if I really want this game enough or just wait till there is a discount down the road.
Soooooooooooo let me stop you right here. The PS1 came out in the US in 1995 and games generally had an MSRP of $49.99 US.
It is now 2020, and Playstation 4 games generally have an MSRP of $59.99 US.
This is well, WELL below the rate of inflation. You can argue that "The market is bigger!" but it really isn't for AAA software. The PS2 sold about 155 million units, the Xbox sold about 24 million units, the gamecube another 20.
This isn't really that far off from where PS4 + PC + XBO are right now. Give or take ten million units, the market for these games is the same size in Generation 8 as it was in Generation 6, and is unlikely to increase for Generation 9. We will be looking at the same market size for 4K 60FPS games that we had for 480i/480p content on the PS2 and GC.
Game development costs though? Shot through the roof when we went to the HD era from 480i and never came back down. 4K game development is WAY more expensive. At some point game costs have to increase to keep up with that and they absolutely, positively have not. The size of the market for AAA games isn't significantly larger than Gen 6 either. This is why we keep seeing ridiculous MTX creep into games because it's got to be funded somehow.
We're screwed here in Canada After tax a game will be well over 100 bucks. That's wild. Sales it is.
Games being niche or not didn't change the fact that I had to pay the equivalent of $130 US if I wanted to play Mortal Kombat SNES.
Pretty much. I'm all for the people pouring blood, sweat, and tears into making these games that gross billions of dollars for the company that publishes them to get a hefty bonus for all of that phenomenally hard work, but we all know exactly where the lion's share of that money is going. To the guy who's yearly bonuses to himself are more than what the teams that sacrifice their mental, emotional, physical health, and time with loved ones due to crunch culture get compensated.
This move isn't to benefit anything other than his bottom line, and that of the other investors in Activision. It's foolish to think that any of the profit coming from increasing software prices is going to be a step in eliminating the often shit working conditions developers have to endure so this guy can buy another yacht.
But that's of course precisely the thing.
In the late 1980s and early 90s, microtransactions weren't a thing.
Season passes weren't a thing.
DLC wasn't a thing.
GOTY/Ultimate edition versions of games weren't as much of a thing as they are now due to the above.
There are so many more ways to monetize games these days than there ever were back then.
And none of these things, absolutely none of them, are going anywhere, whether the price increases or not. They'll remain on the table all the same.
And that's how, despite not keeping up with inflation, Activision is reporting record profits and Kotick has like some of the highest wage disparity compared to his employees in the video game series on top of this.
Of all games and publishers, Call of Duty/Activision-Blizzard is not the hill to die on.
There may be certain games and developers where this would be justified and understable.
But those are not Activision/Call of Duty. There's no necessary reason for this in their particular case, whatsoever. This is just pure raw distilled greed, just because they can, in this particular case and nothing more.
Might as well defend ISPs re-enacting data caps or some other such nonsense, because there's as many non-greed related reason for that stuff as there is for this, that is to say, none.
For other developers/series you might try bringing those points up, but not this one, they make absolutely no sense here in this particular case at all and there's no reason they should be brought up here, in this particular thread.
Wouldn't you rather advocate for paying less? I don't understand why you would advocate for a worse outcome for yourself and most other people.
lol if you think this is not the new standard. Maybe not every pub this year but new games designed exclusively for the new hardware will get this shiny new price tag
Games being niche WAS THE WHOLE REASON you had to pay the equivalent of $130.
Publishers had to make money somehow, and demand was low compared to how it is now. Demand is high now, and publishers are making money hand over defense with DLC and microtransactions and ultimate editions. You cannot compare that time to now at all.
Okay, here's a better example that demonstrates the problem with the inflation argument:
Imagine that say Apple decided to raise the price of all their phone models by say $50 and used some type of inflation argument to formulate that and defend that.
Depending on how they formulate that, they might not technically be wrong.
But at the same time, they're like a trillion dollars company. They don't need the extra money. There might be phone manufacturers who do, but Apple isn't one of them.
Same deal here.
There might be developers who need to raise their price and for those other developers it might be understandable, but Activision-Blizzard/Call of Duty isn't one of those situations.
Time and place.
Case-by-case basis.
And Activision/Call of Duty isn't one of those.
Imagine that say Apple decided to raise the price of all their phone models by say $50 and used some type of inflation argument to formulate that and defend that.
Depending on how they formulate that, they might not technically be wrong.
But at the same time, they're like a trillion dollars company. They don't need the extra money. There might be phone manufacturers who do, but Apple isn't one of them.
Same deal here.
There might be developers who need to raise their price and for those other developers it might be understandable, but Activision-Blizzard/Call of Duty isn't one of those situations.
Time and place.
Case-by-case basis.
And Activision/Call of Duty isn't one of those.
Why are you making an argument based on hardware install numbers and not on actual revenue generated from software sales?
2005 sales - $10.5 billion
Top-selling console games in 2005: Madden NFL 06, Pokemon Emerald, Gran Turismo 4
According to The NPD Group, annual 2005 US retail sales of video games, which includes console and portable hardware, software and accessories, saw sales of over $10.5 bln, a 6% increase over the $9.
www.zdnet.com
2018 software sales - $43.4 billion
U.S. Video Game Sales Reach Record-Breaking $43.4 Billion in 2018 - Entertainment Software Association
“The impressive economic growth of the industry announced today parallels the growth of the industry in mainstream American culture,” said acting ESA President and CEO Stanley Pierre-Louis. “Across the nation, we count people of all backgrounds and stages of life among our most passionate video...
www.theesa.com
They're selling a HELLUVA lot more software now than they did back then.
Bobby Kotick and Andew Wilson wipe their asses with $100 bills because..who needs toilet paper?
Its greed.
Bingo. Load up on Black Friday. You're set for a year and you've done so at 50% of the cost, conservatively. Bonus points for holding out for game of the year editions on sale.
I honestly am kind of worried that this price hike will result in a bit of a shrinking of the core game market, honestly. Perhaps some companies will make more money for titles in the short term, but how many more people are just going to wait to purchase a gamed on sale or used. That's if people decide to purchase a game at all, I'm sure there will be those who simply decide that $70 isn't worth it for a title and just don't buy it.
I'm sure Activision has bean counters that have already crunched data and discovered the benefits of raising the prices outweighed the negatives, but not all publishers have ridiculously popular franchises with yearly installments. I wonder if this will result in less overall videogame sales overall, be that whole titles, DLC or MTXs.
Purchasing power has barely budged, and no matter how many people ring the inflation bell, people's incomes are still similarly limited as they were 15 years ago, and I don't think people are gonna be buying the same amount of games and DLC if prices go up across the board.
Not only that, A good chunk of that price was also because console games back then were literally hardware as well as software, and that extra cost was pushed to the consumer. With the advent of discs, games became much, much cheaper to physically produce, and prices dropped significantly to accommodate that. It wasn't uncommon to see N64 games at significantly higher prices than PlayStation games, by $10 or even $20 more expensive.
Comparing the prices of older cartridge games to discs is silly. A $130 game in modern day would instantly be dead on arrival, and kinda points to how poor the inflation argument is. It totally ignores the context the the size, health, and sales methods of the games industry between different time periods.
I'm sure Activision has bean counters that have already crunched data and discovered the benefits of raising the prices outweighed the negatives, but not all publishers have ridiculously popular franchises with yearly installments. I wonder if this will result in less overall videogame sales overall, be that whole titles, DLC or MTXs.
Purchasing power has barely budged, and no matter how many people ring the inflation bell, people's incomes are still similarly limited as they were 15 years ago, and I don't think people are gonna be buying the same amount of games and DLC if prices go up across the board.
Not only that, A good chunk of that price was also because console games back then were literally hardware as well as software, and that extra cost was pushed to the consumer. With the advent of discs, games became much, much cheaper to physically produce, and prices dropped significantly to accommodate that. It wasn't uncommon to see N64 games at significantly higher prices than PlayStation games, by $10 or even $20 more expensive.
Comparing the prices of older cartridge games to discs is silly. A $130 game in modern day would instantly be dead on arrival, and kinda points to how poor the inflation argument is. It totally ignores the context the the size, health, and sales methods of the games industry between different time periods.
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If others follow, I won't be buying games at launch.
Yeah look at their financial reports, poor them.
Well, if I ever had thoughts of buying a digital only console, this pretty much seals the deal that I won't be doing that.
No way in hell am I paying $70 for new games.
No way in hell am I paying $70 for new games.
Chips and parts for a game cartridge were more expensive to produce than a CD. Then when looking at the 16-bit era with the SNES, you also have to consider expansion chips in the cartridge which was even more money.
I really don't understand the comparisons going on in here.
I really don't understand the comparisons going on in here.
If enough people refuse to pay it, the price will drop back to $60 very, very quickly. I mean, Day 1 rolled around and sales were off even, say, 25%, and it was clear why, the price would be back to $60 within a day or two.
But, of course, we are not capable of that kind of coordination, are we? When the 360 bumped the price from $50 to $60, I was happy to refrain from paying it until I was sure the battle was lost. It didn't take long. I'd love to participate in a working boycott. I have almost no faith that it can be done.
But, of course, we are not capable of that kind of coordination, are we? When the 360 bumped the price from $50 to $60, I was happy to refrain from paying it until I was sure the battle was lost. It didn't take long. I'd love to participate in a working boycott. I have almost no faith that it can be done.
We had 2 real cross-gen games last time. Ghost and AW but there is also a truly shameful last-gen version of BO3 that is basically a gimped version of the multiplayer and not much else. It doesn´t count. I hope that next year will be the last time that 5 versions launch, on top of the Pro and X also existing. Who has time to work on all that shit? And good luck Digital Foundry, lol. 6 separate console tests and a few for the PC. No biggie.
Hah, yes. Unless these new gen titles are something I really, really want and must have on day one, they always end up on sale anyway.