We've made monumental leaps in the industry yet the most monumental games don't rely on monumental leaps.
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The $70 Price Tag Is Actually Indefensible (The Jimquisition)
- Thread starter Lashley
- Start date
We've made monumental leaps in the industry yet the most monumental games don't rely on monumental leaps.
I'm not sure what this brand of trolling is, but I'm done. Please bother somebody else.
This is depressingTruly wage stagnation does not exist because wages have very slightly gone up
customers had a chance to say no to stupid cosmetic DLC and predatory MTX but all they did was willingly embrace it, along with pretty much most of the game industry's gouging and money shakedowns. i guarantee some of yall bought that stupid horse armor that basically lead to all this lol. moralism about this is basically useless when anyone who needs to hear that the price hike does not actually benefit labor either don't care or will never hear it because they are outside the bubble of online video game discourse.
but yeah jim sterling gets reddit karma because he preached to the choir as usual i guess haha.
Where did I say it'd be an end-all solution? If you're suggesting that raising prices won't help the problem at all, you're mistaken.
Game developers should be paid better, especially QA. Games are getting bigger. The amount of time it takes to create an art asset for a AAA game has skyrocketed because visual integrity is so high now. These things cost money.
Games need to sell more to break even because of it. Developers/publishers look to trim costs by lowballing developers, and underpaying them, regularly. Having an industry that embraces AAA games being $10 more is a huge safety net that could lead to more stability or higher pay. Will it mean executives get paid more? Yes, but again, it's not an end-all solution.
The price of goods has all gone up over time. The fact that games maintained a $60 price point for nearly 15 years is absolutely bonkers, especially looking at the cost increases of every single principle that makes a game, and considering the cost of living in cities where games are built, which tend to almost exclusively be big and expensive.
Video is filled with cherry picked arguments.
For example, he tries to debunk the claims of "gamers demand higher fidelity visuals" by holding up games like Fortnite and Among us. Meanwhile he cleverly ignores massive system sellers like GTA, TLOU2, GoT, God of War etc that are visual showpieces.
Heck, even on Era, We've had massive threads of folks complaining about games being 'cross-gen' and demanding 'next gen showcases'.
He also Says games haven't been $60 for a while because of 'digital deluxe editions' that only a fraction of gamers buy.
He does make some good points, especially with regards to how developer pay is relatively stagnant and the growing user base, but it's an undeniable fact that games ARE getting more expensive to make.
For example, he tries to debunk the claims of "gamers demand higher fidelity visuals" by holding up games like Fortnite and Among us. Meanwhile he cleverly ignores massive system sellers like GTA, TLOU2, GoT, God of War etc that are visual showpieces.
Heck, even on Era, We've had massive threads of folks complaining about games being 'cross-gen' and demanding 'next gen showcases'.
He also Says games haven't been $60 for a while because of 'digital deluxe editions' that only a fraction of gamers buy.
He does make some good points, especially with regards to how developer pay is relatively stagnant and the growing user base, but it's an undeniable fact that games ARE getting more expensive to make.
I'm not happy with the higher prices, but I tend to buy all my PSN wallet at around 15% off so that helps soften the blow slightly.
But now I'm far more selective in what I buy, I certainly won't be buying as many games, and there's no chance of me buying any additional content if I'm paying £70 for a game.
Oh and I'll be buying even more games during a sale. It will have to be something special that makes me pay full price on day one.
But now I'm far more selective in what I buy, I certainly won't be buying as many games, and there's no chance of me buying any additional content if I'm paying £70 for a game.
Oh and I'll be buying even more games during a sale. It will have to be something special that makes me pay full price on day one.
Also people arguing that the from an economic standpoint that companies are justified in putting it out at whatever price people will pay for it consider this: We have just as much a right to try and debunk or contest the reasons the companies use to justify their price increases as they have to give them. If they're entitled to defend their decision in an attempt to make it more palatable to consumers, how can you justify that consumers aren't allowed to give a rebuttal in an attempt to convince other consumers?
Why are consumers the party that is required to fix a problem that management of developers created for themselves?
These takes are actually bonkers.
Most of the games you mentioned aren't even remotely as profitable or popular as the ones he mentioned. The only one that might be is GTA, but GTA5 was a crossgen game at launch and continues to sell amazingly despite being over 7 years old so holding it up as a bastion of cutting edge, top end visual showpieces seems a bit weird to me
Title alone says, he's not wrong.
Maybe devs should learn better management and cost savings ideas instead of making the biggest fucking game ever (see AC Valhalla) with absolutely stupid team sizes and passing that cost down because they refuse to change or streamline
Maybe devs should learn better management and cost savings ideas instead of making the biggest fucking game ever (see AC Valhalla) with absolutely stupid team sizes and passing that cost down because they refuse to change or streamline
Developers created customers standards on what AAA games need to look like, how long they need to be, etc? What are you even talking about?
For a game to compete visually in the AAA space it needs insanely detailed character models, high resolution textures, complex VFX and shaders, etc. That shit ain't cheap.
Games are so long these days because data shows that longevity is what is perceived as value to a lot of customers. Developers feel like they need to add as much as possible to a game so it can compete with the goliaths like GTAV, Witcher 3, or even F2P games like Fortnite.
I get that feeling is different here (and I'd gladly pay $60 for shorter games!) but the root of all of this is we on this forum are the vocal minority.
lol of course they did. Their marketing has pushed that angle, not consumers.
Yes, that's how marketing works. Developers created the demand, sold you on the message, and put you into this cycle of thinking that every installment of something needs to be drastically better than the last.
Want to know why?
Once they stop selling you on "what you need" and you take the reigns from them and uphold the demand, that's less work for them to convince you of "what you need" because you're just doing it yourself.
That's literally how the marketing works.
Fortnite, Valorant, League of Legends, CSGO, World of Warcraft, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, are all games that have lasted longer and make more money than the majority of the "triple a" games you want to reference.
The best selling games of all time, with the exception of GTA, are not these visual masterpieces.
Surprising so many people here don't understand economics when most post-secondary institutions make you take an intro econ class your first year. Prices can either be determined by the market or the state. There's really no in between. With a market economy now, publishers are testing the waters to see if they can charge more, it really doesn't matter if it's for legitimate reasons or not. If the market can bear it, that's what the price will be. This is good for the publishers because they can charge different prices for different market segments and good for the consumer because if you're patient, you can take advantage of the huge swings in prices by waiting. A lot of people seem to be indirectly arguing for some kind of limit or control on profits which I understand the concern, but think about the implications of this on different industries and innovation, and who should ultimately be making these decisions. I think the bigger issue with the gaming industry now is how massive takeovers are occurring which will leave only a few big names making all the decisions.
All the games you mention are massive successes, including GTA V, probably the most successful game in terms of revenue of all time.
As far as the special editions, some publishers are gating early access to games through this, really tickling that FOMO itch that people have. You can lay 30 dollars more and play the game three days early! Yay!
Yes games are more expensive to make. The clear issue here is the few studios that are going with excessively high end graphics. You can't have video games without developers and the industry's continued way of chewing through and spitting them out faster than an NFL running back is out of the league is terrible. They are paid less than web developers, and many other forms of IT, and as someone with experience in that industry, it's far easier to do.
The industry is seeing record profits this year, in the midst of a pandemic. In some cases, it isn't just 70 dollar games, it's companies like Nintendo charging 60 dollars for games that came out almost four years ago, or their fans defending full price ports of WiiU games. This is the sad thing, that people will defend corporations no matter what they do. Whether it's because they identify with the corporations more than the developers, I'm looking at you CDPR, or what I have no clue. But it's incredibly disappointing.
We exchange money for products here, yes it's okay to be a fan of a game or series but when you decide to defend a corporation, you are falling down into neoliberal hell.
I will directly advocate for a ceiling on profits. In such cases there is less need to subjugate your workers. The people ultimately making decisions are people like Bobby Kotick. Why you'd argue on their behalf as a consumer unless you're some sort of conservative libertarian is beyond me. I know there are quite a few on here, defending Steam from the horrors of curation, but it's still puzzling.
Rising budgets of game development are strategic. Publishers tell us "look at these newest cutting edge high budget graphics, this is the future, and it's good, so you should want this". What they're doing is convincing people to want a type of product that can essentially only be made by those few rich publishers. There can't be a huge number of games at that level. A larger portion of the market buys those few games, and the publishers rake in money by the truckload. They make record profits.
If publishers didn't think increasing their budgets further would be even more profitable, then they wouldn't do it.
For that reason, I do not think a price hike is needed in any way, shape, or form. We do not need to "compensate" for an extremely lucrative and successful strategy by giving them even more money on top of the massive amount they're already making.
If publishers didn't think increasing their budgets further would be even more profitable, then they wouldn't do it.
For that reason, I do not think a price hike is needed in any way, shape, or form. We do not need to "compensate" for an extremely lucrative and successful strategy by giving them even more money on top of the massive amount they're already making.
Apparently it was the large brick and mortar retailers like Walmart and GameStop who pushed for digital not being cheaper (and of course, publishers and Sony etc. are happy to collect the higher margins). The retailers sell the big bulky consoles at low margins and need to sell the games and accessories at high margins. To be under-cut by the digital stores at launch for the games would be devastating for them.
An argument could be made too that the higher margins from digital sales helped stave off game price increases for this long. PS4 games cost the same as PS3 games.
What percentage of games are even AAA efforts in the first place? And why the fuck isn't all the microtransaction and merchandise and convention money these studios take going into the development costs? If anything, the upfront price should've actually fuckin' fallen.
Like, I guarantee you I alone bought enough Lucio merch to feed the entire OW dev team for a fuckin' year. Where the fuck is this money going, and how can anyone be confident that the price hike is definitely going to help with graphical fidelity and the devs quality of life?
Like, I guarantee you I alone bought enough Lucio merch to feed the entire OW dev team for a fuckin' year. Where the fuck is this money going, and how can anyone be confident that the price hike is definitely going to help with graphical fidelity and the devs quality of life?
Nah, same shit happens here. I just saw someone saying GoT has ps2 level textures for its rocks
Have you ever seen anyone cite Among Us or Fall Guys as a 'system seller' for consoles?
Not exactly a 'visual showcase' in terms of raw GFX, but definitely hits a high level of detail/content. Similar to RDR 2.
I really should have used RDR2 as the example.
I wouldn't know, the only games I bought in the past two months were used/heavily discounted/on the US store. But I think I'm going to stick to that pattern.
Kind of weird to be making the "players don't actually want better graphics and production values" argument even as the PS5 and Series X are shattering any and all hardware launch records despite having an asking price that is like 20% more than the last round of consoles.
Nah I would have got one when they went up for pre-order but the price of the first party games was known then so didn't bother. I already wasn't happy with £55 games, so Demon's Souls at £70 is a big no-no.
Whether they're system sellers is irrelevant, since the question here is whether the intense demand for better graphics is being driven by consumers or marketing. The question is whether consumers have a desire to play games without cutting edge graphics, so what platform a consumer buys them on is irrelevant
$70 for hours of entertainment is well worth the cost. Even if I play a game for one night, I find it to be worth the money. It's no different than going out for dinner, some drinks or to an event. That'll all usually cost just as much, if not more.
Read what I wrote earlier about marketing in this industry. Again, as I stated before, the most successful games of all time are not ray traced DaVinci's in playable form, and to say that marketing has no part in creating and upholding these ridiculous standards and demands is literally choosing to not acknowledge reality, or how capitalism works.
GTA5 is the most profitable piece of media ever yet the stories of crunch followed the release of RDD2
Activation/Blizard had record-breaking profits followed by mass layoffs.
EA makes insane profits with
Randy Pitchford has bonuses from the publisher sent to him so he does not have to share them with the workers.
What makes you think that it will be different this time? When you look at their past few decades of AAA developer/publisher behavior it is clearly shown that record-breaking profits has resulted in little to no change in pay/working conditions and in some cases a drop.
Just wait for games to drop to £15~ or less: you'll have months worth of bug fixes for the best experience and a lot of the time you'll have all the DLC bundled in too.
The £70 price tags are rubbish but then so were the £60 price tags last generation, this changes nothing about my buying habits as I will always be well catered by the excellent digital sales on PSN.
The £70 price tags are rubbish but then so were the £60 price tags last generation, this changes nothing about my buying habits as I will always be well catered by the excellent digital sales on PSN.
I just rent my PS5 games from Boomerang if I don't want to keep them, that way playing through them costs me like £6-8.
Avengers: Endgame had a budget of $356 million USD and you could buy a bluray of it for $40 on release, or stream it for a monthly fee of $12.
Demon's Souls is a remake of an 11 year old PS3 game (originally made under a budget of $10 million dollars) using a lot of the same code but with a new budget of anywhere under $100 million for graphical and technical enhancements selling at a retail release of $70 on PS5 (or $90 if you opt for the exclusive items in the deluxe edition).
The most expensive video game ever created was Grand Theft Auto V at $265 million. For reference, the budget of Thor 2: The Dark World was $170 million. Yet somehow, the Hollywood movie industry manages to make billions of profit despite costing twice as much to make, half as much to purchase, and without any sort of additional microtransactions to buy to, I dunno, unlock Ghost Rider in Avengers: Endgame. And weirdly enough, the video game industry is the most lucrative entertainment industry in the world despite the apparent crippling development costs that seemingly justify a price increase.
There's absolutely nothing justifying games costing $60, let alone $70.
Demon's Souls is a remake of an 11 year old PS3 game (originally made under a budget of $10 million dollars) using a lot of the same code but with a new budget of anywhere under $100 million for graphical and technical enhancements selling at a retail release of $70 on PS5 (or $90 if you opt for the exclusive items in the deluxe edition).
The most expensive video game ever created was Grand Theft Auto V at $265 million. For reference, the budget of Thor 2: The Dark World was $170 million. Yet somehow, the Hollywood movie industry manages to make billions of profit despite costing twice as much to make, half as much to purchase, and without any sort of additional microtransactions to buy to, I dunno, unlock Ghost Rider in Avengers: Endgame. And weirdly enough, the video game industry is the most lucrative entertainment industry in the world despite the apparent crippling development costs that seemingly justify a price increase.
There's absolutely nothing justifying games costing $60, let alone $70.
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It's been pretty fucking wild hearing my friends say how they ''only'' spent an extra £40 to get themselves started on Fifa Ultimate Team, the game mode that they could play a few days early thanks to the ''Champions'' edition they paid a crisp £80 for. The very same edition that is now on sale for 55% off just under two months later.
It absolutely galls me that these executives are raking in millions of dollars of ever growing profit, massively underpaying their workforce, avoiding paying their taxes AND are still arguing that game prices NEEDED to rise as they cost too much to make.
Its fucking disgusting. And so is anyone who defends it.
Its fucking disgusting. And so is anyone who defends it.
i don't remember the last time i payed 60 dollars for a game since there is always deals or coupons at some store. i am absolutely not paying 70 dollars for any game this gen.
well those movies have the advantage of making millions on theater runs. with covid hitting them hard you aren't seeing them release too many movies directly on blu ray or streaming services. most of the movies they have released are movies they didn't want to delay because that would delay other movies they have on schedule. this isn't me defending 70 dollar games but there is a difference.
FIFA Ultimate Team is probably the most impressive scam in all of gaming, and god damn is it ever profitable.
I don't have an issue with games I know I'll enjoy costing $70, or even more. However, what does it mean for new UPs or titles that won't sell Call of Duty numbers? Why is Sackboy cheaper than Miles Morales? It just shuts out potential consumers from risking their money on games they've yet to experience.
This is why I hope to see demos or trials of games - this would give the option for consumers to experience a bit of gameplay before deciding whether they want to shell out their money.
This is why I hope to see demos or trials of games - this would give the option for consumers to experience a bit of gameplay before deciding whether they want to shell out their money.
Disclaimer: I have no idea where to find a more reliable outlet for data on revenue and salaries, so take this info with a grain of salt.
From NewZoo:
The Global Games market in 2020 will generate 174.9 BILLION dollars in revenue.
Since, I can't find more reliable numbers, I'm using glassdoor here for salaries.
Developers seem to be making around, on average, $50k to 60k in salary, not counting any potential bonuses because I can't see that.
So in a market that will generate revenue that is 2.9 Million times the average salary of a developer, and noting that this article from 2017 stated that the national average salary was 70k (its now 12k less), that means that revenues for games have gone up by almost 70 billion dollars and average salaries have literally dropped.
I'm doing some basic ass research here, but if someone wants to come in and correct me, please do, happy to update this.
There are games I am willing to pay $70 for and those that I will not. I would pay more than $70 for some games actually. I also don't mind micro transactions that are cosmetic or season passes.
I like Jim but I'm his opposite on many of these topics and "AAA" gaming in general.
I like Jim but I'm his opposite on many of these topics and "AAA" gaming in general.
And you believe higher game prices would have saved these companies?
These companies folded because their games flopped not because game prices weren't high enough.
Higher game prices only accelerate market consolidation, because consumers don't magically have more money just because the industry decided to up prices. Meaning higher prices will lead to less games being sold (at full price).
And the games affected by this won't be the CoD's, FIFA's or GTA's.
The "problem" of the market isn't the amount of money that's in the market it's how this money is distributed.
As I was saying earlier
I mean hell, just look at the discourse surrounding destruction all stars recently. Or even people discussing Returnal and how much it should cost.