It started with the company, not the consumer. The only reason people demand more is because they've been taught to demand more by the people selling products.
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The $70 Price Tag Is Actually Indefensible (The Jimquisition)
- Thread starter Lashley
- Start date
It started with the company, not the consumer. The only reason people demand more is because they've been taught to demand more by the people selling products.
It's not even about defending. It's just that literally every other industry adjusts their prices according to inflation. That's just capitalism. Making a story out of this is just absurd, dishonest and click bait. The honest thing to do would be to criticize the whole system, not just some cherry picked element of it.
VHS movie titles launched at a retail price of $80-90. You are right about other industries adjusting their prices, in a sense.
I don't always agree with Jim but he's been criticizing these companies and capitalism indirectly for years. I don't think it's reasonable for him to have to add that context to every video discussing any aspect of it.
Additionally, I can listen to free music for my entire work day through Spotify and just remove my ear buds during ads. Or I can buy a song I want for $0.99 through a service like iTunes.
Sorry cheapskate, but because cassette singles retailed at $9 a pop in 1990, you should actually be paying $18 a song. That's just capitalism.
Did you know that movie theater ticket prices have gone up 39% since 2006, when games were $60? Mind blown.
Movies have a larger, potential customer-base than games I would imagine. If true, that's how they can spend more, charge less, and still make money.
I'm perfectly fine with the $10 hike in the U.S. I understand it shakes out a bit differently in other regions and people located in said regions may very well have a legitimate gripe. But a $10 increase after 14-ish years seems perfectly reasonable to me. We were paying $60 and $70 for games back in the early 90's...
Oh, that's ok. I work & live on Fantasy Island where mine and everyone else's wages have skyrocketed since 1990, including lower class workers. Additionally, our cost-of-living has gone DOWN, and we have more money in our pockets after expenses than we've ever had before.
Just sold my copy of Spiderman Miles Morales for $38 on eBay.
When I finish Demon Souls, I will sell it too. Probably for around $53 or so.
Total rental cost for both games will be around $20/game*. Maybe $25 if I slack off and don't resell quickly enough. Even though one cost me $50 and the other $70.
I strongly advise all of you who are not wealthy to do the same. If you're wealthy, go ahead and buy digital for convenience.
Anyways, all this to say I disagree with Jim on this one. People are perfectly capable of buying used games. or games on sale and voting with their wallet. These are honest, totally above board price hikes with no sneakiness whatsoever. Not gachas or abusive loot boxes or toxic DLC.
*It's a better deal than gamefly if you do the math and factor in shipping delays.
When I finish Demon Souls, I will sell it too. Probably for around $53 or so.
Total rental cost for both games will be around $20/game*. Maybe $25 if I slack off and don't resell quickly enough. Even though one cost me $50 and the other $70.
I strongly advise all of you who are not wealthy to do the same. If you're wealthy, go ahead and buy digital for convenience.
Anyways, all this to say I disagree with Jim on this one. People are perfectly capable of buying used games. or games on sale and voting with their wallet. These are honest, totally above board price hikes with no sneakiness whatsoever. Not gachas or abusive loot boxes or toxic DLC.
*It's a better deal than gamefly if you do the math and factor in shipping delays.
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Man I have been preaching this over and over. The price decrease is an awesome reason of course but waiting a while gets you a smoother experience and often more content.
I probably won't buy over two games this gen full price and probably only got 3 or so last gen full price. It's not about the money so much with me (though that's a nice perk) it's more about the better experience. If I can wait a bit and play a better game (after patches) with more content I'm almost always going to do that.
Exception: God of War and Horizon
I would argue that casual gamers are the people most sensitive to price.
Why didn't anybody think of that before? Welp, that's a wrap on this topic.
So your defence for the price hike is for people to just sprint through games at release so they have somewhat of a decent resale value ? What about people who can take several months before finishing a game, at which point the resale value has plummeted to almost nothing in a lot of cases?
Buying and keeping a game isn't supposed to be made for the wealthy, and the price hike isn't warranted. You shouldn't have to sell a game to make it affordable.
Precisely.
We've been trained what to expect from our bigger budget games by the companies that stand to earn the most when we all buy in. We get told how this years new CoD and every new CoD is the fucking HOTTEST CoD ever bro and everybody rushes out to buy it because everybody needs the hottest new shit that launched with 8 multiplayer maps. We actively reward the likes of Activision with record sales by eating up their yearly churned out Call of Duty titles that don't even hold a candle to the standards set by the original Modern Warfare and Black Ops 2. I mean the most fully fleshed out multiplayer game available on console came out 20 years ago, it's got a feature set that still puts most games to shame.
Meanwhile away from the AAA budget trend chase we've got a game that looks like this -
Hitting 900k+ players per day.
The industry thrives on big publishers creating the problem and then presenting themselves as the solution.
Oh and Hades is the best game released this year.
Ticket prices used to be 8$ when I was young, and I now have to pay 15$ for a ticket here in Canada. That right there is why I haven't been to the movie theatre in years.
Obviously it is. We know game budget have risen, but fact is most of the money made from copies sold dont go directly to the people that made it anyway.
Pretty much why I decided to get a PS5 disc version than DE. More options when I can resell discs, or buy secondhand ones than just relying on digital sales.
Pretty much why I decided to get a PS5 disc version than DE. More options when I can resell discs, or buy secondhand ones than just relying on digital sales.
Except VHS movies weren't launched at the retail level like that. That was the industry's Priced For Rental business scheme. Day1 VHS copes were sold at $99 to rental outlets, with lower a retail consumer MSRP some months later. A fair number of major releases eschewed this model though.
This is a particularly rough example, as Spotify royalties have absolutely savaged musical artists. Instead of getting a $1/CD like before, they now receive a hundred-thousandth of a penny for their song being streamed.
Oh fuck really? Dammit I've wasted so much money over the years and I had no clue.
And there was that Tidal scam. They paid out royalties based on number of streams artists had relative to the total volume of streams, then they fabricated stream counts for the founders music (incl Beyonce and Kanye) so they'd collect a larger share of royalties while screwing everyone else.
Is it wrong that I roll my eyes every time this greed issue comes up and their only examples are Activision? They are bad and greedy but are all game companies like that? Naughty Dog/From Software and not huge game companies are in the same boat as Activision/Ubisoft?
Also, why would anyone (Sterling included) buy a deluxe edition without looking at the contents and decide not to buy into it?
Also, why would anyone (Sterling included) buy a deluxe edition without looking at the contents and decide not to buy into it?
I'd understand these arguments more if games were a static price, like how Nintendo prices their crap... I can't believe Mario Kart is still $60. But, game prices are variable, they were "too expensive at $60" for most, but you pay a premium for getting stuff day one. Just how it is, it's how all hobbies are, there are cheap ways to get into all hobbies and this doesn't prevent games from still being the same.
The shit is predatory when they never drop price or go on sale (*cough* MARIO KART GODDAM *cough). Or if they still fill the titles up with too many microtransactions/dlc (too many fighting games now..).
Saying just $70 is "TOO MUCH" is just entirely dependent on the context of what you are talking about... especially in an industry as diverse as gaming.
The shit is predatory when they never drop price or go on sale (*cough* MARIO KART GODDAM *cough). Or if they still fill the titles up with too many microtransactions/dlc (too many fighting games now..).
Saying just $70 is "TOO MUCH" is just entirely dependent on the context of what you are talking about... especially in an industry as diverse as gaming.
This shit always irks me, when they ever discuss greed they highlight the 3 guys that still wear suits in the gaming industry and neglect the countless smaller studios that close down to not making decent profits or a lot of the industry jobs that are underpaid/expendable. It lacks focus.
Indeed, putting the power into the hands of Spotify and Apple is a bad thing. There's a middle ground where artists aren't being rolled over and consumers are charged a fair price.
I agree with that, but I think it's a separate issue all its own. I don't think that the pricing models of Apple & Spotify hurt artists because of consumption behavior, but rather how Apple & Spotify choose to return the revenues generated back to the artists.
Because the price increases are coming from pure greed (don't give me the inflation crap arguments) and nothing is trickling down to the devs. Combine this with micro-transactions still being present and publishers having record quarterly numbers. Yeah, it's bullshit.
>>>>>>>>.>>>>>>>>
Maybe change to a cheaper hobby while you're at it, why not?
Almost like Apple and Spotify are where Microsoft and others like Sony, Ubisoft want to get to with things like Gamepass and other subs.
I am not surprised that there are so many corporate apologists in this thread
or people who just disagree with Jim cause he's mean to their favorite brands
probably both
Not everyone who pre-ordered got one. They're completely sold out now.
Ubisoft, I can see. I don't think Microsoft or Sony are trying to put together subscription services that are intentionally insidious towards developers & publishers, though. Given the recent and multiple interviews where people obsessively ask Phil Spencer about profitability, sustainability, and contracts, it sounds as though every game that makes it on to GamePass is an individual deal that is negotiated for each game. Additionally, I have to imagine that smaller developers would be *thrilled* to be approached by Microsoft for a GamePass deal.
It doesn't have to be at release. It can be weeks or months later, whenever they have time to actually play the game. In fact, the longer they wait, the better it will be for them financially when they resell it as game depreciate slower and slower as time goes.
Ghost of tshushima still sells on eBay for $38 now. 4 and a half months after release. It usually takes years, not months, for resale value to plummet to almost nothing.
Trade games with friends. Trade games with strangers. There are lots of ways to enjoy gaming on a budget. Tons and tons and tons of ways that don't involve you missing out on AAA game or anything painful like that.
All those ways involve physical games. The moment physical games are out, then my approval of these prices are out as well and it all becomes a giant ridiculous scam that I will not support.
Of course it's defensible. It's extremely simple to defend, because the only source of any actual defense comes from the exact same place one would direct all these arguments toward: the people who produce and sell the game. They determine how much they want to sell it for. That's it, and that's all.
Of course, all the points Jim makes here are salient, but they have little to do with the practical reality at play. Shame is a powerful motivator, and I respect that he isn't directing most of his consternation toward the consumer base at large. Raising prices given the current context is a slap in the face to consumers, of course. But publishers and producers scarcely have to care as long as it raises their profit margins.
The emotional appeal is the only play Jim - and any of us consumers - have. Regulations and advocacy are distant possibilities.
Of course, all the points Jim makes here are salient, but they have little to do with the practical reality at play. Shame is a powerful motivator, and I respect that he isn't directing most of his consternation toward the consumer base at large. Raising prices given the current context is a slap in the face to consumers, of course. But publishers and producers scarcely have to care as long as it raises their profit margins.
The emotional appeal is the only play Jim - and any of us consumers - have. Regulations and advocacy are distant possibilities.
I worked in the video industry for quite a few years, those VHS tapes were costly because back then you may have ordered only a few copies per store. It wasn't until Disney came along and lowered the price to roughly $20 and that was when we have dozens of copies of titles like Aladdin. It's also much cheaper to mass produce DVD and bluray to VHS and Betamax.
The price to see those movies in the theater back in the late 80's early 90's to what movie prices are now is quite different as well.
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The dismissing of people as "corporate apologists" because they're apathetic about the price increase is something else. People are already planning on (smartly) buying these games at half price and in sales, so what is the problem all of a sudden?
If this isn't the case, wouldn't gamers still be getting their way, ultimately?
It's worse than that. Rather than simply being ok with it, people are making an active effort to get out in front and shield the corporations themselves.
I know what you mean, I saw it in the Stream Sale and had to double-check the price.
The corporations don't need shielding. If enough consumers balk at the price rise and change their purchasing decisions, then their revenue will go down, and they will have to reconsider. That is how the market works. For everything, not just videogames.
This is reality.
It's not about creating a monopoly, it's about creating a monopsony. Where the only place to peddle your game is to a subscription company instead of direct to consumer because consumers only want to subscribe to "all in" packages.
Being apathetic about price increases during a pandemic and going out of your way to make posts like "well don't buy games then", which happened on this very page of this thread, is corporate apologia.
Acting like buying used or waiting for sales has nothing to do with what these companies are charging for their games. The ratio of physical to digital games is moving more and more to digital so more people are going to be buying these games at these higher price points.