That's interesting info. It's what I ask myself when I see these threads. What amount of profit is acceptable?
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The $70 Price Tag Is Actually Indefensible (The Jimquisition)
- Thread starter Lashley
- Start date
That's interesting info. It's what I ask myself when I see these threads. What amount of profit is acceptable?
Do you have any idea how privileged that sounds? Would you be okay with games only being available to wealthy people? As Jim points out there's no need to increase prices, games are already massively profitable, more than ever.
All of those things combined make up a tiny percentage of the actual market. These issues are always massively inflated by internet noise but have little bearing in the real world.
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Correction: the fatcat suits are are happy with the prices. The creators- the actual devs and artists- don't have a say in this.
I feel like bringing indie devs into this discussion kind of misses the point when indie devs aren't charging anywhere near $70 in the first place as price of admission.
How is that different from anything else in a capitalist society?
You can defend pretty much anything under the auspices of "the market is willing to pay". Not covering Pre existing conditions? The market is willing to pay. Using slave labor to reduce costs in order to make a profit selling these consoles? The market is willing to pay.
No one is even arguing people won't pay it, people are asking why it's being raised and there's no information that makes sense besides it's been a long time or something.
Exactly my friend.
Technically speaking, the development cost for a video game is irrelevant to the price of a video game per microeconomic theory, as there is no fixed/opportunity cost for distributing said games (except physical Switch cartridges but that's another issue entirely).
Increasing the price with a new console generation is good timing from a willingness-to-pay perspective, though. That's not unethical. Again, it's about price elasticity: pricing anything other than willingness-to-pay results in leaving money on the table.
There are many very good reasons why self-publishing is uncommon, and none of them are unethical. (the obvious one being that without the support of a publisher, the game likely would not exist at all)
Increasing the price with a new console generation is good timing from a willingness-to-pay perspective, though. That's not unethical. Again, it's about price elasticity: pricing anything other than willingness-to-pay results in leaving money on the table.
Smaller game companies can and do self-publish.
There are many very good reasons why self-publishing is uncommon, and none of them are unethical. (the obvious one being that without the support of a publisher, the game likely would not exist at all)
They might not have had a say in deciding it but they are not objecting to it either. In fact every dev who I've seen reacting to the new price point seems perfectly happy with it.
Why does that matter? They have nothing to lose with a price increase. In the case of Activision, they'll just get fired in bulk no matter how much money the company makes.
I say it in every one of these threads but there ain't no fucking way in hell im paying $70 for a game.
Game prices were stagnant for a long time and were long overdue for an increase. Development costs have kept increasing, and will increase further this generation. This was always coming.
Guys, its not about how much profit is acceptable.
Seriously. We not only see takes from people who would pay hella money if the livelihoods of devs increased as a direct result, but no one would give a flying shit about an increase in price if their buying power had increased too.
That's the point. No one gives a shit if the industry has record profits if all the people in the industry and elsewhere ALSO BENEFIT. The problem is that people who actually work their asses off don't benefit from this.
Judging by the rising costs of living and game development, it is abso-fuckinglutely defensible and justified. Hell, it probably should have been that price in 2013.
Obviously what is indefensible is the monetization practices atop that ala NBA 2K. But then again, most consumers know by now that the game drops in price fairly quick. So just wait a month or two and it'll be $40
Obviously what is indefensible is the monetization practices atop that ala NBA 2K. But then again, most consumers know by now that the game drops in price fairly quick. So just wait a month or two and it'll be $40
Probably because it doesn't actually matter lol; It's not going to change their wages nor will gamers actually stop buying games, because it's a scientific principle at this point that gamers cannot actually withhold giving money to billionaires, no matter how ludicrous the exchange ultimately is. You're right, in a way. This topic is quite useless, but that's not an indictment on Jim and the people who agree with him.
So you're saying that slave labor is fine because capitalism. Right?
We were told that MTX (and their many variations) were to offset the development costs that have kept increasing.
So..........Either we were lied to then or we're being lied to now.
Gamers dont have to stop buying games. There are plenty of games that are not 70 dollars. Indie games are released all the time at lower prices. Games go on sale all the time. There are subscription services that offer good value. There are still used games and rental services. Just because the top end AAA games are getting more expensive it doesn't mean that we can't afford to play games anymore.
fair points, but I don't think any of the above are reasons to pass the buck onto the user. Is there proof of game dev budgets exploding? I'm not sure. Is there proof of Dev execs making more money than they ever have? Yes. The number of game buyers has never been bigger, so the increase during a pandemic of all things, goes to show that they are just trying to milk their audiences. Yes. I know a companies literal existence is to make money, but that still doesn't make it less shitty.
There are plenty of reasons to argue against higher prices without misunderstanding how the game industry works. Every single high paid executive would love to sell millions of copies of games with PS1/PS2 level budgets instead of the budget monstrosities they're making now, but the marketplace doesn't allow them to. And since the very beginning of videogames, gamers have wanted better and better technology - it's not a new thing.
There's really 3 primary ways to make money in the game industry.
1 - You outmuscle everyone else. This is increasingly expensive as games get more and more advanced.
2 - You innovate. This is difficult and unreliable, because if you make something that nobody else is making, it's anyone's guess how well it'll sell, because there's no precedent. Sometimes you make Splatoon and other times, you make Wonderful 101. And W101 is a far more likely outcome.
3 - You find a niche. This is the typical indie approach - I can make a silly game about Cthulhu and Christmas with 16-bit-inspired graphics, because nobody else is doing that. And yeah, not a lot of people are willing to buy our weirdness, but it still works because our costs are low enough that we don't need many sales.
And after saying all that, I agree that charging $70 in a pandemic is incredibly tone deaf.
Let's pretend that you're actually correct on this (you're not). But let's pretend that these issues are only inflated by "internet noise" as you put it.
You are posting on a gaming enthusiast forum.
Are you really trying to pop in and convince us that there's nothing to see, nothing to discuss, and that this is a non-story? Because you've got one hell of an uphill journey ahead of you if that's the case.
Right. But how do we know that the people participating in the industry aren't benefiting? It is an assumption I'm seeing here, but I don't know that it is true. I haven't seen in it Sterling's video either. What is the evidence that devs don't participate in it?
Also, if profit margins are already in the in the single digits, why would we expect to see an increase in benefits with no corresponding increase in price or revenue streams? Or are devs and publishers supposed to give up profits to increase those benefits.
Now, I understand the argument that we shouldn't trust that an increased price would lead to increased benefits. That I get. But I don't know why would we expect an increase in benefits without increased revenues.
Good video. Counter arguments along the lines of "this is long overdue" or "they just charge what people will pay" are ignoring the special editions and recurring monetization that are definitely not going away, and a higher price may actually contract the market for new games. The AAA games industry is stuck in the typical big business cycle of maximizing profits to the exclusion of all other concerns related to consumers or their own workers. There's already little consideration paid to whether the market can bear another huge GAAS time/money sink every year, and putting a higher barrier to entry on the front end may be a bad idea when so many people are out of work.
Hard to say if there will be an actual crash, but with oncoming economic depression I wouldn't rule it out. Note in this case by crash I don't mean video games go away, just that some or all of the big GAAS-focused publishers shut down or scale way, way back.
Hard to say if there will be an actual crash, but with oncoming economic depression I wouldn't rule it out. Note in this case by crash I don't mean video games go away, just that some or all of the big GAAS-focused publishers shut down or scale way, way back.
To be fair, we pay $120-$130 now here in NZ.....so $70 seems amazing to us.
Yada yada "but the US dollar is worth more", but in terms of earnings, people don't earn much more here in terms of dollars vs US salaries, less in a lot of industries.
I guess it's what you're used to vs change.
Yada yada "but the US dollar is worth more", but in terms of earnings, people don't earn much more here in terms of dollars vs US salaries, less in a lot of industries.
I guess it's what you're used to vs change.
Yes that is exactly what I'm saying and this matter is the exact equivalent of that......
MTX is not a forced necessity either, people are choosing to pay for it. I've never paid a penny for MTX in my life and I've been perfectly fine enjoying video games without them.
I didn't say there is nothing to discuss. I said it's not a controversy and certainly not 'indefensible'. Discuss away all you like. I'm just giving my opinion on it too.
I already stopped paying full price for games last gen, so I'll be buying even fewer games--or waiting even longer for sales--when I'm ready to hop into the new gen. As others have said, by and large your average dev is not treated well while publishers keep on getting richer.
I don't think focusing on R&D is exactly the right approach here - we know some companies may invest more on it, due to having hardware development (in Nintendo's case) and engine development (Nintendo, EA, UBi, among others) but I think you'd need to go to the financial statements and see the composition of the opex if you want to see what's the biggest driver of it. Personally, I'm betting on revenues - the game industry is heavy on human talent and the development of current games mean having huge teams - many of those in your list have opened studios in different part of the world in the last decade. It would be interesting to see how the opex increases coincide with building a new studio.
And as someone else brought that point, marketing will probably have increase its weight in relation to the total amount of opex - the advertising nowadays is a million years away from what we had in the PS2 era.
That's not what I said. You defended this by saying that "it's just capitalism". If "that's just how this works" automatically makes this fine, then it should also make any other practice fine, by the same logic. Otherwise, it's not a valid defense.
If people were benefitting in a way that increased the health of their work environments (this includes wages, time off, general benefits), we would not be hearing about crunch. We would not be hearing about exploitation of workers in the workplace.
We can also infer just based off of how capitalism works, especially in the U.S., that the people working in this industry are not getting what they are owed.
I feel like posts like this that indicate a person is not actually engaging in the OP's topic by either watching the content or at least seeking out the cliff notes on the first page should be thread banned.
You are clogging up this thread with reactionary hot takes and given this specific point was addressed in the video and the cliff notes a poster was kind enough to provided, and you are not addressing that in any meaningful way but simply regurgitating the talking point, indicating you are either being intentionally dishonest or you didn't actually engage the material this topic is centered around. Either way it bogs down the discussion when things already addressed keep getting regurgitated
This is just the next stage from Jim Sterling complaining about DLC and MTX for the last six years. And the answer is still the same. If it's worth to you at the price point given out, buy it. If it's not worth it to you, don't buy it. In six months it'll be a lot cheaper unless it's a Nintendo game then you're fucked.
You're entitled to your opinion. Opinions can also be flat-out wrong, though. Like if you presented your opinion that you believe the earth is flat, then ok. Have that opinion. This price increase has generated a present moment controversy, whether or not you believe in it.
Good for them but i still fail to see why Publisher have to have raise prices when they have been making records profits for years now.
It's not about the right or wrong of it, I'm just stating what it is. If you think it is wrong, then don't support it. If you continue to support it, then it will continue being what it is.
pretty much. gamers do love to hear their own thoughts parroted back to them by a man in a longform youtube video though, the mindshare economy for that is still open for business and roaring clearly lol.
You wrote multiple posts defending 70$ games and that was one of your lines of defense. You weren't just saying that because it's what it is, you were using it as a defense.
That $70 is before sales tax. The equivalent with NZ's VAT then is $113.
They assume that every gamer can afford to pay 80€ for a game. And that if they can't, fuck them.
Even at $70 per game, video gaming is one of the cheaper hobbies out there.
Despite that, that's why games often go on sale (price discrimination), so they capture both segments. There is no inalienable right to be able to buy a game Day 1.
I'm not telling gamers to not take part in playing games. I'm telling people to stop doing stupid shit and giving away their hard-earned money their money to billionaires who don't give a damn about you or even their developers, and people insist on going "No, you don't understand; here is WHY I absolutely need to purchase the Horse Armor on Day 0." Like.... guys. Stop. I'm trying to help you. And I'm serious about the hard-earned part. I know y'all work long hours to afford all this shit. Keep that $10 in your pocket.
if you can't actually afford your hobby or luxury good you probably shouldn't be involved in it? i was dirt poor in college and didn't play video games for 5 years. you'll be fine.
So my opinion is different from Jim Sterling so I should be banned? Is Jim Sterling the arbiter of truth around here?
As I already said, you don't have to like it or support it. But it is what it is. It was always going this way and the market will go with it. And like I also said, this only applies to new AAA games, it doesn't mean that people can't ever play games anymore. You and some others here are acting like people are dying out there because of $70 games.
That's not what that user said at all and you're being intentionally dishonest about it.