They aren't being priced out by necessity. They are being priced out because publishers and executives can't settle for record profits.
Choosing to price out individuals with lower income is actually problematic.
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The $70 Price Tag Is Actually Indefensible (The Jimquisition)
- Thread starter Lashley
- Start date
Choosing to price out individuals with lower income is actually problematic.
I'll just say to fully get how insane the price-hike is you have to see it outside the US bubble. Back in the SNES and N64 days a game in Germany would cost between 100-120DM. Then we got the Euro which literally halved everything here roughly, so 1€ = 2DM, games started to cost between 50-60€ which was fine and in-line with how prices always were. If you now factor in that most games digitally cost 80€ here and even physical games are closer to 80€ aswell which would be 160DM, the argument of "Now games are costing again as much as they did before!" doesn't hold much water outside the US.
Yes, because "settling for profits" isn't exactly a viable strategy for publicly traded companies (like Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft). Imagine standing in front of a board of directors and telling them that you could technically make more money by raising the prices but you won't because we all got enough money anyway. How do you think shareholders would react? The sole purpose of a publicly traded company is to make profit.
Why? I know your sentence sounds intuitively correct but I don't accept statements like these without justification. I was never able to afford a trip on cruise ship and I've never been to the US or Japan (even though I'd love to). Is the fact that I was priced out of these activities "problematic"? No it isn't. None of these are things are necessary (much like gaming) and my life goes on, even though I missed out on something very desirable. Missing out on a trip to America has no impact on my quality of life, my income, my health or other things I deem a high priority. I do not believe there's a moral obligation to make luxury products available to everybody. And unlike cruise ship trips, gaming is a lot more accessible in actuality. If you can't afford $80 Demon's Souls, you can still play cheaper games or you can wait for the price to drop. There's no substitute for a Japan or US trip, and even the lowest prices from Central Europe are pretty expensive for my standards.
After the normalization of:
At most, this is just another sucker move to throw on the pile of things that will deter me from buying a next gen console for a good number of years. When I do get one, my habits won't change much: won't spend money on extras if I haven't budgeted them in beforehand, won't play single-player games until the devs are done with updates and bug-fixes, will try to compensate indies fairly by paying the asking price if I'm truly interested, and will never pay more than 20 dollars for a computer game.
- Digital media costing the same as physical
- Online subscriptions for multiplayer in consoles
- DLC
- Loot boxes and skins
- Season passes
- Games being simultaneously bloated and undercooked
- Games eating up your disk space so you think twice before uninstalling/playing something else
- Discs as activation keys and nothing more
- New distribution models such as subscription giveaways or game streaming positioning themselves as potential solutions to these problems while at the same time effectively decreasing the level of ownership over one's purchases
At most, this is just another sucker move to throw on the pile of things that will deter me from buying a next gen console for a good number of years. When I do get one, my habits won't change much: won't spend money on extras if I haven't budgeted them in beforehand, won't play single-player games until the devs are done with updates and bug-fixes, will try to compensate indies fairly by paying the asking price if I'm truly interested, and will never pay more than 20 dollars for a computer game.
The discussion is almost always about Americans having issue with a 'slight' increase and not the constant increase to game prices being ridiculous outside the US, because it's harder to defend that and they don't want to I guess. But also because most game discussion is generally just based on America, unfortunately.
I just wish Jim would stop playing AAA games. He's generally right about them being super conservative, derivative, and having to implement some kind of monetization that compromises the experience. So just... don't play them? If Sterling wants an experience that is less hyper realistic in exchange for more creativity and lower price points, there are a lot of them!
looking at my top ten list for this year, it's... f2p, 20 dollar indie, $15 dollar indie, $20 spin off from major PC franchise, $15 indie, $50 major PC title from game pass, $40 Destiny expansion, $60 AAA, $40 AA title, MMO.
Hades costs 20 bucks, doesn't have micro transactions, and is the best game released this year. So go play that!
looking at my top ten list for this year, it's... f2p, 20 dollar indie, $15 dollar indie, $20 spin off from major PC franchise, $15 indie, $50 major PC title from game pass, $40 Destiny expansion, $60 AAA, $40 AA title, MMO.
Hades costs 20 bucks, doesn't have micro transactions, and is the best game released this year. So go play that!
At work right now so I can't watch the video but I'll take a look once I'm free.
The price hike is too sudden and too steep imo.
Demon's Souls costs around $95+ here where I live. That's a $100 per game. It's extortionate. As someone who always buys games on day one/at full-price— if this is what the pricing for all next gen games are like, then I'll honestly have to really pick and choose what games I'll be buying on day one.
The price hike is too sudden and too steep imo.
Demon's Souls costs around $95+ here where I live. That's a $100 per game. It's extortionate. As someone who always buys games on day one/at full-price— if this is what the pricing for all next gen games are like, then I'll honestly have to really pick and choose what games I'll be buying on day one.
I simply don't think people are being priced out of gaming. They are just being priced out of buying brand new AAA games on day one regularly, which was to be honest always a very privileged thing to be able to afford even at 60 or 50 bucks a pop. I've never been able to do it. I've always had to find ways around that to be able to afford games regularly. I shop around to find the cheapest prices, I sell my games after being done with them, I buy on sale or rent quite often, or buy a month of a subscription service to play a certain game; and when I was a teenager and there were still game shops on the streets, I would buy a game, finish it quickly and take it back to exchange it for another again and again until they changed their policy! And I've never ever wasted money on microtransactions or battle passes or special editions or digital deluxes or whatever. There are many ways to enjoy games, as long as you don't expect to be able to afford everything you want immediately and most conveniently.
Data courtesy of macrotrends.com:
www.macrotrends.net
www.macrotrends.net
I'm not an expert at reading financial charts, but it looks to me like profit margins have stayed pretty steady in AAA land. If micro transactions and other monetization were going towards profits rather than expense, these charts would look different.
Electronic Arts Profit Margin 2010-2023 | EA
Current and historical gross margin, operating margin and net profit margin for Electronic Arts (EA) over the last 10 years. Profit margin can be defined as the percentage of revenue that a company retains as income after the deduction of expenses. Electronic Arts net profit margin as of...
www.macrotrends.net
Activision Blizzard, Inc Profit Margin 2010-2023 | ATVI
Current and historical gross margin, operating margin and net profit margin for Activision Blizzard, Inc (ATVI) over the last 10 years. Profit margin can be defined as the percentage of revenue that a company retains as income after the deduction of expenses. Activision Blizzard, Inc net...
www.macrotrends.net
I'm not an expert at reading financial charts, but it looks to me like profit margins have stayed pretty steady in AAA land. If micro transactions and other monetization were going towards profits rather than expense, these charts would look different.
That includes 20% VAT. The US prices are always listed before sales tax is added.
Sure, I agree they're typically only priced out of early purchases of AAA games. That said, if Nintendo were to increase their games prices to $70 or $80, those poor gamers who can't afford day 1 games at full price would indeed be priced out of playing Nintendo games presumably for years. Which is why I would start with defending the strongest case against your argument (that indeed low income gamers might not be able to afford the new prices), so that you got that covered.
I can count on one hand the number of games I've bought microtransactions in. Are they really a scourge on the industry? Just don't buy them...
Indeed. A lot of people shout "record profits", well yeah, as revenue rises your profit is expected to rise by a similar percentage. Nobody seems willing to state what an "acceptable" profit margin should be though. EA's there, fairly similar to the PS2 days, and if you were to remove FIFA lootboxes they'd actually have far lower margins than the PS2 days. The big pubs also got a boost in the last console cycle from the absence of all the publishers who went bankrupt or bailed on AAA.Data courtesy of macrotrends.com:
Electronic Arts Profit Margin 2010-2023 | EA
Current and historical gross margin, operating margin and net profit margin for Electronic Arts (EA) over the last 10 years. Profit margin can be defined as the percentage of revenue that a company retains as income after the deduction of expenses. Electronic Arts net profit margin as of...Activision Blizzard, Inc Profit Margin 2010-2023 | ATVI
Current and historical gross margin, operating margin and net profit margin for Activision Blizzard, Inc (ATVI) over the last 10 years. Profit margin can be defined as the percentage of revenue that a company retains as income after the deduction of expenses. Activision Blizzard, Inc net...
I'm not an expert at reading financial charts, but it looks to me like profit margins have stayed pretty steady in AAA land. If micro transactions and other monetization were going towards profits rather than expense, these charts would look different.
Obviously I'd rather pay less but I'll still be buying and then selling when I'm done, so I don't think this will affect me a whole lot monetarily. It might make me slightly more hesitant to take a chance on something day 1.
Well, yes, some companies invest more in R&D, some invest less, but if the question is trying to track cost of development, then to me it seems fitting to look at Research and Development and aggregate as best I can. Outside of being on the internal teams, it's difficult to point to specific sections and say "this has the greatest impact on revenue". Still, for sake of completeness, I've pulled those same ratios for the other OpEx groupings:
Which shows us that not only is R&D the biggest of these traditional OpEx breakdowns, it's also increasing at the fastest rate and with the greatest degree of consistency.
Now, I didn't want to exclude EBIT either, because it's a valid thing to look at, which gets us:
From which we can see that these companies have indeed become more profitable over time, although the chunkiness and inconsistency does raise an eyebrow. Still, those two views aren't in opposition; companies have been more profitable over time, but they're also spending more on development than ever before, which is growing - as a % of revenue - faster than other areas.
Edit: It occurs to me to be looking at medians too, since of course that gives us some smoothing, which reveals something of a switch:
(Keeping the same companies)
Which certainly gives credence to the argument that there are other areas besides R&D which are more expensive! And, of course, companies are more profitable. I don't, however, think this suggests that the combined process of making and selling a game has become less of an expensive process, just that companies are getting better with improving their margins. I expect it's the recent (last 5 years) push towards more digital/longer tail stuff, but that doesn't discount the increases in cost.
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But then he couldn't make videos complaining about them :D I think he's very entertaining and makes good points in his videos, but that is kind of his thing.
For myself, I just don't get the complaints about money. Gaming is so much cheaper nowadays than it used to be, aside from the hardware costs. I pay $15/month for Gamepass (which has too many games to list) and I can find all kinds of games on sale. Assassins Creed: Odyssey is $15 right now. RDR2 is $27. These are games you could spend like 100 hours in for the price of a meal out. I know people are talking about new games but if you just wait a little while, you can seriously get games on the cheap. And then there's your point about Indie games, they are always like $20-$40. And then there's the games that are literally free to play. I'm starting to get into "get off my lawn" territory but it's just insane how much quality content you can get now for the money compared to how it used to be.
If $60 was ever justified in the last 15 years (it was), then $70 is fine today just based on inflation alone, without even factoring in dramatically rising production costs.
So the argument isn't really about $70, but $60 as the 2005 baseline.
So the argument isn't really about $70, but $60 as the 2005 baseline.
It's an ideological statement more than anything, so the justification is pretty simple for most of us I think.
Something should not be a luxury if it does not need to be, and there is only positive ( for the vast majority of people at least ) to aim for for that goal ( which would define it as being the moral thing to do imho ).
I think everyone understands that. Obviously businesses are going to business. That isn't a defense.
The argument that everything goes up with inflation so videogames should too is false.
Most household items and clothing have gone down in price in the last 20 years thanks to China, cheaper manufacturing and other various supply chain streamlining initiatives.
I don't see why videogames can't go down in price also, or at least stay the same.
Most household items and clothing have gone down in price in the last 20 years thanks to China, cheaper manufacturing and other various supply chain streamlining initiatives.
I don't see why videogames can't go down in price also, or at least stay the same.
Because the vast majority of expenses are developer salaries, and they get US salaries in the US, not China salaries. As games got bigger, team sizes also went up. Your argument might have merit if all game development was being outsourced to China, and if team sizes weren't going up.
I wouldn't have a problem paying more money for video games if I had any evidence that the extra money I was spending went into the hands of the developers making the game.
Sadly these increases only help the rich get richer and won't improve the working conditions for many in the industry.
Sadly these increases only help the rich get richer and won't improve the working conditions for many in the industry.
"Worked up" is a strong phrase. I just don't find his argument convincing at all, and given that this is supposedly the purpose of these videos (to sway people to his argument), it seems like it's fair game for me to say he's not very convincing. Also, "he's free to do whatever he wants" is not convincing either. Neither is "he probably wouldn't." He can state his position or I can surmise one for him. Until he does the former, I'll continue to do the latter.
I was replying to someone who said "(Jim) is on the 'make a game and sell it' train" for his preferred monetization. So QED he shouldn't have any issue with Sony charging a fixed price for, say, the next God of War.
I already stated my position. I wasn't paying $60 for games and won't be paying $70 either.
Yep, I wouldn't mind playing Sackboy on PS5 right now, but I'm not shelling out full price for that game.
I'll come back later.
I'm generally in this boat. I don't know about CEOs taking a 95% pay cut, but certainly I think they could make less, and the developers and artists and everyone else who is making the game could make a lot more. Under those circumstances, I would be supportive of a higher price point. That money just needs to go to improving the quality of life of the many people who are busting their asses to help create the game.
I mean I will obviously own the logical conclusion of my post that a capitalist system is a better environment for gaming to thrive in than heavily regulated or centrally planned economies. I consider what you called "business gonna business" as a healthy activity that drives innovation. I value the innovation resulting from companies competing on the market higher than the universal accessability of a luxury products like games. Your posts are also completely devoid of any hard statements I could attack, whereas I've laid bare virtually my entire thought process that anybody is free to attack. For example, I would like to know whether you believe that everybody should have equal access to any product. Should a trip on a cruise ship be accessible to me? To everybody? And if that isn't the case, where do you draw the line? You know my stance - I draw the line at essential products that impact things like health and education (you can probably convince me to add more things to this list of necessities, but gaming won't ever be on it). I do not believe it's ethical to price someone out of their medicine. You believe it's unethical to price someone out of buying $80 Demon's Souls on day 1 (correct me if I'm wrong?). I obviously disagree with that. Furthermore, I would like to know what prescriptions you suggest for the $70 or $80 prices. Regulation? If so, how specifically?
Already posted here.
The $70 Price Tag Is Actually Indefensible (The Jimquisition)
Jim is correct, as per usual. One thing he mentioned about "buyer's remorse" is something that I am keenly aware of and affects me in the sense of more conservative buying habits. If prices go up on the front end, the number of purchases I will make will drop precipitously. Lower up front...
www.resetera.com
It's capitalism - they'll charge whatever they think people will be willing to pay, in numbers high enough that it still constitutes a growth in revenue. When it comes to publicly-traded corporations there's no such thing as having "enough growth", and Jim knows this. That's how stocks and investments work.
The easy way to change it is to push back en masse by not paying it - but of course, tons people want their games, want to satiate their FOMO, and don't want to make that small personal entertainment sacrifice to influence this behaviour. So they'll either shrug and pay it, or make some noise then shrug and pay it. So will most of the people in this thread.
In that case, it's cathartic to just nod your head along to a rant about how corporation-y it all is, or how we never had a chance because of the psychological influence of marketing (except for all of the people who manage to exert that self-discipline).
The need and expectation of constant, neverending growth is one of the worst aspects of our modern economy, and what will ultimately drive us to ruin. But we have absolutely been conditioned, and conditioned ourselves, to be willing passengers on that journey.
The easy way to change it is to push back en masse by not paying it - but of course, tons people want their games, want to satiate their FOMO, and don't want to make that small personal entertainment sacrifice to influence this behaviour. So they'll either shrug and pay it, or make some noise then shrug and pay it. So will most of the people in this thread.
In that case, it's cathartic to just nod your head along to a rant about how corporation-y it all is, or how we never had a chance because of the psychological influence of marketing (except for all of the people who manage to exert that self-discipline).
The need and expectation of constant, neverending growth is one of the worst aspects of our modern economy, and what will ultimately drive us to ruin. But we have absolutely been conditioned, and conditioned ourselves, to be willing passengers on that journey.
I agree with Jim, heck I don't see myself buying a lot of games at 70 bucks, heck I don't even buy many of them at 60 bucks. I wouldn't be surprised if I only buy 5-10 games for 70 bucks in the whole gen.
I usually go for as high as 40 bucks in most cases, 50 if I feel like it.
I usually go for as high as 40 bucks in most cases, 50 if I feel like it.
A lot of development is being outsourced to lower cost countries.
There are other factors also: Growing share of digital, many jobs becoming redundant because middleware can do them with a click, development pipelines becoming more efficient, procedural generation, photogrammetry, and even the cut from digital storefronts is reducing.
I'm sure the total cost of AAA development is going up but we're getting more bang for every buck spent in dev and it results in millions of extra copies being sold, so publisher revenue is going up quicker than the dev cost.
I'm just not sure why he needs to state his position for his anti-greed and anti-lying arguments within the context of the video to have any merit, because even if this is your first rodeo with Jim, his general position seems pretty fucking self-evident just based upon the context of what he's arguing against and how he's arguing against this. In general, all of this just seems like an unnecessarily convoluted way to say you just don't care about what he thinks. Which is fine, don't get me wrong. Just saying, you could employ more brevity.
Already posted here.
The $70 Price Tag Is Actually Indefensible (The Jimquisition)
Jim is correct, as per usual. One thing he mentioned about "buyer's remorse" is something that I am keenly aware of and affects me in the sense of more conservative buying habits. If prices go up on the front end, the number of purchases I will make will drop precipitously. Lower up front...
You ignored also posting the very valid criticisms of your post.
Being part of a profitable company is typically good for us employees, that's true. But bonuses like this are often used to implicitly increase performance pressure on employees which can lead to excessive work hours and crunch.
To hand wave it as "their bonuses will be better cause the price went up" is wrong.
We improve the conditions for workforce by increasing base salaries and limiting work hours, not by offering them a potentially tastier carrot with a higher risk of failure.
Is there a standard time in which game companies expect to turn a profit on their investment? does anyone know what it is?
And gaming budgets have balooned enormously.
I think most people wouldn't be too miffed paying 70 for GTAVI or Elder Scrolls 6. It's when you add in titles like Destruction All Stars where it get's a little murkier.
But the vast majority aren't going to buy most titles at these full prices anyway.
I'll be brief: I do care what he thinks (same as anyone I give the time of day to listen to their argument). But what he thinks is poorly argued and unconvincing.
I also wanna add that going half on a game with a close friend or relative you can game share with is also a huge win.
I think it's ok to have lower journalistic integrity on enthusiast sites, but these arguments about inflation are just treating the readers like they are idiots.
I was being a little hyperbolic to be fair, but it's worth noting that a 95% pay cut for someone like Bobby Kotick would bring his estimated annual income down from 40 million to 2 million a year, and I don't really think there's a reasonable argument to be made in favor of someone like Bobby (or any human being really) needing to make that kind of money. Not to mention the off-shore tax havens and consistent layoffs adding even more wealth to the pile.
Regardless, I absolutely agree that the quality of life of the development staff is what's important here, and I'd be fine with the money coming from almost anywhere if it was in support of them instead of absurdly inflated executive bonuses.
While I'm inclined to agree and wish that Sony and MS had instead lowered their cut to prevent the "need" to go to $70, I can only assume that publishers have data showing the market will bear this, at least for AAA games.
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Why do I feel bad that, before watching the video at least, I'm okay with $70? Like, there are plenty of games I wouldn't pay that for (or $60 mind you), but with the ballooning of development cost and how polished and sometimes incredible an experience can be had...I don't scoff at the idea.
Am I a sheep?
Am I a sheep?
No, that's moving the goal posts. You can't hand wave it away like this:
"None of that money will go to any devs."
[sees evidence that many devs will get some of the money]
"OK, so they might get some of the money, but what about, umm, working conditions?"
That's a whole different argument.
I've been waiting for sales ever since the bump up to $60 game prices. I guess its to soon to tell yet, but wouldn't a $60 game that goes on sale for $40 a month or so after release, now change to a $70 -> $50 sale price? Like $50 is the max I think games should be on release so that isn't what I'd call a sale price.
No, they cost a lot more than this (inflation adjusted). Add about 64% to get current equivalent prices, so up to $115 for some of the games here.
