-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
The $70 Price Tag Is Actually Indefensible (The Jimquisition)
- Thread starter Lashley
- Start date
Did you watch the video, the context of price increases to actual inflation realities? Are you aware of these companies financials? The price hike seems kind of arbitrary in context.
This is why their needs to be profit sharing. Employees are treated as though they should be grateful to have a job and paid at all. When their actions contribute to the overall success of the product.
Yeah I agree, but it's going to be a hard sell to ask those making all the money if they're happy to give up even some of that and give it to others
I think CDPR give 10% of profits to everyone, but a) that's only 10% (I wonder how many people get the remaining 90%) and they can probably get around that to some degree by letting people go once the game is done, or having people on fixed term contracts so they miss the pay out, and b) as far as I'm aware they're the only AAA studio who even offer this at all
Being the editor of a hobbyist site gives me a lot of perks, including review codes (and on the odd occasion a code for personal use after launch if we're tight with the PR). It's a privilege, and I try and take it into account when I review stuff. I'm in a relatively well paid full time job on top of it so if I need to I can pick up anything that's missed that we need to pick up for coverage.
Disclosure out of the way, it's 100% right that $70/£60 is too much for the vast majority of games out there. Maybe if companies were to quit making those at the top rake in 8 or 9 figures a year in bonuses while firing entire teams after a project's done, there'd be a bit more sympathy with the decision (ha! Just got to that point in the vid). Also, EA makes over a billion dollars a year from FIFA Ultimate Team. Plus the base cost of the game. Spare me the sob story. When an executive could essentially make everyone in the company a millionaire without breaking a sweat on their personal bottom line, I fail to see the argument.
Disclosure out of the way, it's 100% right that $70/£60 is too much for the vast majority of games out there. Maybe if companies were to quit making those at the top rake in 8 or 9 figures a year in bonuses while firing entire teams after a project's done, there'd be a bit more sympathy with the decision (ha! Just got to that point in the vid). Also, EA makes over a billion dollars a year from FIFA Ultimate Team. Plus the base cost of the game. Spare me the sob story. When an executive could essentially make everyone in the company a millionaire without breaking a sweat on their personal bottom line, I fail to see the argument.
I agree about companies that are pushing it the hardest are the ones who are already raking in massive profits and their games are usually littered with microtransactions etc.
When Activision increased the price of CoD I said at that time that they had a lot of cheek due to the fact CoD rakes in record profits usually and actually, if we think about it, increasing the barrier of entry is detrimental to the purchase of microtransactions etc.
In regards to expanding budgets it is the classic question of whether we as a gaming audience are driving it through our actions, or whether it is publishers just thinking what the gaming audience wants. Whatever it is, the costs keep going up and that inevitably leads to the things I listed previously.
Yeah it's sadly exactly like you said. I get that the US is a major market and many things are US-centric but gaming and many other things are just as huge outside of the US too and Europe doesn't even have it the worst, look at how bonkers things are in South America. And then there's the whole issue with companies just swapping out $ to € with prices, I know US prices don't always include VAT which they always do here but in general these kind of practices should be discussed and looked at way more.
It's also why I find the notion of buying a Digital Only console ridiculous in most places of the world, I mean I like my physical games but even if not you get royally ripped off on PSN and the Microsoft Store if not in the US. Sure you can make an US account and get games like that cheaper, especially if you select a VAT free region but that comes with its own issues and is technically tax-fraud.
The only company I'm relatively fine paying high-prices for is Nintendo because for all their faults they are usually well priced without offensive microtransanctions and I know they tend to treat their employees well.
...O M G, are you implying that workers...should SEIZE... the means of production!? >=D
I would be if the people that actually made the games were the ones to benefit.
IMO, it's not that the game price hike is defensible or indefensible. It's that it doesn't need to be defended.
If a game is 70$*, and you don't feel it's worth 70$... You don't buy it. You can wait until the price lowers, or if you're so sick and tired about everything the triple-A industry (read this in Jim's voice) does, maybe don't buy it at all. It's not rocket science, this is capitalism and prices are dictated by demand since supply isn't much of a factor with digital existing. We can argue for moving on from capitalism as a whole if you wanna, I'm game, but in the system as it is there's nothing to defend if some company wants to sell their product at 70 (or higher) and people are down to buy it at that price.
It's also odd to talk about a price point being insanely high in absolutes. There are games (and I'm not talking about just indies, many AAA ones there) that I'd deem a bad value at 10€ or even for fucking free, there are games I spent 70€ on and didn't feel cheated out of my money. There are most likely gonna be a few games I'll pay 80€ or close to for next gen (so far I've found preorders below MSRP), and some will be worth it to me, some won't. Of course, all things equal I'd obviously prefer if prices were lower (this just in: paying less is better) but there's not one magical price point where every AAA is good value for everyone, and 1$ higher it's "indefensible".
* Kinda funny as an European to see the complaints, when even taking taxes into account Europeans were paying more than that if they were paying launch MSRP last gen.
If a game is 70$*, and you don't feel it's worth 70$... You don't buy it. You can wait until the price lowers, or if you're so sick and tired about everything the triple-A industry (read this in Jim's voice) does, maybe don't buy it at all. It's not rocket science, this is capitalism and prices are dictated by demand since supply isn't much of a factor with digital existing. We can argue for moving on from capitalism as a whole if you wanna, I'm game, but in the system as it is there's nothing to defend if some company wants to sell their product at 70 (or higher) and people are down to buy it at that price.
It's also odd to talk about a price point being insanely high in absolutes. There are games (and I'm not talking about just indies, many AAA ones there) that I'd deem a bad value at 10€ or even for fucking free, there are games I spent 70€ on and didn't feel cheated out of my money. There are most likely gonna be a few games I'll pay 80€ or close to for next gen (so far I've found preorders below MSRP), and some will be worth it to me, some won't. Of course, all things equal I'd obviously prefer if prices were lower (this just in: paying less is better) but there's not one magical price point where every AAA is good value for everyone, and 1$ higher it's "indefensible".
* Kinda funny as an European to see the complaints, when even taking taxes into account Europeans were paying more than that if they were paying launch MSRP last gen.
I'm still likely to buy games day one if they're things I'm really into. But I am starting a virtual backlog - anything I won't immediately play goes on a list - and I won't buy unless I have nothing to play or really want to play that game. That seems a logical approach and the likely outcome is I'll just skip as many games as I currently do - except I won't have bought them first, and number of other games will be cheaper because I bought them later, and more games will be free via either game pass or PS+/GwG/Epic store.
Games didn't increased priced but gamers increased.
When they speak about gaming costing as much as today, those games were selling very well when they were selling 500.000 copies.
Now, AAA games sells 5 millions copies or more.
Also, the half the cost of AAA it's marketing to sell those millions copies.
And digital games had increased revenue for publishers, that are keeping the same price tag of printed copy even if they get from them more money.
So, no, price increased it's not defendable with the arguments they are using.
They are not losing money, nor the market is little, nor the few games skyrocketing budget justifies for every game to have the same cost.
Wages also didn't increased at all with inflation.
I will wait for sales and play games after three years, but I will not pay more. And I'm a power user, I buy lots of games. Let's see if they can all survive with casual market that buys two games in 7 years.
When they speak about gaming costing as much as today, those games were selling very well when they were selling 500.000 copies.
Now, AAA games sells 5 millions copies or more.
Also, the half the cost of AAA it's marketing to sell those millions copies.
And digital games had increased revenue for publishers, that are keeping the same price tag of printed copy even if they get from them more money.
So, no, price increased it's not defendable with the arguments they are using.
They are not losing money, nor the market is little, nor the few games skyrocketing budget justifies for every game to have the same cost.
Wages also didn't increased at all with inflation.
I will wait for sales and play games after three years, but I will not pay more. And I'm a power user, I buy lots of games. Let's see if they can all survive with casual market that buys two games in 7 years.
Those aren't part of the base price or needed for the base experience.
Any "soaring development cost" argument goes out the window the second the publishers release quarterly results, boasting, yet again, record profits. I don't understand how anyone can still use the dev cost argument. It's a weak excuse if that. The same with pretending that the devs will actually see any money from the higher game prices.
Pricing is a mess in my region, bought the regular version of Demon Souls for $80 when it would have been $60 on PS4... with Sackboy and Spiderman both being $60.
I don't like it and it's making move even further away from ever buying anything but exclusives on consoles.
I don't like it and it's making move even further away from ever buying anything but exclusives on consoles.
you're old enough to have been buying games 27 years ago but not experienced enough to understand how economies of scale work?
You think game developers are selling games to the same niche audience of people who played games 27 years ago? Or do you think that audience has expanded by, perhaps, an order of magnitude or more? How do you think that impacts sales performance and gross earnings, especially combined with the impact of digital distribution saving developers and publishers money left and right vs the days when games required actual silicon and chips, big boxes and lengthy instruction manuals? How does your mind tabulate the reality that companies were reaching record profits this generation? Let you tell it, they've been struggling just to make ends meet.
$70 is not only less likely to save fringe companies that are just barely hanging in there; it's more likely to doom them as gamers more frequently take a wait and see approach to buying games.
The industry absolutely cannot go back a niche audience size with niche buying habits. It would collapse.
You know what $70 is going to do? It's going to make the richest companies richer and it's going to make the smallest companies fold up. People better hope that GamePass is wildly successful going forward.
I mean yeah. I wouldn't defend it. makes me feel bad about the other countries where it's gonna get even more expensive.
So games should be free from any price change? It needs to be 60 dollars for eternity? Or less? For like... ever?
I'm 28 years old and every single thing or service that can be bought gets price change in time. I mean literally everything.
I don't understand the backlash about this stuff. And games are more than 100 dollars in my country which I couldn't even buy Miles Morales because i used all my money to PS5.
I think there is a percentage of players in the world just want to pay 0 dollars for games. I truly believe that.
I'm 28 years old and every single thing or service that can be bought gets price change in time. I mean literally everything.
I don't understand the backlash about this stuff. And games are more than 100 dollars in my country which I couldn't even buy Miles Morales because i used all my money to PS5.
I think there is a percentage of players in the world just want to pay 0 dollars for games. I truly believe that.
World isn't the best example because we saw a significant portion of the player base transition from console to PC (inflating numbers with double dipping). IB held well over 30% retention on PC in all markets and it's only 8 months old, it'll probably double that in time.
Iceborne is also a sizable $40 investment, making the total price $100 if you bought both upfront.
read the thread. watch the video.
that'll be a good start for you.
For all intents and purposes, this only serves one purpose and that is to line the pockets of those at the top. Nothing else, nothing more, to try and defend or paint this as anything but is just lying to yourself ultimately lol.
The corporate apologia this thread is rife with should come as no surprise to most of you, we've had an uptick in defending everything from scalping to nonsensical artificial problem solving recently because capitalism ho! The armchair business/econ major arguments have been going hard in the paint to give publishers more money since forever now.
The corporate apologia this thread is rife with should come as no surprise to most of you, we've had an uptick in defending everything from scalping to nonsensical artificial problem solving recently because capitalism ho! The armchair business/econ major arguments have been going hard in the paint to give publishers more money since forever now.
Publishers are seeing record profits and sales, and we're being told that the prices need to get higher ? Fuck that noise.
I give no fucks about publishers profits. I'll be even worse: even if that money was evenly split between developpers, I give no fucks about developpers profits. Why should I care ? Because they make video games ? Suddenly because they make something I like, I should give them more importance than anyone else ?
I'm already giving 60 bucks for a new game. Be grateful already. Next what ? I'll have to kiss your fucking ass ? Gtfo with that shit.
That industry is the worst. What's even worse is the cult of personnality and the pseudo "friendship" shit going on with publishers, manufacturers and developpers. You make a game. If I like it, I buy it. You're not my friend and I'm not yours.
I give no fucks about publishers profits. I'll be even worse: even if that money was evenly split between developpers, I give no fucks about developpers profits. Why should I care ? Because they make video games ? Suddenly because they make something I like, I should give them more importance than anyone else ?
I'm already giving 60 bucks for a new game. Be grateful already. Next what ? I'll have to kiss your fucking ass ? Gtfo with that shit.
That industry is the worst. What's even worse is the cult of personnality and the pseudo "friendship" shit going on with publishers, manufacturers and developpers. You make a game. If I like it, I buy it. You're not my friend and I'm not yours.
In fact, let's try the following: Games are too expensive to makes ? Well then, why don't we lower the bonuses and salaries of the top management ?
That's not enough ? Well, why not lower the salaries of developpers ?
Wait, suddenly, that becomes shitty ? But asking regular people to pay more is okay ?
That's not enough ? Well, why not lower the salaries of developpers ?
Wait, suddenly, that becomes shitty ? But asking regular people to pay more is okay ?
Paying money for goods and services is inevitable.
Paying more money as opposed to less money is not favorable for the consumer.
With that said; the $USD spent to content received (quality and quantity) value of a video game purchase far exceeds any other art medium.
Paying more money as opposed to less money is not favorable for the consumer.
With that said; the $USD spent to content received (quality and quantity) value of a video game purchase far exceeds any other art medium.
I can't defend it and won't defend it until I see that wealth distributed more evenly to all development staff. For starters the increased money could go to help hire and retain more staff instead of making the existing ones crunch... But like that will fucking happen.
That's what market research is for.
And if an industry is making record revenue and asking for even more cash on top of their MTX, Season Pass, DLC, Pre-Order shit then they don't need this more cash to outweight their costs, but because Bobby and Co. need another Yacht
I read it. I watched it. Still does not make any sense. There is not a single post in this thread (that you accused me not reading it) that examines cost-revenue research in modern games development.
Do you know how games development costs? Can you give me more than one example which details how cost manifacturing works in a modern game product? (Marketing, bonuses, salaries, etc.)
Have you seen last Sony quarterly report? Which is a very good information that how much revenue and "record breaking sales" in gaming industry works. More than 40 percent of all game income came from "add-on content" which is nearly 3 times bigger than "60 dollars game sales."
These companies makes record breaking income because of their monetization efforts like ps plus and MT. Game sales are not bread and butter for big companies like Sony and they want to make more money from that. This is a very simple thing to "understand".
We don't even know what a Rockstar games title costs. More than one thousand people worked RDR 2 for 8 years. There are maybe thousands of people working on EA Sports titles alone. Medium is growing, costs are growing, and the money has to grow more than that.
If you want to criticize the capitalism behind it. I'm with you. If you want to criticize why gaming executives makes millions of dollars. I'm with you. If you can't understand than i can't help you.
And last of all, you may want to stop cynically replying to a user. Hope you'll read it.
Launch pricing is strictly a FOMO tax. Simply wait for the price to drop if $70 is so outrageous. If it's about crunch and pay, then only buy games from companies that share your beliefs (get ready to boycott Nintendo).
Bitching online about pricing and crunch only works if you stop buying their products. If you still buy their shit, then whining online makes you a hypocrite that wants to feel good about bullying others around for not joining in on your charade.
Bitching online about pricing and crunch only works if you stop buying their products. If you still buy their shit, then whining online makes you a hypocrite that wants to feel good about bullying others around for not joining in on your charade.
Last edited:
I will never, ever understand why some gamers are so fond of arguing and acting against their own interests.
Sony is a platform holder, they get so much money from "add-on content" because they get a cut of everything sold on the PlayStation store. That being 40% of game revenue tells us nothing in regards to the necessity of raising game prices, it just tells us that a lot of people buy add-on content (no shit, we know this).
Most of the publishers are NOT platform holders, but ARE making record breaking profits off of game sales and the MTX/DLC those games are a vehicle for. If they are making record breaking profits and posting good financials then there is no 'need' to raise prices. Now, do they want to raise prices to wring more money out of consumers? Of course. But it's not because games are more expensive to make or because they are in danger of not making profit. It's because they want more money.
They don't even seem like reasonable "defenses" to me, but rather excuses that just avoid addressing the actual issue. Saying things like "Just don't buy it" or "Wait for a sale" or trying to just semantics to say Jim is wrong because he said the word "indefensible" when it's not literally indefensible and it's possible to think of absurd reasons for it, are all something that seem to miss the core of the problem which is that there isn't really a justification for the price increase that seems to have much substance to it. Basically going "Just ignore it!" doesn't then make the price increase reasonable and something that should just be accepted and supported, it's just deflecting from the issue.
It's a price increase that does not have any gain for the customer, and little to no in the way of justification in general, but people are still trying to say it's fine regardless. Even more absurd is those just repeating points already addressed by the video.
Last edited:
For all those happy to pay inflated prices for no gain to the customer, feel free to also send me money for no real gain too, since you're into that
I'd appreciate your money more than the CEOs and executives you're so eager to contribute to anyway
I'd appreciate your money more than the CEOs and executives you're so eager to contribute to anyway
In this case the people arguing against the price increase are correct, but also extremely unsympathetic because they come off as very childish and as massive hypocrites, so it is hard not to want to argue against them on an emotional level.
This was definitely not the year to raise the prices. Sony doing it themselves actually bothers me a bit. Though I think Sony and MS release song their consoles this holiday was a poor moral choice on their behalf.
Well we also have a big defense force for scalpers. This forum loves rich people and rich corporations making even more money
That blew my mind. I can only guess is that they are actively participating in scalping themselves, or plan to do so in the future and want to absolve themselves of the guilt of participating in a society.
I'm starting to think that those defending this increase so vehemently have stocks in the industry lol
Yea, the fact that growth potentially has been massively realized by digital add-ons ranging from loot boxes, skins, season passes etc. Means that they've in many cases more than overcome much of the "development cost" increase already. If they didn't they wouldn't be raking in record profits while laying off huge swaths of employees. This is captialism in its most depressing form because the workers themselves are so limited in their power/rights in favor of the companies bottom line. Them convincing customers that they need to back whatever decision they need to increase the company value by huge percentage points a year is pretty gross. The focus of all these companies and the business people that run them is not to run a successful company that supplies it's workers with good opportunities, a health environment and produce good games. Those are secondary or tertiary effects at best. Their job is to create growth for stockholders, and that's really it.
How so? It's an an interesting position, I'd like to hear your argument.
No. We really don't. All signs point drastically in the other direction as this overwhelmingly. You're speaking about a personal frustration with not being able to buy a consumer electronics device. No offense, but it's a poor, entitled frame of mind. As someone who struggled through both the Nvidia launch and spent weeks trying to get a card and then the PS5 launch continuing to work alongside buddies who could not get one and still can't. It really does suck. But pretending like era loves "rich people and rich corporations" is so hilarious to me to base off the fact you can't buy a console that in the grand scheme of things is so unimportant. Our personal desires are so misaligned with important things that what you're saying kind of actually highlights what allows these companies to get away with what they're doing. It's that instant gratification, fomo, desire etc. That makes it so people go "I want it now. I want this and this and this, so I'll pay a little more" and the desire is artificial, driven by the company themselves to boot!
There's a deep deep sense of irony here, that honestly needs to be reflected on. These companies are engaging in the same practice that is making you angry at scalpers at a conceptual level lol.
The problem at it's core. You nailed though, and that is that basically people need validation and or at least cognitive dissonance for their actions. To make them feel like the decisions they are making aren't bad ones in the moment. You see this pretty starkly in gacha game threads. It basically boils down to people saying "everything is fine" while the fire of the predatory nature of the game burns on behind them.
Last edited:
Think people are just being realistic. You can argue against something being a certain price, but ultimately the seller has the right to charge what they like. The buyer is equally free to act upon wether or not they agree, by purchasing or not.
And of course, there's the argument that we aren't entitled to have something day one for a price that we want to set.