It feels to me like the closer we get to the Nintendo Switch 2’s June launch and the, apparently, $80 games associated with it, the more people are fighting with themselves over what is and isn’t worth it. But at least Sony veteran and previous head of PlayStation Indies Shuhei Yoshida is free from inner turmoil – he thinks relatively expensive, high quality video games are unequivocally necessary.
“I don’t believe that every game has to be priced the same,” Yoshida continues. "Each game has different value it provides, or the size of budget. I totally believe it’s up to the publisher – or developers self-publishing – decision to price their product to the value that they believe they are bringing in.
Yoshida continues to say that, “In terms of actual price of $70 or $80, for really great games, I think it will still be a steal in terms of the amount of entertainment that the top games, top quality games bring to people compared to other form of entertainment.”
“As long as people choose carefully how they spend their money,” he continues, “I don’t think they should be complaining.”
yup, “a steal” is a good word for that, but not in the direction they mean
They’re referring to hours of entertainment. People pay $20 to see a 2 hour film. Games give us 50+ hours at times.
That’s not to say games should cost the same as movies in terms of “entertainment hours”.
Quantifying the value of your media in “hours spent consuming it” is an intrinsically poor way to do things
You guys are paying $20 to see a single film at the cinema!?
I do choose carefully, I buy half a dozen indie games on sale instead, and I have nothing to complain about.
This is the way.
Oh I will be choosing very carefully.
I’ll be going back and playing all the super Nintendo games I missed out on as a kid I think
You’d be better off getting an Anbernic for that.
Translation: The executives who don’t do anything deserve to get lots of money and you should be happy to pay them for it.
Fuck you.
He’s not wrong, Baldur’s Gate 3 is a steal for the price it is. “Really great games” do exist and they’re worth their price tag, the problem is the number of AAA games of that caliber are like 1 in 30. We’re lucky to get one in any given year. Meanwhile, there are consistently high quality indie games coming out for less than $40.
but like… if your entire customer base is saying you’re wrong, aren’t you then wrong by definition? the buyers set the prices, in a way.
If the customers still buy it in the end, the publisher was right. We will see over time. Maybe there will be a drop in sales but then GTA6 comes along and no one can resist, opening the path for other games.
Someone on lemmy recently put this into perspective for me. Even like 1% of the population of the USA is 3 million people. If you increase the cost of a product and don’t care about long-term sales, the immediate gain in profit can outweigh the loss of total customers down the line.
I still think cutting off customers and burning good will isn’t a good business model, but I’m not stupid wealthy, so what do I know.
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If you look at inflation adjusted pricing, it really is a deal. IIRC we should be at like 90 or 100+ dollar games at this point.
As usual, the problem isn’t so much that the cost of everything is rising; It’s that wages aren’t keeping pace.
Sure, but that doesn’t mean the game developers don’t need to be paid. It’s still a bargain for the work that’s being done.
point to the wage increases for those developers
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Developers have been underpaid for years. These increases are not going to them.
That’s not inflation works. Inflation shouldn’t apply to everything at the same rate.
My first computer costed the equivalent to 1000 euros. Do you think the average desktop should cost 3000?
That is how inflation works… when costs go up prices go up.
Yeah, your computer probably should cost a lot more in “today dollars” but because performance of components gets more efficient over time, you can likely get a better computer for less money.
It’s the same reason you have a computer more powerful than multiple thousands of dollar super computers. The technology has improved enough you don’t have to pay as much.
Do you think prices should just be locked in place for eternity at $60?
Games were $60 for so long everyone thinks it should be like that forever
We are already are, look at season passes, dlc etc, 90+ is the de facto price of a lot of AAA games. They’ll claim going even higher is to support developers or whatever when laying people off en masse and posting even larger quarterly results, it’s pure avarice.
They also tend to sell more copies vs decades ago, which is partly why the $70cad game was so normal for so long IMO.
$80? How much is that, like 4 bananas?
I’m carefully spending my money by buying less games, mostly DRM-free indie games.
Nintendo… not even pirated. Stop supporting their bullshit.
But every time I pirate one of their games they lose $80. So they say.
Playing Nintendo games, even when pirated, maintains their popularity.
According to Nintendo my legitimate backed up software is causing them to loose money. At this point even if the legal way is wrong, then why not go full sail.
Not wrong. You and other AAA studios are not making games worth that price tag though.
“as long as people spend less money on games overall things will be fine!” Easy to say when you’re retired from the industry. I don’t think anyone in the industry would appreciate the implications of that…
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I agree with you about CDs but I’m not sure I understand your point about physical copies. If they’re still buying and shipping a physical SD card, from a production perspective, I’m pretty sure that’s the same cost regardless of whether it’s a key or a full game. And considering that digital copies of games tend to be the same price as physical ones anyways, I think the physical aspect is pretty negligible and doesn’t factor into the price in any real way.
Well, if i have the entire game on the physical device and it doesn’t come with arbitrary DRM stuff, i can still enjoy it in 20 years on the old console even if all the servers are shut down.
I recently saw that used Gameboy Advance SPs go for the same price like when they were new. Old Gameboy games also go for similar prices like when they were launched. Because no matter where or when. As long as the console and the cartridge themselves are working and there is electricity, the games can be enjoyed.
That is a gigantic difference from a consumer perspective, no matter what the physical production costs are.
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Why sell multiple games and make more money collectively when you can just sell one and alienate your loyal customers? Art of the deal.
