Game prices have hardly increased in the past 30 years. The real problem is the purchasing power of the average person and the working class as a whole has decreased significantly during that time.

They're cheaper than they used to be.

I mean, games were £50 decades ago. Now they're.... £50 still.

Get a PC. Be a r/patientgamers

60 is reasonable

80 is pushing it but if the game is of high quality I can reach a compromise

120 HELL NAW.

Because everything is getting more expensive. That is how inflation works. There was once a time a brand new Corvette would have only cost $4000. But now they start at over $64,000.

And 50 for a buggy pre release is a rip off. I see you KSP2

Half of Reddit: They aren't!! Game prices don't even match inflation!! The first Legend of Zelda game cost $80!! Games should be $200 or more today, so we're actually fortunate!!

The other half of Reddit: It's the greedy, corporate, quarterly profit focused bastards!! DLC and micro transactions have fucked everything!!

My own take is that most games are somewhat overpriced, but not excessively so. And some games have far more value than others, so they really shouldn't all cost the same.

$60 has been about the go to point for a decade now for AAA titles.

$80 and $120 usually is some kind of premium version that includes optional features and/or has a baked in Season Pass for post launch content. The more expensive versions usually have physical benefits (Statues, art books, and the like).

Where are you finding $80 or $120 games? it's was $60 for a while now and is recently climbing to $70.

Everything costs more now! Wouldn't be so bad if so many new games didn't come out buggy and unfinished.

The Legend of Zelda on NES was $49.99+tax on release in 1987. That's about $132+tax today.

Want to shut up now, or do I need to give you more examples?

Zelda 1 was $50. That's $132 today.

Games have gotten bigger, better, and cheaper even at full MSRP.

Most 60-70 dollar games are barebones now.

The actual full release with all content has been hidden behind 120 bucks editions, including Macrotransactions.

Wrong.

Most 60-70 dollar games are barebones now.

The actual full release with all content has been hidden behind 120 bucks editions, including Macrotransactions.

Charging almost full price for a buggy early access is a ripoff.

AAA games have always been expensive. A console new AAA release being 80$ was not at all unusual 20 years ago. The cost of developing games however has exploded in recent years which is why such games are now becoming more expensive, especially if you add DLCs and microtransactions the mix.

Indy games or re-releases of older games are still purchasable for about 30$, depending on title.

As someone else said, the purchase power of the average individual has decreased due to inflation so everything appears more expensive than it used to be.

I mean EVERYTHING got more expensive. You can't expect a game to cost the same like 25 years ago.

On the other hand: there are still enough games for 5-25 € so yeah, don't have to to buy the AAA games. If you choose to, don't have to buy the super duper omega deluxe version for 120, but just the simple version for 40 or 60.

I mean EVERYTHING got more expensive. You can't expect a game to cost the same like 25 years ago.

On the other hand: there are still enough games for 5-25 € so yeah, don't have to to buy the AAA games. If you choose to, don't have to buy the super duper omega deluxe version for 120, but just the simple version for 40 or 60.

This is what I try to tell people. Games were $60 at the start of the 360/PS3 generation which adjusted for inflation is more expensive than the new $70 standard. I’m amazed it took three generations for the price to go up.

... Is that not what I said?

Most AAA titles are $60 nowadays and have been for some time. Higher priced items come with optional items (aka what you get micro transactions).

I can certainly buy and play the newest Call of Duty for $60. It won't come with a bonus skin or the first season pass of content however.

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Literally the most inflation resistant product I'm aware of, I'm paying the same price for new games now as I was in the 90s.

$60 is a normal price for a new game, I think.

With inflation and a new generation of massively expensive games, we're seeing a price increase. Not so odd, if you ask me.

I rarely buy games new, let alone at $60. There is so much on offer in every price range, I'm not so worried about some games being expensive.

Because $80 now is $60 a few years ago. The total value exchanged for the game has not changed. The number of dollars has increased because how much those dollars are worth has decreased.

Inflation 🙃

Companies keep pushing graphics as an important selling point, which it never has been, and it's largely lead to a generation of games that have been shallower than a toilet in terms of gameplay systems.

Plus, even disregarding MSRP, we have way more fucking sales going on right now than we used to. Way more.

Street Fighter V is $5.19CAD on PSN and it's far from a dead game, for example. Even discounting what you get from PS+ extra tiers or Gamepass, you could reasonably spend under $30 on either PSN or Xbox Live and come away with like 3-4 high quality games easily which will occupy your time for a month or more.

Gaming is fucking cheap right now.

What if I told you N64 games used to be $80+? New, in 1997 dollars? Games are arguably cheaper than they've ever been, because $80 in 1997 generally bought you way the hell more than $80 in 2023.

Because games cost more to develop nowadays

Please compare the runtime of a NES era game to the runtime of an Xbox 360 game and compare the adjusted price to dollars per hour of content. Go ahead and make that comparison.

I'll wait.

>You can't expect a game to cost the same like 25 years ago

why not? i mean yes, things got more expensive due but games are not comparable to physical goods. software can be replicated at no cost, you can sell it more than once while the production cost stays the same. if you want to sell more than one car or aircraft, you have to buy twice the material, put in twice the labor. this doesn't apply to software. 25 years ago only very few people had access to computers and the market for software was extremely small. now you've got millions of users - software can become cheaper than 25 years ago and we see that a lot actually became cheaper

It's a shade under $150. For the record.

Gaming is still one of the cheapest hobbies there is. I was 22 when I bought Donkey Kong 64 in 1999. It was $84.99 and I made $8/h. The struggle was real!

Are you really that naive? Just thing about wages, server running costs and stuff. Do you earn the same money you did like 5yrs ago? I hope not.

Cheaper, even without inflation.

Ocarina of Time was $89.99+tax in Canada when it came out. Meanwhile I paid $79.99 five months ago for MW2.

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Hey, remember when you could buy a copy of a popular game for $5, ever, back in those days? Me neither.

Meanwhile, on PSN, SFV is $3.99USD+tax.

They aren't

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Some Sega Genesis games were $80 or more in 1993. That's about $170 today.

Many games are cheaper than ever.

Steam sales, Humble Bundles, and other sources can make games dirt cheap these days.

I payed $79.99 for Primal Rage in 1995

I paid $70 for Phantasy Star I in 87 for the Mastersystem. No, those are not adjusted dollars. That's how much it was back then, msrp.

And with the average AAA game costing in the $100 PLUS million range, and take like 6 years to produce, you all should thank your lucky stars games like GTA and Mass Effect arent $120.

You're acting like games didn't routinely come out buggy and unfinished previously. That is not the actual case.

of course things get more expensive but the increasing market has the opposite effect. imagine having to pay your staff 30% more but selling 200% more units - you still end up with a massive profit increase. on average consumer software got cheaper with time, not more expensive

> Steam sales, Humble Bundles, and other sources can make games dirt cheap these days.

This.

If you don't want to pay MSRP, like... Fucking don't. Nobody's got a gun to your head and there's literally hundreds of games for under $10. Like right now, on PSN, I can buy Street Fighter V, Burnout Paradise, and Persona 5 for under $25.

If you'd told SNES me he could have the latest copy of Street Fighter, a great racing game, and one of the hottest JRPGs for that price way back in the day I'd have assumed I was getting stolen goods, even as a snot-nosed twelve year old.

Have you bought a single game for $79.99 in the last five years you'd happily trade for Primal Rage, by the way? Just wondering about the actual value proposition.

While i agree that the purchasing power of the average person has deminished, i disagree that game prices hardly increased. Many games in the triple A industry have hidden additional costs. Microtransactions, DLC, Pre order bonus etc.

For example Tekken 7. To get every character in the game and all DLC, you have to pay 120 dollar. That's long after the release of the game. If you bought it seperatly, you would have paid a lot more (every season pass is around 25 dollars on release, except the final one which costs 15). Therefore you would have paid 60 for the game and 115 for season passes which doesn't include extra stuff like frame data, Tekken bowling etc.175 dollar to get all characters. That's just one example of many.

Games have become much more expensive. You can get it cheaper by avoiding such things and only buy the "basic" versions and/or ignore microtransactions. But that's not the full games price. Hence, full game prices are a lot more expensive than before. Most just don't notice it.

i guess most people don't understand that. That's the only explanation i have for the downvotes.

They’re pretty much cheaper now than when I was a kid (I’m 40). I remember games being 60-70 back then, in today money that’s a lot dearer than the price I’m paying now

That isn't that big an increase. Games have been 50-60 for decades, and expansions were always expensive when they required their own disks and packaging. You did usually get more from them (but not always).

I really dislike the predatory micro transactions, but I still don't think prices have caught up with when I bought Metroid for $30 in 1980's money.

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They aren't, they provide great value for the amount most games cost.

dude production costs didn't stay the same. modern AAA titles cost 200 -300 mil easily, require teams of hundreds of highly qualified people making 6 figures+

Compare that to most games made in the 90's. Small teams, cheaper labor, cheaper equipment, etc.

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> For example Tekken 7. To get every character in the game and all DLC, you have to pay 120 dollar.

That's a $20 increase from the $49.99 price of Tekken 1 on the PS1, released in 1994, once adjusted for inflation. And Tekken 7 allegedly cost 50 million yen, or $370K USD, per stage, which is probably more than the entire budget for Tekken 1, even after adjusting for inflation. If anything, the Tekken example illustrates how the increasing number of sales over the past few decades have subsidized significant increases in development costs.

Or we were around when a NES game cost $50 and even the good ones can be beaten in an hour or two. Even the basic version of a game today is an undeniable value proposition over something that cost the same 20-30 years ago.

Inflation, mostly. Also, dlc.

You can't put a price tag on playtime or enjoyment. If you do that, i still own Blizzard thousands of dollars, because i played Diablo 2 for 3 years everyday as a teen.

Again, that still can be offset by selling more software licenses - the fact that consumer software became cheaper while profits were increased clearly indicate that. I never even claimed that production cost stayed the same, I said that production cost increased. I recommend you take the time to actually fucking read my comment

"bonus" is a marketing word for game content that has been removed, only to sell it later in a 120 dollar edition.

See Ubisoft games. They literally introduced 5 different editions per game.

https://marvelousmoviescom.files.wordpress.com/2021/06/language.jpg

You don't pay your staff 30% more, it's a magnitude higher than that with a massively bigger staff. And with big money, comes bigger risk, therefore I stand with the point I made.

That's a lot of words to simply say, "Yes, that is exactly what you said."

You can quantify it, though, and most NES games lose out to most games released today, and that's a basic fucking fact.

Nice attempt at dodging the point, tho.

Then you are not only dumb but willfully ignorant, which is even worse. Console games were 60 dollars and more over 20 years ago - which is over 120 dollars today when adjusted for inflation. Games are much cheaper than they used to be and companies are having record profits. Higher production cost are more than offset by higher selling unit numbers. If you try to deny this you are absolutely delusional

Wrong.

I do and always will. A 3-4h CoD campaign for full price is NEVER justified.

Dude I worked in this field and still have plenty of colleagues currently in game development. Companies have way more staff, WAY way more overhead and take on a lot more risk than 20 years ago. This more than justifies the prices. Sure, some companies sell a lot more and create record profits but all it takes is one game that flops that can throw a developer close to bankruptcy. It's very similar in the movie world too these days.

You have no point, sorry.

> Companies have way more staff, WAY way more overhead and take on a lot more risk than 20 years ago

And yet games are 50 percent cheaper than 20 years ago

idk just play indies they are cheaper and better

The biggest difference I've found is that my parents no longer buy the games for me, I found that to increase the price drastically.

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