Some of you weren't around in the 90s and it shows.

Inflation. Just don't buy games new. Most new releases get a price drop or sale after 6 to 12 weeks anyways. Just get over the F.O.M.O.

While I do agree with your statement in having to pay full price for half assed games, do understand the amount of hours that go into making a game. Not to mention the entertainment hours : dollar value ratio.

Wha-what happened in the 90s?

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Idk what you expect. Inflation, greed, whatever, prices are only going to go up. When games cost $80, someone will make the exact same post you just made.

Brace yourself.

Games were $70 for far less content and development

Whattttt? 70$?? How did they justify that?

It's easy to look back now and say that was a ridiculous price. At the time though, not so much. Nowadays people think games should cost $40 and get 100 hours out of it without DLC.

I remember getting Mario RPG on release date back in '96. Price was $60.

Amazing we didn't see a price increase years ago...

Ahem. Please inform Nintendo

I agree with you that expectations today are ridiculous. But at some point you have to draw a line on price. I believe if games base price goes over 100 then sales will fall off hard. I would probably still buy games but far, far fewer

Nintendo doesn’t need to do price hikes because their prices never changes. Mario Odyssey for example is at the same price as when released.

You don't have to buy them on release though. And a 40-50% jump in price is definitely not going to happen anytime soon.

I remember Turok was $70 and that was in the late 90s. That would be $129 today. Games aren’t more expensive.

Because they know people will buy it. They are the Apple of video gaming.

Just wait a bit. Most games go $50 or below a few months after they release. I'll probably get GOW during the holidays, I'm sure it'll drop a bit by then. Plus it'll probably be updated to be better than on release date.

Exactly. Especially when the effort and content that goes into them nowadays is far, far more. Imagine Red Dead 2 back then? My mind would have imploded.

Any game that costs that much should be forced to have a demo level. You used to be able to rent the games to see if you like them. Now , I guess you still can through mail order or maybe redbox but redbox never has new releases in stock and mail order is a pain in the ass. It's too much money to go take a chance on a random game. I just wait it out cause if it sucks , it will be on sale in about 3 weeks and if it's popular , it'll be on sale in about 4.

Hi. Remember when video games were always $60 and have pretty much never budged since like 1985? It 100% makes sense that there would be a price increase. If anything, there should've been one many years earlier.

Also before we go cherry picking about "complete" games back then, remember there were many more that weren't and still were full price.

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If you think about it they are more expensive. First they were expensive then they got cheaper and now they are more expensive

And back then, they couldn't be updated. Once the game rolled out, that's what you got.

We are talking a 30year difference, a huge advancement in tech. Yet we are paying this for so little to what this tech is capable off. Take a look at RDR2. What we are getting is a rehash of same games different skin, higher price AND it still includes micro transactions. So no 70$ does NOT justify the cost of what we get in a lot of triple A games, and yes there are exceptions.

The high seas are now the demos which is sad. Oh and they know demos will reduce their sales.

You don't think RDR2 is worth $70..?

Lose the micro transactions at least

People are crying for 70$ pricetag, on games with content and replayability that surpasses the 1 dollar per hour mark, by far (CoD especially is supposed to keep you busy for far more hours than just "70")… while there are people happily paying 20 bucks for indies that keep them entertained for 2 hours. Meanwhile, cost hasn't changed that much over the years. Tell me about self entitlement :v

No it is , and guess what it isn’t 70$. We are paying more for less, with the added “benefit” of just renting the game and not owning it like before. Elden Ring is another example of a game that is worth 70$ but also isn’t. The games worth that price are so little, increase in price means increase in quality and less monetisation.

Games are getting more expensive to develop. That's what it comes down to. Games have been 60 dollars for 15 years now, while the budgets of AAA games keep increasing. Also, nobody is forcing you to buy these yearly games at 70 dollars right on release. They go on sale for pretty good discounts frequently.

My rule of thumb is I don’t feel that I get my moneys worth unless it’s $1 per hour.

What do you mean we're paying more for less?

The game content has increased drastically and the prices have stayed the same for decades?

Why go far, take the latest COD it’s a fun game it is COD. But from what i heard so far one game mode, sub par campaign, kd ratio is gone, and best part battle passes. While on the other side of the coin, we got Horizon Forbidden West, which is imo worth the 70$ price. Yes we were paying the same or more in the 90s but things were still new. Now we nearly perfected it but guess what greed getting in the way. Now take on D2 in which is free but expansions aren’t and we lose old content or they become paywalled. Games are much more than 70$ nowadays, and the excuse it is only cosmetics means we also lost the ability to unlock that stuff while playing. What we are getting is nothing more than pretty graphics over games.

Games have cost a lot more for a while now. Games now are driven by in game purchases and dlc to get the whole experience. In average, if you were to buy a game new, you're probably looking at $120 per game roughly.

The issue I have is that too many games are shipping incomplete and also act as beta's for the first 6 months to a year before getting to a good state. The level of content is small for the value with most games because the money is in multiplayer (which I don't particularly delve into often)

Plus development costs and inflation continue to rise, so it is what it is. It's been $60 for two generations now (360/PS3 & Xbox/PS4). Price increase was inevitable.

It's not amazing. Companies used microtransactions to keep the retail price low. The price of most complete games hasn't been $60 since the 2000s. People are just happy with the, "I bought the game for $60 and I can skip the DLC," argument. But if anyone wants the entire game, the math is:

Complete game price = Base game + (DLC + Season Pass + Pre-order bonuses + "Partnered Sponsorship" tie-in codes + subscription models + optional microtransactions)

Not all of it applies to every game, but most, [not all], games have something in the parentheses of that formula.

And companies like Square Enix try to use the entire formula. I'm pretty sure the only thing Final Fantasy 15 didn't have was the subscription. They had multiple DLCs for that game that required buying other products to get a code for a weapon or armor or something. (－_ლ)

Inflation. Keep your 70 dollars for games that actually deserve them

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Price increase started when the new gen of consoles. Any AAA game excusive to the ps5 and/or series x have been $70.

At least you're not paying $90 where I live.

It's inflation, if you look at a game in 2020 that cost $60, it's like $70 now.

That's not true. Only Sony, Activision, EA & a few others raised the price to $70. Microsoft exclusives are still $60 on PC & console.

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Microtransactions are keeping games as low as $70... You understand that right?

With no microtransactions, everyone has to pay $100 for the "WHOLE EXPERIENCE COSMETICS AND ALL"

which currently only dummies like myself pay for.

You can always return games within certain limits. For steam I think it's 10 hours? There's your demo level.

"Games that cost that much" just doesn't even scan for me. Brother, I've spend more than that on an ounce of weed. $70 isn't asking a lot for games that take years to develop.

Literally which one. 2020 was a pretty shit year for gaming imo

Everyone who owns a PS5 effectively supported the price increase on video games.

>Nowadays people think games should cost $40 and get 100 hours out of it without DLC.

duhh? have you seen the quality of todays games compared to back then?

Half assed pieces of shit, lied about content left and right, blatant nonsense, live service etc etc. People who pay 70 bucks for a newly released game today are mental.

You know that doesn't track, and you're talking about a very select few games. Calling people mental for something they see value in is ludicrous.

Don't buy them then.

Everyone wants more money. That's the true reason. Not inflation, or games getting more expensive to make. The lion's share of the profits goes to shareholders and upper management, not the people who made the game. For the most part, they and CEOs just receive substantially more. According to reports, it doesn't trickle down significantly.

The other side of the coin is generally people's expectations rise with how much it costs them. So more games flop commercially.

I find it hilarious how this is seen as expensive, it's honestly mind blowing how games have managed to stay so damn cheap. The only reason this is perceived as a steep price is because it's compared against ridiculously low or even FREE games... FREE. Obviously this community doesn't have many other hobbies because compare this kinda stuff to travelling, partying, gambling, photography, shopping, collecting literally anything, hell I've seen gym memberships far more expensive than the PlayStation plus subscription. And all those previously mentioned hobbies are usually on special occasions, not available every day. Four hours max of work to enjoy a game for literal years to come is a great pay off, and even then you guys feel like you're being scammed. Gaming is truly an amazing hobby.

People even whine about the cost of cosmetics in free to play games, it's bewildering. Gaming is one of the cheapest hobbies available and yet it's not good enough apparently, I guess the next step is for the game to be paying us to play.

(Realisation that people made money off of selling cs:go skins)

Us Canucks have been dealing with $80 price tags for a while, and they're likely even higher now. My way of dealing with it is to simply not purchase the game on its release date, and merely wait until all the bugs have been fixed, and the game is on special.

Because current gen consoles is more powerful and publishers see it as a good reason to raise the price i guess?

If you really believe that, then I feel bad for you. They are still making record profits, and through dlcs were the old form of micro transactions. Difference most cases I paid for content with dlcs, that are not just skins but for a new experience. Now we are paying almost the same amount but for a single skin instead of dlcs. Right now, gaming has been how to monetise the game as clear as day, than at least pretend to care about player experience. You want cosmetics or battle passes go free to play.

I mean, you can look before if you want. Still, inflation since Covid has made the $60 price tag less attractive

It's all about inflation man. I haven't bought a new game for almost a year.

In Australia they are $129.

Just think back when NES games came out. They were like $50 and you could beat most of them in under 2 or 3 hours. You get way more for your money now, no question.

Back in the late 80s NES games were going for $50. Imagine paying that much for most games that could be beaten in under 2 or 3 hours.

Plus people are getting much more out of their games today. Back then you’d pay $60 and the game could be beaten in just a few hours.

I remember the force unleashed 2 getting beaten in like 5 hours. That was a massive disappointment for a video game, cool power trip though.

Even the rogue squadron games are super short (like 1 or 2 hours).

Yeah. Production teams are a lot bigger now. Everything from voice actors to 3D modelers. Costs to make games are far higher now than back in the SNES days, and yet games are still about roughly the same price.

Yup that’s how those games were. People are actually getting quite a bit more content now.

If you factor in inflation, games are actually cheaper than they were in the past.

Yeah for sure. I remember Chrono Trigger came out back in the 90s and that game was over $70 at release. That’d probably be around $90 today.

If a game isn't worth 70 dollars to you, no one is making you buy it at 70 dollars. The new CoD isn't worth 70 to me, so I'm not buying it. And why shouldn't free to play games like Destiny 2 charge you for major expansions? They have to make money somehow.

I’m not saying they shouldn’t, it’s the locking of old content behind those paywalls. Plus, I’m against the defending of the price increase, it was long over due yes, but it came in the worst way possible.

I'm mostly talking hypothetical, that there probably will be games out that are worth 70. I think most of the ones that are 70 right now are rip-offs, and are ridden with microtransactions like you said. I'm not as against DLC as a lot of people on here, because I think a lot of it is quite good. I'm definitely against things like 20 dollar skins though.

If people purchase anything for $80 then it’s worth $80. The players need to stop buying overpriced shit and the market will speak for itself.

I feel like everyone complaining, "the price of these games is too damn high!" y'all must have been born in the past 20 years, because retail prices haven't changed; yes, microtransactions exist, and yes, most DLC isn't free, but if you compare the amount of content against dollars paid, still feels like we're coming out ahead IMO.

I remember my dad paying $90 for Mortal Kombat in 1993.

I don't like it but it's still one of the best value per dollar hobbies out there.