Support NeoGAF

[SmokedMeat]

It’s true.

It’s also true that those cartridges had high amounts of physical memory on them, and in some cases special chips built into the cartridge.
They were also the complete edition of the game, while $70 these days only gets you the basic edition. Extra content is sold separately, while those carts contained unlockables via cheat codes that no longer exist.

So it’s not really an apples to apples comparison.

 

[BabyfaceRe]

Please can we stop with the "adjusted for inflation" BS. For starters unless every thing else keeps up with inflation, this is a redundant arguement. Not sure if you've seen wages recently.

Second you're forgetting console install base, recurring revenue, mainstream exposure leading to much higher IP potential- is exponentially higher than it was then.

There is a reason that even though games hadn't adjusted for inflation for years they were still making stupid amounts of profit.

With MTX, battle passes and DLC, games are making crazier money than ever before. Games come out for literally FREE because the potential pay out is so fucking big.

Content isn't everything. Graphics arent everything. Profits ARE everything. P.S. game design and innovation is a 10th of what it was back then.

 

[Imp the Dimp]

Please can we stop with the "adjusted for inflation" BS. For starters unless every thing else keeps up with inflation, this is a redundant arguement. Not sure if you've seen wages recently.

I have, how about you? This is the unadjusted median (= rich people aren't skewing this) household income in the US since 1984:

Median Household Income in the United States

Graph and download economic data for Median Household Income in the United States (MEHOINUSA646N) from 1984 to 2022 about households, median, income, and USA.

fred.stlouisfed.org

What do you see? The nominal median household in come in

1995: $34,000
2020: $68,000

How have nominal gaming prices changed ever since?

Second you're forgetting console install base, recurring revenue, mainstream exposure leading to much higher IP potential- is exponentially higher than it was then.

This in and of itself is no reason to lower prices. The prices are low because of competition I would guess. Increasing your margins through optimization doesn't mean that you'll lower the price to where your margins were before. That would be plain irrational. Companies (and individuals) seek to maximize their outcome.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Please can we stop with the "adjusted for inflation" BS. For starters unless every thing else keeps up with inflation, this is a redundant arguement. Not sure if you've seen wages recently.

Second you're forgetting console install base, recurring revenue, mainstream exposure leading to much higher IP potential- is exponentially higher than it was then.

There is a reason that even though games hadn't adjusted for inflation for years they were still making stupid amounts of profit.

With MTX, battle passes and DLC, games are making crazier money than ever before. Games come out for literally FREE because the potential pay out is so fucking big.

Content isn't everything. Graphics arent everything. Profits ARE everything. P.S. game design and innovation is a 10th of what it was back then.

Not to mention there’s now a digital marketplace that eliminates manufacturing, delivering, and cuts out all of the middlemen that existed back then.

The cut of each sale for a publisher is drastically higher now than what it was back then

 

[kvltus lvlzvs]

Publishers should allow for studio size and budgets like they had in the PS2 era, and also allow those studios to take the same kinds of risks that were made in that era.

Gaming as a whole would be better off for it.


Edit: Also, the market has grown exponentially. There is a profoundly larger user base for games than there was back in the day.

 

[kiphalfton]

After this thread, OP your username should be changed "Imp the Simp".

 

[64bitmodels]

I think I paid 300 bucks for VooDoo GPU back in the day and needed to buy a 100+ video card to go with it.

wait, what? a GPU AND a video card?

 

[ThisIsMyDog]

Too cheap? You guys know that porn is for free?

 

[saintjules]

 

[killatopak]

It’s one of the cheapest to get into. Can be incredibly expensive once you get into enthusiast stuff and the constant updating.

There certainly a lot of more cheaper alternatives, physically taxing or not.

Also, ask a whale if he found gaming cheap.

 

[SHA]

It's not, they make money more than anything else, most of them brake even right after the launch.

 

[Raven77]

The gameplay quality of these "cheap" games has also decreased (maybe even deliberately so). And they try to extract money from you using DLCs, micro transactions, season passes, battle passes, etc. I mean, there are people who have spent hundreds of dollars of Paradox' games. Or on Sims 4. So I must disagree with you, I'm afraid. I think most games are too expensive.

Yes and they are doing that BECAUSE the industry charges so little for games, like the OP says.

You can have cheap games riddled with microtransactions and horrible monitization schemes or you pay more and that stuff would hopefully die out.

And yes, I know they still release great games without monetization. Just speaking generally here.

 

[buenoblue]

I mean if you were there in the 90s those games absolutely felt like they gave value for money. Those games were cutting edge at the time.

Plus I've just bought a Samsung 65 inch OLED for the gaming features, my 6th tv in 10 years driven by gaming features. Factor in my 3rd pc build in 10 years for gaming plus all the speakers and headsets, 3 VR headsets and my marriage, gaming is pretty costly for me!

 

[KaiserBecks]

Well in the 90s my parents paid for my games so obviously gaming has gotten quite expensive since then.

 

[SHA]

You can just stick to the base game (which is much cheaper than in the 90s and 2000s) which will probably be bigger than whatever games you bought in 1997 and not continue spending on additional content if you can't afford it. Sorry, but at some point you gotta take responsibility for your own actions. Poor people have easier access to games than ever because real prices decreases so drastically since the 90s. Games these days are substantially bigger and better than 90s games. Some of you people don't suffer from a nostalgia bias but nostalgia delusion.

But I had a lot of fun back in the 90s without spending a lot, Poor people spend more and make it too personal, based on their actions, they don't have priorities in life.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Console prices are scary bad.

 

[phaedrus]

That Dreamcast adjusted price is nuts! Biggest bang for the buck.
At its launch no other console nor home PC could match the graphics of Shenmue & Soul Calibur.

I wonder how much Sega lost per console sold, which no doubt contributed to the DC's untimely demise

 

[GreatnessRD]

Didn't read a got damn word you said, but delete this shit.

 

[Hudo]

Yes and they are doing that BECAUSE the industry charges so little for games, like the OP says.

Holy moly, it took me a while to remember what the fuck this whole topic was about, to be honest.

But I still stand by my point: That's exactly the industry charging a lot but in a roundabout, non-upfront way. And they know it works on enough people, which is why they do that. And they hire people who specifically design gameplay systems to coerce people to stay and pay again and again. The industry just got more clever about it.

Back when my parents bought me Tiberian Sun for like 100DM (My Mom needed a bit of convicing because she rightfully said that this was kinda expensive), I got a big ass box with a manual to read with all sorts of unit descriptions and lore shit on the backseat on the drive home . Then Westwood bothered, as they just always did, to make a whole setup app to install the game with all sorts of animations etc. to get you already invested in the lore and atmosphere of the game. And then the game itself was fucking complete and playable. No menu/account shit that already wanted you to buy DLC or other shit. No icons between missions that remind you that you could buy this or that.

That, I felt, was worth the money. Like I had bought something that felt like it was "a premium product", so to speak. If anything, prices at the very least remained the same but games feel (to me) like less valueable because the games present themselves to me like that.

And publishers all over the world report profit after profit (except for Embracer I guess, they fucked up). And the average profit margin per player is higher than it was before. So again, I think games are not way too cheap.

 

[EruditeHobo]

I mean, have you ever considered how cheap a pack of cards is compared to the amount of entertainment they can provide?

Uh, yeah... it doesn't take many dozens (or indeed hundreds) of people working for many months (or indeed years) to produce "a pack of cards".

 

[Krathoon]

You should not feel like you have to take out a loan to play a damn video game.

 

[Krathoon]

I have been tapping into the grey market. It usually makes the prices more reasonable.

 

[Dream-Knife]

Now do average income adjusted for inflation.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

Crazy how Nintendo’s consoles got progressively cheaper on a relative scale from NES to GC.

 

[Bkdk]

Interestingly enough there is a type of game with price growth well ahead of inflation which is gacha. They did this because western developers keep making ugly female chars and a huge group of gamers are fed up with it and rather spend big to just get better looking female chars.

 

[Sleepwalker]

The gamecube was incredible value.

 

[Camreezie]

$70 for a game like God of War Ragnarok, TotK or Elden Ring is just insane when we paid $100-130 for SNES and N64 games if adjusted for inflation. Games are multiple orders of magnitude better than in the 90s and not only that, they beat virtually all other entertainment too in terms of value for the money. Would you have considered any of these three games a bad deal at, say, $110? That seems hard to believe given the crap you bought in the 90s for those prices and higher. Box prices for games are probably among the most inflation resitant things I can think of and the nominal price increases don't even make up for inflation. Gaming's day 1 real prices have greatly decreased since the 90s and more or less stagnated for the past ~10 years. Obviously, that's just box prices and companies have varying business models these days but generally, you can just buy a game for a basically all-time low price during what is probably the all time highest quality era. It's (good) insanity.

Pay £70 for something like Forspoken or Gollum then say this

 

[cartman414]

Cartridges were a thing. The standardization of optical media changed the game big time.

 

[bender]

I'd be fine paying more for games if we could get rid of pre-order bonuses, early access, digital deluxe/ultimate editions, etc. The problem of getting the former is that we'd also get the latter. It's also easier than ever for developers/publishers to further monetize games once you've purchased them.

 

[Kliptik81]

Yup, I laugh at everyone bitching and complaining about the price of games today. We paid more for games in the 80s and 90s (with inflation of course). Games have gone up, $10, maybe $20 top over the past 30 years. The cost to make a game has definitely gone up by a MUCH larger scale.

I've taken my kids to the movies, got popcorn and a snack. It cost $100 for 2 hours of entertainment. I also bought them Spider-Man on PS4 for $50 and we have logged in over 250 hours into that game.

Gaming is by far the best enjoyment/cost ratio out there. Yes, the consoles cost a lot up front, but if you take any other for of entertainment/enjoyment into consideration, its cheap. It costs $75 for my wife and I to go out to eat and get a drink or two... yeah, I'll take gaming.

 

[Krathoon]

It used to be that you bought a game. Now there is all this other stuff. There are strings attached.

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

It used to be that you bought a game. Now there is all this other stuff. There are strings attached.

Actually what has happened is that the Arcade Pay To Win came back.

You had Lives because you had to pay to get more after you die. For a while the lives system was redundant because it makes no sense when you own the game at home. Now Free-To-Play games are just arcade games resurrected.

 

[Team Andromeda]

P.S. game design and innovation is a 10th of what it was back then.

I'm calling BS on this one. The 16-bit era wasn't full of innovative games at all; it was mostly the same style of 2D games that one had seen before .
People need to take off their retro glasses.

 

[Nobody_Important]

Forget that. $70 is already pushing it for me.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

$70 for a game like God of War Ragnarok, TotK or Elden Ring is just insane when we paid $100-130 for SNES and N64 games if adjusted for inflation.

The market was also much, much smaller and the business model allowed for one-time purchase with no recurring fees and micro transactions.

No, game prices are correct the way they are. In the end it’s all supply demand - aren’t you curious why no company decided to try and sell $100 AAA game?

 

[Esppiral]

What developer or publisher do you work for op?

 

[IAmRei]

kinda of agree... but again, there are a lot of people who will be against this idea.
The amount of content for some games is to big for the prices, but again, for some shorter games are too high.

I would like to pay 100 for open world or complex action adventure if i had much playtime or replayability.
but i don't like the idea of 100 for a shorter few hours single player even if its kind of a complex game but almost zero replaybility.

for me, the value ranges from playtime vs experiences

reminds me to ps+ thread yesterday.

 

[Fahdis]

Dear Phil, Shuntaro & Jim,

I know OP is you and you're just trying to nickel and dime us with some Psy Op. Fuck right off!

Sincerely,
Gamer

 

[zombrex]

The industry has realised this, that's why they are getting gamers on the hook with recuring payments such as battle passes to have the entire amount of content.
But those passes also have the potential to turn a large number of players away, there is a fine margin the have to balance.