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Take-Two owner Strauss Zelnick argues players ‘are ready for $70 games’

RPSleon

Member
To me, hitting £70 is where i stop seeing something as a consumable. Games, once completed are rarely revisited. For me atleast. £50 was fine. £70 is hitting a mark where i feel I should be getting a very long term and reuseable item, usually reserved for things like homeware or tech.
 

M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
If it goes beyond 2000CZK, I don't care about it. That's 90 bucks, because euro tax. So don't expect me to buy your shit T2. It does not feel right, games should cost like they costed with X360/PS3 era (1500CZK).
 

muteZX

Banned
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Zelnick is delusional.
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Its going to be a sad day in gaming history once these companies manage to successfully indoctrinate the vast majority of gamers into spending 70$ on games which are in all likelihood unfinished, incomplete, microtransaction-riddled, and, in some cases, remade. I mean, they're half way there already.

I won't be a part of it anyway so this is just pure entertainment.

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Gamings never been better. F2P has the best games on the market. GamePass and PS+ are great. Prices drop mere months after release.
 

M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
Maybe it's my lefty heart, however I just spin this inside my head and it makes me angry. Like imagine, with all that shit which is going on in the world, lockdowns and shit and some rich fuck says "oh they are ready to pay more", like are you even fucking real, the nerve of this guy.

Defund T2!

Sorry for my libshit.
 

cormack12

Gold Member
We can be ready for $70 games, if they realise we are also ready for games in the $40 tier as well. This ubiquitous price shit is what annoys me. We're releasing our game and games are $60 so that is the price. Umm, it's your first game, the budget and scope are tiny and it's not really technically/artistically great but its fun.

NBA is a well made game despite the VC shite. RDR2 and GTA will also be well made. ND games are well made.
 

VN1X

Banned
I think the only full priced games I still buy are Call of Duty. Everything else is sub €40 or nothing.

The only exception I will make this year probably is Deathloop which I'll buy full priced on Steam.
 

Mattyp

Gold Member
Its already happening in Australia Sony are charging $125 for games and even at third party retailers around $100 for physical (ratchet/ demons souls etc), previously we would have paid around $69-$79 at launch. Its part of the reason my ps5 gathers dust.

Like you say only Sony are pulling it at the moment in Australia, 2K with NBA is just as bad but for X & 5 releases being $99 but.

Take Two can fuck right off trying to push $120 games, after RDR2 horeshit I'll wait for GTA6 to hit the discount bin 6 months after launch
 
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Gamings never been better. F2P has the best games on the market. GamePass and PS+ are great. Prices drop mere months after release.

bill hader popcorn GIF by Saturday Night Live


According to you, mate.

Whether or not online subscription services and F2P are ultimately good and beneficial for gamers is debatable. Despite fluctuating price drops in the following months post-release, you seriously still want this to become the norm? Games borderline barren, or devoid, of meaningful content set at a 70$/70€ price point where you cough up an extensive amount of dough to get the remaining full exprience? I mean, hey, if you do then that's great for you. You've got a great gen ahead of you.
 

kraspkibble

Permabanned.
£55 (~$60) is usually as much as i'll pay and that's only if it's a game i'm excited for and need day 1.

the last game that fit that description for me would have been Persona 5 Strikers which was going for £55 on Steam. Perfectly acceptable price IMO but I still looked elsewhere (cdkeys) and got the Deluxe Edition for £47 which Steam was wanting £65 for. I could've got the standard edition for £38. Either way I was saving money and was prepared to pay <£55 anyway.

Microsoft Flight Simulator cost me £59.99 (~$66) which is a bit more than I'd be willing to pay usually but I knew it'd be a game that I'd sink hundreds or thousands of hours into so a little extra felt totally worth it.

Persona 5 Royal i bought the Ultimate Edition at £85 (~$94) which is the most I've spent on any game but I was more than happy to spend that because I loved the original and knew I wanted the full experience which took me about 110 hours. It's easily in my top #5 games of all time so yeah I have no regrets.

basically if the game offers good value then I'm happy to spend more but i'm not prepared to start paying £60-65 as standard. if games do start costing that much then i'll be buying less games. i'll be way more selective and do more research into them. i'll also be far more likely to wait for sales.
 

Orta

Banned
Who is that wanker to speak on behalf of the financial do's or don'ts of games players?

"Ready". Fuck off you arrogant know-nothing CUNT!
 
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RoadHazard

Gold Member
And he's right. There will be some complaining here and in other enthusiast places, but in the end people will keep buying games.
 

Boss Mog

Member
I've never payed $60 for a game, even AAA at launch, so I don't think the new $70 price tag will affect me that much. Will suck for the folks who go digital though.
 

Miles708

Member
And he's right. There will be some complaining here and in other enthusiast places, but in the end people will keep buying games.
Yes.
People proved they're willing to pay unreasonable amounts of money (even to scalpers) to buy consoles that still have little-to-no games, and now they're starved and willing to pay unreasonable amounts for new games, just to justify their shiny purchases.
What a fun industry.
 
Some 16 bit games sold for this in the 90s. Most games were around $60.

Still, if you take $60 in 90s money and adjust it to today with inflation, that game cost essentially over $100 dollars.

People don’t want to hear it but we are paying less for games - even at $70 - than we were in the 1990s.
 
So do y’all think the CEO of the company that owns Bioshock and GTA doesn’t know what people will pay for games?

If you and your friends only buy on sale that is good for you. Way to save $20 while waiting months to play. But I’m pretty sure when the next GTA comes out a lot of people will be buying day one regardless of cost. Are people actually disputing this?
 

theclaw135

Banned
You can't satisfy these people. They'll complain if a game is F2P, they'll complain if it's subscription based, they'll complain if it's $60 and has DLC, they'll complain if it's $100 but includes everything that would've been DLC, they'll complain if it's free on the Epic store...

The more sensible folk know that while having games cost the same regardless of their production cost isn't really working, there isn't a one size fits all answer to it.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
16-bit games were more expensive here, SNES games topping 200 guilders which is 90 ish euros. MD games were slightly lower, capping at 170 (75 euro) or so. We never bought many games back then. It wasn't possible. We would rent, borrow, trade, and buy an odd game used. Discounts weren't really there, only for some games. This was at a time when income was twice as low as its now, but cost of living was twice as low as well. Games were just extremely expensive. Consumers owned generally less games and you became good at those tough games since you had nothing else to play.

With discs however, this was reduced drastically. It was on PS1 that I started to buy much more games. RRP's were far lower than SNES, and discounts were more often as well. Used market also exploded, probably because of availability and consumers buying more games in general. I remember PS2 games also started at 70 euros, but eventually lowered. I think a price increase isn't that weird (PS3 and PS4 gen didn't increase for example which is like 15 years), but the timing is.

There is however more flexibility. There are games aiming for a lower RRP. But because this gen just started, they still try to sell certain games for a premium. Like Destruction Allstars, which wouldn't be worth it at all (I play it, and its absolutely not worth more than 20) and Sony quickly backpedaled. Returnal is another one I feel isn't worth it but we have to wait and see. If it doesn't sell then they will backpedal. FIFA, 2K, GTA however sell no matter the price.
 
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Murdoch

Member
He's right you know. I'm sick to death paying £70 a year for a catalogue of 300+ games including first party games. I'd much rather pay the same amount for an annual release of a game I played the previous year but with better graffix.

I think this ludicrous price hike couldn't have come at a worse time to be honest. We'll see how it pans out in the UK once the early adopters have gotten their consoles.
 

Hydroxy

Member
I think only Nintendo owners are ready to pay $70. They will even pay $99 for a game even if its a port of old game.
 

Hey Blinkin

Member
Honestly, charge whatever you want. I'm still going to wait for a sale or deep discount.

Nintendo is the only one I worry about raising prices. Their games never come down in price.
 

Sygma

Member
fuck broke people who cant afford a hobby entirely made around technological progress and ever increasing development costs. Game were at their lowest price point for more than a decade, the price is fair. Dont give a shit about your situation if you're in a poor country, do something else
 
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Mr.ODST

Member
Fuck this guy, most games go on sale for half the price within a few months i'd rather wait or just wait for it to come to Gamepass at some point, not everyone has the luxury to buy alot of video games on launch.
 

JCK75

Member
If it were a game like RDR2 or the like where there's this huge world where every detail has been handcrafted and it took huge teams of people to make it happen,. I could see an argument for it being $70. But out of all the games that exist he's going to bring up a basketball game which in my opinion should be moving in the opposite direction price-wise.
 

Aion002

Member
For them this makes sense since their games sells millions and are a huge success. Now for others... Not much. Game Pass offers a huge value, Nintendo consumers barely buy third party games (there are exceptions), PC players almost always will wait for sales that are frequent, PlayStation has a strong first party and is the console for F2P games...

For less popular studios, 70 usd might be a terrible idea.
 
Some games will sell well at $70, but I'm not sure annual sports games are among them. Anything that sees deep discounts within two months of launch probably isn't ready for the move to $70.

Strauss Zelnick.... A name that sounds as slimey as T2 BS practices.
His name is actually Harry Strauss Zelnick, so he made a conscious choice to dial up the evil of his name instead of going for the innocuous Harry Strauss or Harry Zelnick.
 
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mortal

Gold Member
The price hike won't make any difference to me. Will still continue buying my games at a discounted price.
 
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