This is what Sony and a lot of those companies don't understand, they keep raising the prices of games, and they'll look to examples like GTA for why that's acceptable, not realizing that there is a massive difference between a game like GTA and a game like Wolverine. Not just in terms of quality, but also in terms of longevity and cultural significance
Not every game needs to be a 10/10 AAA cultural phenomenon, but when every game costs $80, and your choice is between one that is and one that isn't people are just going to spend their money on the one is
Then you account for all of the other issues like ownership, physical media, Etc and that $80 start seeming less and less worthwhile, and you start being even more selective about which games you spend it on
I don't even understand people paying these prices at all. Especially single player games. I think you could make an argument for online due to formats metas and competition (I don't play online).
There are thousands of games out there. Surely you can wait a few months for the game to go on sale and buy it then and play something else in the interim. PS store has great sales constantly, that combined with PS Plus. There is a lot of content .
I feel like there was more of an argument when there was a stronger monoculture. Like when every major release was culturally significant that was an aspect of getting it at release to "be a part of the conversation" but almost never happens anymore. You have a few notable exceptions, like Elder Ring and probably GTA6, but there are so few games EVERYONE is playing at release now.
The thing about everyone holding off for sales means that the developers are going to suffer. Their product will be looked at as a failure, and the publisher, the people we are less likely to want to support, honestly won't be hurt as much as the developer. They'll just can the developer.
The fact of th3ematter is that a full price game going from $60 to $70 is one of the smallest price increases due to inflation like ever. Games had been $60 for literally ever, and just $10 more is not nearly as bad as almost anything else becoming more expensive.
With pricing the way it is now, I'm not afraid to buy a game at full price, just selective about it. I want the devs making games I like to get paid and continue to make games I like, so I will pay for a game at the most important moment of it's life cycle in order to facilitate that.
I get what your saying and don't disagree to an extent. But I think we are finding that's the ceiling people are willing to pay.
Plus devs are putting out junk that's needs week 1 patches and stuff. I used to get a game and it was finished. This both has pluses and minuses.
I just don't see games being worth it we get quite a few bangers a year, but few have ascended to the cultural relevance they used to have before this generation. Ones that broke the mold recently I can think of are Elden Ring, GTA6 likely will.
But idk I love Resident Evil I'm not paying 70 for it ever.
Everything else is expensive enough which can't help game prices.
I think the big issue for me when it comes to price is not the price of the games themselves, but everything else (as you said) leaving me with no money to buy games. If they start jumping beyond that $70 to $80-$90 I, and many others, will definitely be getting priced out to the point that we have to wait for sales.
I was okay with paying $60, and I'm okay with paying $70, but at this point in time anything else is just unfeasible.
I think when it comes to cultural relevance games have just gotten so much bigger and the quality is honestly a lot higher than it used to be that having a stand out game just won't be as easy in this market.
Agree about patches. Sucks to have to let some games finish but they also do a lot of good with patches as well. Real give and take.
Maybe eventually, but as it stands when a dev isn't delivering the team just gets let go, while the executives find a new studio to ruin with their infinite money.
I also used to pay 2e just to rent a single movie. Now I can pay 10 a month to have access to tons of movies. I also used to pay the equivalent of 1 music CD in 1990, and now they cost less, or I can just pay 8euro a month to have access to every music.
Markets change, and using inflation as the only metric makes no sense, specially in videogames where the market is way bigger.
I just won't pay 80e for a videogame. That's just ridiculous.
That quote is as cringe as it gets ngl and this comes from someone that has been pirating games since I learnt to use a computer when I was 7 years old. You pirate cause you wanna save money not cause you’ve got higher morality
To be fair, that is the issue with GTA's price increase. It encourages all companies to increase their prices. An industry consultant last year said the companies should fight for GTA being $100 so they can raise game prices across the board.
I nwould argue this game does have justification for being AAA. Insomniac is a good studio, Wolvering is a significant IP, and the production quality seems to be significant. The issue is, based off this review atleast, is that the game just isn't up to snuff.
Ultimately, I don't think that all games should have the same price tag, we already saw this be extremely successful with independent and AA Studios, with silk song Only costing $20 and Expedition 33 only costing $50, the fact that every triple A game cost the same while outside of the AAA industry variable prices based on the content you are getting and the cost of development has been the standard for over a decade is also part of the problem
$80 for 15 hours of content that you are not even the real owner of and can't resell when you're done is pretty outrageous, if they are intent on making sure we don't own anything, then having a true rental option would be the way to go, but instead they have these exorbitantly priced subscription services that don't even guarantee access to the games you actually want
I think when it was leaked that Spider Man 2 costs a whopping 300 million which was like 3x the budget of the first game it really showed that Insomniac just got lost in the sauce.
Well, remember that for big budget games like this, more than 50% of that budget is usually reserved for marketing, so when you see giant increases like that, it's more like going from 50 million to 150 million, which while still a huge increase isn't quite as egregious as going from 100 million to 300 million. It's adding 100 million to the cost of production versus adding 200 million, so literally half the increase actual production value
They have to charge more because they spent an exorbitant amount on bullshits like wages for inefficient middle management, DEI consultants and hiring, Hollywood actors doing mocap or voice acting, chasing low-return graphics, etc.
The budgets keep increasing but they aren't spent on ways to make game meaningfully better.
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u/shiek200 Sep 10 '26 edited Sep 11 '26
This is what Sony and a lot of those companies don't understand, they keep raising the prices of games, and they'll look to examples like GTA for why that's acceptable, not realizing that there is a massive difference between a game like GTA and a game like Wolverine. Not just in terms of quality, but also in terms of longevity and cultural significance
Not every game needs to be a 10/10 AAA cultural phenomenon, but when every game costs $80, and your choice is between one that is and one that isn't people are just going to spend their money on the one is
Then you account for all of the other issues like ownership, physical media, Etc and that $80 start seeming less and less worthwhile, and you start being even more selective about which games you spend it on