Do You Feel That Modern Games Deserve The High Price Tag?

[Kid Dynamite]

I think that RPGs do imo, but fighters like MK, no way.

 

[sneakyguts]

No.

 

[IyoTheHelpfulWolf]

If a game is a complete product that's very fun and has minimal bugs, I have no issue with them charging 60-70 USD on launch. I can either buy it then or wait for a sale after the early adopters basically subsidized my copy of the game. My problem is shit coming half fucking finished that looks 10-20% better at best compared to games from 5-10 fucking years ago, yet needing like 50% more resources to run and STILL can't maintain a constant 60FPS at 1080p. When an RTX 4090 is struggling to run some games at those settings, even when set to low or medium, there's a serious fucking problem!

 

[RustySK]

Nope. Haven't paid full price for a game in years. Iyo put it perfectly.

Hell, if I had my way I'd want companies to stop pushing for new graphics cards and try to actually figure out the tech they're currently using to make games instead.

 

[destinyduelist]

Not in a trillion years will it ever be justifiable in my opinion, especially not for games that take like 10-20 hours to beat. Games should be at most around 50 bucks in my opinion and that's really pushing it for some. I think if the only thing your game has to offer after you beat it is NG+ or something along those lines it should be 20-30. Sure some games I'd say "Well, yeah, there's a lot of content in there and you'd be playing for hundreds of hours, so the price tag is fine." But it's an extremely rare case.
Also, side note, if your game plans to release DLC later down the line, then by default your game should be 20 bucks at most. 70 bucks for a game and then 20 for a story DLC and you've completely lost your mind.
And obviously, the single most outrageous thing is when companies price collections at 60-70. MGS Collection was full price on release. That is absolutely absurd, PS2 games that you can play on Vita, PS3, Emulator, just generally games that are not difficult to play, let alone one of them being a PS1 game is completely out of pocket. Not to mention it didn't have controller support on PC on release. They're doing it with the Yu-Gi-Oh Collection too now, full price for some GBA games, half of which aren't even good besides nostalgia. No collection of any game should ever cost more than $30.
Yes, I'm very opinionated, yes this was a bit lengthy, but I hate corporate greed.

 

[Leifang]

I am not sure if I agree that lenght should be, I enjoyed short Resident Evil remakes far more than most RPGs with filler quests or open world collectathons.

But many people like sandbox gameplay, I just want streamlined theme park rides like Mass Effect... I don't think ANY game is worth full price though.

 

[Don Patch]

"Deserve"?
Lol, nah.
I like(ed) industry standard pricing.
$20-$40-$60.

Unnecessarily bloated development and marketing costs be damned.
There was a system, and it worked.
Greed is greed.

 

[RustySK]

They're doing it with the Yu-Gi-Oh Collection too now, full price for some GBA games, half of which aren't even good besides nostalgia. No collection of any game should ever cost more than $30.

Man, I was actually looking forward to that collection! Charging full price for a couple roms of low-budget GBA games that Konami barely even touched up in any way is just outright insane.

Hell, a good couple of those games actually have improvement romhacks out there that fix their issues, while modern emulators do a far better job improving the visuals, too. What am I even paying for with that collection at that point? Such bullshit.

 

[IyoTheHelpfulWolf]

Not in a trillion years will it ever be justifiable in my opinion, especially not for games that take like 10-20 hours to beat. Games should be at most around 50 bucks in my opinion and that's really pushing it for some. I think if the only thing your game has to offer after you beat it is NG+ or something along those lines it should be 20-30. Sure some games I'd say "Well, yeah, there's a lot of content in there and you'd be playing for hundreds of hours, so the price tag is fine." But it's an extremely rare case.
Also, side note, if your game plans to release DLC later down the line, then by default your game should be 20 bucks at most. 70 bucks for a game and then 20 for a story DLC and you've completely lost your mind.
And obviously, the single most outrageous thing is when companies price collections at 60-70. MGS Collection was full price on release. That is absolutely absurd, PS2 games that you can play on Vita, PS3, Emulator, just generally games that are not difficult to play, let alone one of them being a PS1 game is completely out of pocket. Not to mention it didn't have controller support on PC on release. They're doing it with the Yu-Gi-Oh Collection too now, full price for some GBA games, half of which aren't even good besides nostalgia. No collection of any game should ever cost more than $30.
Yes, I'm very opinionated, yes this was a bit lengthy, but I hate corporate greed.

What do you think would have been an appropriate price for a game like Devil May Cry V on launch? One play through is roughly 9-12 hours, but you're meant to replay it on higher difficulties and master the combat the same way one might master the mechanics of a fighting game.

 

[ATenderLad]

Well, "deserve" is more like a value judgement after the fact, right? I'm sure we all have games that we think were worth the cost or more, and plenty that left us with buyer's remorse.

I don't love the increase to $70 for games, but with the way development costs balloon it's not surprising. That's a whole mess of problems that will probably see some kind of fallout here before too long, but that's another topic.

Granted, that's mostly just for AAA games? Prices on the rest can be pretty variable, which I'm mostly fine with. I can spend like forty hours with Dave the Diver, not bad for twenty bucks.

 

[moonbits]

They get exponentially more expensive to make so I'm not sure.

 

[MasterEn]

As Bishop Bullwinkle would say: "Hell to No, No, No!! Hell to the No!!!"

 

[destinyduelist]

What do you think would have been an appropriate price for a game like Devil May Cry V on launch? One play through is roughly 9-12 hours, but you're meant to replay it on higher difficulties and master the combat the same way one might master the mechanics of a fighting game.

I actually played it on launch, again, 30-40 should be the standard I feel like for brand new triple A games, 50 if we wanna push it.

 

[Big Finger Jim]

No. Even with games I really like or have been vehemently looking forward to like Infinite Wealth or KCD2. I don't feel comfortable paying $70 for it and I usually wait until it goes on sale for like fifty bucks. One time I saw a braindead shit on Twitter say, "Oh, the price tag should be based on how good of an experience it is, even if it goes above $100.", if that's the case, I should've gotten paid for playing Nirvana Initiative.

 

[IyoTheHelpfulWolf]

"Deserve"?
Lol, nah.
I like(ed) industry standard pricing.
$20-$40-$60.

Unnecessarily bloated development and marketing costs be damned.
There was a system, and it worked.
Greed is greed.

The problem is these studios bet so much on a single game. It has to be this 100hr+ extravaganza with epic cut scenes, 30 mechanics that are simultaneously addictive yet easy enough for everyone, and has to reach the widest audience possible. And because many of these companies are shareholder run, there's never such thing as enough money. Every game has to make more money than the last to boost the stock price, or investors pull out, and this isn't sustainable forever.

I think studios should divert some of their funding to medium sized projects. Stuff that looks like a remastered Xbox 360 game. Devil May Cry 4 is still beautiful. The remastered Mass Effect games look pretty good. With the tech we have now, games of that graphical quality should be doable for less time and money, and would greatly bolster the middle budget market that used to thrive during the 6th console generation.

 

[goregoregoregoregoregore]

Yes and no. Producing games is more expensive nowadays, and many AAA games in fact cost a lot more money than ever, so in this aspect it makes sense, but i also think that most AAA games end up taking a lot of money for the wrong reasons. Why spend so much money on ultra realistic cutting edge 4k ray tracing graphics and tons of unnecessary features that don't make much difference when you can focus all this money in tons of gameplay aspects, quality of life, optimization, etc.
I feel that many games nowadays are expensive as fuck and when you play they are these 6 hour long buggy mess with boring gameplay and bad optimization(but good graphics!)

(I just dropped my bowl of chicken salad all over me while i was typing this god fucking damnit)

 

[MasterEn]

Yes and no. Producing games is more expensive nowadays, and many AAA games in fact cost a lot more money than ever, so in this aspect it makes sense, but i also think that most AAA games end up taking a lot of money for the wrong reasons. Why spend so much money on ultra realistic cutting edge 4k ray tracing graphics and tons of unnecessary features that don't make much difference when you can focus all this money in tons of gameplay aspects, quality of life, optimization, etc.
I feel that many games nowadays are expensive as fuck and when you play they are these 6 hour long buggy mess with boring gameplay and bad optimization(but good graphics!)

(I just dropped my bowl of chicken salad all over me while i was typing this god fucking damnit)

that's another reason to hate the high prices. you lost your bowl of chicken salad. that chicken and those heads of lettuce didn't die just to end up on the floor; they were meant to fill your stomach up so you could do more gaming.

 

[Opapete]

No. These ultra-high production games can go die for all I care, they don't even look good, so the graphics argument that publishers have been pushing for decades can't even be applied here. I like my modern games looking decently well at least if I'm dropping 60€ on 'em, and they want 70€ for half ass bullshit.

The fact that I could buy 2 ddr mats with extendion cords for 70€ or a shitty "triple A" (literally worse than triple A titles from the ps2) game for 70€ is absurd and honestly, it goes to show how these games are not worth it.

I also want to elaborate on one thing, I do not think that "cinematic" games are triple A in the slightest, these are interactive movies with actual gameplay spliced inbetween like it's an slightly better FMV game. Sony especially is guilty of that, despite having some of the most creative games on the ps1, basically making the first mainstream rhythm game before beatmania solidified what a rhythm game even is.

Do I even need to speak about how overblown budgets are? Games should not cost more than 200 million dollars to develop. Period. I do not need uncompressed audio or 4k textures or the ultimate sin of online texture streaming. If you can't optimise your game to fit on a Blue-Ray, you did something wrong.

I'm not even going to begin on microtransactions, keep your fifa's away. Also, where are the arcade racers? The lightgun shooters? Seriously, two of my favorite genres are extinct in the modern landscape looking at triple A or for lightgun shooters even double A.

Overall, 60€ was already too much and 70€ is a fucking insult. (do not get me started on the GTA VI 100€ speculated price point)

 

[Antilocal123]

NO, I get that production costs and the industry is all clunky but in no way shape or form should I be spending more than 60$ for a fucking similar ass game just because some fat fuck corporate needs a new sex robot by the end of the week.

Unless that shit is God-Tier, sure, I can wait for a sale or buy a used one later on—but some of this shit doesn't deserve the tag.

Focus on medium-scale projects ffs, I don't have the money to splurge on this shit, consumerism is still shit!

 

[IyoTheHelpfulWolf]

Also, where are the arcade racers?

I feel your pain. Need for Speed is the only major franchise carrying the torch and it's walking with a limp. Need for Speed: Heat was pretty good, but something was missing still.

 

[Graw]

Yes and no. Producing games is more expensive nowadays, and many AAA games in fact cost a lot more money than ever, so in this aspect it makes sense, but i also think that most AAA games end up taking a lot of money for the wrong reasons

There's something wrong with the fact that it costs so much to produce AAA games when most of them run on off the shelf engines and making videogames has literally never been easier.

Why spend so much money on ultra realistic cutting edge 4k ray tracing graphics and tons of unnecessary features that don't make much difference when you can focus all this money in tons of gameplay aspects, quality of life, optimization, etc.

This shit's not even that expensive to do anymore with the software and tools available these days. I can't even get behind that being a valid excuse for stupidly high budgets.

 

[Opapete]

I feel your pain. Need for Speed is the only major franchise carrying the torch and it's walking with a limp. Need for Speed: Heat was pretty good, but something was missing still.

Exactly. I would mention rhythm games but those are still BIG in japan, although here in europe, fat chance beyond the occational experiment or attempt at reviving a dead series.

 

[BinaryMessiah]

People forget game prices have only gone up $20 in the last 30 years. In fact, with inflation, they have become cheaper than ever. Super Mario All-Stars back in the day was $120 USD. Ecco the Dolphin launched at $80 USD. I also can't stand the idea of one hour per $1. This is just ludicrous. I also don't think a 3-4 hour game should be $70. Developers need to price accordingly, however, any AAA game you can't expect anything less.

Post automatically merged: Mar 3, 2025

There's something wrong with the fact that it costs so much to produce AAA games when most of them run on off the shelf engines and making videogames has literally never been easier.

This shit's not even that expensive to do anymore with the software and tools available these days. I can't even get behind that being a valid excuse for stupidly high budgets.

Do you not understand what it takes to make higher end graphics like that? It takes a massive team these days and those people need to get paid. You can't make a AAA games with 20 people anymore. It's just not possible. I feel like a lot of people today either have forgotten or have no clue what it takes to actually make a game.

 

[moonbits]

People forget game prices have only gone up $20 in the last 30 years. In fact, with inflation, they have become cheaper than ever. Super Mario All-Stars back in the day was $120 USD. Ecco the Dolphin launched at $80 USD. I also can't stand the idea of one hour per $1. This is just ludicrous. I also don't think a 3-4 hour game should be $70. Developers need to price accordingly, however, any AAA game you can't expect anything less.

what if its the best 4 hours of your life

 

[Opapete]

People forget game prices have only gone up $20 in the last 30 years. In fact, with inflation, they have become cheaper than ever. Super Mario All-Stars back in the day was $120 USD. Ecco the Dolphin launched at $80 USD. I also can't stand the idea of one hour per $1. This is just ludicrous. I also don't think a 3-4 hour game should be $70. Developers need to price accordingly, however, any AAA game you can't expect anything less.

My man, nobody even mentioned one hour per $1, also games got cheaper because the cost to make the actual carts and then discs got cheaper, as well as the gaming market just plain growing in size.

I would also like to argue that we should not have these hollywood style budgets in the first place once again, so we could actually recoup our money without slamming a 70€ price tag on it. Not to mention how we've regressed back to the NES where buying a triple A game was a major gamble in quality, except back then the odds were pretty even, now, the odds are in the house's favor.

And no, inflation isn't an arguement when we see literal shrinkflation of quality in gaming.