Thoughts on the rise of prices?

[Naltic]

So with the release of Doom: The Dark Ages, and it being priced at 80£ for the base edition, do you think the gaming industry is seeing a rise in game prices? And where do you think the limit will reach? 90£ 100£ hell, 150£? I really think it's absurd for a game to cost anywhere above 40£. That should be enough for a game, 80£ is just absurd and really doesn't justify buying it, no matter how good the game is, it's just too much for a game to play and never touch again or a game that will eventually die out. But thoughts? Do you think it's fair that games are being priced as much as they are nowadays? Or do you think they should lower the amount?

 

[Yousef]

It’s making not wanna spend money on games again, frankly. Just spend time playing what I already have, which is plentiful.

 

[gokusmacksmyds]

GTAVI will cost $100 and people won't complain.
new AAA games will cost $80 and people will complain but buy them if they like the series enough.
Most games will still sit between $40 - 60 since there is a literal ocean of indie and older games that go for anywhere between $1 - $10 on sale.

 

[moonbits]

everything is rising prices dude

 

[Faust03]

I learned to find websites that sell games for less than $70/$80

 

[RanmyakuIchi's iconRanmyakuIchi]

I have a massive backlog to chew through, and will probably focus more on that then new games moving forward. I also have... other means of getting games that I'll likely use more now too.

 

[Cardboardtubeknight]

They should lower the amount on a lot of things. A cheesecake milkshake from Sonic is 9 dollars. Makes me feel like Vincent from Pulp Fiction

 

[Goodwin]

They're gonna rise them again, I believe. And especially when GTA 6 is gonna ger released. I do read people are gonna buy the game whatever time is gonna cost.
For a new game I believe the maximum priced should be 60 euros, no more.

 

[ciro64]

I'm more sad with prices in general than with games specifically.

 

[IyoTheHelpfulWolf]

I give no fucks. I waited for price drops when games were $60 at launch. I'll wait when they reach $100+. Why do you think I mostly play old console games and stuff I got on sale when streaming?

 

[Strategist's iconStrategist]

AAA games aren't good enough to justify this pricing increase. I suspect this will lead to negative consequences for the top companies in the gaming industry. But smaller studio/indie gaming will reap the benefits when they release their games at more reasonable costs. And piracy will increase, im sure.

 

[Spike's iconSpike]

The market is saturated. We are bombarded with games left and right. Nobody can keep up. We are playing games like our lives depend on it.
It was supposed to be something to entertain ourselves not a second job.
I think something's gotta give.

 

[ShinnAsukaYESTaylorSwiftNO]

just yet another reason why I stopped giving a shit about modern gaming years ago

games these days are way too over priced for what you get

imho games should be around $45 at the very most

it's like the industry is just begging for another crash

 

[gokusmacksmyds]

AAA games aren't good enough to justify this pricing increase. I suspect this will lead to negative consequences for the top companies in the gaming industry. But smaller studio/indie gaming will reap the benefits when they release their games at more reasonable costs. And piracy will increase, im sure.

AAA games are good enough to warrant a price increase and they've been $50 - 60 for nearly two decades now, granted DLC and a bunch of other revenue streams are open now so they aren't "just" $60.

I think its more because these price increases are coming on the tail end of most developed countries going into a massive recession and everything else getting even more expensive while most people still get paid what they were back before 2016, video games are ultimately a luxury and those get cut when you have to worry about bills and rent

 

[Zeo]

With how the prices of everything goes up these days...

But hey, at least you can do the most logical thing when it comes to videogames: wait for prices drop

At least thats something that will happen, other stuff.... well....

I mean, with 100 punchs you can buy a lot of older games if you know where to look at, and chances are that they will last more

Or.... you know.... use the money in something more important

 

[JPchicre]

Damn it, salaries worldwide are not really accompanying those price hikes, it really makes me worried about the future. Thank god we have older games to rely on.

 

[Yousef]

They should lower the amount on a lot of things. A cheesecake milkshake from Sonic is 9 dollars. Makes me feel like Vincent from Pulp Fiction

Yeah that’s atrocious. It’s reaching that price here too.

 

[Naltic]

The market is saturated. We are bombarded with games left and right. Nobody can keep up. We are playing games like our lives depend on it.
It was supposed to be something to entertain ourselves not a second job.
I think something's gotta give.

The gaming industry has become a monopoly battlefield where all the AAA companies dominate and try to earn as much money as possible. They aren't in it for the "fun" of it, nor are they in it to make something that provokes, frankly, anything. Couple that with, as you say, an oversaturation, and you get an industry that's barely clinging to straws. It's sad to see the downfall, but I wholeheartedly believe that modern gaming is in the indie scene; it's the only place where games are appreciated for what they are.

 

[AncientBehemoth]

First world problems.

 

[YoshifreakZX]

My thoughts are that this is a good time to work on the backlog.

 

[LiberoVulpesLiberoVulpes's icon]

They will keep rising, they just switch who takes the heat each time, while the rest quietly update pricing, the 70$ milestone was broken by Sony who took the heat but everyone else quietly followed suit, the 80$ milestone was Nintendo but everyone else quietly followed suit. If there is too much push back, they just give it a few years.

No game is worth more than 20$ in my eyes.

I am fine with prices increasing, whatever makes the industry crash sooner, this is just a necessary evil, suckers who pay so much for a game, deserve to be scammed.

 

[valosagutas]

I don't take side in this topic, I'm only aware of facts. Since my personal opinion doesn't matter in this context of the topic all I can write is what I think is objective:

1) Video games are a luxury item. Technically they can ask any price for them and it will sell because technically again in the context of the whole world video game audience are people who can easily afford video games even if the base price is $200.

2) Oddly the price of video games wasn't increased before. As time pass value of the money decreases therefore people raises the amount of money they ask. Once you could buy a home for $20, now you can hardly afford a hefty grocery shopping with that amount of money anymore because value of the money changed a lot. The price increase is very realistic.

3) However the price increase only impacts the generation of people who got used to pre-ordering games for $60. New generation of people will think the new prices as normal because this is what they will get used to.

4) The price of video games doesn't have any negative change for discounts at all. Discounts only depend on the greedy practices of video game companies. Certain video game companies prefer to lock the prices of their video games to $60 for decades and seldom allow more than %33 discount. In that case this is a problem of the video game company to consider by making potential customers push away and forget about the game.

5) However our world doesn't work by logic because people are not just logical life forms. They are also emotional. Because of their emotions current trends and how they live their life changes. The current social climate of the world is very rebellious and politically driven. Meaning price increase will have a negative backlash for a long time making video game companies have to prepare for a potential future where they cannot profit a lot as they used to because people will choose to stop pre-ordering, wait for huge discounts and politically decide not to buy every video games of certain video game companies. People can easily ignore whole existence of the whole video game company and their games anymore because there are tons of alternatives.

Now for my personal opinion:

That high price raises an expectation, rather a sense of entitlement to expect way better games that has "the whole universe in them" but for a decade video game quality dropped to new lows even technically. People won't think it's acceptable for video games being sold that high but have even a tiny bit of bug in them. No, sir. My way or the highway. If you release the new GTA video game for such a high price then you better put all the cities GTA universe has to offer or just backrupt like I care. After playing GTA San Andreas playing the rest of the newer GTA games feels like driving a donkey after you enjoyed the sense of Ferrari lol. I basically don't really have any interest in new video games for years therefore I can just wait for a huge discount if I wanna buy a game. The price increase really doesn't bother me or have any change in my life. If a video game is really good it wouldn't be a problem for me to pay $200 on it.

I also think messing with customers after such a high price causes another risk for video game companies. If your audience is rich and you mess with them, then they have enough money to ruin your life. Putting bombs on Tesla just to attempt to destroy video game companies' buildings is not so unrealistic future for me lol.

So video game companies raised the stakes therefore they are responsible for a new era of video game industry and customer reaction they never saw before. Complaint of people will be beyond negative reviews on Steam. After paying $100 and feeling like scammed can be enough reason to start killing some CEOs lol.

There is already a trend to make fun of Ubisoft in social media, way more than EA games ever faced. Considering what kind of new generation kids we having in this BS world I expect kids to bomb video game company's buildings just to increase their Tiktok viewers ayy lmao.

Edit: I fixed my message as much as I can. I was very distracted by a damn mosquito therefore I didn't notice how I butchered English so much lol so I better start the hunt. Now Witcher mode on lol.

 

[Mork]

I was thinking of caving in. Buying a console, that is. But seeing those miserable price tags where I'm from is a huge block. Times like these makes me appreciate sites like RGT.

 

[Kamako]

Funnily enough both DOOM 2016 & Eternal dropped down in price really quickly here in the UK. It wouldn't surprise me at all if The Dark Ages is £20 in a month or two.

It's been quite a while since I purchased a game brand new and will likely be even longer now I've migrated to PC.

 

[Retro Doomer]

The Prices are currently Insane and not justifiable in my Opinion,its just plain and simple greed that brings those companies to piss of there customers.I am not hugely affected in the rising game prices because i rarely ever play modern games the most modern i get is ps4,so i am more focused on Retro Games well those that are still affordable at least.And in terms of how it will continue well either they will lower the prices again to a more healthy level or modern Gaming will die as no one can afford it besides the rich.Because if you got to chose between food or Games you know something is wrong and bound to happen to the gaming world.