Thoughts on the rise of prices?

[Evaccaneer Doom]

That price tag won’t stop me cause I won’t buy

 

[Yousef]

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Ok so, responding to a meme May a bit silly but i was just reminded of this little anecdote from my PlayStation Forum days that’s been haunting my brain like a parasite so here goes; names won’t be mentioned cuz I respect a lot of there and some are still close friends to me but anyways; the “I care about graphicz!!!” is, shockingly, not just a straw man. It *kinda* is in retro spaces like these, but if you go to the Xbox or Nintendo forums (of all people) you’ll meet people who’d say a good artstyle is more important than a functioning game (I participated in that thread, to my dismay. Wild conversation).

I got into this annouyingly elongated conversation with someone whom I, again, deeply respect, but we essentially butted heads about 8k in games and his insistence that *it is* a valuable addition to gaming and justifies the price of console upgrades and what have you. I gently told him that’s a load of bs and no amount of resolution will persuade me to upgrade unless the games run better. He insisted frame rate doesn’t matter compared to resolution and that’s when I decided to opt out.

Still a fantastic friend whom I love to death, but you have to wonder if some people are even real. I’m still trying to convince myself that conversation actually happened.

 

[Bakuma1997]

As a Mexican i can only say

At least, the Tortilla Kilo is still 20$

 

[Clippy]

Ok so, responding to a meme May a bit silly but i was just reminded of this little anecdote from my PlayStation Forum days that’s been haunting my brain like a parasite so here goes; names won’t be mentioned cuz I respect a lot of there and some are still close friends to me but anyways; the “I care about graphicz!!!” is, shockingly, not just a straw man. It *kinda* is in retro spaces like these, but if you go to the Xbox or Nintendo forums (of all people) you’ll meet people who’d say a good artstyle is more important than a functioning game (I participated in that thread, to my dismay. Wild conversation).

I got into this annouyingly elongated conversation with someone whom I, again, deeply respect, but we essentially butted heads about 8k in games and his insistence that *it is* a valuable addition to gaming and justifies the price of console upgrades and what have you. I gently told him that’s a load of bs and no amount of resolution will persuade me to upgrade unless the games run better. He insisted frame rate doesn’t matter compared to resolution and that’s when I decided to opt out.

Still a fantastic friend whom I love to death, but you have to wonder if some people are even real. I’m still trying to convince myself that conversation actually happened.

This may be an unpopular opinion but I think that graphics have always mattered, at least to some extent. It's easy to dismiss games from 30 years ago because from today's standpoint they do look primitive but at the time they were state-of-the-art. It was as good as it got outside of the arcades. Would Super Mario World or Tomb Raider be as revered today as they are if they looked like a typical Atari 2600 game? I don't think so.

With that said, if given a choice between a game in 8K that runs at 4 FPS and an 800x600 game that runs silky smooth I'll always pick the latter. If I wanted a slideshow I'd fire up PowerPoint. Functionality (and gameplay) should take precedence but it's not like graphics or artstyle don't matter at all like I've seen some retro neophytes pretend.

 

[Strategist's icon Strategist Strategist]

True, but there's a time and place to tackle it, and there's a time and place to take a breather. Games like Cyberpunk 2077 or the Metal Gear Solid games are expected to feature political and social issues in some capacity. Then there are games like GTA that base their satire on real world issues, even if the depiction in game is a cartoonish exaggeration. At that point you pretty much asked for it.

Then there are games where there are themes applicable to the real world, but they are heavily adapted to the game world. Elden Ring features a powerful old establishment bickering amongst themselves while emerging entities, such as the player, seek to take over the remains and rebuild. This is a thing that happens in real life as empires rise and fall, but the situation in the video game's world should make sense in that world. A canonical in game protest featuring real world flags or close knocks offs, for example, would be really fucking jarring and immersion breaking.

If one were to purposefully include political or deep philisophical statements in something lighthearted and silly like Mario Kart or Animal Crossing, it would be detrimental to the tone of a game clearly meant for joy and escapism, even for those who wholeheartedly agree with the message conveyed.

People think Animal Crossing is apolitical but then there is Tom Nook inciting class warfare.

 

[Kamako]

People think Animal Crossing is apolitical but then there is Tom Nook inciting class warfare.

View attachment 70011

This image immediately conjured up that filthy dubstep song in my head

 

[Deleted member 77791]

“I care about graphicz!!!” is, shockingly, not just a straw man. It *kinda* is in retro spaces like these, but if you go to the Xbox or Nintendo forums (of all people) you’ll meet people who’d say a good artstyle is more important than a functioning game (I participated in that thread, to my dismay. Wild conversation).

I think people should be aware of the difference between graphics and visuals and how both of them are obviously fundamental part of video games therefore it would be unfair to dismiss people who refuse to play games because they dislike visuals and/or graphics of a video game. After all no point torturing your eyes lol. I grew up with Atari 2600 so I can safely say "what matters is visual, not graphics" but what it means?

It means "visual" as in "what you see is something easy to comprehend" and "it actually looks cool" as an artwork. Video games are an art form because of how they use sensory experiences like visuals and sounds in a good way. The point of video game is enjoying it. You can hardly enjoy a game when visuals and/or sounds annoy you. But some people are ignorant of how others perceive reality because of the way their body is. X game may not bother you but to others the X game may make them feel like dying just because of the visuals it has lol and it's natural to happen. After all we are chemical beings therefore any physical effect has a chemical reaction in our body as feelings despite we may not notice it. That's why I love SEGA Genesis video games a lot. Visuals are good and usually the games have a banger soundtrack. The games satisfy my whole body like a therapy lol.

Then 3D is invented. We saw it in some rare SEGA Genesis games. It was cool, it had graphics as in technology and more dimensions but something was missing: Visuals.

Objects barely resembled what they were supposed to represent. It was hard to see objects that are especially far away. We were back to Atari 2600-era but in 3-dimensional medium. We all agreed how 3D looks so cool, but man some racing games were like boxes moving fast but with low FPS like a slideshow. It didn't look like Gran Turismo 7 to us at all. It looked so cringe we got back playing Top Gear 2 after we got bored of 3D racing games lol.

And then PlayStation 1 became a thing that offered better 3D graphics. I remember the day my older brothers came home with my mother carrying one box of PlayStation 1 and Resident Evil 1. They were all like "damn look at the graphics, it's so real". They were so immersed with the cinematic experience of whatever they were seeing, but soon after we were kinda disappointed because people were clearly made of shapes therefore they looked and moved so weird. We were like "damn look at his arm, the hell is this" and whatnot. We still make fun of the way they talk to this day lol. Resident Evil graphics really reminded me Vectorman on SEGA Genesis lol. It didn't look like Quantum Break of the time for us at all.

Comparing SEGA Genesis and PlayStation 1, even PlayStation 5 I still think SEGA Genesis has a better visual that oddly seem so realistic despite pixel artwork, especially in games like Demolition Man just as an example. SEGA Genesis games really look good to me a lot because there is an art with soul in it and it matters to me a lot but sensory experiences alone cannot make me enjoy a game, naturally fun gameplay is a must. Now video games trying to look like real-life but they don't think real-life looks so dull. They have stories I don't care, and digital characters dramas my brain skips processing and generic boring gameplay. But I like PlayStation 1 and 2 aesthetics, just not as much as SEGA Genesis though. However I don't think there is any sense of aesthetics or care left in video game industry anymore. Especially Nintendo, after so many decades they basically release video games on Switch that's like 3D NES. I do exaggerate to point out how they have no idea how visuals are so important in video games but some people like 3D NES aesthetics apparently.

People may prefer graphics that means how it's similar to real life, I'm not judging even when they prefer 3D visual style that seems like out of Microsoft Paint. But gotta say people like games more when they like visuals. When they dislike the visual style I observed they refuse to play the game despite how realistic it may look when they always claim graphics are so important. This is also the reason why some people say "X game looks bad" and others says "X game looks so great". People all claim they care about graphics and then confused why certain games look bad to them despite realistic graphics because they don't think there is a big matter of visual style. No wonder because what you see is very fundamental to a video game that makes you base your opinion about a video game fundamentally about how it looks like and what you hear playing the game. But new video games care about something else you don't see like pointless stories and character dramas to make it an "artwork" in another way. Usually video game musics are generic noises with rare exceptions. Video game companies only focuses on trivial differences that seem to cause a delusion of unique identity to the game by only making the game have tons of chores to do for the sake of a sense of gameplay by not caring about other aspects of the game. As a result new video games are unfairly priced soulless rubbish programs. They cannot even make you stay immersed to make you not see them as ordinary programs running their codes in the background. So when a character dies in these programs I saw bunch of 0 and 1s, not a person on screen despite sooooo realistic graphics.

Regardless, when a person is a gamer who only cares about gameplay they only care about the fun they have. There are tons of video games I had lots of fun despite I disliked their visuals and sounds were bothering. Fun is a good emotion people are glad to feel, but also a good sense of visuals and audio too. However people all have their own preferences so I understand when people prefer FPS over resolution and vice versa. But what I don't understand is why video game companies forgot what video games are and what they have to be. They don't care about fun, visuals, significant soundtrack to hear... then what's left to call them a video game? Nothing. A video game is more than a program as it should be.

 

[Yousef]

I think people should be aware of the difference between graphics and visuals and how both of them are obviously fundamental part of video games therefore it would be unfair to dismiss people who refuse to play games because they dislike visuals and/or graphics of a video game. After all no point torturing your eyes lol. I grew up with Atari 2600 so I can safely say "what matters is visual, not graphics" but what it means?

It means "visual" as in "what you see is something easy to comprehend" and "it actually looks cool" as an artwork. Video games are an art form because of how they use sensory experiences like visuals and sounds in a good way. The point of video game is enjoying it. You can hardly enjoy a game when visuals and/or sounds annoy you. But some people are ignorant of how others perceive reality because of the way their body is. X game may not bother you but to others the X game may make them feel like dying just because of the visuals it has lol and it's natural to happen. After all we are chemical beings therefore any physical effect has a chemical reaction in our body as feelings despite we may not notice it. That's why I love SEGA Genesis video games a lot. Visuals are good and usually the games have a banger soundtrack. The games satisfy my whole body like a therapy lol.

Then 3D is invented. We saw it in some rare SEGA Genesis games. It was cool, it had graphics as in technology and more dimensions but something was missing: Visuals.

Objects barely resembled what they were supposed to represent. It was hard to see objects that are especially far away. We were back to Atari 2600-era but in 3-dimensional medium. We all agreed how 3D looks so cool, but man some racing games were like boxes moving fast but with low FPS like a slideshow. It didn't look like Gran Turismo 7 to us at all. It looked so cringe we got back playing Top Gear 2 after we got bored of 3D racing games lol.

And then PlayStation 1 became a thing that offered better 3D graphics. I remember the day my older brothers came home with my mother carrying one box of PlayStation 1 and Resident Evil 1. They were all like "damn look at the graphics, it's so real". They were so immersed with the cinematic experience of whatever they were seeing, but soon after we were kinda disappointed because people were clearly made of shapes therefore they looked and moved so weird. We were like "damn look at his arm, the hell is this" and whatnot. We still make fun of the way they talk to this day lol. Resident Evil graphics really reminded me Vectorman on SEGA Genesis lol. It didn't look like Quantum Break of the time for us at all.

Comparing SEGA Genesis and PlayStation 1, even PlayStation 5 I still think SEGA Genesis has a better visual that oddly seem so realistic despite pixel artwork, especially in games like Demolition Man just as an example. SEGA Genesis games really look good to me a lot because there is an art with soul in it and it matters to me a lot but sensory experiences alone cannot make me enjoy a game, naturally fun gameplay is a must. Now video games trying to look like real-life but they don't think real-life looks so dull. They have stories I don't care, and digital characters dramas my brain skips processing and generic boring gameplay. But I like PlayStation 1 and 2 aesthetics, just not as much as SEGA Genesis though. However I don't think there is any sense of aesthetics or care left in video game industry anymore. Especially Nintendo, after so many decades they basically release video games on Switch that's like 3D NES. I do exaggerate to point out how they have no idea how visuals are so important in video games but some people like 3D NES aesthetics apparently.

People may prefer graphics that means how it's similar to real life, I'm not judging even when they prefer 3D visual style that seems like out of Microsoft Paint. But gotta say people like games more when they like visuals. When they dislike the visual style I observed they refuse to play the game despite how realistic it may look when they always claim graphics are so important. This is also the reason why some people say "X game looks bad" and others says "X game looks so great". People all claim they care about graphics and then confused why certain games look bad to them despite realistic graphics because they don't think there is a big matter of visual style. No wonder because what you see is very fundamental to a video game that makes you base your opinion about a video game fundamentally about how it looks like and what you hear playing the game. But new video games care about something else you don't see like pointless stories and character dramas to make it an "artwork" in another way. Usually video game musics are generic noises with rare exceptions. Video game companies only focuses on trivial differences that seem to cause a delusion of unique identity to the game by only making the game tons of chores to do for the sake of a sense of gameplay by not caring about other aspects of the game. As a result new video games are unfairly priced soulless rubbish programs. They cannot even make you stay immersion to make you not see them as ordinary programs running their codes in the background. So when a character dies in these programs I saw bunch of 0 and 1s, not a person on screen.

Regardless, when a person is a gamer who only cares about gameplay they only care about the fun they have. There are tons of video games I had lots of fun despite I disliked their visuals and sounds were bothering. Fun is a good emotion people are glad to feel, but also a good sense of visuals and audio too. However people all have their own preferences so I understand when people prefer FPS over resolution and vice versa. But what I don't understand is why video game companies forgot what video games are and what they have to be. They don't care about fun, visuals, significant soundtrack to hear... then what's left to call them a video game? Nothing. A video game is more than a program as it should be.

Lol.
I think you’re barking at the wrong tree. I don’t mind what reasons people play their games for. The spat we had in the ps forum was still playful.

 

[Deleted member 77791]

Lol.
I think you’re barking at the wrong tree. I don’t mind what reasons people play their games for. The spat we had in the ps forum was still playful.

I'm no dog and you are no tree... I assume lol. I just saw the idea fun to think about if someone wants to mentally wrestle with me lol. I agree that spat you mentioned was playfully fun to even think about which is why I wrote the previous message that your lack of interest to play with me made me sad. I'll always remember this but this won't effect your life whatsoever just like "choices matters" games lol.

However you may don't mind why people play video games for, but why they play video games for is the fundamental reason why video game industry is in the way it's and why the prices have skyrocketed exploring outside of our solar system lol. Then you are either satisfied with this current state or you ignore the whole situation because you already accepted you don't care about new games whatsoever. I don't care about your reason but I know your preference is a part of reason why video game industry is not a video game industry anymore and why protecting the precious history of old video games by allowing people to access these golden games become more important and important.

We are in a place of retro game talk. These topics are very sensitive to us and we have lots to say after our brain digested rise, golden age and fall of video game industry by experiencing so many decades!!! lol

 

[Yousef]

I'm no dog and you are no tree... I assume lol. I just saw the idea fun to think about if someone wants to mentally wrestle with me lol. I agree that spat you mentioned was playfully fun to even think about which is why I wrote the previous message that your lack of interest to play with me made me sad. I'll always remember this but this won't effect your life whatsoever just like "choices matters" games lol.

However you may don't mind why people play video games for, but why they play video games for is the fundamental reason why video game industry is in the way it's and why the prices have skyrocketed exploring outside of our solar system lol. Then you are either satisfied with this current state or you ignore the whole situation because you already accepted you don't care about new games whatsoever. I don't care about your reason but I know your preference is a part of reason why video game industry is not a video game industry anymore and why protecting the precious history of old video games by allowing people to access these golden games become more important and important.

We are in a place of retro game talk. These topics are very sensitive to us and we have lots to say after our brain digested rise, golden age and fall of video game industry by experiencing so many decades!!! lol

Fair enough, this was a pleasant exchange of words regardless, tons of good points, no worries

 

[Bonkers225]

It sucks, but if you were one of those gamers that imported games in the 90's, and early 2000's, you were looking at like $80-90+ dollars for some Super Famicom games, and so on. And that was in 1996. Somebody do the inflation calculator, is see what $80 in 96 is now. Ridiculous, but nothing new.

 

[Sunnyside]

Preserve the stuff you already own. For over a decade I've been gradually feeling more and more like I could just stop buying new games altogether. Even if it's a series I enjoy. But then again games also peaked as an experience for me back in the ps3/360 era. Nowadays stuff looks a bit nicer but there's too many caveats involved in actually playing.

 

[Burzuru]

i avoid buying games unless they are on sale for like kinda cheap.

 

[Hourai]

Well, we can only hope companies don't use Denuvo. Unless more people manage to get Empress' skill, that's the main roadblock. Well, that and the fact that playing on computers has a lot of problems consoles don't. Some of which are costs that make $80 games look reasonable.

Anyway, I can't say I really care, at this point. Some new games are certainly worth playing, but the fact of the matter is that there's a lot of factors that make the current era just not appeal to me.

 

[Deleted member 77791]

Well, we can only hope companies don't use Denuvo. Unless more people manage to get Empress' skill, that's the main roadblock.

I won't claim to be an expert but I'm not totally a caveman either so all I can say is cracking Denuvo is not a skill issue but care issue. Another issue is about the law. Cracking Denuvo feels like jumping into the ocean of white rice and trying to clean that ocean from tons of small pieces of rock in it. It involves reverse engineering to distinguish between what's part of the game and what's part of Denuvo. Perhaps it would be game changing if they weren't so smart to constantly change how this "small piece of rock" looks like in each Denuvo version. Imagine Denuvo is also a lock and a key simultaneously. So even if bypassing Denuvo is relatively easy as in each step you have to take, it just doesn't worth to waste your time cleaning the exe from Denuvo in a bug-free way.

There are many people who can crack Denuvo. Cracking Denuvo isn't the hardest act people can do in the realm of digital reality. But in the scene only Empress actually cared to do it for money and circle jerk. I once attempted to crack Denuvo just to play the new Tony Hawk remake but damn it doesn't worth it. And I'm the guy who bothered to learn Japanese back in the day just to don't bother translating video games and right now I'm trying to learn Chinese because of many reasons because for me translations are not satisfying enough and bothering with translation is a chore. It's relatively better to just buy video games and wait for their mercy to remove Denuvo from the game one day so you won't completely lose access. But then it makes me only buy video games I would bother cracking in case they are unacceable because of Denuvo. However if I had ever cracked Denuvo I have no care to publish it.

So if Empress' name is because of tarot cards, it does makes sense why such a person would bother cracking Denuvo. But by this logic I'm a Fool of the tarot cards. I often go the extra length to do what I want compared to what people does despite all the sign of dangers, even if it's learning Chinese which is way easier for me than studying how Denuvo effect exe and studying the games itself, but I know where to refuse to go on nonsense journeys. Instead of cracking Denuvo people can spend their times in better ways like spending their time with watching their grankids grow, developing a video game all alone, making career, et cetera significantly way more valuable goals to achieve lol.

 

[nobitakun]

As some of the people here, I started playing videogames in the late 80's and I also can confirm that games were terribly expensive. Zelda Ocarina of Time for N64 costed almost 60€ (we were using a different currency back then), and salaries were half what are now. But this calculation is not accurate, because before PS2 came into play, games were not mainstream, and the quantity of players is way less than the actual players now, hence games were selling way less than now. Of course, creating a game has been more expensive, but 15-20 years ago it was worth it because they were selling much more without skyrocketting their developing costs (only in rare cases).

I can't say why the situation is like this right now, but I believe part of the problem is trying to merge with PC masterrace culture. Of course graphical evolution is something we can't avoid, it's part of technology, but being up to date raises costs like no other thing. They need to sell new hardware, hence they need to make you think that is old hardware once a new one has been released, even if it is totally capable (ex. PS4). And the most important thing, they need to make you believe that getting the new hardware is what makes you cool and superior to others. Of course that does not work for everyone, but weak minds will succumb and brag about it. Another approach is to attack the people who knows nothing about videogames and change their minds to buy (ex. Nintendo DS).

But before I say too much non topic related, I go back in rail. Games would have now their correct prices if those games would come complete and bug free, but their price would depend on their budget. If GTA VI is going to cost 100€ can be ok if the budget is hundreds of millions, regardless of how many they are going to sell. I've seen some games with 60€ price tag that cost 20 times less to make than a Last of Us II which had 70€ pricetag, and that can't be.

Anyways, as has been said here, videogames are luxury and if we want to be up to date we will have to spend a lot of money into them, but there are other routes, like second hand and being stuck in past generations or wait for games that go on sale.

But I've been thinking for some time, as I am absolutely contrary to pay for anything digital, if consoles eventually get digital only, I would not have to buy any more games ever. This could be a very unpopular coment, but I've paid and contributed enough to the industry than 99% of people, so I would keep buying and playing retro games while I pay nothing for new games, as long as they don't release the game physically (well, it's not like I play many new games to be humble lol).

 

[Deleted member 77791]

Of course, creating a game has been more expensive, but 15-20 years ago it was worth it because they were selling much more without skyrocketting their developing costs (only in rare cases).

You made great points that make me want to say a lot about lots of things but I'll only focus on the most interesting points you made.

Back then video games were sold physically in objects that actually contained the game so it made sense how much video games cost therefore it didn't seem unfair. But now video game companies treat physical video games as "a trivial collectable item that's cool to have" but still feel entitled to ask same price for physical and digital versions of the games by even feeling entitled to ask $100. It doesn't make sense to me.

Also back then video game development was hard for many reasons. There weren't many people who would care to develop a video game. Often staff needed to be educated to comprehend how to develop video games and how to develop video games for particular video game consoles. I remember reading about staff being educated on how to display a message for a year. This also indicates lots of versions of the video games being developed, and eventually transformed into a state that's realistic to continue developing. Naturally video game companies wanted to profit to cover all these expenses.

Now video game companies either keep using their ancient video game engine that some random staff wrote whom no one knows their name anymore decades ago or they use Unreal Engine or Unity. They don't have to experiment, they don't have to waste so much time, they don't have to sacrifice cutting content, they don't have to re-develop the whole video game from scratch anymore. They don't even care about bug testing and fixing which they should be doing. Their video games are not technically better than the video games released even in 80s so where does the sense of feeling entitled to sell video games for $100 comes from beats me. I don't see graphics as a factor to believe new video games are better now.

The price increase is realistic because of inflation and it makes sense because they are all greedy way more than they ever were so no wonder because right now video game industry is filled with people who don't care about what video games are as how it was before. I personally think new video games over the past decade barely deserve to be sold at $30 but of course the world doesn't work according to my sense of entitlement. For example I heard GTA 6 will be $100 and I also heard it will only have Vice City. Comparing how bad any GTA game was since GTA San Andreas the worth of GTA 6 in my mind is barely $10. I don't care about story, characters or how big the game map is. We've seen in GTA 5 that it was mostly filled with empty digital space, but I loved experiencing different towns and multiple cities in GTA San Andreas as it established the lowest standard a new GTA game should have so no wonder I dislike rest of the newer GTA games anymore.

Then I heard companies trying to justify the price increase. They say stuff like "now we have to hire lots of people with their expertise" but no one cares or asks for these. Who cares video game companies started to hire professional actors who are somewhat famous in their field. I don't care how much it costs to make real people translated into video games. I don't have to pay a lot just so you want to increase the cost for nonsensical reasons just because you care about a trivial sense of artistic expression. I don't care that you hire a historian to make a video game accurate to real-world history. I don't care if you hire an interior designer just to make virtual buildings seem realistic. I don't care if your video game designer demands tons of money or refuse to work because he is a failed movie director and trying to masturbate his ego by acting like a director despite all he has to do is just developing a damn video game. I don't have to care that your story writer sees herself as a spring writer who aims to be way more famous than J.K. Rowling. None of these justify the new video game prices but these are the best arguments they have to justify new prices.

I can't say why the situation is like this right now, but I believe part of the problem is trying to merge with PC masterrace culture.

Mhm you are right. Even the Japanese people started to care about PC video games. But they still couldn't understand the importance of adding decent graphics options into games and mouse support lol. They think PC as a platform is just another trivial way of playing video games like how they play video games on video game consoles. They have no idea PC is important for people who want to tweak the video games and play them in higher quality in lots of different ways that befit their personal preferences.

Another approach is to attack the people who knows nothing about videogames and change their minds to buy (ex. Nintendo DS).

Mhm. It's a good topic to mention nonsense Nintendo's logic of releasing different versions of the same new video game consoles. They intentionally release bad versions of the video game initially so they sell better versions to the same people. As a result it makes me skip buying the initial versions of video games because I know they will release the actual one later. That's why if I will buy a Nintendo Switch it will be the most decent Nintendo Switch 2 version. Japanese people are experts at scamming people lol (no offence to Japanese people, I rather meant it as a compliment as great businesspeople they are).

There is also the video game aspect of it, from Japanese again. Somehow I saw video games that are really popular like Nier Automata, Bayonetta and Stellar Blade but I cannot make sense why they are popular so I can only use what they taught me in university to explain why they like these video games: They are just perverts as these games has no other significant aspect whatsoever other than being a girl who wanna immerse herself as a female video game character but then the games have tons of positive reviews stating "thickkkkkk+++ <3" and whatnot primitive stuff. I don't judge it but I mentioned how companies play with the primitive aspects of people just to sell anything they want, as a result they only satisfy one part of humanity by ignoring most parts of humanity. Because of it they may make a profit by minimising their costs but they could earn way more if they had actually cared to develop video games beyond the primitive urges of people. No wonder Steam turned into middle school kid fantasy platform something like Newgrounds lol.

In that regard one of the other weakness of video game industry is their ignorance that prevent that from seeing video games are not only played by horny mindless kids or ordinary girls. They don't see the new trends of some part of new generation kids really refuse to care about new state of video game industry therefore they want to explore even the ancient games.

But before ... that can't be.

Now we have come into an atomic explosion part of a fact: Customer doesn't have to care about the cost. Not many customer cares how cost justify price. If they think it won't deserve the price then all you'll do is either drop the prices, or make the product deserve the price or just go bankrupt lol. People will keep buying video games no matter what but the question is "will you profit in a way you'll be satisfied" is not what video game companies see it coming.

In that context prices raises expectations and making people want more perfect games.

Relatively recently the idea of "price per hours ratio" people invented is very interesting to me. I have no idea where and when it all started but at least for a decade I keep seeing people drop negative reviews on AAA video games saying "the game took 8 hours to finish so it wasn't worth buying it for $20 even on a huge discount" and whatnot. By this logic people may invent other ways to judge a video game like "the game has way more bugs than every dollar they ask for it" or something lol. Price increase made significant change in the industry so much it's very unstable right now.

Anyways, as has been said here, videogames are luxury ... go on sale.

My personal stance is I can afford video games despite how expensive they may be as long as they worth buying it. $200? It's ok. $500? No problem. I already buy old video games just to add them to my collection at such high prices because I love them. However price increase make me don't want to buy video games that don't seem worth that much to pay for. It seems more fair to buy a video game despite you didn't like it that much just because it's very cheap. It seems harder to justify why you should buy a game when the company is very greedy or you have good reasons to dislike them. These are the facts video game companies underestimate because on their high towers they forgot how ordinary people are. They treat like people cannot live without video games. They have no idea how luxury a video game and video game console is and because of it it's so easy to ignore them.

But I've been thinking for some time, ... humble lol).

What I do because of the new state of the video game industry is similar with just the addition of now I develop my own video games because it's so easy to develop video games now even as a single person. No AAA video game quality whatsoever, it wouldn't even sell on Steam but even developing them gives me way more fun than playing new video games lol.

Note: I had to rip the quotes due to character limit.

 

[nobitakun]

What I do because of the new state of the video game industry is similar with just the addition of now I develop my own video games because it's so easy to develop video games now even as a single person. No AAA video game quality whatsoever, it wouldn't even sell on Steam but even developing them gives me way more fun than playing new video games lol.

Creating games is fun, but very time consuming. I assisted to a 6 months course for learning Unity and I enjoyed a lot. The final project was to create a demo, and I chose an horror game like Haunting Ground, kind of hide and seek. I even developed the "battle & struggle" system that was invoked when the "bad guy" grabbed you. Through programming I designed something like a "faint" bar that made struggle easier or harder depending on how empty / full it was. But you couldn't see the bar any moment, just listen to the beats of your heart, and when walking also added an effect of breathe and motion blur depending on how tired were you after the struggle. Also, I created a procedural storm with lightning effects and rain, that comes and goes randomly, also modifying the intensity. Of course nothing ultra fancy, but at that time was so proud of what I have done I was smiling all the time. Even my classmates were joking telling me "pack the rain and sell it on Steam" lol.

I have to admin I heavily focused on programming because that was my area, and I knew nothing about modeling and animation. The bad guy was "tofu" from Resident Evil 2 lol. I had a lot of fun, so I totally understand your feeling :)

 

[Sleepstate]

Why do no political candidates ever promise to keep game prices from rising huh? Scared to stand on bidnis I tells ya

This is why gamer are the most oppressed group in society nobody want's to appeal to us

 

[iamthemilkman]

I'm playing The Dark Ages on Game Pass and it's enjoyable enough, however it's in no way worth the $70 asking price. To be fair, not many games are. Even fewer games are worth $80. Did I enjoy the recent Indiana Jones game? Absolutely. Do I think it was a $70 game? No. Microsoft doesn't really put out anything that's worth $70-$80. If Halo was still what it once was with a stellar campaign and multiplayer, I could see it being worth that. And while I enjoy Forza Horizon, it's kinda getting played out given that there's been 5 of them. It's no longer new and fresh.

I think these publishers are in for a very rude awakening with $80 games. The "But inflation..." argument doesn't matter to people when the cost of living has been skyrocketing since 2020. It's also difficult to sell $80 games when people are playing forever games like Minecraft, Roblox, Fortnite, etc.