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 iconStrategist]

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

 

[valosagutas]

“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.

 

[valosagutas]

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.