Look, the CEOs already have the fifth cheapest yacht chef available on their payroll, what are they supposed to do? Source the caviar themselves?
Maybe stop spending nigh decades and nigh billions of dollars designing these enormous catch all games that are supposed to appeal to everyone?
I Don’t want to spend 90 dollars on a game that has 400 different things to do, 200 of which I enjoy.
I’d rather give Sandfall 50 bucks for a lovingly crafted, focused game that’s actually, you know, good.
I’ve been saying it for the last decade, there’s no real “games are too expensive to make” problem. There’s only studios choosing the “go big or go home” death spiral where they inflate the budget and need a hit to stay afloat. But then after every hit the budget grows even bigger requiring an even bigger hit until eventually they’re going to flop and the studio goes under. They could just not do that and have a sustainable business. And I get that it’s not only the game developers fault. Part of the blame falls on the publishers who most likely force budgets to balloon so they could make more money (if the game is a success). But when I say they could just not do that I mean both the developer and publisher. Both of them should be smarter than that.
But clearly even with all the major flops it has been a successful strategy, because they’ve been at it since at least mid 2000s. It’s only in the recent years where it’s really starting to strain all the AAA publishers as the budgets have grown too big even for them. These price increases are an outcome of this budget ballooning. They’re feeling their bottom line taking a hit so they increase the price to mitigate the risk.
Personally I said fuck them, let it crash and let’s get more studios like Sandfall, who made an exceptional games for a reasonable price.
on top of all that; big money, be it profits or revenue, attracts parasites that start ruining the company from the inside. One can feel it on many games that developers wanted to do good but were prevented from doing so because of executives and middle management.
Not only that, they produced a game with no major flaws with a tiny (comparable to these mega studios) team AND NO COMPROMISES.
“Man, this game is great but the music is meh” - not at Sandfall.
“Wow, I love the combat but the graphics are dated” - nope, every model is so lovingly crafted they added haircuts and outfits as secret loot
“The combat is the only weak point in this gorgeous, story driven game” not on expedition 33 it ain’t!
It seems like there’s a few studios that get this trick. Hazelight (Split Fiction, It Takes Two) seems to have a good cadence to releases and likely hasn’t inflated their size all that much. They’re consistently making good games.
I wish there were more examples of that.
Came here to say this. Stop trying the build the whole universe in a game.
There is definitely an argument that AA games are a mistake.
But, since 4 or so, GTA kind of has been THE AAA (arguably AAAA) game and those releases literally buoy the industry.
Maybe you aren’t excited for it. Pretty much the entire rest of the (gaming) world is and so are their friends.
Going purely by “vibes”? I could be “okay” with a world where GTA 6 is 80-90, most major studio games are 60-70, small studios are 40-50, and indy games start closer to 30 than 15. Still plenty of room for waiting for a sale but also makes it a lot easier to be successful without selling millions of copies in the first month.
I’m glad they’re excited for it, but I’d put money on the fact that they’re not excited for literally every facet of the game, which is my entire point.
I don’t think GTA games are garbage - they’re literally designed to appeal to as many people as they can. The problem is R* thinks the way to design a game is to include 500 things, make the game take nearly a decade and cost nearly a billion dollars to produce - that game has to sell at 90 bucks, and it’s bloated with a ton of shit I don’t care about.
I’d rather pay 50-60 dollars for a focused game aimed at a specific audience (see: expedition 33, JRPG fans) than 40 extra dollars for a bunch of shit I don’t care about in a “jack of all trades master of none” simulator.
Edit: remember bowling with Nico? The train mission? Flying in general? All shit people paid for that actively annoyed them.
At 90 bucks, nearly every consumer is paying some % for bloat they don’t care about, all in the name of making a game that will sell the most units.
I don’t think GTA games are garbage - they’re literally designed to appeal to as many people as they can.
And they do.
I’d rather pay 50-60 dollars for a focused game aimed at a specific audience (…) At 90 bucks, nearly every consumer is paying some % for bloat they don’t care about
So you want games made specifically for you and cheaper.
Don’t get me wrong. It is genuinely awesome when it feels like a studio spent years making a game specifically for you (see: most of us Armored Core fans with 6). That works until that audience doesn’t show up. This is what led to THQ and the like crashing and burning a decade or two ago where games were successful but “not successful enough”
MAYBE that is going to be GTA6. Signs are, it won’t be. Because, yes, GTA 6 might not be catered directly to you. But the vast majority of people are going to love the overall package. Maybe they skip a feature. For example, I love the Yakuza/LAD games. Unless there is a story beat (involving a character I care about), basically nothing can make me do the crane game for more than two or three minutes (so one purchase…). Similarly, I loved Lost Judgment and have a LOT of Thoughts and Feelings on it. It would be one of my all time favorite games if it weren’t for the fucking after school special minigames.
Doesn’t matter. It might not be a 100% amazing game but it was still a 90% amazing game which… is still really fun.
Because
all in the name of making a game that will sell the most units.
Yes. And… Rockstar pulls that off. I don’t know why they would actively choose to sell fewer units just to make sure you never play a sequence you don’t enjoy.
Again, just to be clear: Very few studios can pull this off. We all make fun of RGG for how much they reuse everything but… that drastically lowers costs and lets them get out a solid 30-70 hour game once or twice a year. And studios trying to turn an A game into a AAA game is literally how THQ died.
But Rockstar is… well, a bunch of rockstars. They CAN do that. They do this through a lot of abuse of labor and manipulative marketing but… it works.
And, to be clear. I actively disliked what I played of RDR2. I found GTA 5 to be “fine”. But me thinking the games are worth getting on sale for 20-30 doesn’t matter when you have the population of a small country immediately ready to buy it at launch multiple times.
And they do.
I never argued they didn’t?
So you want games made specifically for you and cheaper.
No, I want games with focus. A game doesn’t have to appeal to me - I don’t give a shit about racing games but I can appreciate Gran Turismo’s focus on realistic driving simulation (or at least that’s what it was decades ago, I don’t keep up with racing games), and I imagine the realistic driving sim enthusiasts were really happy they didn’t need to play some prop plane flying mini game to earn the color they want for their Charger or to “get all the trophies” and that they didn’t have to pay an extra 5-10-15 bucks for the privilege.
Don’t get me wrong. It is genuinely awesome when it feels like a studio spent years making a game specifically for you (see: most of us Armored Core fans with 6). That works until that audience doesn’t show up. This is what led to THQ and the like crashing and burning a decade or two ago where games were successful but “not successful enough”
Blame the Publishers and human greed for that. FROMsoft seems to have absolutely 0 issue making highly specific games that only pander to a tiny subset of gamers (before ER anyway), and they knock it out of the park 9 times out of 10. Was it the 84 on metacritic that screwed Respawn out of a bonus on Titanfall 1/2 despite both of those games being fucking amazing? I remember that story vaguely (84 on metacritic, no bonus) but might be getting the pub/dev/game wrong. I don’t agree with the “Well, that’s the way it is, get used to it” mentality.
MAYBE that is going to be GTA6. Signs are, it won’t be. Because, yes, GTA 6 might not be catered directly to you. But the vast majority of people are going to love the overall package. Maybe they skip a feature. For example, I love the Yakuza/LAD games. Unless there is a story beat (involving a character I care about), basically nothing can make me do the crane game for more than two or three minutes (so one purchase…). Similarly, I loved Lost Judgment and have a LOT of Thoughts and Feelings on it. It would be one of my all time favorite games if it weren’t for the fucking after school special minigames.
People don’t “skip a feature” in modern GTA games - they skip dozens, or actively complain about them because they’re annoying (Nico, flying, train). Because they’re designed as generic massive time sinkholes for the lowest common denominator.
Yes. And… Rockstar pulls that off. I don’t know why they would actively choose to sell fewer units just to make sure you never play a sequence you don’t enjoy.
Good for them? I still don’t want 90 dollar games that are only 90 dollars because they’re “Include all the things!” bonanza’s where I’m paying for shit I don’t care about.
You can make a ton of profit a bunch of different ways - Spend a decade making a “jack of all trades master of none” simulator that will appeal to most for an obscene price, or create a passion project for a fair price. I prefer the latter. Again, Look at expedition 33 - 2 million units sold, tiny team, passion pouring out of every facet for a JRPG lover like myself. They didn’t need to spend 500 million dollars and a decade with a team of hundreds to produce a GOTY level product, so I only have to pay 50 bucks. Why would I pay R* 90 for a game where for every 2-3 facets I like there’s a facet I don’t care for That I paid for? Why would the general public?
Also, there’s no need to come off so contentious, this isn’t that shithole Reddit brother, we can disagree and still be friends.
Lmao who would believe that gta 6 is not going to make an absolute bank? They could give it away for free and still make more money that they could spend.
GTA 6 is just going to be client app to a universe of micro transactions. They should probably just give it away free.
I don’t even wanna know how much money they made or make with shark cards. Because of the dumbasses who buy that, they know exactly what people are willing to spend.
What a bold-faced clearly obvious motherfucking lie.
Rockstar has released only 2 full games in the past 13 years because everything they’ve done since then has been funded by microtransactions. The price of entry is negligible to them when whales pay for multiple copies of the game every fuckin month.
People expect games that are ever more ambitious
Nono, people expect Good games, that doesn’t have anything to do with ambition.
People praise expedition 33, that game might as well be an xbox 360 game and it people would still absolutely love it.
I would be perfectly happy with games on average being 30% shorter and 20% uglier if it meant a more sustainable industry. 1440p looks great. Raytracing is really nice and makes development easier. Let’s sit here until like 2035 just fine tuning and optimizing and getting cheaper hardware that can run it:
Nowadays games are very repetitive and grindy. That’s very unfortunate as it kills the game. Very few of them have engaging side quests that don’t feel like generic AI generated crap. So longer gameplay doesn’t automatically equate to better quality games.
I absolutely love kingdom come deliverance 2. Usually in games like that i just mainline the game and even then i usually don’t finish them. I did everything in this game before i even touched the main quest. The game is just very fun to play.
Repetitive and grindy
It’s working out good for me personally. Between that trend and having gamepass. I don’t have much time to game any more, so can barely get past a tutorial before real life steps in. By that point I feel like I get it though so it’s OK.
Exactly. Look at Nintendo. A fun game doesn’t mean you have to have bleeding edge visuals.
Dear internet person, this whole discussion is being triggered because Nintendo, of all people, decided $100 was an acceptable price for a video game. They are the asshats who opened the flood gates for the corporate zombies to waltz in.
I appreciate being formally addressed. Thank you.
Unfortunately this will continue to happen with or without Nintendo being first to do it. They happened to be this time, and it’s BS. But now more than ever people need to vote with their wallets.
Yes look at Nintendo, shitty visuals and high prices.
And crappy framerate. No sales and a predatory dlc system
Makes profit or they’d stop doing it.
Their games have always been expensive , but they are but they’ve always been this side of reasonable. Let’s see how $90 games treats everybody.
I wouldn’t want to spend $90 on my kid, the little shit isn’t worth it.
My son‘s birthday is coming up and I’ve been telling people for years to get us steam gift cards.
I think I realised what my big problem with $90 games is for Nintendo and it’s this, when I was a kid I used to save up money and buy game boy games. It was an important thing my parents made me do because it meant that I learnt you don’t just get given things for free (gifts are of course fine but at some point you need to learn about working to get money for things you want).
There’s no way he’s going to be able to get $90 in a reasonable time frame. What’s he going to do, cut lawns for 2 years in a row?
Work at the meat plant, with all the other 10 years old.
/s
He says that like big budget studios are barely scraping by. Piss off. AAA games are massively profitable. What he really means is that endless growth is the most important thing for investors/shareholders and that we should all just shut up and accept it.
They could get the regular £50 from me for the game, but their greed means they’ll get £0. I’ll just pirate it (if/when it releases on PC). And I’m sure there will be a lot of people with the same mindset.
Some AAA games are massively profitable. If you want to see which ones weren’t, look at the studios that got shut down or went through massive layoffs in the past few years. But if they’re not selling that many copies at $60, the thought that seemingly never crosses their minds is to stop spending $200M on a single project that’s make or break for the studio.
Shit the hi fi rush team got laid off. Success doesn’t guarantee shit.
It’s true, there are outliers like that. But if you’re looking at shutdown studios or massive layoffs at random, it’s going to generally be because the game they made lost money. In Hi-Fi Rush’s case, to the best anyone can tell, it’s because Satya Nadella changed the direction of Microsoft at a time when Tango Gameworks was starting a new project, which means there’s the least sunk costs on a project that was going to be several years away from returning a profit.
They were probably on slightly profitable. Or, Money forbid, only breaking even.
Back of the napkin math on a number of them says that a number of them probably took a bath on what was put into them. I get the cynicism, and in many cases you’re right, but it’s been a bad time for video games lately. An industry-wide number of how many billions of dollars video games make is almost entirely coming from only a handful of games like Call of Duty and Fortnite. Games like Star Wars Outlaws and Forspoken probably did lose a ton of money. Games like Concord, Avengers, and Suicide Squad lost so much money that it was impossible to not notice it, and they were each to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. There are a lot of games out there, and the dollars tend to flow to very few of them, relatively speaking. But I’d still argue the solution is to cut costs, not increase prices.
But I’d still argue the solution is to cut costs, not increase prices.
This is the solution moving forward and is probably what most studios are doing right now (see: publishers shelving low-profit studios, massive layoffs, etc.), but the issue is that the games launching right now with $70-100 price tags have been in development for years. Their budgets were written under contract during the boom a few years ago, they can’t just “unspend” that money, but at the same time, they’re probably seeing that gamers are being a lot tighter with their wallets these days.
I’m obviously never one to praise higher prices for the same thing, but I at least get why major releases are feeling justified to charge a higher door fee for the base game than to gamble on the freemium market (See: Concord).
That boom also just led to a market with way more games in it every year. With more supply and less demand, you can’t spend as much making the game and expect to be a success unless you’ve got a sure thing. So the higher prices will only be afforded by the games that would have been a success charging less than $70.
Many, if not most, AAA games are actually somewhat risky investments for studios. I’m not sure where you’re getting this idea from.
Is corporate greed a huge problem? Yes. But also, when you’re investing $200mill+ over 5 years for a $60 product, you need to sell a fuck ton to make it work. Literally millions of copies. And there isn’t enough buying power right now in particular for everyone to make it.
So, their solution is to charge $90 (lets not kid ourselves, the premium, deluxe, anticipated access, special edition is going to be over $120), so even less people buy it?
LMAO, Rockstar made 9 billion dollars off GTAV micro-transactions. Fuck that noise, ain’t no one crying for billionaires. They could finance and market more than 40 different $200 million games, then give them away for free, and still break even! This is pure greed.
That’s such bullshit. GTA5 has been a money printing machine. They would have been profitable if the cost started and stayed at $20.
I can’t find the numbers online but they probably could’ve given GTA5 away for free and made a profit.
They did give it away for free and make a profit
They did both, and it could fund the next 5 GTA games for 500 years and still turn a profit if they never took another cent. Whatever this “journalism” is, delete it, block it, and forget about it. They are the enemy.
They would have profited making GTA:O free to play, right from the get go.
if rockstar really wanted to win over all gamers, even the ones not planning to play gta, they announce base gta 6 at 50. and then have the 'early/access-10 min early-uber shark complete edition with a unique purple skin at 100 or whatever the fuck they think the whole things worth.
Absolutely no way Take-Two can afford anything less than $5B in profit every year. The stock market was a mistake.
Look. I think all AAA companies should do $120 base price for all games. Piracy would have such a boom. Better platforms. many more seeders and good reviews and more freaks hell bent on cracking DRM.
There’s one fatal problem with this plan: Nintendo fans.
That’s hilarious. To your point, I wasn’t going to pay $50 for this, I sure as hell won’t pay $80.
If you really want me to pay $100 for a game, you gotta raise the bar to the fuckin stratosphere compared to what we’re getting now.
And get me a damn raise.
And also knock it off with the fucking microtransactions and shit. I wouldn’t mind games costing something appropriate for inflation if we were getting complete, high quality games without the expectation that we spend even more money afterwards. As it stands, they’re complaining about the low cost of games while also milking players for every penny they can on top of the purchase price. Fuck these guys.
Sorry, best we can do is microtransactions, fear of missing out and AI slop. That’ll be $90.
Precisely this. If Baldur’s Gate 3 was 100$, I still would have bought it in a heartbeat because I know that the developers are never gonna ask for any more of my money.
I would say gta is one of the only few games I would pay that much for and I know I’ll get my moneys worth, but I’m not interested in gta online. I wish we could get story dlc like we did with gta 4
Shame on Harvey Randall for platforming executive bullshit:
The problem, he puts it, is inflation. Which is an unerringly boring but also correct answer: “We live in contrasting times, where inflation is real and significant, but people expect games that are ever more ambitious and therefore expensive to develop to cost the same. It’s an impossible equation.”
They’re not responding to the expectations of the people; they’re responding to the expectations of their investors.
Heard the same crap when they moved from 60 to 70 just a few years back.
Heard how video game development is too expensive while publishers posted record profits.
Heard all about how the same 50 dollar game "back in the day"would cost hundreds now, disregarding how gaming was so much more niche back then too.
Heard the same crap about how these “full price games” would lessen the need for egregious microtransaction
This will again, do nothing to lessen any of that, just push more record profits as gamers won’t be able to resist rewarding the gaming industry for their bad behavior.
Go ahead. I’m back to piracy where needed and patient gaming where possible. These clowns played themselves. AAA games are unreasonable nowadays.
