Post by Mr Momentum & the Sidesteppers on Oct 19, 2024 23:52:24 GMT -5
This is weird, because we're in the era where Denuvo has essentially won and game piracy has mostly been defeated outside of a few remaining crackers who take several months to crack one game. But seriously am I the only one noticing how fucking cheap games are now?
When I first built Kinoberus in 2020, I had something like 40 games on Steam. Now I'm slowly inching up to 300 because holy fuck some of these games are like $2. Just yesterday I bought 4 games for no real reason (Citizen Sleeper, Windjammers 2, Steins;Gate and GetsuFumaDen), in total after tax all 4 were like $14. And the most expensive one was Steins;Gate at about 7 buckaroo banzais.
Just ignore the 2023 RE4 remake and look at this shit. You can buy every other game here for less than $50. That's 5 modern Resident Evil games for less than $50, roughly $10 each. And these games are incredible with full modding and ray tracing support. I'm running through RE3make right now with RE Framework to play the game in first person in maxed out settings with ray tracing and a DLSS plug-in. Cannot fucking believe this game is only $10, looks incredible as did the RE2make and RE7. Excited to play 4 when it's on sale in a week.
Honestly if you use gg.deals with any regularity you will eventually find yourself concluding that these games drop enormously in value after 2 years. Everything 2 years or older drops down to like $15 from most publishers with an extra dollar or two shaved off year over year. AAA PC games that are like 10 years old are literally $5 or less and indie games that are a couple years old will drop down to as low as a dollar or two sometimes. I'm genuinely curious how the fuck the game devs or publishers are even making money with these dirt cheap prices.
God willing R* will normalize the $100+ video game when GTA6 drops. I'm enjoying all the savings but man I feel sorry for game devs. They must be broke as shit. And if the company is mismanaged like Ubishit then everyone loses. Weird because in the 90s games were way more expensive.
This flyer is from early 1997:
Now consider inflation. $75 in 1997 is equal to about $147 today, and $60 is worth about $118. All in USD, by the way.
Honestly I think certain video games should be priced around $150 USD. In particular fighting games should all come out with an Ultimate Edition including at least one full year's worth of DLC for $150 USD, the amount of value one can get out of a well made fighting game is immeasurable. I've told people for years I'm willing to pay about $200 for games like Street Fighter and Tekken and people think I'm crazy, but I'll be playing these games for years upon years on end and log hundreds of hours. To only buy an ultimate edition for about $100 USD feels like a steal to me.
Long story short, it's no wonder video game companies are suffering. Extraordinarily low prices for games have created a very difficult profitability curve for them over time, and it's perhaps also true the market is over saturated with some shitty games no one really wants. However, the well made games people DO want should be priced higher. I'm convinced R* is actually going to financially save the video game industry by normalizing the $150 AAA video game. If it's a product people actually want, they will pay that price. And honestly, a truly good game is worth that much.
When I first built Kinoberus in 2020, I had something like 40 games on Steam. Now I'm slowly inching up to 300 because holy fuck some of these games are like $2. Just yesterday I bought 4 games for no real reason (Citizen Sleeper, Windjammers 2, Steins;Gate and GetsuFumaDen), in total after tax all 4 were like $14. And the most expensive one was Steins;Gate at about 7 buckaroo banzais.
Just ignore the 2023 RE4 remake and look at this shit. You can buy every other game here for less than $50. That's 5 modern Resident Evil games for less than $50, roughly $10 each. And these games are incredible with full modding and ray tracing support. I'm running through RE3make right now with RE Framework to play the game in first person in maxed out settings with ray tracing and a DLSS plug-in. Cannot fucking believe this game is only $10, looks incredible as did the RE2make and RE7. Excited to play 4 when it's on sale in a week.
Honestly if you use gg.deals with any regularity you will eventually find yourself concluding that these games drop enormously in value after 2 years. Everything 2 years or older drops down to like $15 from most publishers with an extra dollar or two shaved off year over year. AAA PC games that are like 10 years old are literally $5 or less and indie games that are a couple years old will drop down to as low as a dollar or two sometimes. I'm genuinely curious how the fuck the game devs or publishers are even making money with these dirt cheap prices.
God willing R* will normalize the $100+ video game when GTA6 drops. I'm enjoying all the savings but man I feel sorry for game devs. They must be broke as shit. And if the company is mismanaged like Ubishit then everyone loses. Weird because in the 90s games were way more expensive.
This flyer is from early 1997:
Now consider inflation. $75 in 1997 is equal to about $147 today, and $60 is worth about $118. All in USD, by the way.
Honestly I think certain video games should be priced around $150 USD. In particular fighting games should all come out with an Ultimate Edition including at least one full year's worth of DLC for $150 USD, the amount of value one can get out of a well made fighting game is immeasurable. I've told people for years I'm willing to pay about $200 for games like Street Fighter and Tekken and people think I'm crazy, but I'll be playing these games for years upon years on end and log hundreds of hours. To only buy an ultimate edition for about $100 USD feels like a steal to me.
Long story short, it's no wonder video game companies are suffering. Extraordinarily low prices for games have created a very difficult profitability curve for them over time, and it's perhaps also true the market is over saturated with some shitty games no one really wants. However, the well made games people DO want should be priced higher. I'm convinced R* is actually going to financially save the video game industry by normalizing the $150 AAA video game. If it's a product people actually want, they will pay that price. And honestly, a truly good game is worth that much.
