I’m okay with game prices going up – they’ve fallen far behind inflation over the decades – though personally I favor DLC rather than one large shebang. Lower risk on both sides.
And there are a lot of games out there that, when including DLC, run much more than $100. Think of The Sims series or a lot of Paradox games. Stellaris is a fun, sprawling game, but with all DLC, it’s over $300, and it’s far from the priciest.
But if I’m paying more, I also want to get more utility out of what you’re selling. If a game costs $100, I expect to get twice what I get out of a competing $50 game.
And to be totally honest, most of the games that I really enjoy have complex mechanics and have the player play over and over again. I think that most of the cost that game studios want is for asset creation. That can be okay, depending upon genre – graphics are nice, music is nice, realistic motion-capture movement is nice – but that’s not really what makes or breaks my favorite games. The novelty kind of goes away once you’ve experienced an asset a zillion times.
I largely agree, though I think $100 is a bit too high.
When I was a kid, I remember games costing about 3-4x higher than a movie ticket ($20 vs $5). That seemed pretty reasonable. An expensive game was maybe 6x higher.
Movies today are ~$10 in my area, so by the above logic, games should be $30-40, with more expensive games at $60-70. $100 is a a bit outside the range of reasonable.
I agree that DLC is the way to go. If I like a game, DLC is a great way to continue the experience. I really like Europa Universalis IV, and buying an expansion every year or two keeps the game fresh.
I’m okay with game prices going up – they’ve fallen far behind inflation over the decades – though personally I favor DLC rather than one large shebang. Lower risk on both sides.
And there are a lot of games out there that, when including DLC, run much more than $100. Think of The Sims series or a lot of Paradox games. Stellaris is a fun, sprawling game, but with all DLC, it’s over $300, and it’s far from the priciest.
But if I’m paying more, I also want to get more utility out of what you’re selling. If a game costs $100, I expect to get twice what I get out of a competing $50 game.
And to be totally honest, most of the games that I really enjoy have complex mechanics and have the player play over and over again. I think that most of the cost that game studios want is for asset creation. That can be okay, depending upon genre – graphics are nice, music is nice, realistic motion-capture movement is nice – but that’s not really what makes or breaks my favorite games. The novelty kind of goes away once you’ve experienced an asset a zillion times.
I largely agree, though I think $100 is a bit too high.
When I was a kid, I remember games costing about 3-4x higher than a movie ticket ($20 vs $5). That seemed pretty reasonable. An expensive game was maybe 6x higher.
Movies today are ~$10 in my area, so by the above logic, games should be $30-40, with more expensive games at $60-70. $100 is a a bit outside the range of reasonable.
I agree that DLC is the way to go. If I like a game, DLC is a great way to continue the experience. I really like Europa Universalis IV, and buying an expansion every year or two keeps the game fresh.