Will $70 games change your ways?

Certainly will, I'm gonna buy games I really want and not on impulse because I got hyped.

I just checked our local game store (Eb games) and most new console releases are $100 now and that's both Xbox and PS4 titles. Looks like most Nintendo games are $80 which imo should be the absolute limit for a bare bones game without extra collectables. It definitely does make me more apprehensive about looking towards a next gen console purchase.

Edit: I see that's an expensive place to buy games, not sure how they are in business being that overpriced.

If you're an Aussie (judging by the prices you are saying) why wouldn't you go to JB Hifi where they are mostly $79?

@phlop_spencer: I'm also an adult with a high paying job... I just don't like throwing my money away.

Doubtful I have more money than time to play games these days, so if there is something I really want I don’t see a price increase change that

I'll stick with gamepass best value in gaming.

Here is some data I have been looking at as it relates to the cost of these games. Modern Warfare 2 is considered the most expensive game in history, due to $50 million in production costs and $200 million in marketing. A recent AAA film, take The Last Jedi for example, cost around $300 million to make.

This means AAA games at best, cost as much as AAA films to make and market at their worst. I can buy a new release AAA movie on Amazon for $10. But a AAA game is going to be $70?

I dont pay 60 bucks for games let alone 70 or 80.

However i have no problem dumping 100's of bucks in mmo's.

Not really. It will always come down to whether I think the game is worth the price tag. I imagine many gamers don't pay full price on games, not even when it was $60. So this price hike is for those people who really want the game day 1. I bet even if it was $50 people would still wait for a deal lol. Gamers are cheap asses! Me included 👼

On the PC side games have jumped from £44.99 to £54.99.

Not paying that, it's greed and it's greed from companies who will pile further cynically motivated practices on top.

They are doing it because they can, and know they will get away with it.

Very rarely buy AAA products new as it stands and this will serves to further distance potential purchasing.

Yes, it will change my ways no more day 1 buys or pre-orders the greedy gaming industry can go f*ck themselves. It just blows my mind how fast people are accepting this these AAA companies are loaded they are doing this out of greed I don't buy that whole inflation theory. The thing is games cost more in the 90's at times because it was harder to manufacture cartridges. If anything games should be cheaper now especially digital.

I think the last game I paid over $30 for was GTA V for $60, and that was 2013?

GamePass, will cure all that ails you. :P

I only pay full price for must have, event games like a Halo or Forza, maybe Gears. Something I really want. Everything else can wait. Red Dead 2 was just discounted on the XBL Store (half off), but I’m waiting on a steeper discount lol. I’ve heard the multiplayer is really bad though. That’s primarily what’s kept me away. I bore of single player content too quickly.

I don't care much TBH. On the one hand, I almost never buy games new /for 60. On the other hand it's looong been time for this price hike on the industry side.

Do I want to spend more? No. But it's not clear how much more I'll spend nor do I think the issue of inflation and rising dev costs can be skirted forever. At some point we gotta pay to play

I don't buy many games full price as it is, been burned too many times. I can think of a couple, Far Cry 6 and Cyberpunk, that I'll probably pay whatever the asking price is on PC when they release.

Everything else I can wait for a price drop. There's always a chance games I'm curious about will turn up on Gamepass at some point too, which is nice when it happens.

I rarely buy full priced games already, about 99% of them are Nintendo games (because Nintendo prices). I usually have stuff to play already and end up purchasing big games later on sale.

Benefit is paying less, games are usually patched and fixed from major issues and if there's DLC involved it's usually all out by that point. Honestly doesn't make it any less fun to me.

A full priced game in my country is 65-70 bucks. I very rarely buy games for that price. I buy the game either later when it's cheaper, or from websites selling cdkeys.

No getting around Nintendo games though, as they're never lowered in price. Which results in me getting fewer Nintendo games than I would've otherwise.

If the prices would be higher, I'd just buy less games.

Three reasons -

1. Film is a mass-market enterprise, and it's not MANDATORY for every movie to be $300 million. For example, Knives Out was done on $40 million and made $300 million at the box office. It's probably still making money on video and streaming. Which is to say nothing of B-movies and the other wealth of straight-to-video affairs. Gaming, meanwhile, is circle-jerking graphics to the point where anything that isn't an uber-expensive graphics orgy is under-supported and under-marketed, leading to the self-fulfilling prophecy that you need to spend an absolute ton of money to make any headway in the games market.

2. There are simply more revenue streams out there for film. A movie like Knives Out had its box office run, but it also has Blu-Ray, DVD and streaming, and eventually cable TV to earn revenue from. The games industry is front-ended to a ridiculous degree. There's really little in terms of money to be made after the launch week, which is why you see so many cynical "live service" games desperately trying to create perpetual revenue on top of the opening week. The only other option for recurring revenue is free-to-play, but that opens up its own can of worms, as there's only so many whales to go around. F2P is a small pond with some prettybigfish in it.

3. Film consumers won't just throw money away the way gamers do. The reason you'll never see a Blu-Ray movie for $70 is because consumers won't pay it. It's part of the reason that rental was so big in the 80s (VHS movies were sometimes as high as $80!). There are too many gamers who'll just pay whatever price, not even for particularly special games, just for normal, somewhat forgettable fare.

hello this is 1-800 gamepass. yes I just bought the series x and im looking something new to play on it. sorry you have to go spend 70 dollars for the new games that just came out. but I bought this for gamepass were are the new series x games? sorry you will have to wait until 2022 for those.

I will just wait for sales, games go on sale early these days.

😄 "oh, and by the way, that game is not on GamePass"

@YukoAsho:how can you equate movies to games? Games give you way more entertainment hours than movies do.

Depends on the game. There are many, many padded out messes out there in gaming, and more than a few games that are way too short for the price.

Mass market is largely irrelevant. Many AAA games generate several times the revenue of production and marketing costs. Witcher 3 for example cost about $12 million to make, $34 million when you add marketing, and sold over 50 million copies meaning they could have sold that game for $1 per copy and still made significant profits. AAA developers aren't hurting for cash. They're making big bank on $60/copy as it is. The ONLY reason they charge $60 before, and will charge $70 on PS4 now is simply because they can, and you'll still pay for it.

And some of the biggest games online right now are F2P, largely monetizing through the optional purchase of cosmetics.

@TheEroica: eh, an extra $10 isn’t throwing money away in my opinion. I am of the opinion that if I want a developer to keep making amazing games that I enjoy, I am happy to pay the price of admission.

Not really. I tend not to buy many Big production games anyway. so going from 1-2 60 quid games to 1-2 70 quid games makes no difference to me.

to be honest if they are 10 quid more expensive but have a lot less (ideally no) BS then i'm happy to pay it.

at the end of the day if a game interests me and i think its worth the asking price then i will get it.

My goal is to avoid spending $70 per game as much as possible.

I did the math and Xbox's All Access cost over those 2 years totals to be the same a regular PS5 would be plus 2 years of PS+ and 3 new games. I think it's an incredible deal. Just sad I'll be missing out on Demon's Souls remastered, but I suppose I'll get a PS5 eventually and get to play it then!

Anyway... yeah I'm not gonna be purchasing many games. I'll just play gamepass stuff the first two years. Then I'll do gamepass when Microsoft games release, wait for sales/big black friday sales.

yeah, I buy them, and I know a lot of resources went into it, but that's a tough pill to swallow.

I would rather companies just up prices by $10 than do what they've been doing the last two generations. I'm currently in a game monetization class right now, and the current model simply isn't sustainable.

The cost of development quadrupled for the PS4 and Xbox One, and the estimations are that development costs are doubling with this upcoming generation. While big-budget publishers would be fine either way, the smaller studios could suffer immensely. I'm fine with the price tag if it means the more creative studios get to stay in business, and companies don't have to work their employees to death (which is unbelievably common in the game industry; as in: 80 hour weeks for months, if not years).

Yep. No effect on me. The few games I buy full price wouldn't be too many.

I've been putting more into the PC side of things. Just upgraded to a Ryzen 3900x and still using my 1080 Ti. I usually wait for Steam sales and even a couple of games from Epic on top of the free stuff every week. I have a Series X on pre-order but it's going to be for NBA 2K and GTA online with friends. This $70/new games can stuff it.

a $10 difference isn't a big deal. won't change anything for me

Nah. I remember games costing $65 in 2001. Since then the average wage has gone up 60% and so games costing $70 is no where near that when adjusting for inflation. We've been very lucky that games' prices fell to $50-$60 price range here.

The games i buy at launch are really few so i don't think so.

Half the recourses they put into games these days I just happen to find very unnecessary.

Games have the capacity to look visually stunning without the need for the top graphics in the market. We don't need to be hiring celebrities to be doing motion capture and voice work just for their names alone.

If dev teams cut down on the unnecessary crap maybe they'd be making better quality games that don't use celebrity status as their selling point.

I have to say I have never played a video game just because some celebrity did mo-cap or voice acting. The only celebrities I know doing VA for games got famous for doing voice acting for games. But if you look at a breakdown of the cost of games, you'll find development is actually the smallest part of what it costs to make games. GTA V cost $50 mil, Witcher 3 was $12 mil, but GTA spent $200 million in marketing, Witcher 3 spent $22 million in marketing. So most the money is going into marketing. Did GTA V need nearly a quarter billion dollars to market and advertise? Probably not.

But even with all those costs added up, even with celebrity VA, it's still less than what blockbuster films tend to cost to make, which they sell for $10.

@Mozelleple112: If I may ask, witch country are you living in? Games are a decent price from what you are saying?

A $10 difference isn't a big deal for me but, I only buy *must haves* at full price anyways.

Ex. I stopped buying FIFA games at launch.

I hardly ever payed $60 for a game, so I will hardly pay $70 for a game.

This right here

I've almost never bought games day one as it is with a few exceptions. Always wait 2 to 3 months and get it for $30 to $40.

When you consider what Sony is doing focusing on AAA games and increasing the cost of games, while Microsoft makes things cheaper, more affordable, and implements a system where people can try out new games at no financial risk, it's going to be a great generation for indie developers and for new gaming studios to rise up.

@eoten: I actually prefer when there isn't a star in the game as well. Gaming should transcend that stuff... Who is paying for that unnecessary high priced actor to be in the game? The fans are ultimately I guess.... For me, I'd rather not see a known actor in a game. I watch movies for that.

Yeah I can wait. I already have a huge backlog so I have no need to buy a new game on release date right way.

I typically only buy day 1 games that I think i'll really enjoy, which isn't all too many. I probably won't change up too much, even given the $10 price hike.

must feel great being treated like an idiot

Didn't changed anything just reinforced that Xbox and Gamepass will definitely remain being my main platform and for my gaming habits I'm even willing to take a considerable price increase before I consider stop subscribing. I'll get the PS5 next year where I'll play one or two games a year and be disappointed with most for being nothing but shallow eye candy.

@dxmcat: huh? Weird post.

Lets see what's coming for Gamepass this year Gears Tactics and Microsoft Flight Simulator. Next year, who knows. What I do know my bitter friend who is being forced to pay $70 for first party games is that ALL games under the Xbox Game Studios umbrella including ALL Bethesda made games coming out next year will be on Gamepass. 😂