(sorry if it’s the wrong place for this kind of discussion)
Yesterday The Riftbreaker raised its price 50% for base game and 65% for dlcs. I know Steam said all devs to adjust prices(in January), but this feel more of trend where once a game gets popular the price skyrocket.
As someone who waits a game go 75% or a stable 50% discount before buying it, if i didnt buy it by then sure i ain’t buying that now unless there is a massive discount (not even gonna talk about games that raise price to fake a bigger discount).
I dont want to sound cheap; I grew up with no condition to buy games and spent a lot of my internet in torrents in my youth, now i gladly pay for games but once a game raise its price i unwishlist it.
The last time games were increased in price I was in grade school, 50 to 60, a 10 dollar increase. I wrote a letter to nintendo actually and got a response basically saying costs were up in the nicest way you could to a child.
That was well over 15 years ago, so the extra 10 they tacked on was honestly coming eventually. Everything else in life is getting expensive so of course it was only a matter of time until it reached this part of our lives, its really basic economics.
A comparison to keep in mind is also that we were still buying physical copies of games when the last increase happened, now we are strictly digital for a large majority of purchases while this next increase has happened.
But luckily this increase in price seems to be a trend only taken on by AAA companies, which are hit and miss in their titles lately imo, so most will be on sale in a year and you won’t ever have to pay 70 unless you are really into that title. Most indie companies are pricing their games at around 30-40 dollars right out of the gate and honestly have more of the spirit of what video games should be.
Go back 15 years before that and SNES games were $70-$90 at retail.
What’s your issue with pricing?
I don’t have an issue with the pricing I was just explaining why I think the pricing isn’t an issue (didn’t really state this clearly) strictly due to economic pressures and giving just a little bit of background as to why. Because honestly like you said, games historically have been more expensive in the past. And they have lightned up on prices in the past two decades only to gradually increase them with tons of time in between for whatever reason they site.
Just another thought here but I honestly think the micro transaction economy we’ve gotten in games the past few years probably stifled the price increase just a little longer.