![]() And these games are often better reviewed than AAA meltdowns. They don't have toxic microtransactions that trick you into spending money. These games have a small handful of developers and tiny budgets compared to the games that publishers are starting to charge $70 for. Hollow Knight is one of the most value-packed indie games of all time it still goes for its launch price of $15, despite adding several major DLC packs to the experience (at no cost for existing owners). It came from indie studio Supergiant Games, costs $25, and has no in-game purchases. Hades was one of the best-reviewed games of 2020. Read more: The Best Indie Games to Play on Nintendo Switch But it's hard to ignore that indie games offer amazing experiences, at much lower prices, without most of these headaches. We've focused on big-budget AAA games in this discussion. Sports games are notorious for being almost identical with each annualized release, and they have obnoxious monetization deeply ingrained. But for a title like NBA 2K21, claiming that the game offers "extraordinary experiences" and is thus worth the price increase is laughable. This is how games like Fortnite, which are free to download, can still make hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.įor a single-player game that's released as a full experience and doesn't try to nickel and dime you, it's easier to make an argument for a $70 price. ![]() Why should players have to pay more for something that's a worse product and supports poor employee treatment? Alternative Ways for Games to Make MoneyĪnother obvious change over the years is that games have so many alternative methods of earning money after they release nowadays-often because the game you get at launch isn't even the entire package.Įven after paying $60 (or $70) for a new game, there are very often microtransactions for loot boxes, alternative costumes, battle passes, and similar. Cyberpunk's development was marked by crunch for its developers, with employees forced to work grueling schedules to get it done by launch.Ĭlearly, the vast amounts of money CD Projekt spent on this title didn't all go towards improving its quality or making sure the developers had a healthy experience while making it. ![]() With that kind of money, you think it would be an exemplary title.īut the end product was a disaster: full of bugs, nearly unplayable on consoles to the point where Sony removed it from the PlayStation Store, and even had sections that triggered seizures for some players. For example, Cyberpunk 2077 cost over $120 million to produce. It's important to know that a lot of the money spent on big games goes towards marketing, not actual development. And while this is true, it doesn't tell the whole story. There's no denying that the price of games hasn't increased proportional to inflation over time, but there are more factors to it than this.Ī lot of arguments in favor of raising the price of games hinge on the fact that the cost of producing a game has skyrocketed over the past few decades. Now that we've looked at the current state of game pricing, we can consider whether it's fair. Once games aren't made for the older systems anymore, the cost could go up permanently. If people wanted to play the new game, their only choice was to pay the higher price. This is different than in the past, such as when Call of Duty 2 launched (at $60) for the Xbox 360, but was not on the original Xbox. Since eighth-generation consoles are still supported, most publishers want to make it easy for owners of older systems to upgrade their games at no cost, or for a small additional fee. ![]() So people who rely on a subscription service might not care about buying games at launch (and thus their cost) anyway.Ĭross-generation bundles, like the ones mentioned above, also have an effect. Xbox Game Pass is such a great value and includes all Xbox-published games the day they come out. Subscription services have also removed the need to buy games at full price, in a lot of cases. Read more: Why You Still Can't Get Hold of a PS5 As a result, not as many people are interested in buying games for a new console as would usually be. One is that the adoption of new consoles has been slow, thanks to limited supply and scalpers snatching up a lot of the stock that becomes available. It's difficult to foretell any kind of game pricing pattern this early, for several reasons. Predicting Pricing Trends in 2021 and Beyond ![]()
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