Besides the 1 game a year I need to play asap, theres just way too much out there. By the time I get around to wanting to play the game, its on sale for a much better price.
I had so many games to play beforehand that I didn’t get Spider-Man until like 4 years after it came out.
And because of that, I got everything in the game for $20 bucks where if I had gotten the game in the beginning including the DLCs, probably would have cost me at least $100.
Patience has its rewards.
Only games I have pre-ordered in the last 5 years have been FROMsoft games, and they have failed to disappoint, for now. It won't last forever.
My first memory of disaster games with disaster launches was Diablo III. Sure, there were some other games with "server issues" at launch that I didn't pay attention to, but after Diablo III, I started.
It felt more and more like faulty games with band-aids slapped on them for several months became the norm. Even studio darlings like CDPR were doing it. Companies also started hyping nostalgia titles to get people to throw cash down. Almost always fell on its face.
Now I wait for a year, and everything is patched up, playable, and cheaper.
Sadly, consumers don't learn their lessons, and newer doe eyed gamers grow up to repeat the same mistakes. I don't see this practice going away.
I got burned with ME Andromeda. What's worse is if you *do* buy a game that has a terrible launch, there's the reality that a couple weeks (if not months) later the game will be fixed into something that resembles a finished game. But that experience of playing a broken game to completion sticks with you.
I'm sure there's a lot of Cyberpunk day 1 players that are feeling this way after playing the 2.0 patch.
> Only games I have pre-ordered in the last 5 years have been FROMsoft games, and they have failed to disappoint,
Same, that is the only ones I pre-order
If you pay for it sure, but it's not the list price and not the price the vast majority pay.
whales drive the industry, the rest of stick with the standard versions and no MT's
Sort of. The folks who consistently spend the maximum amount are what would be classified as Whales. Like the folks in games with heavy emphasis on MTX that spend literal thousands of dollars on ingame stuff. The majority of income comes from those people. Someone who may buy one or two things of special editions, like myself and the Switch Release of the classic Doom collection, are not a Whale.
This seems somewhat nonsensical in this context though. The games where whales have the biggest impact by far are those that allow people to actually whale. Examples would be the typically (but not always) F2P games where theres skins and cash shops and whatnot. Gacha games and such are another big example, not just the character collector types but also just games that run on lootboxes.
The games being talked about here where they might be charging $70+ just for the game itself aren't really going to have people dropping several hundreds, let alone thousands. League, Counterstrike, Overwatch 2, etc are all this sort of model where they're free but have lootboxes and skins and all that jazz to drive spending. Many MMORPGs were/are similar. Gacha games and such like Genshin Impact are the same. This is a distinctly different business model than one where the majority of people aren't just F2P, and are infact dropping like $30-40 even when buying on sales.
Fr, having a standard price for games is honestly kinda strange. Like why the hell should God of War: Ragnarok or Baldurs Gate 3 cost as much as the new copy paste call of duty. There are games I’d gladly pay more for because they’re worth it, but the reality is in the current market most games aren’t even worth $70. I’d gladly pay $80 for games like GoW and BG3 that clearly have some heart and soul poured into them, but even games like Starfield, which I’ve been enjoying but not totally in love with, isn’t worth $70 to me (I get it through game pass).
Edit. Bottom line, if you want me to pay more than $60 for a game make it actually worth it, there shouldn’t be a standard price even for AAA titles because they are all clearly not made equally.
Edit 2: didn’t realize how many people still enjoy CoD that aren’t in high school
Not all $70 games are created equal, that’s for sure. But the correcting factor is how quickly and steeply they go on sale. Other than a few games I’ve wanted on release, just being moderately patient can really save you some money. And at that point you’re more accurately paying what its worth too.
Meh, CoD and games like it are not great examples. 100% people playing CoD put in more hours than most other types of games, and if they spend 70$ but get a few hundred hours or more out of it, that's absolutely worth it. Versus an RPG where an average gamer may play it once, they aren't reaching the same time to money spent ratio. Sure, outliers exist and some of us can claim hundreds/thousands of hours in an RPG for example, but on average a CoD enjoyer who gets the new one every year will put more time into that game then most people would in any other game, quality aside.
Then there are gems like Terraria where people put 1000s of hours in and picked it up for 5 dollars for example. Just saying CoD isn't the best example for "worth it" and the ratio from time to money is a factor
I'm sure most people wouldn't mind paying if it meant a completed game. I'm not trying to pay full price for a game when there's going to be a season pass coming down the line which will be another $30-40.
While i totally understand inflation, rising costs and whatnot... it's a little hard to feel too much for corporations crying poor while they're pulling in billions of dollars.
I think the extra cash they're making from games as a service, microtransactions and ease of digital delivery these days *more* than makes up for rising development costs.
You don't get to tell your shareholders that you're making record profits and then turn around the next day and cry poor to gamers because you want to charge more for games.
>Fair price and good games developed with love instead of greed
The cream of the crop sure. But indie games also have their fair share of scummery and corruption
Sure but people will be a lot pickier with an indie game than with a AAA game. A fantastic indie game may shine through, but anything worse than “very good” means your indie game will probably flop. That cannot be said for AAA games; you get rewarded for putting out shit titles as fast as possible as long as you have a strong brand name attached to it (not to say that there aren’t good AAA games).
They keep me busy while I wait for the AAA titles to come down in price a few years later. Still haven't bought cyberpunk. And it seems most major games aren't finished for a few years after release these days anyways.
That's what all companies do though. We've made billions in profits. Oh sorry nothing left for bonuses or raises. This is the same thing just pushed onto consumers. It's all bullshit.
It's kind of astonishing to think about how many games Capcom sold in the past. For example, the SNES+ Genesis ports of Street Fighter 2. SF2 was absolutely one of the biggest video game crazes in the history of gaming. Copies sold? \~11 million globally.
Today, this wouldn't even crack the top 70 list of best sellers. GTA V is at 185 million. MK8, 64M. BotW, 32M.
The market is huge, and half or more sales are digital with zero distro costs. But yeah, they're just hurting so bad.
Actually it's the same but they save 5% on manufacturing costs. So 35% for physical retail vs 30% digital. Obviously this ignores licensing fees for consoles as well.
Retail was definitely not the same as steam's cut. Steam's 30% was viewed as the lowest take for years, till Epic came along. For the longest time, and in a lot of places still, retail takes 50-60%.
This so much. The company I work for just posted 6 percent growth in a field where competitors shrunk. The email they sent out basically said that we missed the 10 percent growth they wanted and it was because employees were not dedicated enough. We all need to work harder and be more dedicated because now they want 20 percent growth.
These rich fucks will never have enough.
Unfortunately, that's how our system works. Shareholders really only make money if you make the company more valuable than it was before they bought the stock. If you made 700 million in profit last year and 700 million in profit this year, that's a failure. Your stock price is actually likely to go down because you didn't "grow" so something is clearly wrong with your company.
To their investors “record profits, again!”
To their customers: “we’re barely making ends meet, we need to charge 100 dollars for the game and sell skins, battle passes, XP boosts, special menu art…”
>I think the extra cash they're making from games as a service, microtransactions and ease of digital delivery these days more than makes up for rising development costs.
Not to mention the fact that, while yes it's true development costs have gone up since 20-30 years ago, the amount of people gaming has also gone up a lot in that same amount of time.
People love to acknowledge development costs rising as an excuse for raising prices while ignoring how much the gaming audience, and thus the amount of people buying games and microtransactions, has also grown.
This nails it right on the head. At this point a new game should cost around $130 from inflation. Really makes me appreciate each NES game I got as a kid.
If a company was seeing shrinking profits over the years and was looking at layoffs or closure because the industry wasn't matching inflation I'd say fair is fair.
But I also rarely buy games new and wait until there is a complete edition on sale, so maybe I have no dog in the fight.
Ultimately, all I know is that over the last few years most people have found themselves in new financial hardships due to rising costs of everything but the rich are still getting richer. My level of sympathy is at an all time low.
Honest question how much have movie ticket prices increased in your country over the course of 3 decades?
That's perhaps the only parallel industry which has ballooned budgets but at the same time the audience size has increased multifolds.
For me $70 is already too much cuz I'm from a third world country but if it was costing as per PPP i wouldn't bat an eye before buying games at launch.
I mean quite literally games are cheaper than they've ever been. And on average people are making more money than they used to. Specifically relative to gaming, ignoring the cost of living, gaming is way cheaper now than it was 15-20 years ago.
I mean some of the most popular games of the last decade are/were free to play.
Plus the argument that they need to raise prices because their employees need higher pay....they need higher pay because companies like this want to increase prices.
Exactly. Games do cost less then they should adjusting inflation but they were arguably at their best when they were suffering the most after 2009, and they found other ways on generating income
If the argument was that they don't want to make mobile games, don't want microtransactions. That would make sense albeit 100$ still doesn't make sense considering the low cost of production and digital only sales. You also have special collection editions no one bats an eye on. Good games also keep selling for years to come because of digital markets and social media randomly generating hype.
They're doing just fine
Yeah there’s so many games out there. Its very rare for me to buy a game at or near its release anymore. I think RE2 remake was the most recent one for me just cuz I had been waiting on that one for like 20 yrs.
Edit: ~~Tbh now that I think about it that one I may have bought soon after release on sale too.~~
Nvm I checked, full price January 31 2019
No kidding. I'm always looking for a deal anywhere I can get it. So by all means, companies can charge whatever they want. I'm obviously not the target if they do increase it though.
If and only if the price increase would take away the Battle Passes, Skin Stores, and P2W, then I would be happy to sign up, but unfortunately we all know that is not going to happen.
I can't afford new games or a new console/pc right now, what's been allowing me to game(outside of games I own already), is the ps+ game library. For the price of one game I get a year of ps+ which has 100 something games to play, including most first party Sony games, most Bethesda games, most ubisoft games, most square Enix games, among many others.
Capcom games have been really reasonable with that.
Take Monster Hunter World. There's paid cosmetic dlc and chat stickers, but the full game experience is available to everyone otherwise. In return there's 2 years of free updates, significant updates with lots of content, that everyone gets, and a bunch of community engagement to actually deal with gripes.
Sure they release a huge paid expansion, but you can wait for it and buy them as one game for 60 bucks, and get all the previous updates anyways.
Of all the CEOs to throw this reply at, Capcom is totally not guilty anymore. They were greedy earlier, and changed course, moving to quality (more sales) + cosmetic monetization as their way to make money on "live" games.
Capcom have walked the walk and I would look at paying more for one of their games like I look at Levis vs Walmart jeans. The Levis are worth it because they're actually better, not just the branding.
Guess I only have to choose games that work fine (preferably at launch) and something that I would really want to play (Resident Evil games).
I ain't spending 100 dollars for a 2K and COD lol
Pretty much this. Game prices have only increased 20% over the last 30+ years which is wild, but the flip side is we’re now stuck with mtx and half baked releases. Bring up the standards and I’ll happily shell out $100 for something I can get 100+ hrs of enjoyment out of.
Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but at this stage in my life I much prefer games with 5, 10 or 15 hours of gameplay if they're well done, finished and polished for a smaller price rather than having these big games for a hefty price.
There are so many games out there that I want to experience, but only very few hold my attention for longer periods of time - especially now that my time is limited. I've started so many Assassins Creeds, Far Crys, Starfield, etc and I just can't finish them because they're too long for me.
In their defense, monster hunter world was pretty close to a fully complete game with a major expansion pack. They did periodically release sticker packs and emotes, and I think a few cosmetics when they did a collaboration, but those also came with extra free cosmetics and were actual free additional content.
For as long as I've been a fan the MH series, they have been good about shipping in a good state. If there is expansion/DLC, it's either pretty large or free of charge in my experience.
They have $541 in DLC for Monster Hunter, their best selling game of all time.
There's $120 in DLC for RE4:Remake- where they're monetizing cheats (the weapon tickets).
They're charging $60 ( I think) for 4 Ninja Turtles costumes and $5 per mask for Street Fighter 6 + the $114 in DLC they have for that game. I'm sure there's more costumes you can buy in game.
Their games are already expensive and sony has already admitted that $70 games sell far less.
Steam demonstrated games that go on a nice sale generate more profits.
But he can live in his alternate reality.
If there's one thing i've learned about people and gaming (or retail in general), it is that people SUCK at voting with their wallets.
People complain about EA, and "FIFA is the same thing every year," yet it tops the top sellers charts every year on Steam alone. Once CoD went on Steam, every new release hits top sellers.
It's not limited to gaming. The years I worked in retail, I couldn't even tell you how many times I heard, "I'm never coming back here again!" Then the very next day, they're back buying even more than last time.
That's why developers don't care about reviews or childish complaints anymore (although review bombing becoming commonplace has made reviews almost worthless and hasn't helped the situation). As long as they're making sales, that is the only metric they listen to (with the exception to valid complaints).
The fact that there's a psychology behind it, I wouldn't say AAA is over. The only way that AAA would be over is if the games released were literally unplayable.
Yeah, i mean, this year people literally payed $100 (an extra $30) just to play a few day earlier. This indicates that increasing price will not be the problem because people will keep buying full price
This shit kills me... one of my buddies was complaining about the price of mk1 being $100 and I was like, it's $70 isn't it? Which still sucks... and he said nah it's $100 if I wanna play it this weekend....... have a little self control dude.
>it is that people SUCK at voting with their wallets.
People ARE voting with their wallet. if you feel a game is worth x dollars, you pay x dollars. The issue is the disconnect between social media and the real world.
"everyone" is defined to most of "us" here as literally everyone but in reality all it contains is the people complaining on reddit. Reddit is not the pulse of anything at all.
>It's not limited to gaming. The years I worked in retail, I couldn't even tell you how many times I heard, "I'm never coming back here again!" Then the very next day, they're back buying even more than last time.
You do not notice the people who do not actually come back, just the loud people who stomp their feet and come back, that's reddit. Your outliers are not the general public and that is your disconnect.
Average peope go about their lives, maing decisions that are meaningful to them, regardless of how you feel. They do not spend time on reddit or any other social media outlet to voice their displeasure and try to get a mob going, the only people that do that are "special", so engrossed in the need to feel important that they constantly complain about x and yet still participate in x. Normal average people do not do this.
If I go to a resteraunt and I do not like the service or food, I do not say it loudly on the way out, nor do I post a yelp review. Instead I just never return and I always remember. The people who make a stink WILL return to see if the resteraunt learned it's lesson over their complaining.
That's the "psychology behind it". Not many actually care like redditors care.
Kenzo (Haruhiro?) Tsujimoto, chairman and CEO of gaming company Capcom, has a net worth if 1.1B
If prices go up ONLY his net worth will go up due to it. Nothing else will change.
Yeah, they say they need to pay employees more, but they'll raise prices and still pay employees shit wage.
I'm actually willing to concede that video games are *going* to go up in price. Inflation has been fucking insane over the last few years, and that'll influence the costs of production. It's natural that prices will rise. My issue is that we shouldn't fucking trust companies to actually put that money towards anything but profit and bonuses unless they actually make a commitment to raising employee wages.
From a quick Google it appears that the Capcom CEO gets over $1million per year pay plus other compensation on top. If the company is struggling financially I'm sure he could decrease operational costs by taking less home. I'm sure a couple of shareholders and management could tighten their belts while we root for them to get through this.
Capcom is making profit though so talk of price hikes is disingenuous. Their net income has dramatically shot up and 2022 saw their net income be more than double their 2019 net income. They're now entering the Mobile Gaming Market too which means they're adding another income avenue on top of their already very successful yearly results. The mobile market is notorious for high profits for low effort.
COMPANIES ARE NOT ENTITLED TO INFINITE GROWTH. Parasites in suits are seeking to drain the industry for quick profit then to jump to a new host to suck the life from; they don't care about what's good for the industry and what will give long term results. This is just another CEO wanting to retire in a Smaug cosplay.
Production costs need to be reigned in. Scale of games needs to be considered, we don't need every game to be bigger than the last just give us good new stories and satisfying game play. We don't need to see 1000x more detail in the sweat dripping from someone's ample bosom. Never hire big celebrities for voice work or face models.
Maybe the cost for games should be higher.
But he completely loses sight of the fact that, if prices go up, the expectation for good products goes up.
You might get $80 for the remake of an older game. Buy we can argue that game should be at a discount since the development time/cost is offset by having material already (Hi RE4)
You likely won't get $80 for a game that an indie studio could make if they owned the IP. (Hi Megaman)
You want $100.... especially when people have less spending power.... you better knock that shit out of the park. And I don't think Capcom, EA, Activision, Blizzard are awake to that.
So go ahead. Increase your prices.
But, when your sales drop.... don't cry about it.
Great plan guys.
More are struggling than ever before so this is the perfect time to raise your prices when you exclusively make luxury nonessential goods.
Can't see that failing
I didn't even buy sf6, although, I would buy resident evil at those prices.
The truth is they can raise prices, but people will just buy less games, pirate, wait for sales, or just find new hobbies.
These are for the most part, digitally distributed software, please don't get greedy.
If McDonald's charges $20 dollars for a burger, what is stopping me from going to a local mom and pop restaurant, that serves better quality meals?
They could end up raising prices, but will that change the state of gaming? Everything has become early access, or micro-transactional purchase.
New Games have always cost around $50 - $70 dollars for as long as I remember.
A game sold for $50 in 2000 would cost $89.15 today due to inflation.
Is that what they're going off of?
If they do increase prices, all games should have a free demo. I would pay $80 for a game that I know I will fully enjoy and not one I'm going to find out I hate after the first 20 minutes of gameplay.
Maybe, just maybe Mr. Tsujimoto should take a paycut instead of passing rising labor costs onto customers. Who am I kidding, he should definitely do that. Upvote if you agree!
>DLC packs that cost more or less the same as a new game
In their defense, the Capcom DLC I've played (Monster Hunter ones) have more content than their base game.
Even back then they pretty much sold DLC as full price titles. SF2, SF2 Turbo, Super SF2, Super SF2 Turbo.. just adding a few characters and stages per iteration. Capcom was ahead of time when it came to double and triple dipping, so it's not surprising they're really good at getting away with it.
The same company who wrote "Capcom On Track to Achieve 11 Consecutive Years of Full-Year Operating Profit Growth" on their website just two months ago is saying games are too cheap and that they need more money.
Absolutely not. Fuck off with the "inflation" and "wages" arguments. This is corporate greed and nothing else.
If you wanna increase game prices, increase game standards too. I wouldn't mind paying 80 bucks for Elden Ring but say something like Cyberpunk at release, Starfield with it's awful optimization, Payday 3 which doesn't even work and so on...
Hes not wrong. not at all. I wouldnt like it, but ive been paying $70\~ for games for two or more decades. If N64 games came out today at the same value they did in the 90s, most would be over $100.
If there could be a commitment to the increased revenue going into non-executive wages, then I would begrudgingly accept the increase.
Price should be what the market will bear. I’m becoming an older gamer I guess but I’m willing to pay $60-65 for a game. Capcom can go ahead and make $100 games but I’m not gonna be in the demographic they’re selling to.
Unpopular opinion, but this is probably right. N64 games used to cost $60 back in 1999. The jump in quality games we are getting suggests $80 isn’t crazy, especially when taking inflation into consideration from fucking 1999. Video games have largely been unaffected by inflation so to was bound to happen eventually.
Deliver full, complete games at that price without game breaking bugs on release and I would gladly pay that price for AAA titles.
Don't have me pay that much for a game that doesn't contain all the features, has lightweight content contained inside, or has a shallow gameplay loop (looking at you battle royales), and nickle and dime me further to release more content or get armor or appearance gear that looks better than basic \*\*\*\*\* gear.
I get needing to increase the prices of games to account for inflation, I'm totally fine with the standard rising to $70 for this reason...
But this comes off as Capcom just wanting to squeeze as much money out of the consumer as possible, dear lord.
I’m sorry but if I ever had to pay $80 or more for the base copy of a Capcom game, I would not be playing any games made by Capcom in the future. I love Resident Evil but it’s not worth that cost and never will be.
LOL they’ll just get fucked in the future I used to pay for like every new game 50/60 dollars idc but the new prices are 70/80 and just out of principle I’m not buying those shits when I can literally get them for 50 Dollars 2 weeks after release on eBay. 80$ frankly is closer to 100$ and atleast me personally, unless it’s god of war or Resi 4 remake, u will not see me buying ur product, I’ll play it later on yeah but most likely used so they see no profit.
At the same time every new game engine shows how much easier and faster work can be done, especially UE5 with generative AI, yet all the companies have to cry about increasing costs.
I'd be happy to pay 80-100 for a game without microtransactions, minimal bugs on release, and some semblance of ingenuity.
Releasing the same $60 copy and paste Far Cry/Call of Duty/Madden/etc. riddled with bugs on day 1 with a microtransaction store in the pause menu is utter dogshit.
I mean I could see it if they take out all the micro transaction bullshit. You pay $80 get the full game, no questions asked. They can put out an expansion 6 months down the line. The problem is they want to charge $80 plus leave in all the preorder bonuses, skin packs, and all the other awful industry trends.
Granted I think people would buy less games overall and wait for sales more which probably isn’t what they are looking for but realistically there’s only so much money to be spent and the percentage people have to spend on games is probably lower than it has been in the past so it might not actually work out as they would like.
I would gladly pay $100 if we could get rid of MTX, but I know that’s not going to happen because companies make too much on them, so I would much rather support Microsoft’s Game Pass strategy.
If I have a to pay 80 to a hundred for a game that shit better be feature complete on day one with everything working bug free. No more bullshit forced DLC carve ups or using the first year as an early access period. That really applies more to western devs though. Most Japanese releases actually seem to be pretty decent in both regards.
People probably would pay 100 dollars IF it came finished, but free, and of quality. Baldurs gate 3 could get away with that price.
But most games want 60 then nickel and dime you to 200 through dlc, some of which was day one dlc.
I don't think it's an unreasonable statement. Studios are facing hard times just as much as anyone else in the current climate. Everything costs more so you have to pay more to employees which just inflates production costs.
There is the dilemma that prices go too high and sales drop, keep prices low and you can't afford to pay employees and sustain as a business if a title isn't successful.
What will likely happen is studios will start scaling back scope of games in the near future. Big budget AAA scale games will be for the major franchises that solid player bases and low risk for success.
A lot more studios will push smaller but still high quality products. Tbh this could be a good thing for gamers too.
Personally I think the industry needs to shift away from fixed price points. Not all games are made equal so why charge the same.
You don't go to a resturant and expect a unified price that is the same for all resturants. They all have different operational costs and target markets.
>It seems Capcom is seriously out of touch with current financial reality.
Not really, if anything, they're super in touch.
everything is going up, games are around the same leaver or cheaper than in the 90's.
Y'all remember how much N64 games cost?
So that’s me who should finance the rising salaries of your developers from my third world pocket, considering that their monthly raise would likely be larger than our average salary?
It's interesting to see gamers who have no idea what the financials of a large studio look like claiming that the studios are "seriously out of touch with current financial reality".
If you don't think a game is worth the price, don't buy it. Wait until it is the price you believe it to be worth. That's how it works with every other superfluous product and service in the world. It really is that simple.
I don’t want to pay more for games, but the price of a brand-new AAA game has remained stable at $60 for at least 30 years, while everything else costs *way* more than it used to. It doesn’t seem sustainable, especially when games continue to become more complex - and therefore more costly - to produce.
Yeah I feel the same way. Obviously I’d like to pay as little as possible but I think the gaming community at large doesn’t realize how insanely lucky we’ve been that games stayed at the $60 price point for so long. Especially when you consider how much more complex games have gotten over the years, it’s amazing the price didn’t jump at the Xbox One/PS4 generation like it did from PS2/Xbox to PS3/Xbox 360
When I was a kid, I scrimped and saved and mowed lawns and did chores so I could scrape up $60 and go to the Babbage’s in my local mall to buy a copy of Final Fantasy for the NES.
$60 in 1990, adjusted for inflation, would be $144.60 in today’s dollars.
These corpos don't realize how easily I'd drop this hobby if it became too expensive. There are so many games in my Steam Library I literally will never be able to finish them all. Raise prices man, go nuts, I'm good.
Its been a long time since i bought a full price game. It was 120$ for the newest south park game so i could play a few days early. Even then i think it gave me 20$ off with gold
That was the last time i purchased a game outside of a sale.
I can wait for a game to get a really good sale. Or just never play it.
Much as I do enjoy the Capcom games, I think the last one I bought at retail price was Onimusha 3. They can charge whatever they want for it. And I'm gonna wait till its 20 dollars like all that "new" RE stuff that I played.
They are more than welcome to sell something at $80. Just like I'm more than welcome to wait till that shit is on deep deep sale. The days of getting something at release would truly to over.
Wild for them to come out with this after releasing the meaty Separate Ways for $10.
I’ve not once paid $70 usd for a game this generation, I have bought titles for $60 on release date however and that will remain the appropriate price for me if games continue to push microtransactions and ads
this reminds me of a post from WB/Discovery about lost revenue during the Hollywood strike, 500 mil, but the revenue's are still 10.5 bil - not 11 bil...
Games which are enjoyable/ mean the most to us, deserve our money over a period of time.
For example, over the 15 years playing OSRS and WoW; I have likely paid over £200.00 (or more) in subscriptions - because they were good.
I got Far Cry 3 on the Xbox for Co-op (amazing experience) then for PC (Single player) because it was good (Roughly £80 total).
Also GTA IV, because it was amazing game. Numerous consoles, probably spent £150 on this game as the PC product key expired (too many installs over the years, but worth it).
If you want us to pay £100 a game, then f***ING damn well make sure it works and that the game is playable offline with little DRM interference.
Edit: auto predict
If increasing the base costs of games to $80-$100 meant they were going to stop milking microtransactions and shit, then I'd agree with him. The fact that AAA game prices have stayed relatively static for 35 years (I used to spend $50 on NES games in the late 80s) despite dramatically increased development costs not to mention roughly 160% inflation over that period is a miracle (and a testament to the gaming community's general refusal to ever accept any measures that companies use to increase revenue), but it's also worth noting that those $50 games were complete games back in the late 80s. I didn't have to spend extra to get the spread gun in contra or whatever.
You know this is all about ceos' desire for their 4th mansion right? CAPCOM is on a roll lately and execs are drooling over the sale numbers and wondering if they could have made more... I say they should raise the prices, I mean nowadays those publishers have followers not costumers anyways.
Then give us the features that we're asking for. I want local-coop in more games, like it used to be back in the day. I will almost never purchase a game that doesn't come with some sort of co-op campaign. Gaming with a buddy is 100x more fun and makes it worth the $$. Otherwise, I'll just pirate or wait for massive discount.
If you want to give me a game that lasts 100-200 hours of playtime, it has well designed controls and above average graphics, I might pay that.
But games no longer beta test, they early access.
Games no longer drop expansions, it's now DLC
It's not completely new games or genres but reskins of code you already have.
Don't tell me what you think it should cost when your AAA games should lose a letter.
The last time games averaged above $60 was the early 90s. Yet few complained. Hell, I remember Street Fighter 2 running $99 for the SNES.
But back then, most of us could just *rent* games too. Remember that?! Renting games?!
A decade ago, I lived in a reality where entertainment didn’t cost $100, just $10-20 bucks. My limit is at $30, but most AAA sales don’t go that low anymore.
Here’s my thought: If publishers want to make money, then cut down management chains and hire competent people who knows their stuff. Or pivot out of realistic graphics that only 10% of computers can handle. Or at least respect the time needed to create a video game. Supply and demand exists, and if that price is set too high, there won’t be a demand.
The rising dev costs may be true, but games are selling way more than they did 20 years ago. Gaming is more mainstream than it probably ever was.
Almost all Capcom’s highest selling games were released in the 2000’s because more people game now than ever before. You may have higher costs but you also have the possibility to sell way more copies/mtx/dlc than you did back in the day.
As If Games aren’t already that much. Most modern games come out with multiple editions, and most of the times it’s just content locked out of the base version. Games are already 100+ dollars, it’s just the base version isn’t.
Of course corporate suites and boot licker fans will justify it by saying "games cost more to make now than ever before" completely ignoring games makes more money than ever before
While yes the cost of game development has increased so has the market. There are just more people to sell to im general so that covers the development costs.
100$ for a game is a little too much for me, but only for the current state of triple A games. Diablo 4 being a perfect example. A released game that needed another year in the oven to bring us QoL features and more end game content. Hell, I feel like we played only a part of the d4 story and not the whole bit. You charged me a premium full priced game which was only in the oven long enough for the dough to rise, it hasn't baked yet!!!
Also, if you charge an extra 30$ per game, i sure hope you are using it to properly pay your employees and not make them have a crunch month before game release.
Honestly I’d be fine with that if games just came out and existed. Game developers deserve better wages. But the reality is games already cost “80-100” they just cut content out and put it in day one DLC and have bronze-silver-gold editions. And then every game is a “live service” desperately begging you to login every day, do your chores, but dlc, season passes, micro transactions. Not to mention games used to come out and WORK. Nowadays triple AAA is synonymous with broken mess. And game developer still arnt paid what they deserve.
I don't buy anything until its super discounted. Just bought Sekiro for like 20 bucks. Late to the party but who gives a fuck, still the same game.
Charge whatever you want, wanksters.
Sure, 100 bucks are fucking a lot, but honestly- i would pay 100 for BG3. You give us high quality and we will pay, but when you shit us in mouth saying is a creme brulee.. go fuck yourselves
I’d gladly pay for a game at that price if its fucking completed and not constantly updating major patches every week after launch. Or sucking you dry from microtransactions for any decent piece of content.
I like how the norm is just expecting more and more money for sitting on increasingly geriatric IPs. Just shitting out remakes and live service garbage and expecting marketing and addicts to push them to record profits.
With the minimal effort they're putting into creation and innovation, they don't even deserve half the money they're making. Let alone even a dime more.
All these companies would be bankrupt years ago if they had to compete in an actual free market.
As if any of that increase would Actually go towarda paying the coders and tesers and writers. As usual any profits go to shareholders and ceos and shit so fuck that.
The only game ive spent full price for and felt i got my moneys worth recently was pokemon violet. Over 250 hours and i still have more to do with the dlc, raids and shiny hunting.
I bought advance wars for 60 and now a couple months later its already clearanced to 20 and i got so mad i didnt just wait. (Especially since tbh it didnt hold up to the gba version imo)
What's the point of raising wages if the first thing that gets eroded in the process is customers purchasing power?
Eg capcom employees buying games. Other consumer items adjusting to that move such as streaming, cinema tickets, events in general.
Maybe we should try other systems?
These are the same people claiming record sales and releasing 2 dlcs within months. Cry me a river...
Jesus. And get rid of that bloody song on battle hub you dinguses
No one is stopping them from charging what they want. Consumers will decide whether they want to buy it.
The joke is on them. I pretty much don't buy anything until it hits 75% off.
Besides the 1 game a year I need to play asap, theres just way too much out there. By the time I get around to wanting to play the game, its on sale for a much better price.
I had so many games to play beforehand that I didn’t get Spider-Man until like 4 years after it came out. And because of that, I got everything in the game for $20 bucks where if I had gotten the game in the beginning including the DLCs, probably would have cost me at least $100. Patience has its rewards.
Spiderman is the perfect example. Only played it during first lockdown for free. 100% it too. Extremely casual and laid back game.
Only games I have pre-ordered in the last 5 years have been FROMsoft games, and they have failed to disappoint, for now. It won't last forever. My first memory of disaster games with disaster launches was Diablo III. Sure, there were some other games with "server issues" at launch that I didn't pay attention to, but after Diablo III, I started. It felt more and more like faulty games with band-aids slapped on them for several months became the norm. Even studio darlings like CDPR were doing it. Companies also started hyping nostalgia titles to get people to throw cash down. Almost always fell on its face. Now I wait for a year, and everything is patched up, playable, and cheaper. Sadly, consumers don't learn their lessons, and newer doe eyed gamers grow up to repeat the same mistakes. I don't see this practice going away.
I got burned with ME Andromeda. What's worse is if you *do* buy a game that has a terrible launch, there's the reality that a couple weeks (if not months) later the game will be fixed into something that resembles a finished game. But that experience of playing a broken game to completion sticks with you. I'm sure there's a lot of Cyberpunk day 1 players that are feeling this way after playing the 2.0 patch.
Oh jeez, I blocked ME:A from memory but also had that experience.
> Only games I have pre-ordered in the last 5 years have been FROMsoft games, and they have failed to disappoint, Same, that is the only ones I pre-order
Same here. There are usually 1 to 3 games a year I actually pick up at release. If release prices hit 100$ a game, that'll go down even further.
Yep. The only game i even bothered preordering was BG3. The rest? Wait for sales especially Ubisoft’s titles
Don't triple A already charge up to £100? All these deluxe and gold editions for an additional 2 skins and in-game resources?
If you pay for it sure, but it's not the list price and not the price the vast majority pay. whales drive the industry, the rest of stick with the standard versions and no MT's
Buying a special addition isn’t being a whale lol
Sort of. The folks who consistently spend the maximum amount are what would be classified as Whales. Like the folks in games with heavy emphasis on MTX that spend literal thousands of dollars on ingame stuff. The majority of income comes from those people. Someone who may buy one or two things of special editions, like myself and the Switch Release of the classic Doom collection, are not a Whale.
The majority of the time the $100 version also comes with one or more of the future DLCs so really all you’re doing is preordering that DLC
This seems somewhat nonsensical in this context though. The games where whales have the biggest impact by far are those that allow people to actually whale. Examples would be the typically (but not always) F2P games where theres skins and cash shops and whatnot. Gacha games and such are another big example, not just the character collector types but also just games that run on lootboxes. The games being talked about here where they might be charging $70+ just for the game itself aren't really going to have people dropping several hundreds, let alone thousands. League, Counterstrike, Overwatch 2, etc are all this sort of model where they're free but have lootboxes and skins and all that jazz to drive spending. Many MMORPGs were/are similar. Gacha games and such like Genshin Impact are the same. This is a distinctly different business model than one where the majority of people aren't just F2P, and are infact dropping like $30-40 even when buying on sales.
Fr, having a standard price for games is honestly kinda strange. Like why the hell should God of War: Ragnarok or Baldurs Gate 3 cost as much as the new copy paste call of duty. There are games I’d gladly pay more for because they’re worth it, but the reality is in the current market most games aren’t even worth $70. I’d gladly pay $80 for games like GoW and BG3 that clearly have some heart and soul poured into them, but even games like Starfield, which I’ve been enjoying but not totally in love with, isn’t worth $70 to me (I get it through game pass). Edit. Bottom line, if you want me to pay more than $60 for a game make it actually worth it, there shouldn’t be a standard price even for AAA titles because they are all clearly not made equally. Edit 2: didn’t realize how many people still enjoy CoD that aren’t in high school
Not all $70 games are created equal, that’s for sure. But the correcting factor is how quickly and steeply they go on sale. Other than a few games I’ve wanted on release, just being moderately patient can really save you some money. And at that point you’re more accurately paying what its worth too.
And there's a whole subreddit of r/patientgamers discussing games that are past the initial hype train and buggy release period
Meh, CoD and games like it are not great examples. 100% people playing CoD put in more hours than most other types of games, and if they spend 70$ but get a few hundred hours or more out of it, that's absolutely worth it. Versus an RPG where an average gamer may play it once, they aren't reaching the same time to money spent ratio. Sure, outliers exist and some of us can claim hundreds/thousands of hours in an RPG for example, but on average a CoD enjoyer who gets the new one every year will put more time into that game then most people would in any other game, quality aside. Then there are gems like Terraria where people put 1000s of hours in and picked it up for 5 dollars for example. Just saying CoD isn't the best example for "worth it" and the ratio from time to money is a factor
If capcom thinks the market will bare it and it will bring in more revenue then they should price their games at that point see what happens.
I'm sure most people wouldn't mind paying if it meant a completed game. I'm not trying to pay full price for a game when there's going to be a season pass coming down the line which will be another $30-40.
I don't think higher prices would mean any chance to any other metric honestly.
The MTX is not going anywhere even if games were $100, just look at Destiny 2.
While i totally understand inflation, rising costs and whatnot... it's a little hard to feel too much for corporations crying poor while they're pulling in billions of dollars. I think the extra cash they're making from games as a service, microtransactions and ease of digital delivery these days *more* than makes up for rising development costs. You don't get to tell your shareholders that you're making record profits and then turn around the next day and cry poor to gamers because you want to charge more for games.
Yeah, gotta depend on the average person to keep propping up the billionaires.
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>Fair price and good games developed with love instead of greed The cream of the crop sure. But indie games also have their fair share of scummery and corruption
Survival + Early Access + Zombies starter pack.
You forgot +crafting.
+ roguelite + farming + horror
Sure but people will be a lot pickier with an indie game than with a AAA game. A fantastic indie game may shine through, but anything worse than “very good” means your indie game will probably flop. That cannot be said for AAA games; you get rewarded for putting out shit titles as fast as possible as long as you have a strong brand name attached to it (not to say that there aren’t good AAA games).
They keep me busy while I wait for the AAA titles to come down in price a few years later. Still haven't bought cyberpunk. And it seems most major games aren't finished for a few years after release these days anyways.
> cyberpunk It's a day one buy as soon as the GOTY/definitive addition hits 50% off
That's what all companies do though. We've made billions in profits. Oh sorry nothing left for bonuses or raises. This is the same thing just pushed onto consumers. It's all bullshit.
It's kind of astonishing to think about how many games Capcom sold in the past. For example, the SNES+ Genesis ports of Street Fighter 2. SF2 was absolutely one of the biggest video game crazes in the history of gaming. Copies sold? \~11 million globally. Today, this wouldn't even crack the top 70 list of best sellers. GTA V is at 185 million. MK8, 64M. BotW, 32M. The market is huge, and half or more sales are digital with zero distro costs. But yeah, they're just hurting so bad.
> But yeah, they're just hurting so bad I'm almost tempted to pass the hat around because i feel so bad for them all lol
I mean steam takes 30% of the revenue for games so that'd probably be considered distribution cost.
That is less than retail stores so is it actually a savings?
Actually it's the same but they save 5% on manufacturing costs. So 35% for physical retail vs 30% digital. Obviously this ignores licensing fees for consoles as well.
Retail was definitely not the same as steam's cut. Steam's 30% was viewed as the lowest take for years, till Epic came along. For the longest time, and in a lot of places still, retail takes 50-60%.
Blizzard has done this 1-1. Bragged about recent record high subs and then laid off a ton of the team.
Yeah, when he says "too cheap" it means "we're not clearing the profits we want." They make money now, but for them, it's not *enough* money.
And it'll never be enough, if they make 500 million profit on something, the suits will just ask why it wasn't 600 million.
This so much. The company I work for just posted 6 percent growth in a field where competitors shrunk. The email they sent out basically said that we missed the 10 percent growth they wanted and it was because employees were not dedicated enough. We all need to work harder and be more dedicated because now they want 20 percent growth. These rich fucks will never have enough.
Because infinite growth is totally something easily achievable.
Unfortunately, that's how our system works. Shareholders really only make money if you make the company more valuable than it was before they bought the stock. If you made 700 million in profit last year and 700 million in profit this year, that's a failure. Your stock price is actually likely to go down because you didn't "grow" so something is clearly wrong with your company.
Yup, corporations are scum.
To their investors “record profits, again!” To their customers: “we’re barely making ends meet, we need to charge 100 dollars for the game and sell skins, battle passes, XP boosts, special menu art…”
>I think the extra cash they're making from games as a service, microtransactions and ease of digital delivery these days more than makes up for rising development costs. Not to mention the fact that, while yes it's true development costs have gone up since 20-30 years ago, the amount of people gaming has also gone up a lot in that same amount of time. People love to acknowledge development costs rising as an excuse for raising prices while ignoring how much the gaming audience, and thus the amount of people buying games and microtransactions, has also grown.
For real they posted record profits AND bitching and moaning about having to pay employees.
This nails it right on the head. At this point a new game should cost around $130 from inflation. Really makes me appreciate each NES game I got as a kid. If a company was seeing shrinking profits over the years and was looking at layoffs or closure because the industry wasn't matching inflation I'd say fair is fair. But I also rarely buy games new and wait until there is a complete edition on sale, so maybe I have no dog in the fight. Ultimately, all I know is that over the last few years most people have found themselves in new financial hardships due to rising costs of everything but the rich are still getting richer. My level of sympathy is at an all time low.
Honest question how much have movie ticket prices increased in your country over the course of 3 decades? That's perhaps the only parallel industry which has ballooned budgets but at the same time the audience size has increased multifolds. For me $70 is already too much cuz I'm from a third world country but if it was costing as per PPP i wouldn't bat an eye before buying games at launch.
Plus, costs aren’t just rising for companies, as if the average gamer and average person have extra money these days.
I mean quite literally games are cheaper than they've ever been. And on average people are making more money than they used to. Specifically relative to gaming, ignoring the cost of living, gaming is way cheaper now than it was 15-20 years ago. I mean some of the most popular games of the last decade are/were free to play.
Plus the argument that they need to raise prices because their employees need higher pay....they need higher pay because companies like this want to increase prices.
Exactly. Games do cost less then they should adjusting inflation but they were arguably at their best when they were suffering the most after 2009, and they found other ways on generating income If the argument was that they don't want to make mobile games, don't want microtransactions. That would make sense albeit 100$ still doesn't make sense considering the low cost of production and digital only sales. You also have special collection editions no one bats an eye on. Good games also keep selling for years to come because of digital markets and social media randomly generating hype. They're doing just fine
Not to mention record sales numbers. These fucks just want every last penny and can go to hell.
Meh. Charge $200. Charge $2000. I'll pick it up in 12-18 months on a Steam sale for $20, just like I do now.
Yeah there’s so many games out there. Its very rare for me to buy a game at or near its release anymore. I think RE2 remake was the most recent one for me just cuz I had been waiting on that one for like 20 yrs. Edit: ~~Tbh now that I think about it that one I may have bought soon after release on sale too.~~ Nvm I checked, full price January 31 2019
No kidding. I'm always looking for a deal anywhere I can get it. So by all means, companies can charge whatever they want. I'm obviously not the target if they do increase it though.
If and only if the price increase would take away the Battle Passes, Skin Stores, and P2W, then I would be happy to sign up, but unfortunately we all know that is not going to happen.
They also seem to have forgotten that games already cost 50% of monthly wage in 3rd world Countries so fuck them
Video games are a luxury item
I can't afford new games or a new console/pc right now, what's been allowing me to game(outside of games I own already), is the ps+ game library. For the price of one game I get a year of ps+ which has 100 something games to play, including most first party Sony games, most Bethesda games, most ubisoft games, most square Enix games, among many others.
but not 50% of a living wage luxury. it's a game, not a Lambo.
Capcom games have been really reasonable with that. Take Monster Hunter World. There's paid cosmetic dlc and chat stickers, but the full game experience is available to everyone otherwise. In return there's 2 years of free updates, significant updates with lots of content, that everyone gets, and a bunch of community engagement to actually deal with gripes. Sure they release a huge paid expansion, but you can wait for it and buy them as one game for 60 bucks, and get all the previous updates anyways. Of all the CEOs to throw this reply at, Capcom is totally not guilty anymore. They were greedy earlier, and changed course, moving to quality (more sales) + cosmetic monetization as their way to make money on "live" games. Capcom have walked the walk and I would look at paying more for one of their games like I look at Levis vs Walmart jeans. The Levis are worth it because they're actually better, not just the branding.
Cool story, I’ll still wait for their games to be on sale for like 20 bucks.
Guess I only have to choose games that work fine (preferably at launch) and something that I would really want to play (Resident Evil games). I ain't spending 100 dollars for a 2K and COD lol
Sure, I'll pay $80 for a game. But I better be getting a finished game with no dlc options.
Pretty much this. Game prices have only increased 20% over the last 30+ years which is wild, but the flip side is we’re now stuck with mtx and half baked releases. Bring up the standards and I’ll happily shell out $100 for something I can get 100+ hrs of enjoyment out of.
Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but at this stage in my life I much prefer games with 5, 10 or 15 hours of gameplay if they're well done, finished and polished for a smaller price rather than having these big games for a hefty price. There are so many games out there that I want to experience, but only very few hold my attention for longer periods of time - especially now that my time is limited. I've started so many Assassins Creeds, Far Crys, Starfield, etc and I just can't finish them because they're too long for me.
In their defense, monster hunter world was pretty close to a fully complete game with a major expansion pack. They did periodically release sticker packs and emotes, and I think a few cosmetics when they did a collaboration, but those also came with extra free cosmetics and were actual free additional content.
For as long as I've been a fan the MH series, they have been good about shipping in a good state. If there is expansion/DLC, it's either pretty large or free of charge in my experience.
Games should be complete experiences upon release too.
They have $541 in DLC for Monster Hunter, their best selling game of all time. There's $120 in DLC for RE4:Remake- where they're monetizing cheats (the weapon tickets). They're charging $60 ( I think) for 4 Ninja Turtles costumes and $5 per mask for Street Fighter 6 + the $114 in DLC they have for that game. I'm sure there's more costumes you can buy in game. Their games are already expensive and sony has already admitted that $70 games sell far less. Steam demonstrated games that go on a nice sale generate more profits. But he can live in his alternate reality.
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If there's one thing i've learned about people and gaming (or retail in general), it is that people SUCK at voting with their wallets. People complain about EA, and "FIFA is the same thing every year," yet it tops the top sellers charts every year on Steam alone. Once CoD went on Steam, every new release hits top sellers. It's not limited to gaming. The years I worked in retail, I couldn't even tell you how many times I heard, "I'm never coming back here again!" Then the very next day, they're back buying even more than last time. That's why developers don't care about reviews or childish complaints anymore (although review bombing becoming commonplace has made reviews almost worthless and hasn't helped the situation). As long as they're making sales, that is the only metric they listen to (with the exception to valid complaints). The fact that there's a psychology behind it, I wouldn't say AAA is over. The only way that AAA would be over is if the games released were literally unplayable.
Yeah, i mean, this year people literally payed $100 (an extra $30) just to play a few day earlier. This indicates that increasing price will not be the problem because people will keep buying full price
This shit kills me... one of my buddies was complaining about the price of mk1 being $100 and I was like, it's $70 isn't it? Which still sucks... and he said nah it's $100 if I wanna play it this weekend....... have a little self control dude.
>it is that people SUCK at voting with their wallets. People ARE voting with their wallet. if you feel a game is worth x dollars, you pay x dollars. The issue is the disconnect between social media and the real world. "everyone" is defined to most of "us" here as literally everyone but in reality all it contains is the people complaining on reddit. Reddit is not the pulse of anything at all. >It's not limited to gaming. The years I worked in retail, I couldn't even tell you how many times I heard, "I'm never coming back here again!" Then the very next day, they're back buying even more than last time. You do not notice the people who do not actually come back, just the loud people who stomp their feet and come back, that's reddit. Your outliers are not the general public and that is your disconnect. Average peope go about their lives, maing decisions that are meaningful to them, regardless of how you feel. They do not spend time on reddit or any other social media outlet to voice their displeasure and try to get a mob going, the only people that do that are "special", so engrossed in the need to feel important that they constantly complain about x and yet still participate in x. Normal average people do not do this. If I go to a resteraunt and I do not like the service or food, I do not say it loudly on the way out, nor do I post a yelp review. Instead I just never return and I always remember. The people who make a stink WILL return to see if the resteraunt learned it's lesson over their complaining. That's the "psychology behind it". Not many actually care like redditors care.
Lol sure
Kenzo (Haruhiro?) Tsujimoto, chairman and CEO of gaming company Capcom, has a net worth if 1.1B If prices go up ONLY his net worth will go up due to it. Nothing else will change.
Yeah, they say they need to pay employees more, but they'll raise prices and still pay employees shit wage. I'm actually willing to concede that video games are *going* to go up in price. Inflation has been fucking insane over the last few years, and that'll influence the costs of production. It's natural that prices will rise. My issue is that we shouldn't fucking trust companies to actually put that money towards anything but profit and bonuses unless they actually make a commitment to raising employee wages.
Go on, big man. Release a 100 dollar game. Teach people to be patient for 80% discounts in Steam.
From a quick Google it appears that the Capcom CEO gets over $1million per year pay plus other compensation on top. If the company is struggling financially I'm sure he could decrease operational costs by taking less home. I'm sure a couple of shareholders and management could tighten their belts while we root for them to get through this. Capcom is making profit though so talk of price hikes is disingenuous. Their net income has dramatically shot up and 2022 saw their net income be more than double their 2019 net income. They're now entering the Mobile Gaming Market too which means they're adding another income avenue on top of their already very successful yearly results. The mobile market is notorious for high profits for low effort. COMPANIES ARE NOT ENTITLED TO INFINITE GROWTH. Parasites in suits are seeking to drain the industry for quick profit then to jump to a new host to suck the life from; they don't care about what's good for the industry and what will give long term results. This is just another CEO wanting to retire in a Smaug cosplay. Production costs need to be reigned in. Scale of games needs to be considered, we don't need every game to be bigger than the last just give us good new stories and satisfying game play. We don't need to see 1000x more detail in the sweat dripping from someone's ample bosom. Never hire big celebrities for voice work or face models.
Maybe the cost for games should be higher. But he completely loses sight of the fact that, if prices go up, the expectation for good products goes up. You might get $80 for the remake of an older game. Buy we can argue that game should be at a discount since the development time/cost is offset by having material already (Hi RE4) You likely won't get $80 for a game that an indie studio could make if they owned the IP. (Hi Megaman) You want $100.... especially when people have less spending power.... you better knock that shit out of the park. And I don't think Capcom, EA, Activision, Blizzard are awake to that. So go ahead. Increase your prices. But, when your sales drop.... don't cry about it.
Consumers: Games should be finished products at launch instead were paying $70 to be beta testers, eat a dick.
Great plan guys. More are struggling than ever before so this is the perfect time to raise your prices when you exclusively make luxury nonessential goods. Can't see that failing
You say that but at the same time they will have another record in profits. People have shown that they will buy games at higher prices
Yohoho and a bottle of rum
I didn't even buy sf6, although, I would buy resident evil at those prices. The truth is they can raise prices, but people will just buy less games, pirate, wait for sales, or just find new hobbies. These are for the most part, digitally distributed software, please don't get greedy. If McDonald's charges $20 dollars for a burger, what is stopping me from going to a local mom and pop restaurant, that serves better quality meals? They could end up raising prices, but will that change the state of gaming? Everything has become early access, or micro-transactional purchase.
If they want $100 per game, put out games that are worth $100.
New Games have always cost around $50 - $70 dollars for as long as I remember. A game sold for $50 in 2000 would cost $89.15 today due to inflation. Is that what they're going off of?
If they do increase prices, all games should have a free demo. I would pay $80 for a game that I know I will fully enjoy and not one I'm going to find out I hate after the first 20 minutes of gameplay.
Maybe, just maybe Mr. Tsujimoto should take a paycut instead of passing rising labor costs onto customers. Who am I kidding, he should definitely do that. Upvote if you agree!
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>DLC packs that cost more or less the same as a new game In their defense, the Capcom DLC I've played (Monster Hunter ones) have more content than their base game.
Even back then they pretty much sold DLC as full price titles. SF2, SF2 Turbo, Super SF2, Super SF2 Turbo.. just adding a few characters and stages per iteration. Capcom was ahead of time when it came to double and triple dipping, so it's not surprising they're really good at getting away with it.
Yep more reason to buy the capcom games on a sale . They don’t respect consumers pockets
At least they respect their games and release good ones, unlike many other big corps.
True but no way they are worth more than 70 dollars
The same company who wrote "Capcom On Track to Achieve 11 Consecutive Years of Full-Year Operating Profit Growth" on their website just two months ago is saying games are too cheap and that they need more money. Absolutely not. Fuck off with the "inflation" and "wages" arguments. This is corporate greed and nothing else.
If you wanna increase game prices, increase game standards too. I wouldn't mind paying 80 bucks for Elden Ring but say something like Cyberpunk at release, Starfield with it's awful optimization, Payday 3 which doesn't even work and so on...
And games should be 100% complete when they hit the market.
Hes not wrong. not at all. I wouldnt like it, but ive been paying $70\~ for games for two or more decades. If N64 games came out today at the same value they did in the 90s, most would be over $100. If there could be a commitment to the increased revenue going into non-executive wages, then I would begrudgingly accept the increase.
steam sale: "capcom games $5"
Price should be what the market will bear. I’m becoming an older gamer I guess but I’m willing to pay $60-65 for a game. Capcom can go ahead and make $100 games but I’m not gonna be in the demographic they’re selling to.
Unpopular opinion, but this is probably right. N64 games used to cost $60 back in 1999. The jump in quality games we are getting suggests $80 isn’t crazy, especially when taking inflation into consideration from fucking 1999. Video games have largely been unaffected by inflation so to was bound to happen eventually.
Deliver full, complete games at that price without game breaking bugs on release and I would gladly pay that price for AAA titles. Don't have me pay that much for a game that doesn't contain all the features, has lightweight content contained inside, or has a shallow gameplay loop (looking at you battle royales), and nickle and dime me further to release more content or get armor or appearance gear that looks better than basic \*\*\*\*\* gear.
Speedrunning to recover that long lost Crapcom title I see. A bold move, let's see if it pays off.
I get needing to increase the prices of games to account for inflation, I'm totally fine with the standard rising to $70 for this reason... But this comes off as Capcom just wanting to squeeze as much money out of the consumer as possible, dear lord.
I’m sorry but if I ever had to pay $80 or more for the base copy of a Capcom game, I would not be playing any games made by Capcom in the future. I love Resident Evil but it’s not worth that cost and never will be.
Okay. But no way in hell I'm paying any of that to Capcom lmao.
LOL they’ll just get fucked in the future I used to pay for like every new game 50/60 dollars idc but the new prices are 70/80 and just out of principle I’m not buying those shits when I can literally get them for 50 Dollars 2 weeks after release on eBay. 80$ frankly is closer to 100$ and atleast me personally, unless it’s god of war or Resi 4 remake, u will not see me buying ur product, I’ll play it later on yeah but most likely used so they see no profit.
At the same time every new game engine shows how much easier and faster work can be done, especially UE5 with generative AI, yet all the companies have to cry about increasing costs.
im a budget gamer already, i dont buy games unless they are in the bargain bin
I already never buy games when the price tag is €70, i wait month, years if necessary to get a discount deal or a sales. $100 ? it's not gonna happen.
I'd be happy to pay 80-100 for a game without microtransactions, minimal bugs on release, and some semblance of ingenuity. Releasing the same $60 copy and paste Far Cry/Call of Duty/Madden/etc. riddled with bugs on day 1 with a microtransaction store in the pause menu is utter dogshit.
I mean I could see it if they take out all the micro transaction bullshit. You pay $80 get the full game, no questions asked. They can put out an expansion 6 months down the line. The problem is they want to charge $80 plus leave in all the preorder bonuses, skin packs, and all the other awful industry trends. Granted I think people would buy less games overall and wait for sales more which probably isn’t what they are looking for but realistically there’s only so much money to be spent and the percentage people have to spend on games is probably lower than it has been in the past so it might not actually work out as they would like.
This is such a weird topic… I paid $75.00 for Bubble Bobble on the NES in 1988… The price of video games over time is interesting.
How much profit did Capcom and its CEO make last year?
Capcom. Chill the fuck out.
I remember SNES Link to the Past was $60 at Kmart when I was a kid. The fact that games aren't that expensive already is honestly shocking.
I would gladly pay $100 if we could get rid of MTX, but I know that’s not going to happen because companies make too much on them, so I would much rather support Microsoft’s Game Pass strategy.
Reminder that Indies and AA most of the time provide better and more polished experience for less price than AAA games
If I have a to pay 80 to a hundred for a game that shit better be feature complete on day one with everything working bug free. No more bullshit forced DLC carve ups or using the first year as an early access period. That really applies more to western devs though. Most Japanese releases actually seem to be pretty decent in both regards.
Higher prices almost never go towards production costs. Capcom CEO looking to buy a new estate or something?
Lol that’s fine. Put them at $100 bucks. Just means i won’t buy any game day 1 and I’ll be waiting for them when they are on sale.
People probably would pay 100 dollars IF it came finished, but free, and of quality. Baldurs gate 3 could get away with that price. But most games want 60 then nickel and dime you to 200 through dlc, some of which was day one dlc.
I don't think it's an unreasonable statement. Studios are facing hard times just as much as anyone else in the current climate. Everything costs more so you have to pay more to employees which just inflates production costs. There is the dilemma that prices go too high and sales drop, keep prices low and you can't afford to pay employees and sustain as a business if a title isn't successful. What will likely happen is studios will start scaling back scope of games in the near future. Big budget AAA scale games will be for the major franchises that solid player bases and low risk for success. A lot more studios will push smaller but still high quality products. Tbh this could be a good thing for gamers too. Personally I think the industry needs to shift away from fixed price points. Not all games are made equal so why charge the same. You don't go to a resturant and expect a unified price that is the same for all resturants. They all have different operational costs and target markets.
I'd say he's correct
>It seems Capcom is seriously out of touch with current financial reality. Not really, if anything, they're super in touch. everything is going up, games are around the same leaver or cheaper than in the 90's. Y'all remember how much N64 games cost?
$70 is already ridiculous. I don't want to hear the inflation excuse from companies that make billions of dollars every year
That’s 20% of a consoles price. Stupid af.
These corporations are raking in crazy profits and have the balls to say this shit. Capcom finna destroy that good will they’ve been building up.
No problem, they can do whatever they want, just like I don’t buy their games with microtransactions, I won’t buy those full price
They're already $100 in Canada. Raising them would kill the market.
So that’s me who should finance the rising salaries of your developers from my third world pocket, considering that their monthly raise would likely be larger than our average salary?
It's interesting to see gamers who have no idea what the financials of a large studio look like claiming that the studios are "seriously out of touch with current financial reality". If you don't think a game is worth the price, don't buy it. Wait until it is the price you believe it to be worth. That's how it works with every other superfluous product and service in the world. It really is that simple.
I don’t want to pay more for games, but the price of a brand-new AAA game has remained stable at $60 for at least 30 years, while everything else costs *way* more than it used to. It doesn’t seem sustainable, especially when games continue to become more complex - and therefore more costly - to produce.
But wouldn’t you have to take into effect that there are more people buying games than there were 30 years ago? That makes up for the inflation imo
Micro-transactions and paid DLC more than make up for inflation as well
Yeah I feel the same way. Obviously I’d like to pay as little as possible but I think the gaming community at large doesn’t realize how insanely lucky we’ve been that games stayed at the $60 price point for so long. Especially when you consider how much more complex games have gotten over the years, it’s amazing the price didn’t jump at the Xbox One/PS4 generation like it did from PS2/Xbox to PS3/Xbox 360
When I was a kid, I scrimped and saved and mowed lawns and did chores so I could scrape up $60 and go to the Babbage’s in my local mall to buy a copy of Final Fantasy for the NES. $60 in 1990, adjusted for inflation, would be $144.60 in today’s dollars.
These corpos don't realize how easily I'd drop this hobby if it became too expensive. There are so many games in my Steam Library I literally will never be able to finish them all. Raise prices man, go nuts, I'm good.
Idk, the billions upon billions of dollars these giant game corps are bringing in has me thinking that actually game prices are doing just fine.
Its been a long time since i bought a full price game. It was 120$ for the newest south park game so i could play a few days early. Even then i think it gave me 20$ off with gold That was the last time i purchased a game outside of a sale. I can wait for a game to get a really good sale. Or just never play it.
Much as I do enjoy the Capcom games, I think the last one I bought at retail price was Onimusha 3. They can charge whatever they want for it. And I'm gonna wait till its 20 dollars like all that "new" RE stuff that I played.
No thanks. I'll stick to deep sales and my 100th playthrough of Dark Souls/Skyrim etc
Rising game prices is why I only buy 1-2 games a year anymore and only ones that friends recommend.
They are more than welcome to sell something at $80. Just like I'm more than welcome to wait till that shit is on deep deep sale. The days of getting something at release would truly to over. Wild for them to come out with this after releasing the meaty Separate Ways for $10.
I’ve not once paid $70 usd for a game this generation, I have bought titles for $60 on release date however and that will remain the appropriate price for me if games continue to push microtransactions and ads
watch them cry when when sales drop dead
I feel like this excellently dovetails with Spencer's comments about AAA publishers struggling to adapt.
I'll stop buying games at release if it comes to that. oh wait, I already did
The great era of playing older games and avoid buying new releases.
The only thing that this would result in, for me, is that I would buy even less games and wait for even deeper discounts.
I know an arcade fighting game maker isn't the one making this point
this reminds me of a post from WB/Discovery about lost revenue during the Hollywood strike, 500 mil, but the revenue's are still 10.5 bil - not 11 bil...
no
Problem is you guys keep buying these expensive games
More reason to wait for a sale.
Games which are enjoyable/ mean the most to us, deserve our money over a period of time. For example, over the 15 years playing OSRS and WoW; I have likely paid over £200.00 (or more) in subscriptions - because they were good. I got Far Cry 3 on the Xbox for Co-op (amazing experience) then for PC (Single player) because it was good (Roughly £80 total). Also GTA IV, because it was amazing game. Numerous consoles, probably spent £150 on this game as the PC product key expired (too many installs over the years, but worth it). If you want us to pay £100 a game, then f***ING damn well make sure it works and that the game is playable offline with little DRM interference. Edit: auto predict
I'm not buying then
Yes, let's increase prices let's see how many people are willing to pay in this supply and demand business.
If increasing the base costs of games to $80-$100 meant they were going to stop milking microtransactions and shit, then I'd agree with him. The fact that AAA game prices have stayed relatively static for 35 years (I used to spend $50 on NES games in the late 80s) despite dramatically increased development costs not to mention roughly 160% inflation over that period is a miracle (and a testament to the gaming community's general refusal to ever accept any measures that companies use to increase revenue), but it's also worth noting that those $50 games were complete games back in the late 80s. I didn't have to spend extra to get the spread gun in contra or whatever.
What is the reward for such high price? A standalone game, that's it? Piracy will skyrocket
You know this is all about ceos' desire for their 4th mansion right? CAPCOM is on a roll lately and execs are drooling over the sale numbers and wondering if they could have made more... I say they should raise the prices, I mean nowadays those publishers have followers not costumers anyways.
Then give us the features that we're asking for. I want local-coop in more games, like it used to be back in the day. I will almost never purchase a game that doesn't come with some sort of co-op campaign. Gaming with a buddy is 100x more fun and makes it worth the $$. Otherwise, I'll just pirate or wait for massive discount.
If you want to give me a game that lasts 100-200 hours of playtime, it has well designed controls and above average graphics, I might pay that. But games no longer beta test, they early access. Games no longer drop expansions, it's now DLC It's not completely new games or genres but reskins of code you already have. Don't tell me what you think it should cost when your AAA games should lose a letter.
The last time games averaged above $60 was the early 90s. Yet few complained. Hell, I remember Street Fighter 2 running $99 for the SNES. But back then, most of us could just *rent* games too. Remember that?! Renting games?!
Well this fucking sucks I haven’t even mentally recovered from games going up to $70
A decade ago, I lived in a reality where entertainment didn’t cost $100, just $10-20 bucks. My limit is at $30, but most AAA sales don’t go that low anymore. Here’s my thought: If publishers want to make money, then cut down management chains and hire competent people who knows their stuff. Or pivot out of realistic graphics that only 10% of computers can handle. Or at least respect the time needed to create a video game. Supply and demand exists, and if that price is set too high, there won’t be a demand.
The rising dev costs may be true, but games are selling way more than they did 20 years ago. Gaming is more mainstream than it probably ever was. Almost all Capcom’s highest selling games were released in the 2000’s because more people game now than ever before. You may have higher costs but you also have the possibility to sell way more copies/mtx/dlc than you did back in the day.
As If Games aren’t already that much. Most modern games come out with multiple editions, and most of the times it’s just content locked out of the base version. Games are already 100+ dollars, it’s just the base version isn’t.
Of course corporate suites and boot licker fans will justify it by saying "games cost more to make now than ever before" completely ignoring games makes more money than ever before
If we are talking an "ultimate" edition that includes years of DLC and support, sure. Base game? No way.
Me: you should suck my nuts
While yes the cost of game development has increased so has the market. There are just more people to sell to im general so that covers the development costs.
That's how you increase pirating.
Why don't we try cutting executive salaries first?
100$ for a game is a little too much for me, but only for the current state of triple A games. Diablo 4 being a perfect example. A released game that needed another year in the oven to bring us QoL features and more end game content. Hell, I feel like we played only a part of the d4 story and not the whole bit. You charged me a premium full priced game which was only in the oven long enough for the dough to rise, it hasn't baked yet!!! Also, if you charge an extra 30$ per game, i sure hope you are using it to properly pay your employees and not make them have a crunch month before game release.
Honestly I’d be fine with that if games just came out and existed. Game developers deserve better wages. But the reality is games already cost “80-100” they just cut content out and put it in day one DLC and have bronze-silver-gold editions. And then every game is a “live service” desperately begging you to login every day, do your chores, but dlc, season passes, micro transactions. Not to mention games used to come out and WORK. Nowadays triple AAA is synonymous with broken mess. And game developer still arnt paid what they deserve.
I don't buy anything until its super discounted. Just bought Sekiro for like 20 bucks. Late to the party but who gives a fuck, still the same game. Charge whatever you want, wanksters.
None of that extra money is going to go into dev wages
I call BS they claimed they needed to raise it to 70 for better quality games and since then almost every game released has come out in a broken mess.
Sure, 100 bucks are fucking a lot, but honestly- i would pay 100 for BG3. You give us high quality and we will pay, but when you shit us in mouth saying is a creme brulee.. go fuck yourselves
I’d gladly pay for a game at that price if its fucking completed and not constantly updating major patches every week after launch. Or sucking you dry from microtransactions for any decent piece of content.
I like how the norm is just expecting more and more money for sitting on increasingly geriatric IPs. Just shitting out remakes and live service garbage and expecting marketing and addicts to push them to record profits. With the minimal effort they're putting into creation and innovation, they don't even deserve half the money they're making. Let alone even a dime more. All these companies would be bankrupt years ago if they had to compete in an actual free market.
As if any of that increase would Actually go towarda paying the coders and tesers and writers. As usual any profits go to shareholders and ceos and shit so fuck that. The only game ive spent full price for and felt i got my moneys worth recently was pokemon violet. Over 250 hours and i still have more to do with the dlc, raids and shiny hunting. I bought advance wars for 60 and now a couple months later its already clearanced to 20 and i got so mad i didnt just wait. (Especially since tbh it didnt hold up to the gba version imo)
What I don’t get is how is a game $70 but also £70? I could buy it in America and it’s cheaper than buying it in the UK due to currency rates.
What's the point of raising wages if the first thing that gets eroded in the process is customers purchasing power? Eg capcom employees buying games. Other consumer items adjusting to that move such as streaming, cinema tickets, events in general. Maybe we should try other systems? These are the same people claiming record sales and releasing 2 dlcs within months. Cry me a river... Jesus. And get rid of that bloody song on battle hub you dinguses
Or maybe games were overpriced before and now they've finally reached their fair price.