> Video game players are hilariously, pitiably dramatic.
I'm a gamer and I 100% agree with you.
The simple fact is, AAA game prices have been stuck at $60-70 for 30 years. Despite $60 in 1995 being worth ~$127 today, games are still $60. They haven't kept up with inflation. Games are relatively cheap while development costs for AAA are ridiculously high.
A typical SNES game had 10-30 people working on it and would have it done in 1.5-3 years. AAA games will have typically 1,000-3,000 and could take 3-7 years, so we're talking 100-200 times the development cost.
Now, compare the best-selling SNES games [0] to the overall best-selling games [1]. Modern AAA games barely reach 10x the unit sales as old SNES games.
I agree, but just want to add that part of this was offset by CDs being cheaper than cartridges. When the two overlapped with the N64 and PS1, N64 games were about $10-20 more expensive. Turok and Doom 64 for example were originally $75-80, and MGS & FF7 were on the higher side at $50. Digital delivery has probably had a roughly similar effect.
Are you sure you got your info right? I'd not be surprised if they've been stuck at $60 after adjusting for inflation, i.e. costing around $30 in 1995.
100%. Easily verified by doing Google image searches for "SNES game ad". Most games were in the $50-70 range (Note that you'll see some images with prices up to $95, but that's Canadian dollars). It was only as the SNES generation was ending that you started seeing some games around $30-40.
Agree 100%. The talk around gaming remains negative even these past few years as weve seen an insane and growing number of incredible games. This year has an embarrassment of riches in GOTY contenders. There is some very angry and dysfunctional subculture of ranting in the gaming forums that is totally disconnected from reality.
They actively seek out an $80 buggy game to hold up as an emblem of how broken all of gaming is even if there are 100 other amazing games. There’s tons of bad movies and TV and art too, but those cultures celebrate the good stuff instead and ignore the chaff. Gaming forums have some kind of perverse rage echo chamber that’s not representative of most gamers. It’s reminiscent of political discourse where a lot of people just want to “vent” really. The idea of “venting” as commonly understood doesn’t work in big social spaces, it only amplifies the bad stuff as everyone is surrounded by toxicity.
> Let's also not forget video games are discretionary spending, meaning they could charge $400 and it would still not be any more immoral than an expensive handbag. It would just mean that I'm not buying it, just like how I don't buy expensive handbags.
This is a problem in the video game community, where they feel that they have to buy new games, new hardware, etc. because their identity is built on being a "gamer" and they have to maintain that identity. That's why you see so much toxicity about cosmetics, microtransactions, raising prices, buggy games on launch - these people literally cannot help themselves from buying everything, so they feel like their only recourse is to complain (and in some cases, harass others) about it relentlessly.
> I spent that much at a bowling alley with 2 other people; once, for 2 hours of bowling and a soda
This has nothing to do with the pricing of video games - you could easily have spent 10-100x more, or 10-100x less on some other form of entertainment for the same period and same number of people, and it will have little bearing on the pricing of games.
> they could charge $400 and it would still not be any more immoral than an expensive handbag.
Charging $400 for games would change how a lot of people perceive the morality of playing cracked games for $0. Game companies aren't magnanimously charging $60 in 2025 because gamers are "dramatic" - they are doing so because that's how their bean counters are telling them to price their own games.
I play a lot of Paradox strategy games. There is a new game coming out that they sold a premium edition with three pre-sold DLC (for something like $20 additional) with a roadmap of a year of post-release development. Some people are outraged that something is planned to be developed and released 6 months after release because that is somehow keeping pay walling game that should have been in the base release. The prices of games are incredibly low. Seeing a movie in theaters costs $20 a ticket and theyll charge $8 for the soda, and gamers are outraged by a $10 dlc that cost $100k+ to develop.
The problem is that DLCs are annoying. They lead to fragmentation and in some ways lead to being unable to experience everything. And they leave you with the feeling that you are being milked.
In the 90s it was simple - you get the game, 12 months later you get the expansion, then comes the sequel. The problem with DLC is the same as with objects - there are too many of them and they are too small. And the ratio of game/dollar is not that good.
Are people pointing out that trump is marching us into autocracy and fascism 'dramatic' or just paying attention. Any communities gripes are just 'drama' if you don't know what they are talking about.
This is proving the point. This is an extremely dramatic reaction to someone pointing out that the cost of entertainment has lagged behind inflation, especially when you take into account increased budgets and cost per hour.
