The part that annoys me is even if GTA 6 does cost more than $70. These other devs who make mediocre rushed slop will think they can now release games for way much more than they should and not be to blame for it. Take two needs to realize what is at stake here.
@AccursedHawk I think as consumers we should vote with our wallets. If it's rushed slop than I'm not buying it. Game developer will quickly find out if $90 for let's say "AC Bangledesh" as a hypothetical was a mistake or not when no one wants to pay more than the industry standard. I share your sentiment though
The one time I did it was for Diablo 4 and it was definitely not worth it. I got too caught up in the hype and wanted to play early with my friends. I have less than 20 hours in that game.
good for you, no wonder why everything is live service now. How can you sell single player games if customers refuse to pay more, without caring about the game's scale, value for money, or inflation?
@@alexdoan273 It was the game publishers who taught their customers to wait. They reduce price by 60% a few months later, why wouldn't customers learn to wait? You can see how Nintendo doesn't have this issue, why? because they don't slash the prices of their games and devalue them. The publishers have no one to blame but themselves.
Considering how GTA V is being monetized to a disgusting degree. I will not pay $100 for a game. I am not interested enough in any AAA Game to justify such a cost. The last years we had alot of overpriced AAA games for what they delivered.
tbf, GTA 5 is the most complete game of its time and GTA 6 will also likely follow. The problem is the online component, while it's impressive to have 10 years of content updates, the inflation in GTA Online is wild and the fact that you need a business for your business so that you can have setups for your business is insane.
@@alexdoan273 quit riding Take Two’s corporate meat. You’re complete discarding all the people with dumb kids whose parents credit cards they use to buy stupid stuff in video games that adversely effects the rest of us. Most sensible adults aren’t spending money on dumb virtual stuff in gta or any other game unless it’s your job.
pay $100 now for 10+ years of fun and value. you'd get your money back a couple days after purchase. your too hung up on letting go of $100. but I'll bet you spend moneg on $30 skins in fortnite
Graphs like this one are why ANALysts / economists etc are not to be listened to about anything. "Oh sure the NOMINAL price has gone up, but in terms of the REAL price it's never been cheaper 😉 F*** off, the nominal price is the price I have to pay with the same salary I had yesterday. Seems more REAL to me than some ephemeral econ-101 nonsense that chart is blabbering on about. Games are too expensive, and MORE IMPORTANTLY as the price has gone up the quality has gone down. Severely.
I only buy games that's I'm hyped for, like 2 a year so I don't that any problem😂, I played Rdr2 and cyberpunk for 3 years, games like those quality is so rare.
My salary hasn't kept up with inflation, like most other people. A game costing 60 dollars 10 years ago, is the same as a game costing 60 dollars today, when I take in my own purshasing power in to consideration. Maybe gaming companies CEO's should handle their budgets better.
@@alexdoan273 first: i don't care about these companies. Of my salary is not high enough to cover inflation why would i care about companies being affected by inflation? Second: game companies have already systems that cover inflation - Majority have MTX, Battle passes etc. Now in GTA6 they can implement fucking dildo baseball bat skin. Let's say it will cost 5usd (it's already generous pricing by T2 standards). Let's imagine that around 50 000 ppl will buy it. It's 250 000 only from 1 skin that was made by an intern in a span of 2 hours of work. Now multiply this by number of other MTX/ Shark Cards 2.0 bought over the years. This skin will not need patches and fixes. So it's almost like infinite money glitch. So no I don't care about Rockstar or Take2 and their inflation.
@@alexdoan273 companies aren't immune to inflation, but they are not as affected by it either: 1) Even if real price of videogames is down, the revenue these companies make is enormous simply due to how much these games sell. The market is a lot bigger than 20 years ago. Since in this digital era distribution costs aren't as high as they used to be, they benefit a lot from this higher revenue which offsets the lower real price. 2) Videogames face what in economics is called "elastic demand", which is a demand very responsive to price changes. Companies don't make sales like -80% out of charity. They calculate that lowering price temporarily will more than make up with number of units sold. Again, more revenue without much structural change in costs. 3) Demand and supply both changed throughout these years. Consumers are facing financial hardship that make them hesitate and prioritize. Also, making games is easier than ever with how much more accessible it is to learn coding, engines, libraries of assets; i.e. barriers to entry are at an all time low which means more supply and more competition within the market, which pushes (real) prices down.
We were at $60 for like 20+ years, $70 for about 3 years no way $80 can now be the standard. Of course now that I’m old enough to buy games myself they become $70.
Not saying I'm a fan of increases but how can we possibly expect game prices to stay stagnant when the price to produce a game has skyrocketed over the years. Like a 33% increase over a 20 year period of time isn't crazy. Just for reference, home prices have increased over 190% since then and homes are a necessity. Unlike games which are purely a want.
@@smokinace926they aren’t stagnating, the Cash Shops are where they make the money. If you want to make that game then games shouldn’t be ripped apart to sell me micro transactions it is one or the other. You already have to pay an extra $40 to play the game release day.
@@smokinace926 producing a game for 400mil doesn't mean shit when games like GTA online made like billions. and that's not just selling the game. the shark cards probably made rockstar at least a few billion alone. if you need to make your game have MP with MTX just to make up the price of what it costs to make your game. your game doesn't need to cost 100s of millions to make.
they are still making great profits at 70, its just to milk you out of your hard earned dollars, the fact that you think its this simple is hilarious. buying games for 70 basically tells corporations you have zero self control. just wait for a sale, this is ridiculous that people like this purposly hold us back from affordable games.
I’m 34 and feel like an ancient boomer. I grew up through the gta’s and had my fun with them, but I just can’t comprehend the obsessiveness surrounding it. I’m sure I’ll play 6 some day when it’s on a good sale. Am I the only one that played through 5 just a single time and thought, “ yeah that was pretty fun, sure”?
Same boat, except I'm 40. I enjoyed the single-player game that it provided and enjoyed its story. The online stuff, though? Nothing I saw looked remotely interesting.
@@bjones6761 Same here, and similar age. Played through GTA5 twice on 360 which was like 10 + years ago. Fun but hardly something I cant wait to get back to, zero interest in mp
I am 40, played every gta there is, played 5 3 times sp, on ps3 launch, than on pc launch, and then a couple years ago. Never touched multiplayer on ít.
Guess I'm different. I am turning 33 this year, grew up with GTA since the original on PS1, I played GTA5 campaign once on PS3 and bought it again on PS4 and PS5 and been hooked on GTA Online since around 2015 i play it most days of the week still to this day 😂 I've never bought a shark card though, if I'm severely lacking in funds then I just do the Bogdan exploit to make around 1.5mil in 15min with a friend as the in-game inflation has gone crazy high to the point you almost need to grind it like a real job or buy the shark cards if you don't do exploits, but its provided years of free content and there is just so much to do in the game and can play with all your friends instead of being limited to 2 or 4 player co- op like some others.
People arguing that "oh but inflation", to justify price increase is nonsense. "It was more expensive in the 80s and they haven't changed the price in a long time" is just bs. They ignore that the market of potential costumers grew MASSIVELY since then. Games sell way more now then they did in the past, as well as it has become mush easier and cheaper to publish games as well. They sell much more digitally, which means the disc and taking up physical shelf space is much less and they save more money. Then people say "but development cost is much higher then in the past", well, that is literally a personal problem from publishers/studios. They balloon their own development costs with a ton of bs that customers didn't ask for and then expect the customer to pay more because of it? BS. Gaming tech was new and expensive to develop for in the past because they were literally leading and laying the foundation for the development of the industry. Development should have become cheaper and easier with new tech/software that makes development much easier for studios, but they still have the ballooning dev cost issue. Why is that being offset to the customer and why is the customer justifying that bs for them? Naw. There is no justifying an increase in price for games. They want customers to pay more to cover the cost of their incompetence and failures. Why are people trying to hard to justfy this for them? Arguably even for GTAVI. The only difference with a game like GTAVI is that Rockstar makes massive games that makes the customer feel like paying that price increase is still worth it. But GTAVI/big Rockstar games is a rare exception that we never really see ever. If they want to increase the price to be like GTAVI, then people will again set the standard for the quality of games we get. Like with RPGs. People feel jaded with RPGs now because of how Cyberpunk and Baldur's Gate 3, and this has likely impacted excitement and sales for other RPGs the customers feel isn't as good, especially since BG3 was 60$ at launch. This does affect perception of the target audience, and i feel this is being vastly ignored.
If CEOs weren’t buying entire classic cars collections, maybe they’d be able to lower their development budgets. I don’t blame devs one bit - the real problem is the corporate structure .
Short answer, no. Take-2 made the $70 initiative with NBA and other studios followed. That said, saying yes to this would encourage companies like Ubisoft and EA to charge premium prices for poor quality games.
Special edition, earlier access launch, skins, battlepasses, customization, pay to win, pay to skip, merch, TV shows, FOMO tactics. Gaming being bigger than it has ever been in its history with more mainstream success than ever. Companies putting out "record numbers" out every year/quarter. I dont want to hear how they need to raise prices, they have never made this much money before. This is exclusively a "Line must go up" problem. Investors upset the possibility of not racking in more money than last quarter exists? Fix it, squeeze more out of players. No, it doesnt matter that we have billions and billions, line goes up or im upset.
Let's be real, until people actually put their wallet against it, it'll keep going. Until, there's a threshold, where people actually cannot afford it. Until then, most people will keep buying stupid over-priced games, and comapnies will keep doing it ;(
Remember when they claimed that a $70 price tag would mean they no longer would have to do all the scummy practices. Then they proceeded to not stop doing them and immediately start claiming that $70 is not enough and they need $80. This will literally never stop, they will price chase you up until no one can afford the game then claim that they are “for the consumer” when they drop it by $10 later. and it will work again
The solution to high prices is high prices, or so the saying goes. If prices are too high, people won't buy, and then prices will drop. So let them set the price at whatever they want. Consumers will let them know if they got it right.
@@okaycool001 If they increase the prices THAT high, most people worldwide, will not be able to buy it full price. It's not even about "players will stand against it" let's be real, the majority of player are stupid when talking about money ( there's a reason microtransactions gather billions yearly). But I do believe a GOOD CHUNK of people will not even be able to afford a game at 80,90,100 dollars. Countries Like China, India, South America, Southeast Asia. All with million upon millions of players and that are a GOOD chunk of these companies revenue, will simply drop. Just for instance, I live in Brazil, this country is huge on numbers for games. Nowadays a 70$ game, is equivalent to over 400$ of my currency, thats 13% of what an average brazilian earns monthly. Now take that and think about India, Indonesia, China, other Latin America. Bro if they increase more, piracy, gaming and etc, will take a big hit
@@LeMGamer1 an international market does put in mind the individual nations currency value before the product has bin placed. both China and US are known to purchase by using credit loans and the highest profit margin are micro transactions. you spend more by purchasing cheaply or where you believe its a benefit. Rockstar uses micro transaction options. so regardless what the GT6 price will be, whatever it is 90 or above. there will be enough margine of spending for their revinew.
@@LeMGamer1 Players in countries like China, India, South America, etc can't afford games right now, so games going up to $1000 wouldn't make any difference for them since they can't even afford a console or a decent computer already. It's why they play f2p games that run on toasters.
Blah, blah, blah, graphs, graphs. Can be summed up with... Too many games with mediocre gameplay, poor performance, highly priced hardware and not once were micro transactions mentioned. The short answer is NO WAY!
I already don’t want to buy games for $120AU, let-alone $160AU. The games industry will die out if they continue to raise prices, because people are going to stop buying new games until they go on sale. If making these games isn’t sustainable for companies then they need to stop making extravagant cinema-like games
I don't think it would be an issue if the quality of AAA games stayed high, but the overall quality level has now dropped, prices increased and most games designed around bleeding you of money via MTX
I'll happily wait for a steam sale, people need to realize the only reason studios are charging this is cause people will pay it. People stop paying it, they'll stop charging it
Why do we only hear the developers/publisher's side of the story? Because it's actually not the customers problem. I don't care if they can't control their buget. I don't care if they overhire. I don't care if they concentrate on other things than fun in a game. I want the best quality for the best price. That's it. That's what every customer truly want. Too bad that many get fooled by marketing that they get the best for X amount of money. Look at apple. People actually believe that they get the best quality product for their money. Doesn't mean it is true.
It is extremely rare for me to pay full price for a game at £70 as it is. Maybe 1 or 2 games a year sometimes 0. Having a laugh if they’re going to charge more 😂
I find Rockstar games to be worth more than 70 USD, HOWEVER they have been pushing this annoying Rockstar Game Launcher recently requiring you to be always online even for a singleplayer game, and I'm not paying that much money for something I don't (feel like) I own (I know about the license stuff but they better drop this always online crap because what's the point of spending that much money if I can't play their games offline even for a few days).
Dont know much but price is what you pay for and value is what you get. IMO the bar for a 70$ triple A game is Baldurs Gate 3 level of content so anything below that is unreasonable at the moment. Hell they tryna runaway from optimization and move to upscaling. Lowkey gross 🤢
That’s honestly a bit of an unfair standard with BG3. The sheer mass of content isn’t necessarily important to many people. It’s more about improving the experience. In the words of Yosef Fares (director of It Takes Two) “when you have good sex, do you time it?”
@ Thats a good point and some of my recent purchases don’t justify what I’ve said but I expect a bit more out of a new entry than the last or atleast similar quality. A recent example of something I was fairly interested in before it reveal was Skull and Bones. If im aware of the speculation then it was supposed to be more of Black Flag but only schwach buckling. I expected something akin to that game however was immediately removed when I heard naval combat only. I was a bit disgusted when they tried to call it quadruple A. Cant lie im a bit of a snob when a game comes out however Ive long been subscribed to a dynamic pricing system that varies from title to title, hell I would even justify a 100$ price tag for Baldurs Gate or GTA yet understand the problem with price to entry for a consumer or a necessary price to justify the cost of producing a game in the first place. Between that I wouldn’t mind some games justifying a larger price point its just I expect some standard for products that release at that price. I can most likely afford another price hike but for some of these titles from large shady companies I feel as if its another excuse to increase their bottom line.
Funny how that's ot true at all. PlayStation digital games on there store are the same price ir not more then the physical. Take dragon age 4. on the ps store it was $70 and the same goes for the physical disc. however. steams version was $60. Why was PS version more then steam? even the digital was more expensive on ps store then steam. like wtf?
@@sumireravenclaw8034 I think you didn't couth the sarcasm of this comment. But to answer your question... Easy because they can, also since ps takes 30% cut they can take more money and more money is good because more money.
@@sumireravenclaw8034 It is very odd. I remember when games first started going digital, they were priced a little bit more than physical. People justified it as a convenience charge since you didn't need to travel to get the disc. They also said that once digital was the main way to get games, prices would come down because studios wouldn't have to worry about buying stock and shipping costs. Then everything went digital and, of course, none of that happened
As others have also mentioned, when you add real wages to the chart at the beginning a very different picture emerges. When real wage growth is effectively 0 over the better part of the past decade, and yet expenses have pretty much doubled over that same period you quickly realise the 'video games are cheaper than ever' doesn't hold water.
There is no need for them to raise the base game price. They will just do a 3 day early access pre-order bonus for $100 and anyone willing to pay $100 will just buy that version.
Yes, the games are cheaper than ever, but they are also the most incomplete and broken games ever, all riddled with post-updates, fixes, DLCs, expansions, MTAs and other crap that is meant to prolong the cashflow of these games!! Back in the day if you bought a game, that would be it. No DLCs, expansions ETC, but nowadays you are anticipating when the new update/fix and the new "DLC" is coming out, so inflation or not, to me that is just a lame excuse to drive up the price even more, for games that aren't even complete or even outright broken on release!! No game out there, GTA6 or not, is worth 100+ dollars, and its complete asinine of these "analysts" to imply that somehow yet another price inflation would be justified, just because game developers nowadays want to make a game that costs 2 billions to make. Matter of fact is, a game doesn't need to cost 2 Billion to be amazing, just look at Zelda, Black Myth Wukong or Baldurs Gate 3... In my opinion, all this talk about the industry and how ""bad its doing" and that it can only be saved by a price increase, is just a strawman argument and an excuse that we are supposed to buy into, cause in reality its a problem that they (game developers) created themselves i.e. being too LAZY and GREEDY when it comes to developing games and their quality, and now they conveniently have a "solution" that nobody asked for i.e. yet another price inflation and we are supposed to buy into it blindly but the real question is: If the game price is increased, will the quality increase too or will it stay stagnant?? Also, isn't it funny how a game like Baldurs Gate 3 that costs 100 million to make was an immense success, yet Sonys own title Concord that cost them 450 million was a monumental failure?? So, inflation or not, the quality of games NEED to increase too especially if we are going to have yet another increase in the price, cause these buggy, glitchy, broken games just wont do anymore in this day and age!
People forget Gta 6 wont be on PC launch, so they are already double dipping for the people who cant wait and will buy 1 copy on console then later on PC
I don’t mind paying more for something that I’m excited for or that I want more of. I don’t mind them charging for early access to the game. Sometimes I do it sometimes I won’t. The issue is you’re paying for things that a Lot of time that might not be there. if the game has both single player and multiplayer and the things purchased are only multiplayer. Or even worse you can’t play the game off-line and the whole game is taken off the store. $100 would be feel pretty shitty.
I don't believe Rockstar sells enough copies at $99.99 to make any more profit than they would at $69.99. They'd just end up pay walling a bunch of people out of the game until it goes on sale at a price they can afford. At some price point the math doesn't work out for more profit anymore. Getting a $10 increase has already hurt sales on some games. A $30 increase will do 3x the damage. Analysts and executives might want us to pay that much, but many people won't and even more can't.
Other games can raise prices , But that doesn’t mean ppl will buy it . Most gamers will wait til they drop the price . But gta is gonna be like worldwide cultural thing, not just a gaming thing. Ppl that don’t play games are gonna get gta
The development costs are their problem, not ours, they bloated their studios with trash employees, they keep pushing realistic graphics when we can live with one step lower, they keep hiring Hollywood talent we don't care about, they keep pushing social/gender/politics crap we find no value on, they keep hiring lower quality employees, fresh from college, often with reasons other than merit just because they undervalue and burn through their far more useful, old, experienced, veteran devs that would do a lot more with less while causing less future QA costs, etc. Dev costs too high ? then lower them, i can see indies doing a lot more with less, get leaner, get better employees and keep them on staff game to game, keep scope contained, release in faster cycles, if you release faster you will be able to reuse assets game to game, maybe even put a sequel of a game reusing a lot of the work, also stop doing things that cost you way more money for nothing like putting your offices in California, and stop setting money on fire chasing live services that will never succeed. They are blaming us for their own incompetence and bad decisions.
It's cheap because it still haven't reached the amount of users they are expecting, they will raise their prices once people start flocking towards gamepass. Personally I wish they will keep the prices this way (but it's never gonna happen), I find it better than piracy. It's safer, more convenient and cheap.
This is the best video I've seen on this topic so far. You nailed it. What you should also consider is that this inflation adjusted cost of games vs growing cost of production is a big reason for why we see rushed or poor quality releases now - they can't really delay games anymore because the margins are so thin that they can't afford more time in dev.
What angers me is that if they raise the price and others follow. Then it has nothing to do with rising costs because no other game will ever cost what GTA6 has. Therefore any higher prices from other developers is just about raising their profits and nothing else 😡😡😡
My guess is that gta 6 is going to have an online function like gta 5 did. And thats where majority of revenue comes from, so making it cost more than 60-70 just comes off as greedy unless its part of a collectors edition where they get the game early, especially to a content creator.
Imagine what would happen, if Rockstar released the base GTA6 for $50. For them it wouldn't be a huge deal - they would sell a ton of special editions anyway and the real money will be in Online anyway (for the next 10 years). But they would completely flip the script and give a huge blow to their competition, while at the same time gaining huge respect with the community :P
My concern is 1 minute after a $100 price announcement from gta 6. Ubisoft and ea will say "due to trending market value, all upcoming products will be valued at the appropriate value of $100. Any less is highly inappropriate."
I agree that GTA6 should cost more, but as an average American, most people get paid 15$ or less, maybe more if their lucky. I think if they charge 100$ I feel like it would hurt sales
How is it that video game companies are reporting record breaking profits yet still pushing to charge consumers even more? While it’s true that people might be willing to pay $100 for a blockbuster like GTA, this pricing model raises concerns. It risks narrowing the market by encouraging consumers to spend disproportionately on a few major titles, leaving less room for other games to thrive. The focus could shift toward catering to whales players who spend exorbitant amounts, rather than fostering a diverse gaming ecosystem accessible to a wider audience. While games are becoming more expensive to make, higher budgets don’t always guarantee quality. We should respond to rising prices by supporting studios with fair pricing and quality content, exploring indie games to promote competition, and raising awareness about the impact of inflated prices. Advocating for transparency from publishers can also ensure profits are reinvested into better content and innovation, rather than just boosting margins.
The truth is, wages for the devs have gone up and costs of the softwares they use, thats why game budgets are soo high. So makes sense if prices go up to adjust, buuuuutt the consumers, their wages havent gone up, the average income is pretty much what it was 10 years ago
The minute the industry tries to set lets say $100 per game is when the next crash happens again. They keep forgetting gaming is a luxury for most. Luxuries are not a neccesity and will be easily given away if its between food, shelter and clothes.
I have absolutely no problem with paying $100 for a quality game I'm going to spend a bunch of time playing. Dollar for hour, gaming is some of the best entertainment value around. For a narrative game, you may be paying $70 for 35 hours of play. Roughly $2/hour. If you only play through it once. For larger RPGs, you might get upwards of 100 hours, pushing your cost to less than $1/hour. For multiplayer games or games with high replayability (like strategy games), we're talking cents per hour of play. Contrast that with, say, going to the movies, where with a ticket and snacks you're up around $20 for a 2-hour movie. That's $10/hour. Most hobbies cost far more than gaming does per hour. Going to amusement parks cost more. Buying and maintaining a snowmobile, or ATV, or motorcycle costs more for the time you spend on it. Going to sports events costs more. Heck, WATCHING sporting events costs more. One of the few comparable entertainment hobbies is reading, and somehow I think many people would prefer to spend more on video games.
2:34 the $70-$100 isn’t really the problem it’s your paying that and then your paying another $50 or however much more after that when they drop DLC’s. We know gta 6 will probably be the last gta game for the next 15-20 years so the amount of money you’ll spend on DLC’s and gta online will be crazy. If it was $100 and all the DLC’s were included then that’s worth it but having to pay for the DLC’s every time adds up over time
No one in their right mind would pay $100 to play a physical game or digital game. There is no way. I have no problems paying $50 $40 $60 I complain about $70 and that’s it . If it comes with a strategy guide, online access and GTA plus trial and soundtrack artwork posters stuff for your car I have no problems then .🙏
The craziest thing is that here in Brazil, that pricing would make it a 600 bucks game. To put that into perspective, it's more than a third of the minimum monthly wage here. Still people are going to buy it.
Luke's a big streamer and TH-camr, and it's fascinating to me how these people lose their sense of connection to reality. He makes excuses about inflation etc and says "games are cheaper than ever", which is true - for him. Because their pay is directly linked to inflation via the cost of advertising, streamers/youtubers maintain the sense that yeah prices are going up but it's just inflation guys, we all have more money. And no, we don't all have more money. For most people living in the real world, our wages have NOT kept pace with inflation. We are being paid LESS in real terms than we were five years ago. Luke doesn't feel the same injustice we do when we hear about publishing raising costs again because from his perspective, the game's price isn't changing whereas for the rest of us, it is. If GTA6 raises the price cap on AAA games, it'll sell well. But it'll be curling out a big fat log onto the faces of all of us who work for a living and don't benefit from being paid in stock options or via inflation-linked ad revenue.
Base game: $80 Deluxe ed.: $100 Triple Deluxe: $150 Gold ed.: $200 Collectors ed (steel book, season pass, future-future season pass, perfume and lipstick: $350 Ultimate collectors edition: 1200$ with a stripper statue for display, play money, and a postcard with signatures from the dev team as a thank you included. 😂
Someone is gonna take the hit for Inflation pricing and it damn well wont be me. There are at least 50,000+ other games I can play on Steam. Fix the fucking economy if you want more value out of my Dollar.
It was their decision to bloat the game until it costs over a billion to make. They can charge the standard price, they'll milk it for 10+ years. There's no way it'll be complete on day 1
The bloat is the cheap inexperienced labor, the game content tends to be a deflated balloon that is full of holes (bugs). Veteran devs would be able to make these games MUCH faster and better quality.
One thing to keep in mind is the number of games really sold. Yeah, games cost a lot more in the 90s… but Super Mario World sold 20 million copies, and was the best selling game on the SNES. GTA 5 sold 200 million. Now 10-20 million is a decent sales figure.
Vol. also plays a factor I’d wager. The no. of hardware units sold in the 1970’s - 1980’s is vastly different compared to the 2000’s and onwards. Each 5-10 years - the industry has seen a surge of console units sold. Which means that maintaining a reasonable standard pricing structure for games and a reasonable budget (while considering Purchase Power Parity of each market) you can still make a profit. Selling a game for $100 might help mitigate the rising costs of game development and others, but not every game has that pulling power to demand such amounts from the end-user/consumer. Especially in our current market conditions.
I'm 50 years old. I remember saving money to buy atari games back in the day. It was about $60. That price tag stayed the same until very recently. Now games cost $70 to 100 dollars or more. This is not the same as 60. Regardless of how much the games are costing to make. If they keep raising game prices, they will price themselves right out of business. Its costs too much just to put food on the table these days, much less gaming fun
I remember just a handful of years ago I found an old shopping magazine from early the 90s and I saw they had SNES games prices at $90+ and I know for back then those prices were crazy high especially for a niche hobby like gamming back then.
Inflation is across the board. So increasing the cost of a product doesnt translate to profit because peoppe just cannot afford it. Previously with a lower cost of living, entertainment was more accessible. The average age of the gamer is a lot closer to 40 then 20 like it was for years past. And these days we dont have the time and invest smarter especially during a recession. On top of that we are generally waiting 3 to 6 months before getting a solid game without all the bugs and issues. Which at said time we should expect a discounted product to build up player counts. Their analysts have too much money to see clearly.
Some people once said that the introduction of microtransactions into games was necessary to make up for the fact that game prices never increased. This was before the change to the $70 standard. So now we’ve got games costing $70 instead of $60, microntransactions are still in games including singleplayer titles, and now we’re talking about the idea of Rockstar raising the standardized pricing model again with GTA 6. All of this, mind you, while publishers have been boasting the past few years about reaching record-breaking levels of revenue and laying off tons of employees in order to “future proof” the financial viability of the company going forward. Someone’s gotta explain this one to me, ‘cause I don’t get it.
Yes; lets all encourage digital-only games despite Ubisoft saying "dont get comfortable with owning your games" and Sony pulling digital legacy games from their online store so that you're forced to buy its remastered version. What a great idea.
Im just happy knowing i can get indie games for so much cheaper and have such a good time, and STILL come back to gta6 when it inevitabily goes on sale
just because the bigger companies spend a ton of money on the games doesnt mean they are expensive to make. if i buy a couch for 16000 dollars, doesnt mean making couches is expensive. those companies are incredibly inefficient, and keep using management and creative structure from other industries in an industry it doesnt work in.
Another thing I don't see anyone mention that games going from 60 to 70 dollars or more hurts people outside the US. Here in Malaysia I remember AAA games costing around RM180(40 dollars today) compared to almost RM250 (55 dollars) and even over RM300(67 dollars). A 70 USD game costs almost 10% of an average person's salary here, compared to less than 5% in the US. And this is just Malaysia, there's other countries that have it even worse. I wish more countries would do localized pricing, sure you'd earn less but you'd also sell more copies.
I dont even play GTA, but the amount of effort and quality Rockstar has put into their games is unmatched. If they released a game, at base, that cost more than $70, I think they deserve it because people know the quality that comes with it. Everyone else is putting out half baked games and still asking for more before we can get some QA. For games like GTA, or CoD or whatever, sure, but how many people are going to be willing to shell out even more money for broken launch games? If anything, they will see less day 1 buys, and it will hurt them even more from the loss of traffic.
$70 was (barely) acceptable for this game, $100 feels like a paywall that could screw with this game's ability to make a profit within a relatively short amount of time💯💯💯
You underestimate people's stupidity coming out when there is hype about something. I will wait for GTA6 to be 50%, as I do with every game. Don't care about the hype. Probably gonna be broken on launch bc there is no way consoles will be able to handle that fidelity. Not even an rtx 5080 will be able to do.
Thing is, this probably doesn't account for microtransactions which many companies makes a lot of their money on. We didn't have dlc back in the 2000s so when you bought it, it was the full game. Also, nobody is telling these companies to put millions of dollars into games nobody asked for. This is why indie games are on the rise.
They can charge what they like, doesn't mean I'll be paying it, I haven't paid full price for a game this entire generation and i certainly won't be persuaded by even more ridiculous prices.
just like with cinema, it's not up to us to justify budgets that got way out of hand. they need to review the scale of game and how much risk they take on with this huge projects that put the entire company balance sheet at risk. inflation alone doesn't mean a thing, they also sell 000% more copies today than they did in the 80s, and with that you have more competition and more accessible pricing. doing a 180 on prices now will only guarantee that people spend the big money on discounts or that avoid spending on other games causing more studios to fail. you think that's the indie ones, but no, that's your ubisoft, bethesda, WB & co that get hit with this move. they are pricing out a whole generation of gamers asking 100+ euros, franchises like COD or FIFA would not be the same at those price points
$2000 or more for GPU, $700 or more for gaming consoles and now $100 or more for games. I hate to say it, but we gamers have been spoiled for decades with relax gaming prices. Now it's all about buying games at discount prices instead of full price, pirate the games if you really want to or just flat out won't buy their games anymore. I mean, some developer are now asking you to pay for unfinished games as beta testers. The gaming industry is crazy AF!!! Lol.
The part that annoys me is even if GTA 6 does cost more than $70. These other devs who make mediocre rushed slop will think they can now release games for way much more than they should and not be to blame for it. Take two needs to realize what is at stake here.
@AccursedHawk I think as consumers we should vote with our wallets. If it's rushed slop than I'm not buying it. Game developer will quickly find out if $90 for let's say "AC Bangledesh" as a hypothetical was a mistake or not when no one wants to pay more than the industry standard. I share your sentiment though
@@baredexx 'AC Bangladesh' 🤣🤣
Ha let them, no one will want to buy them and they will have less sales on average
@@theoriginalmilkman 😅 its the first thing that came to mind haha
@Hybrid225 exactly. And that will pave the way for actual talent in this industry
I'm already buying most games on sale. I'll never give a 100€ for a game. 😂
The one time I did it was for Diablo 4 and it was definitely not worth it. I got too caught up in the hype and wanted to play early with my friends.
I have less than 20 hours in that game.
good for you, no wonder why everything is live service now. How can you sell single player games if customers refuse to pay more, without caring about the game's scale, value for money, or inflation?
@@alexdoan273 It was the game publishers who taught their customers to wait. They reduce price by 60% a few months later, why wouldn't customers learn to wait?
You can see how Nintendo doesn't have this issue, why? because they don't slash the prices of their games and devalue them. The publishers have no one to blame but themselves.
i second this. the last game i spent full price on was elden ring, and even that hurt me a bit on the inside. excellent game though
@@ChriSaito Go play POE2 might enjoy it for 30$
It's wild half of mainstream gaming is trying to get $100 per game and the other half is "free-to-pay or you die" shooters.
Considering how GTA V is being monetized to a disgusting degree. I will not pay $100 for a game. I am not interested enough in any AAA Game to justify such a cost. The last years we had alot of overpriced AAA games for what they delivered.
tbf, GTA 5 is the most complete game of its time and GTA 6 will also likely follow.
The problem is the online component, while it's impressive to have 10 years of content updates, the inflation in GTA Online is wild and the fact that you need a business for your business so that you can have setups for your business is insane.
nobody asked you to join GTA V online or pay for monetization. The single player game itself was worth $100. Don't blame your bad decisions on others
@@alexdoan273 quit riding Take Two’s corporate meat. You’re complete discarding all the people with dumb kids whose parents credit cards they use to buy stupid stuff in video games that adversely effects the rest of us. Most sensible adults aren’t spending money on dumb virtual stuff in gta or any other game unless it’s your job.
@@alexdoan273 mid
pay $100 now for 10+ years of fun and value. you'd get your money back a couple days after purchase. your too hung up on letting go of $100. but I'll bet you spend moneg on $30 skins in fortnite
Games are too expensive. I gotta watch 40 streams and like 80 reviews from multiple places before I decide to buy a game lmao 🤣
Same 😂
Graphs like this one are why ANALysts / economists etc are not to be listened to about anything. "Oh sure the NOMINAL price has gone up, but in terms of the REAL price it's never been cheaper 😉
F*** off, the nominal price is the price I have to pay with the same salary I had yesterday. Seems more REAL to me than some ephemeral econ-101 nonsense that chart is blabbering on about.
Games are too expensive, and MORE IMPORTANTLY as the price has gone up the quality has gone down. Severely.
I only buy games that's I'm hyped for, like 2 a year so I don't that any problem😂, I played Rdr2 and cyberpunk for 3 years, games like those quality is so rare.
@@yoyodude662 playing cyberpunk now. First play through
@ Good luck man, it'll be an amazing journey with Johnny silverhand.
My salary hasn't kept up with inflation, like most other people. A game costing 60 dollars 10 years ago, is the same as a game costing 60 dollars today, when I take in my own purshasing power in to consideration. Maybe gaming companies CEO's should handle their budgets better.
you talk like game companies are immune from inflation
@@alexdoan273we talk like people who don't give a fuck about their inflation because they constantly treat us like garbage as customers.
@@alexdoan273 first: i don't care about these companies. Of my salary is not high enough to cover inflation why would i care about companies being affected by inflation? Second: game companies have already systems that cover inflation - Majority have MTX, Battle passes etc.
Now in GTA6 they can implement fucking dildo baseball bat skin. Let's say it will cost 5usd (it's already generous pricing by T2 standards). Let's imagine that around 50 000 ppl will buy it. It's 250 000 only from 1 skin that was made by an intern in a span of 2 hours of work. Now multiply this by number of other MTX/ Shark Cards 2.0 bought over the years. This skin will not need patches and fixes. So it's almost like infinite money glitch.
So no I don't care about Rockstar or Take2 and their inflation.
@@alexdoan273 companies aren't immune to inflation, but they are not as affected by it either:
1) Even if real price of videogames is down, the revenue these companies make is enormous simply due to how much these games sell. The market is a lot bigger than 20 years ago. Since in this digital era distribution costs aren't as high as they used to be, they benefit a lot from this higher revenue which offsets the lower real price.
2) Videogames face what in economics is called "elastic demand", which is a demand very responsive to price changes. Companies don't make sales like -80% out of charity. They calculate that lowering price temporarily will more than make up with number of units sold. Again, more revenue without much structural change in costs.
3) Demand and supply both changed throughout these years. Consumers are facing financial hardship that make them hesitate and prioritize. Also, making games is easier than ever with how much more accessible it is to learn coding, engines, libraries of assets; i.e. barriers to entry are at an all time low which means more supply and more competition within the market, which pushes (real) prices down.
@@alexdoan273 you mean corporate bloat
We were at $60 for like 20+ years, $70 for about 3 years no way $80 can now be the standard. Of course now that I’m old enough to buy games myself they become $70.
Not saying I'm a fan of increases but how can we possibly expect game prices to stay stagnant when the price to produce a game has skyrocketed over the years. Like a 33% increase over a 20 year period of time isn't crazy. Just for reference, home prices have increased over 190% since then and homes are a necessity. Unlike games which are purely a want.
@@smokinace926they aren’t stagnating, the Cash Shops are where they make the money.
If you want to make that game then games shouldn’t be ripped apart to sell me micro transactions it is one or the other.
You already have to pay an extra $40 to play the game release day.
But quality of games have been declining for years. So even at $70 the games are over priced.
@@smokinace926 producing a game for 400mil doesn't mean shit when games like GTA online made like billions. and that's not just selling the game. the shark cards probably made rockstar at least a few billion alone. if you need to make your game have MP with MTX just to make up the price of what it costs to make your game. your game doesn't need to cost 100s of millions to make.
they are still making great profits at 70, its just to milk you out of your hard earned dollars, the fact that you think its this simple is hilarious. buying games for 70 basically tells corporations you have zero self control. just wait for a sale, this is ridiculous that people like this purposly hold us back from affordable games.
I’m 34 and feel like an ancient boomer. I grew up through the gta’s and had my fun with them, but I just can’t comprehend the obsessiveness surrounding it. I’m sure I’ll play 6 some day when it’s on a good sale. Am I the only one that played through 5 just a single time and thought, “ yeah that was pretty fun, sure”?
Same boat, except I'm 40. I enjoyed the single-player game that it provided and enjoyed its story. The online stuff, though? Nothing I saw looked remotely interesting.
@@bjones6761 Same here, and similar age. Played through GTA5 twice on 360 which was like 10 + years ago. Fun but hardly something I cant wait to get back to, zero interest in mp
I am 40, played every gta there is, played 5 3 times sp, on ps3 launch, than on pc launch, and then a couple years ago. Never touched multiplayer on ít.
Guess I'm different. I am turning 33 this year, grew up with GTA since the original on PS1, I played GTA5 campaign once on PS3 and bought it again on PS4 and PS5 and been hooked on GTA Online since around 2015 i play it most days of the week still to this day 😂 I've never bought a shark card though, if I'm severely lacking in funds then I just do the Bogdan exploit to make around 1.5mil in 15min with a friend as the in-game inflation has gone crazy high to the point you almost need to grind it like a real job or buy the shark cards if you don't do exploits, but its provided years of free content and there is just so much to do in the game and can play with all your friends instead of being limited to 2 or 4 player co- op like some others.
If we're being real, GTA Online is the game people have been playing for a decade.
GTA5 is just a free add-on for the real game.
People arguing that "oh but inflation", to justify price increase is nonsense. "It was more expensive in the 80s and they haven't changed the price in a long time" is just bs. They ignore that the market of potential costumers grew MASSIVELY since then. Games sell way more now then they did in the past, as well as it has become mush easier and cheaper to publish games as well. They sell much more digitally, which means the disc and taking up physical shelf space is much less and they save more money. Then people say "but development cost is much higher then in the past", well, that is literally a personal problem from publishers/studios. They balloon their own development costs with a ton of bs that customers didn't ask for and then expect the customer to pay more because of it? BS. Gaming tech was new and expensive to develop for in the past because they were literally leading and laying the foundation for the development of the industry. Development should have become cheaper and easier with new tech/software that makes development much easier for studios, but they still have the ballooning dev cost issue. Why is that being offset to the customer and why is the customer justifying that bs for them? Naw. There is no justifying an increase in price for games. They want customers to pay more to cover the cost of their incompetence and failures. Why are people trying to hard to justfy this for them?
Arguably even for GTAVI. The only difference with a game like GTAVI is that Rockstar makes massive games that makes the customer feel like paying that price increase is still worth it. But GTAVI/big Rockstar games is a rare exception that we never really see ever. If they want to increase the price to be like GTAVI, then people will again set the standard for the quality of games we get. Like with RPGs. People feel jaded with RPGs now because of how Cyberpunk and Baldur's Gate 3, and this has likely impacted excitement and sales for other RPGs the customers feel isn't as good, especially since BG3 was 60$ at launch. This does affect perception of the target audience, and i feel this is being vastly ignored.
They mismanaged the industry and want us to fund it.
"Inflation" you mean $70 with microtansactions. Nah it's greed.
Thank you! These were exactly my thoughts as well.
Only normal people salary is not gouged on inflation 😂😂😂
If CEOs weren’t buying entire classic cars collections, maybe they’d be able to lower their development budgets. I don’t blame devs one bit - the real problem is the corporate structure .
Short answer, no. Take-2 made the $70 initiative with NBA and other studios followed. That said, saying yes to this would encourage companies like Ubisoft and EA to charge premium prices for poor quality games.
It would accelerate the inevitable. Let them do it so that we don't have to hear from them again.
Special edition, earlier access launch, skins, battlepasses, customization, pay to win, pay to skip, merch, TV shows, FOMO tactics.
Gaming being bigger than it has ever been in its history with more mainstream success than ever.
Companies putting out "record numbers" out every year/quarter.
I dont want to hear how they need to raise prices, they have never made this much money before.
This is exclusively a "Line must go up" problem.
Investors upset the possibility of not racking in more money than last quarter exists? Fix it, squeeze more out of players. No, it doesnt matter that we have billions and billions, line goes up or im upset.
Let's be real, until people actually put their wallet against it, it'll keep going. Until, there's a threshold, where people actually cannot afford it. Until then, most people will keep buying stupid over-priced games, and comapnies will keep doing it ;(
Remember when they claimed that a $70 price tag would mean they no longer would have to do all the scummy practices.
Then they proceeded to not stop doing them and immediately start claiming that $70 is not enough and they need $80.
This will literally never stop, they will price chase you up until no one can afford the game then claim that they are “for the consumer” when they drop it by $10 later. and it will work again
Stocks are a form of cancer.
The solution to high prices is high prices, or so the saying goes. If prices are too high, people won't buy, and then prices will drop. So let them set the price at whatever they want. Consumers will let them know if they got it right.
No they won’t let’s be real
@@okaycool001 If they increase the prices THAT high, most people worldwide, will not be able to buy it full price. It's not even about "players will stand against it" let's be real, the majority of player are stupid when talking about money ( there's a reason microtransactions gather billions yearly). But I do believe a GOOD CHUNK of people will not even be able to afford a game at 80,90,100 dollars. Countries Like China, India, South America, Southeast Asia. All with million upon millions of players and that are a GOOD chunk of these companies revenue, will simply drop.
Just for instance, I live in Brazil, this country is huge on numbers for games. Nowadays a 70$ game, is equivalent to over 400$ of my currency, thats 13% of what an average brazilian earns monthly. Now take that and think about India, Indonesia, China, other Latin America. Bro if they increase more, piracy, gaming and etc, will take a big hit
@@LeMGamer1 an international market does put in mind the individual nations currency value before the product has bin placed. both China and US are known to purchase by using credit loans and the highest profit margin are micro transactions. you spend more by purchasing cheaply or where you believe its a benefit. Rockstar uses micro transaction options. so regardless what the GT6 price will be, whatever it is 90 or above. there will be enough margine of spending for their revinew.
Is GTA even available in China?
@@LeMGamer1 Players in countries like China, India, South America, etc can't afford games right now, so games going up to $1000 wouldn't make any difference for them since they can't even afford a console or a decent computer already. It's why they play f2p games that run on toasters.
Blah, blah, blah, graphs, graphs. Can be summed up with... Too many games with mediocre gameplay, poor performance, highly priced hardware and not once were micro transactions mentioned.
The short answer is
NO WAY!
The cut content they add it as DLC to make money off us they fail to mention the billions in profits for dlc micro transactions and season passes
Inflation alone doesn't really factor in salary stagnation. A game costs a higher % of average salary now surely
I already don’t want to buy games for $120AU, let-alone $160AU. The games industry will die out if they continue to raise prices, because people are going to stop buying new games until they go on sale. If making these games isn’t sustainable for companies then they need to stop making extravagant cinema-like games
I don't think it would be an issue if the quality of AAA games stayed high, but the overall quality level has now dropped, prices increased and most games designed around bleeding you of money via MTX
All these game journos forget that many people bought pre-owned games for a much larger discount than most stores provide now.
I'll happily wait for a steam sale, people need to realize the only reason studios are charging this is cause people will pay it. People stop paying it, they'll stop charging it
Why do we only hear the developers/publisher's side of the story?
Because it's actually not the customers problem. I don't care if they can't control their buget. I don't care if they overhire. I don't care if they concentrate on other things than fun in a game.
I want the best quality for the best price. That's it.
That's what every customer truly want. Too bad that many get fooled by marketing that they get the best for X amount of money. Look at apple. People actually believe that they get the best quality product for their money. Doesn't mean it is true.
They should release it for $69 just for the memes lol
Nice.
I'd buy it at 69 bucks for the memes.
@@ariyanadumon4549 nice. Memes have alot of power, it'd be genius I tells ya 😆
I waited for 10 years to play GTA 6, I can wait for 10 more.
It is extremely rare for me to pay full price for a game at £70 as it is. Maybe 1 or 2 games a year sometimes 0. Having a laugh if they’re going to charge more 😂
GTA6 will probably have multiple versions that cost 80-250$ but I think the base game will remain at 70$
I'm a cheapskate, so there better be a 70$ version.
@@ibannashI don’t own a PS5 so I would have to wait for it to come to PC regardless. Then again if it’s good enough I might get one just for GTA6.
I won’t buy GTA 6 at over $70 on the sheer principle of it.
@@jacobk6371 u sure 🤣
Shiii, I will buy it for $150 ngl
@@FNOstvn_MusicI’d pay $250 for it and I swear I’m not even kidding.
I find Rockstar games to be worth more than 70 USD, HOWEVER they have been pushing this annoying Rockstar Game Launcher recently requiring you to be always online even for a singleplayer game, and I'm not paying that much money for something I don't (feel like) I own (I know about the license stuff but they better drop this always online crap because what's the point of spending that much money if I can't play their games offline even for a few days).
@@FNOstvn_Music cancerous sheep who holds us back
They price this thing at 80 and I may never play it out of sheer spite.
I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE C SUITE'S PROBLEMS. Stop teying to defend their GREED.
When wages start getting adjusted for inflation then they can start adjusting game prices for it.
Dont know much but price is what you pay for and value is what you get. IMO the bar for a 70$ triple A game is Baldurs Gate 3 level of content so anything below that is unreasonable at the moment. Hell they tryna runaway from optimization and move to upscaling. Lowkey gross 🤢
That’s honestly a bit of an unfair standard with BG3. The sheer mass of content isn’t necessarily important to many people. It’s more about improving the experience. In the words of Yosef Fares (director of It Takes Two) “when you have good sex, do you time it?”
@ Thats a good point and some of my recent purchases don’t justify what I’ve said but I expect a bit more out of a new entry than the last or atleast similar quality. A recent example of something I was fairly interested in before it reveal was Skull and Bones. If im aware of the speculation then it was supposed to be more of Black Flag but only schwach buckling. I expected something akin to that game however was immediately removed when I heard naval combat only. I was a bit disgusted when they tried to call it quadruple A. Cant lie im a bit of a snob when a game comes out however Ive long been subscribed to a dynamic pricing system that varies from title to title, hell I would even justify a 100$ price tag for Baldurs Gate or GTA yet understand the problem with price to entry for a consumer or a necessary price to justify the cost of producing a game in the first place. Between that I wouldn’t mind some games justifying a larger price point its just I expect some standard for products that release at that price. I can most likely afford another price hike but for some of these titles from large shady companies I feel as if its another excuse to increase their bottom line.
@@ContrastCopy Uhh yeah. If you last a minute, good luck getting a 2nd round.
I wont buy a game for 100 Dollars.
My Backlog is bigger than me so…
It makes perfect sense that it'd be technically cheaper to buy temporary digital playing rights to an unfinished game that you don't own
Funny thing how "piracy" is becoming the only way to literally own the game in this day and age... ofc unless the game is on GoG
You sir win 1st place with this comment.
Funny how that's ot true at all. PlayStation digital games on there store are the same price ir not more then the physical. Take dragon age 4. on the ps store it was $70 and the same goes for the physical disc. however. steams version was $60. Why was PS version more then steam? even the digital was more expensive on ps store then steam. like wtf?
@@sumireravenclaw8034 I think you didn't couth the sarcasm of this comment.
But to answer your question... Easy because they can, also since ps takes 30% cut they can take more money and more money is good because more money.
@@sumireravenclaw8034 It is very odd. I remember when games first started going digital, they were priced a little bit more than physical. People justified it as a convenience charge since you didn't need to travel to get the disc. They also said that once digital was the main way to get games, prices would come down because studios wouldn't have to worry about buying stock and shipping costs. Then everything went digital and, of course, none of that happened
As others have also mentioned, when you add real wages to the chart at the beginning a very different picture emerges. When real wage growth is effectively 0 over the better part of the past decade, and yet expenses have pretty much doubled over that same period you quickly realise the 'video games are cheaper than ever' doesn't hold water.
Yeah cause this graph is skewed due 0.1% massive wealth increase
I really wish this didn't blow up and spread the way it did, we dont need to give these companies no bright ideas when it comes to shit like this.
Micro transactions have scared a lot of people from gaming especially the OGs
There is no need for them to raise the base game price. They will just do a 3 day early access pre-order bonus for $100 and anyone willing to pay $100 will just buy that version.
Yes, the games are cheaper than ever, but they are also the most incomplete and broken games ever, all riddled with post-updates, fixes, DLCs, expansions, MTAs and other crap that is meant to prolong the cashflow of these games!!
Back in the day if you bought a game, that would be it. No DLCs, expansions ETC, but nowadays you are anticipating when the new update/fix and the new "DLC" is coming out, so inflation or not, to me that is just a lame excuse to drive up the price even more, for games that aren't even complete or even outright broken on release!!
No game out there, GTA6 or not, is worth 100+ dollars, and its complete asinine of these "analysts" to imply that somehow yet another price inflation would be justified, just because game developers nowadays want to make a game that costs 2 billions to make. Matter of fact is, a game doesn't need to cost 2 Billion to be amazing, just look at Zelda, Black Myth Wukong or Baldurs Gate 3...
In my opinion, all this talk about the industry and how ""bad its doing" and that it can only be saved by a price increase, is just a strawman argument and an excuse that we are supposed to buy into, cause in reality its a problem that they (game developers) created themselves i.e. being too LAZY and GREEDY when it comes to developing games and their quality, and now they conveniently have a "solution" that nobody asked for i.e. yet another price inflation and we are supposed to buy into it blindly but the real question is: If the game price is increased, will the quality increase too or will it stay stagnant??
Also, isn't it funny how a game like Baldurs Gate 3 that costs 100 million to make was an immense success, yet Sonys own title Concord that cost them 450 million was a monumental failure??
So, inflation or not, the quality of games NEED to increase too especially if we are going to have yet another increase in the price, cause these buggy, glitchy, broken games just wont do anymore in this day and age!
If Rockstar does that, I will not be buying it. Sail the high seas or third party key site.
People forget Gta 6 wont be on PC launch, so they are already double dipping for the people who cant wait and will buy 1 copy on console then later on PC
All we know is, we need Luigi back again. The little green plumber. 😭
@@sumireravenclaw8034 and Shinji Aoba & Bin L to the action
I don’t mind paying more for something that I’m excited for or that I want more of. I don’t mind them charging for early access to the game. Sometimes I do it sometimes I won’t. The issue is you’re paying for things that a Lot of time that might not be there. if the game has both single player and multiplayer and the things purchased are only multiplayer. Or even worse you can’t play the game off-line and the whole game is taken off the store. $100 would be feel pretty shitty.
My wife beat GTA 5 three times. I’ve never played it. She plays like two games a year. I’m not interested in GTA 6 early
100 for gta6 would be fair tbh even if you don't want to hear it.
I don't believe Rockstar sells enough copies at $99.99 to make any more profit than they would at $69.99. They'd just end up pay walling a bunch of people out of the game until it goes on sale at a price they can afford. At some price point the math doesn't work out for more profit anymore. Getting a $10 increase has already hurt sales on some games. A $30 increase will do 3x the damage.
Analysts and executives might want us to pay that much, but many people won't and even more can't.
Other games can raise prices ,
But that doesn’t mean ppl will buy it . Most gamers will wait til they drop the price . But gta is gonna be like worldwide cultural thing, not just a gaming thing. Ppl that don’t play games are gonna get gta
I’ll never forget Madden 2002 for the N64 being full price at Walmart till like 2006 or seven
100$ just for the base version
150$ for an early access
200$ for deluxe edition
$450 if you want to play it at launch
$150 for early access is wild 😮
$999 for a t-shirt launch bundle
0 for epic version 🗿
The development costs are their problem, not ours, they bloated their studios with trash employees, they keep pushing realistic graphics when we can live with one step lower, they keep hiring Hollywood talent we don't care about, they keep pushing social/gender/politics crap we find no value on, they keep hiring lower quality employees, fresh from college, often with reasons other than merit just because they undervalue and burn through their far more useful, old, experienced, veteran devs that would do a lot more with less while causing less future QA costs, etc.
Dev costs too high ? then lower them, i can see indies doing a lot more with less, get leaner, get better employees and keep them on staff game to game, keep scope contained, release in faster cycles, if you release faster you will be able to reuse assets game to game, maybe even put a sequel of a game reusing a lot of the work, also stop doing things that cost you way more money for nothing like putting your offices in California, and stop setting money on fire chasing live services that will never succeed. They are blaming us for their own incompetence and bad decisions.
If 100$ or 80 $ games become the norm, then game pass becomes and increasingly better deal.
Which will increase those prices. It's trickle down economics if the trickle down is making the inexpensive options more valuable and more costly...
@@dychostarr both still great points
It's cheap because it still haven't reached the amount of users they are expecting, they will raise their prices once people start flocking towards gamepass.
Personally I wish they will keep the prices this way (but it's never gonna happen), I find it better than piracy. It's safer, more convenient and cheap.
"If $100 or $80..."
You know what else hasnt gone up with inflation? Our salaries. So no, we cant afford games. They need to manage their production better
Sorry, $70.00 is my cutoff limit unless it's a special edition. I can wait for a sell, I have a giant backlog I need catching up with.
This is the best video I've seen on this topic so far. You nailed it.
What you should also consider is that this inflation adjusted cost of games vs growing cost of production is a big reason for why we see rushed or poor quality releases now - they can't really delay games anymore because the margins are so thin that they can't afford more time in dev.
What angers me is that if they raise the price and others follow. Then it has nothing to do with rising costs because no other game will ever cost what GTA6 has. Therefore any higher prices from other developers is just about raising their profits and nothing else 😡😡😡
These other games are NOT GTA6, what in the hell makes them think they can get away with it too? 😂
My guess is that gta 6 is going to have an online function like gta 5 did. And thats where majority of revenue comes from, so making it cost more than 60-70 just comes off as greedy unless its part of a collectors edition where they get the game early, especially to a content creator.
Imagine what would happen, if Rockstar released the base GTA6 for $50. For them it wouldn't be a huge deal - they would sell a ton of special editions anyway and the real money will be in Online anyway (for the next 10 years). But they would completely flip the script and give a huge blow to their competition, while at the same time gaining huge respect with the community :P
I just cant play an open world game at 30fps anymore it’s too jarring
PLEASE don’t buy it, for once make a statement with your wallets.
My concern is 1 minute after a $100 price announcement from gta 6. Ubisoft and ea will say "due to trending market value, all upcoming products will be valued at the appropriate value of $100. Any less is highly inappropriate."
I agree that GTA6 should cost more, but as an average American, most people get paid 15$ or less, maybe more if their lucky. I think if they charge 100$ I feel like it would hurt sales
How is it that video game companies are reporting record breaking profits yet still pushing to charge consumers even more? While it’s true that people might be willing to pay $100 for a blockbuster like GTA, this pricing model raises concerns. It risks narrowing the market by encouraging consumers to spend disproportionately on a few major titles, leaving less room for other games to thrive. The focus could shift toward catering to whales players who spend exorbitant amounts, rather than fostering a diverse gaming ecosystem accessible to a wider audience. While games are becoming more expensive to make, higher budgets don’t always guarantee quality.
We should respond to rising prices by supporting studios with fair pricing and quality content, exploring indie games to promote competition, and raising awareness about the impact of inflated prices. Advocating for transparency from publishers can also ensure profits are reinvested into better content and innovation, rather than just boosting margins.
Video game studios are becoming the same as movie studios. Remake, remaster, sequel, prequel
I don’t care if GTA VI is for $100, I will get it anyway ❤
Congratulations, you're the problem!
The truth is, wages for the devs have gone up and costs of the softwares they use, thats why game budgets are soo high. So makes sense if prices go up to adjust, buuuuutt the consumers, their wages havent gone up, the average income is pretty much what it was 10 years ago
The minute the industry tries to set lets say $100 per game is when the next crash happens again. They keep forgetting gaming is a luxury for most. Luxuries are not a neccesity and will be easily given away if its between food, shelter and clothes.
I have absolutely no problem with paying $100 for a quality game I'm going to spend a bunch of time playing. Dollar for hour, gaming is some of the best entertainment value around. For a narrative game, you may be paying $70 for 35 hours of play. Roughly $2/hour. If you only play through it once. For larger RPGs, you might get upwards of 100 hours, pushing your cost to less than $1/hour. For multiplayer games or games with high replayability (like strategy games), we're talking cents per hour of play.
Contrast that with, say, going to the movies, where with a ticket and snacks you're up around $20 for a 2-hour movie. That's $10/hour. Most hobbies cost far more than gaming does per hour. Going to amusement parks cost more. Buying and maintaining a snowmobile, or ATV, or motorcycle costs more for the time you spend on it. Going to sports events costs more. Heck, WATCHING sporting events costs more.
One of the few comparable entertainment hobbies is reading, and somehow I think many people would prefer to spend more on video games.
2:34 the $70-$100 isn’t really the problem it’s your paying that and then your paying another $50 or however much more after that when they drop DLC’s. We know gta 6 will probably be the last gta game for the next 15-20 years so the amount of money you’ll spend on DLC’s and gta online will be crazy. If it was $100 and all the DLC’s were included then that’s worth it but having to pay for the DLC’s every time adds up over time
I have zero faith in them releasing any single player traditional DLC’s. The only post-launch content for gta 6 will be for the online component.
@@daltondenning8537 yea that’s what I’m talking about just like gta 5
I’ll sail the Haigh seas if game prices gets any higher arggh
No one in their right mind would pay $100 to play a physical game or digital game. There is no way.
I have no problems paying $50 $40 $60 I complain about $70 and that’s it .
If it comes with a strategy guide, online access and GTA plus trial and soundtrack artwork posters stuff for your car I have no problems then .🙏
The craziest thing is that here in Brazil, that pricing would make it a 600 bucks game. To put that into perspective, it's more than a third of the minimum monthly wage here. Still people are going to buy it.
Luke's a big streamer and TH-camr, and it's fascinating to me how these people lose their sense of connection to reality. He makes excuses about inflation etc and says "games are cheaper than ever", which is true - for him. Because their pay is directly linked to inflation via the cost of advertising, streamers/youtubers maintain the sense that yeah prices are going up but it's just inflation guys, we all have more money. And no, we don't all have more money. For most people living in the real world, our wages have NOT kept pace with inflation. We are being paid LESS in real terms than we were five years ago. Luke doesn't feel the same injustice we do when we hear about publishing raising costs again because from his perspective, the game's price isn't changing whereas for the rest of us, it is.
If GTA6 raises the price cap on AAA games, it'll sell well. But it'll be curling out a big fat log onto the faces of all of us who work for a living and don't benefit from being paid in stock options or via inflation-linked ad revenue.
Base game: $80
Deluxe ed.: $100
Triple Deluxe: $150
Gold ed.: $200
Collectors ed (steel book, season pass, future-future season pass, perfume and lipstick: $350
Ultimate collectors edition: 1200$ with a stripper statue for display, play money, and a postcard with signatures from the dev team as a thank you included. 😂
The cost of games is higher now because of marketing .they need to stop this .
Bro i couldn't even afford $70 game because the currency in my country are really really weak.
Someone is gonna take the hit for Inflation pricing and it damn well wont be me.
There are at least 50,000+ other games I can play on Steam.
Fix the fucking economy if you want more value out of my Dollar.
It was their decision to bloat the game until it costs over a billion to make. They can charge the standard price, they'll milk it for 10+ years. There's no way it'll be complete on day 1
The bloat is the cheap inexperienced labor, the game content tends to be a deflated balloon that is full of holes (bugs). Veteran devs would be able to make these games MUCH faster and better quality.
One thing to keep in mind is the number of games really sold. Yeah, games cost a lot more in the 90s… but Super Mario World sold 20 million copies, and was the best selling game on the SNES. GTA 5 sold 200 million. Now 10-20 million is a decent sales figure.
Vol. also plays a factor I’d wager. The no. of hardware units sold in the 1970’s - 1980’s is vastly different compared to the 2000’s and onwards. Each 5-10 years - the industry has seen a surge of console units sold. Which means that maintaining a reasonable standard pricing structure for games and a reasonable budget (while considering Purchase Power Parity of each market) you can still make a profit.
Selling a game for $100 might help mitigate the rising costs of game development and others, but not every game has that pulling power to demand such amounts from the end-user/consumer. Especially in our current market conditions.
I remember back in the days, SEGA 16-bit games were approx. $80 in stores back then. So I don't see a $100 pricetag being all that "new".
I'm 50 years old. I remember saving money to buy atari games back in the day. It was about $60. That price tag stayed the same until very recently. Now games cost $70 to 100 dollars or more. This is not the same as 60. Regardless of how much the games are costing to make. If they keep raising game prices, they will price themselves right out of business. Its costs too much just to put food on the table these days, much less gaming fun
I remember just a handful of years ago I found an old shopping magazine from early the 90s and I saw they had SNES games prices at $90+ and I know for back then those prices were crazy high especially for a niche hobby like gamming back then.
Costs keeping up with inflation but salaries arent. Seems legit. No games arent a necessity that needs to be higher.
It might be true if adjusted for inflation but the gaming customers have increased too.
Inflation is across the board. So increasing the cost of a product doesnt translate to profit because peoppe just cannot afford it. Previously with a lower cost of living, entertainment was more accessible. The average age of the gamer is a lot closer to 40 then 20 like it was for years past. And these days we dont have the time and invest smarter especially during a recession.
On top of that we are generally waiting 3 to 6 months before getting a solid game without all the bugs and issues. Which at said time we should expect a discounted product to build up player counts. Their analysts have too much money to see clearly.
Some people once said that the introduction of microtransactions into games was necessary to make up for the fact that game prices never increased. This was before the change to the $70 standard.
So now we’ve got games costing $70 instead of $60, microntransactions are still in games including singleplayer titles, and now we’re talking about the idea of Rockstar raising the standardized pricing model again with GTA 6.
All of this, mind you, while publishers have been boasting the past few years about reaching record-breaking levels of revenue and laying off tons of employees in order to “future proof” the financial viability of the company going forward.
Someone’s gotta explain this one to me, ‘cause I don’t get it.
Yes; lets all encourage digital-only games despite Ubisoft saying "dont get comfortable with owning your games" and Sony pulling digital legacy games from their online store so that you're forced to buy its remastered version.
What a great idea.
Well, if that's becoming a trend now, just imagine what Star Citizen could ask once it comes out in 2125.
I kind of hope GTA does crank up the price. Then when other AAA games think they can charge the same for their slop they get a crispy reality check
Be interested to also see a chart showing how much money studios have been making. Guaranteed they're making much more than in the 90s and early 2000s
And since we are adjusting for inflation , we have also seen quadruple the amount of bugs , broken games, and about 1000 patches after launch .
Im just happy knowing i can get indie games for so much cheaper and have such a good time, and STILL come back to gta6 when it inevitabily goes on sale
just because the bigger companies spend a ton of money on the games doesnt mean they are expensive to make. if i buy a couch for 16000 dollars, doesnt mean making couches is expensive. those companies are incredibly inefficient, and keep using management and creative structure from other industries in an industry it doesnt work in.
Another thing I don't see anyone mention that games going from 60 to 70 dollars or more hurts people outside the US.
Here in Malaysia I remember AAA games costing around RM180(40 dollars today) compared to almost RM250 (55 dollars) and even over RM300(67 dollars).
A 70 USD game costs almost 10% of an average person's salary here, compared to less than 5% in the US. And this is just Malaysia, there's other countries that have it even worse. I wish more countries would do localized pricing, sure you'd earn less but you'd also sell more copies.
If they’re charging $100 it better have $100 worth of content.
Don't forget that pushing for digital only, means they can avoid people selling their copies second hand.
I dont even play GTA, but the amount of effort and quality Rockstar has put into their games is unmatched. If they released a game, at base, that cost more than $70, I think they deserve it because people know the quality that comes with it. Everyone else is putting out half baked games and still asking for more before we can get some QA. For games like GTA, or CoD or whatever, sure, but how many people are going to be willing to shell out even more money for broken launch games? If anything, they will see less day 1 buys, and it will hurt them even more from the loss of traffic.
$70 was (barely) acceptable for this game, $100 feels like a paywall that could screw with this game's ability to make a profit within a relatively short amount of time💯💯💯
You underestimate people's stupidity coming out when there is hype about something. I will wait for GTA6 to be 50%, as I do with every game. Don't care about the hype. Probably gonna be broken on launch bc there is no way consoles will be able to handle that fidelity. Not even an rtx 5080 will be able to do.
@prettyawesomeperson2188 some people will be stupid enough to buy it at launch for $100, most won't because most wouldn't be able to afford it
Thing is, this probably doesn't account for microtransactions which many companies makes a lot of their money on. We didn't have dlc back in the 2000s so when you bought it, it was the full game. Also, nobody is telling these companies to put millions of dollars into games nobody asked for. This is why indie games are on the rise.
Problem is that games are so cheap to distribute now digitally and there is no need for packaging or shipping to retail stores
They can charge what they like, doesn't mean I'll be paying it, I haven't paid full price for a game this entire generation and i certainly won't be persuaded by even more ridiculous prices.
just like with cinema, it's not up to us to justify budgets that got way out of hand. they need to review the scale of game and how much risk they take on with this huge projects that put the entire company balance sheet at risk.
inflation alone doesn't mean a thing, they also sell 000% more copies today than they did in the 80s, and with that you have more competition and more accessible pricing.
doing a 180 on prices now will only guarantee that people spend the big money on discounts or that avoid spending on other games causing more studios to fail.
you think that's the indie ones, but no, that's your ubisoft, bethesda, WB & co that get hit with this move.
they are pricing out a whole generation of gamers asking 100+ euros, franchises like COD or FIFA would not be the same at those price points
If they want to charge $100 for their games, the quality needs to match. And right now, most AAA games quality don't even match the $70-80 price tag.
$2000 or more for GPU, $700 or more for gaming consoles and now $100 or more for games. I hate to say it, but we gamers have been spoiled for decades with relax gaming prices.
Now it's all about buying games at discount prices instead of full price, pirate the games if you really want to or just flat out won't buy their games anymore.
I mean, some developer are now asking you to pay for unfinished games as beta testers. The gaming industry is crazy AF!!! Lol.