Where do you draw the line? New Game Prices

[turf]

So, there’s a rumor out there that Grand Theft Auto 6 could cost up to $150. It has cost something to the tune of $2 BILLION (with a B) to make. It’ll be a banger of a game.

PS5 games have gone up to $70. That makes sense. Games have been $60 for 100 years.  It was time for a price increase. I just don’t know high folks will go for Day 1 releases.

What do you think?  How high can prices get before you bail? 

[BinaryMessiah]

It's going to keep going up until the economy callapses like everything else. $150 would be stupid. Many wouldn't buy it or wait until the price drops down. We're already paying $130 for Gold Edition games from Ubisoft, but that does include a season pass and other DLC. For just the base game? I don't know. I'm fine paying $70 for new games as they should have gone up years and years ago. If anything games have gotten cheaper over time adjusted for inflation.

[kamikazekeeg]

That doesn't even seem like a feasible thing to do.  GTA6 doesn't need to sell their games at some crazy price to make their money back, even if the 2 billion development cost rumor is true.  GTA5 did a billion dollars in sales in its first three days and has gone on to make over 8 billion dollars by 2023.  GTA6 is going to sell even faster and at a 70 dollar price tag, or even a pushed 80 dollar price tag, it'll probably do a billion dollars in sales in the first day easy.  It'll then do great for awhile, then have another huge surge once the PC version is released.  It's going to sell like crazy.

As for my limit, that's hard to say.  Depends on a lot of things.  Like I don't think Nintendo prices are particularly great for a lot of their games as is, so if they raise prices on the Switch 2, that's going to make more games a harder sell.  I'll pay 60 to 70 bucks for Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Zelda, but Animal Crossing at 60 bucks was insane, and that most of the Pokemon games are at 60 is just as crazy, let alone if they end up raising prices.

I'm more open to big budget PS5 stuff, I can see and feel where the budget is going, but I also get around the pricing by buying God of War or Last of Us, playing it, beating it, and then trading it in because I'm not gonna replay it, and I can put that money into another big new game.  I did that with the Spider-Man games I had, I really didn't think I would go back to them any time soon, so I traded them in to pay for my copy of Final Fantasy 7 this week, though that would be a game I'd buy at full price, because I know I'm going to invest a lot of time into it.  I would pay 80 or 90 dollars for Monster Hunter Wilds coming up, because I know that I'll dump hundreds of hours into that game.  Hell, I'm probably going to spend that much anyways on whatever the bonus content version is going to be lol

I'm sure there's a point where I'd be like "That's getting ridiculous", but it doesn't mean I wouldn't get it, I'd just play less at launch and wait for sales or secondhand copies.  It's how I do a lot of my PC gaming, waiting on sales for stuff unless it's a game I know I really want.

[weirdfeline]

$30 prob the max for me nowadays.

[bikingjahuty]

If we're talking physical and just for the game itself (not a CE or LE), I'd say $80. And mind you that would only be for a game I was nearly certain I'd like and was also a game I was considerably hyped about.


Digital only, my limit is about $30, and once again I'd only ever pay that maximum amount for a game I really, really wanted and was fairly certain I'd like.


If GTA6 is $150, I don't doubt that people would buy it like crazy still seeing how GTA5 is the best selling game of all time, and still appears on best selling game charts each week. I'd simply wait until I could get it for under $50, which is similar to what I did with 5. I ended up buying it used for probably around $30 or so over a year after it came out. I like the GTA franchise, but I'm not obsessed with it like so many others.

[sworddude]

So, there’s a rumor out there that Grand Theft Auto 6 could cost up to $150. It has cost something to the tune of $2 BILLION (with a B) to make. It’ll be a banger of a game.

PS5 games have gone up to $70. That makes sense. Games have been $60 for 100 years.  It was time for a price increase. I just don’t know high folks will go for Day 1 releases.

What do you think?  How high can prices get before you bail?

if inflation gets that bad 150 ain't worth that much. currently way to high but years into the future 150 might just be worth the same as 70$ today.

Still I highly doubt the game is going to be more than 70$. will it have micro's or DLC to increase the costs up to 10 times, sure but base game won't be more than 70$

[telekill]

I fully understand why games went up to $70. I didn't like the jump to $60 from the PS2 to PS3 gen, but I understood it back then as well. These days, when looking at how much time I have to spend playing coupled with that I don't like 90% of what the modern industry is creating, the $70 day one purchase is rare.

So rare, that it's basically one title per year I'm willing to do that for. Last year it was Zelda. This year it will be FF7 Rebirth. Everything else can wait for a price drop.

[randomstranger]

At 40€. I see no reason for game prices to rise above what offline playable physical games were. You get less ownership rights due to online DRM and forced updates, you can be kicked off the platform which hosts your games, the distribution costs went down compared to physical media, while the market grew more than 10x over the past 20 years which offsets the increase in development costs.

[dhaabi]

For longer than I've realized, I generally don't purchase retail games as they're newly-released at a full $60-70 MSRP pricing. The last time I've done that for myself was in March 2020 with Animal Crossing: New Horizons, if going by my collection purchase notes. Before that, Nier: Automata in 2017. However, online-exclusive items are something else, but they still don't reach retail marketplace prices, even with shipping.

The last game with a recent release I've really wanted to play is Final Fantasy XVI, but there wasn't a priority to play it right away. It's a game I know that will go down in value considerably over time, and I've my backlog is plenty enough. So, why buy it right away when it probably won't be played for some time?

[soera]

I guess I'm the person who sees this from a different point of view. Games were $60-70 when the Snes/genesis was on the shelves. The fact that they aren't already over $100 each is baffling. But I follow a strict guideline. $1 an hour is what I would pay. So on games like Diablo IV where I've clocked over 600 hours, I got a steal for only having paid about $200 for the CE. Consider the alternative of drinking or smoking away that money and all the people complaining really have no leg to stand on.

[sworddude]

I guess I'm the person who sees this from a different point of view. Games were $60-70 when the Snes/genesis was on the shelves. The fact that they aren't already over $100 each is baffling.

They are well above that amount if you include dlc and micro's

[betelgeuse]

For a collectors edition, I can see that. $150 for a standard edition though? I don’t think they would get too many sales. Maybe they’re gonna play on the gamepass model possibly get a kickback per download? If you want the physical copy, pay the premium? IDK.

I remember SF2 and RPG’s being $84.99 on SNES. The PlayStation brought disc based games down to $39.99. PS2 went up to $49.99. 360/PS3 hung around $49.99. Xbone/PS4 went to $59,99.
This gen is $69.99.  I can’t see the AAA games more than doubling the current price.

[randomstranger]

But I follow a strict guideline. $1 an hour is what I would pay.

Hours carry value but they themselves are not value. The value of a game hour and the quantity of hours are usually in an inverse relationship. The more hours there are, the less value each individual hour has. If I recall my best, most vivid gaming experiences, the overwhelming majority are from games shorter than 30hrs. Even if I consider RPGs alone, it's still just around 60. For the games I've played hundreds of hours, most of it just a haze with some standout moments here and there.

[dhaabi]

But I follow a strict guideline. $1 an hour is what I would pay.

Hours carry value but they themselves are not value. The value of a game hour and the quantity of hours are usually in an inverse relationship. The more hours there are, the less value each individual hour has. If I recall my best, most vivid gaming experiences, the overwhelming majority are from games shorter than 30hrs. Even if I consider RPGs alone, it's still just around 60. For the games I've played hundreds of hours, most of it just a haze with some standout moments here and there.

I can only imagine how even more terrible marketing would be if most buyers followed this mindset. We'd see far more games boasting ridiculous times like what happened with Dying Light 2. Or, perhaps the opposite would happen, and maybe it'd be a good change with all of those inflated hours gone.

[vivigamer]

Oh I have been well and truly priced out this gen! Right now, I should be enjoying Final Fantasy VII Rebirth but the audacity of them charging £70 for a standard copy gets the worst of my stuborn side - Which doing a $-£ conversation makes £70 = $89! The Deluxe Edition is £100! And you don't get a whole lot with it - Tiny artbook, sample CD Soundtrack & a Steelbook. But it is my favourite series so I have caved in - But ordered online from a Questionable retailer who are selling it for £75 but I won't receive it until a week later - At least that is what happened with my previous experience buying from them with FF16.

It used to be about £40 for a Standard Edition & £50 if you wanted a minor upgrade with a Steelbook. But the greed of this industry has taken over and ruined the concept of Day One Purchases for me. And I know the industry is struggling and can justify the rise in cost but it doesn't end there does it? Day One usually had the game at a technical disadvantage and these days always requires follow up patches. Then there is DLC, so usually buying a game Day One is incomplete for anothe reason with extra content withheld and spliced back into the game at a cost of the consumer - Just look at Final Fantasy XV & even recently with XVI... What infuriates me is that once I beat a game I am done, I can't go back to DLC upon release because I am not imersed in the experience as with the initial playthrough, so DLC never works for me - Unless I am replaying the game YEARS later like with FF7 Remake & the INTERmission DLC. Then there is Complete Editions released later that give you the base game with a code, a trend that really needs to stop!

I have to schedule my gaming throughout the year a lot more due to this also, like recently 2 big hitters with Like A Dragon (Yakuza): Infinite Wealth & FF7 Rebirth. Both came out wihtin a month of each other and are BIG games. So I decided to hold off on Like A Dragon 8 & Replay FF7 Remake in prep for Rebirth - I know this will take me up until Mid-April/May. Then before LAD8, I still have the spin-off Like A Dragon title to play before diving into LAD8, so it's looking about May until I actually get around to playing LAD8, so I have put off buying it until then - Which I am hoping for a decent reduction.

I have also been looking into CEX, a UK Trade-In Store. I have a decent amount of money in In-Store Credit but the problem is they charge ridiculous prices for their Newer titles - LAD8 is £50 in Used Condition, where I have seen online deal placing LAD8 for £36! Which is really good! But I want to make use of my In-Store credit for newer games but other online retailers keep selling the game New for a considerable discount in comparision. I mostly end up buying Retro Games from them as their prices seem to be much better.

In short, there is a lot of frustration as a consumer for the industry. I want to support games I love but I can't help but feel ripped off - especially within a Day One Purchase. I don't want an all digital future but I don't believe a decent enough effort is put into making the Physical game market accessible or even practical for collectors who are buying into releases for the prospect of game preservation - years down the line, your Day One Copies won't contain the needed updates and when servers go down you'll be left with an incomplete game.