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Comment on Are Nintendo's $80 online game prices a result of tariffs or is Nintendo just using them as an excuse to price gouge as corporations do?

fishos@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

Not to be THAT GUY, but games haven’t kept up with inflation or increasing development costs. Someone in these convos usually point out that, adjusted for inflation, that 80’s Donkey Kong game actually costs more in today’s money than $60-80. So I guess that’s me today lol

Do I agree that their worth that much? Ehhhh

But have we gotten massive improvements, longer games, more physics, graphics, etc? Yeah.

Games like GTA take half a decade or more to be made. If you want that kind of game development to continue,NCO sessions need to be made somewhere. Now, maybe there’s a better pace to do it, but asking more for these games isn’t completely unreasonable.

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wisely@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Yes but back then most people only bought maybe 2-3 games the entire generation and traded with their friends. There was also a lot of local coop games.

Now people would like to play dozens of games and it’s difficult to share, often you even need to buy two copies of a game to even play with your family in the same house.

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- fishos@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Exactly, games back then were EXPENSIVE. Currently we live in luxury where you have hundreds of options. How does that not justify it costing more?
  
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spankmonkey@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
If indie devs can make a game and sell it for less than Nintendo games sold for in the 90s then maybe it isn’t actually more expensive to develop and distribute games that are somewhat comparable to games from the 80s. A lot of games sell for $40 or less and are making profits.

Nintendo games are more expensive partially because they are limited to Nintendo hardware. Like Apple, this requires more costs for software because their target audience is smaller than something through a digital platform like steam, and distribution is a pretty significant cost and physical distribution has a lot of risk and waste compared to digital if something doesn’t sell as many as expected.

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- fishos@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Ummm Nintendo has a digital platform, so not sure what you’re on about that one.
  
  And in regards to indie studios: then buy their games and stop complaining, duh. Like, if you know there’s all these amazing and cheap alternatives, why are you bitching about what Nintendo charges? No one’s forcing you. Go play something else. It’s really that easy.
  
  Nintendo, love em or hate them, is like Disney. They want to curate a very specific image. Look up the invention of the Nintendo Seal of Approval and why that was such a big thing. Nintendo wants to be very specific thing and frankly doesn’t give a shit if you like it. If you dont, then you’re not their target audience. It’s really that simple. Their not catering to everyone, they’re catering to a specific group. If they want to charge a certain amount but you know it’ll be quality cus it’s Nintendo, then what’s the harm?
  
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  - spankmonkey@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    A digital platform limited to their hardware.
    
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    fishos@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Again, what’s it matter? A PS store game is limited to their platform. An Xbox store game is limited to their platform. A Steam game is…
    
    Seeing a pattern? It’s irrelevant. Console exclusivity has always been a thing until modern times. But now we have cross play, something that never existed. So again, objectively better. Are some games still stuck to certain consoles, yeah. And that’s their porogative and frankly is the norm. So what? What reason do you have that you deserve it? You don’t.n you just want it.
    
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dohpaz42@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
You know what else hasn’t kept up with inflation? Wages.

So before you go espousing raising prices, let’s first make it so people can afford the higher costs.

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- fishos@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Lmao that’s a completely seperate issue between you and your employer. Has nothing to do with the value of the dollar.
  
  Has inflation kept up with wages? No. Have prices gone up anyways? Hell yes. Only thing you can find under $1 anymore is Arizona Tea, and even that isn’t a guarantee.
  
  But yes, complain that a luxury item has gone up in cost. You know, something not necessary. So no one needs to make sure “people can afford it”. The ones who can buy, will buy, and the numbers show overwhelmingly that they do.
  
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  - hoshikarakitaridia@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I mean tbf complaining that less people can afford it now because prices have increased but wages haven’t is fair. Everything needs to be looked at relative to all the other values. If you wanna go even more in depth I guess you would need to add popularity of games, reputation of a brand or game series, value of the currency, and other factors.
    
    I generally agree with you that prices for video games haven’t kept up that well, although I would also point out that due to multiple factors anchoring the video game price at 1980 might not be the best if you want a fitting picture. Games were much more rare baack then, the market was smaller, small production volume meant physical costs per unit increase, there’s things like way higher shipping costs to think about because globalization is a more modern phenomenon and a lot more stuff. Imo using the 2000s as an anchor to extrapolate from would be more fitting, as the market was well established at that point and thus prices would appear more stable.
    
    I’m not doing that because I am literally a little gremlin who can’t be arsed to put the time in rn but these are my two cents of criticism against your methodology.
    
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    fishos@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Yes, but you can make the wages claim about EVEYTHING. House, cars, food haven’t gone down. Everything else went up. So why is this one luxury exempt?
    
    And yes, because of globalization, a Steam Deck is cheaper than a NES was. That’s great! So why are you complaining when prices are objectively better than 1980? Like yeah, we made things better! And even with inflation, they’re cheaper!
    
    So why are you complaining about a $20-30 increase when the math says you should have a $60 increase? That’s what I’m calling entitlement. We have it objectively better by every metric in video games, including cost, and people are throwing a fit over an increase that’s still below inflation.
    
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