Comment on Game prices should have increased with every new generation, former PlayStation US boss says

Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

• ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Costs have ballooned, but on the production side, not the distribution side. Perhaps the reduced costs on the distribution side are partially responsible for prices remaining so stable in the face of inflation.

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  • piefood@feddit.online ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    The costs only ballooned because the companies keep bloating themselves. It's gotten cheaper to make games, but more expensive to run giant companies that pay ludicrus amounts of money to executives.

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  • Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Yes, companies have made very bad decisions in what aspects of production to focus on in the last decade. They’re pouring more and more into ever decreasing rates of return on visual fidelity.

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    • ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Visual fidelity but also the scope of the game in general. Why is Halo open world now? It didn’t make the game any better.

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• NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Cartridges to discs were definitely a massive savings… and happened basically one and a half times (Sega to the CD and Sony from nothing to the Playstation)

  Digital… is complicated. It definitely benefits the platform holder and lowers production costs for the major publishers (and makes indie games viable) but it also fundamentally changes marketing. Because people generally don’t browse the PSN Store to find new games. They only get recommendations from influencers. Whereas plenty of us have fond memories of standing in a Best Buy or Circuit City and picking what game looked good on the shelves.

  But yes. I agree that not every single generation should have led to a price jump. But I can definitely see an argument for most of them to have raised the price of “AAA” games with tiered pricing beyond that. Because it really is a problem and not just for the major publishers. Indie games basically need to launch at an effective price of 10-20 bucks on PC to stand a chance and… that is great money for the small dev teams but not so much for a medium sized C/B tier game.

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  • rainwall@piefed.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    The huge win in digital for them was killing the resell market.

    No used games means no competition from previous owners. Prices can stay at $60/70/80 forever without any user market forcing prices down.

    Every media vendor wants digital only to cut production costs, but it's really to own the market. Consoles did exactly that for decades. The shift to subscriptipns for not only online at all but also to "sont own games, just gove us a monthly oart of your invome forever" was them pushing this advsntage to its maximum conclusion.

    Only now, with falling sales and falling interest due to "quick media" like tiktok/instagram/etc, is microsoft giving up on its console moat and sharing all games across devices. Only a loss of relevance as an entertainment medium is forcing them to open the market up again.

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    • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      People vastly overestimate the impact of reselling on games… and that actually includes the platform holders themselves.

      20 years ago? Yeah, Blockbuster was a scourge and there were even some magazine articles about noticeable dips in profit when a popular movie came out (because parents would bring kids to the rental store) and so forth. And Gamestop became a big enough player that they allegedly contributed to the death of the PSP Go

      These days? Gamestop is all but dead even though most major studio releases still have physical copies. Because the game itself is increasingly a loss leader with the idea being that people will buy DLCs or even sequels. Project 10 Dollars WORKED except now it is Project 30-90 Dollar Season Pass. And… at that point, it makes a lot of sense to just sell the base game for 20 bucks or even give it away “for free” as an IGC.

      And a good point of reference is Nintendo. If they were only interested in shelf space they would do what PC games have done for closer to decades than not: just put a piece of paper in a box. Instead, they have the asinine “game card” system which avoids the cost of cartridges while still allowing for resell. And… you can all but guarantee that Nintendo ain’t doing things for the consumer.

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  • Gork@sopuli.xyz ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Who chooses to buy games based on influencers? I rely on reviews.

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    • yermaw@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      There’s only 2 sources I’ve properly trusted and i think they count as influencers

      Yahtzee from zero punctuation and the guy from penny arcade.

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    • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      And who writes those reviews? I’ll give you a hint. It starts with an “i”.

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  • deafboy@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    People don’t browse the PSN store, because it’s crap. I mean, the steam store is pretty bad, but I still manage to just browse and bookmark some games there to get back to later.

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