Because like all the tech industry, they grew massively on the back of low interest rates since 2008 where investors saw better returns putting money into companies than sitting on it, now the interest rates have shot up again post Covid, they need to show their investors they can make better returns than the 5%+ they’d make just leaving the money in the bank. Hence the cost cutting by sacking staff and gouging of customers by price increases.
Comment on Epic Games to update Unreal Engine pricing for devs not making games
hoshikarakitaridia@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Why do game engine producers feel the need to increase prices so much currently?
NuPNuA@lemm.ee 1 year ago
roguetrick@kbin.social 1 year ago
Same reason everyone else is pivoting to profitability. Interest rates and loan repayments.
Aceticon@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Or taking advantage of that happenning with the competition, to enhance profitability.
Make money is the point of pretty much all companies, and financially there are only 2 thinks stopping them from upping their prices:
- If there is competition it will lead to losing customers (though thinks like branding subvert this quite a bit) which means the money they make might with higher prices might actually be less.
- If prices get too high people will choose the “do without” option.
Anyways, the point being that if there is a broader shift in pricing in the market, even companies that are not under the same financial pressures to up prices will still do it as the 1st of those price limitation is relaxed so they can make more money.
Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
capitalism
TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Capitalism is becoming unbearable. People are getting squeezed from every side.
Sivalente@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Everyone wants to be part of the " big squeeze " that’s going on.
Kbin_space_program@kbin.social 1 year ago
Because China is increasingly looking broke, so daddy Tencent's purse is tightening. On top of that, the world's banks now have interest rates to look after again, so their free money streams have ended too.
But the rich want to keep their free money train going, so we're all paying now.
Alimentar@lemm.ee 1 year ago
As recession looms, you have general inflation and increased interest rates. This affects overhead and loan repayments. That and probably other factors all contribute to the need to raise prices.
It’s not just the gaming sector. Almost all other sectors are raising their prices or adjusting their service plans. Eg. shrinkflation and/or lower quality on products and services.
CaptainEffort@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Probably because most devs stopped making their own proprietary engines, so the supply for solid engines is at an all time low. With less options they can crank up the price, as there aren’t really any other options for most devs.
AeroLemming@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Haha Godot go brrrrrrr
CaptainEffort@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Hopefully Godot is the first of many
AeroLemming@lemm.ee 1 year ago
There are a lot of game engines out there. Godot is a good engine if you’re jumping from Unity because it’s a lot more similar to Unity than some other engines and they both can use C#.
TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It’s great that Godot is growing
But if it would have been pretty funny if it was vaporware
Chailles@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Most devs never would have made their own proprietary engines. With ready availability of engines to use, the number of developers skyrocketed as it lowered the bar of who can make a game.