"I don't know" how much Borderlands 4 will cost, Gearbox boss says, but it had "more than twice the development budget for Borderlands 3" and "it might be" $80 like some Nintendo and Xbox games

Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨games@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.gamesradar.com/games/borderlands/i-dont-know-how-much-borderlands-4-will-cost-gearbox-boss-says-but-it-had-more-than-twice-the-development-budget-for-borderlands-3-and-it-might-be-usd80-like-some-nintendo-and-xbox-games/

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KickMeElmo@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Got it, so wait for it in humble bundle or buy it once it sinks to $5.

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- LuxSpark@lemmy.cafe ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  $80 I can wait.
  
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  - generaldenmark@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I mean. Of course vidya games’ gonna get hit with inflation from time to time… just like every other product… every link in the chain, from producer to consumer needs to have an ever growing increase in profit for capitalism to work
    
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- smeg@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  That’s a sensible way to buy all video games
  
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- sness@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  With all the dlc.
  
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  - KickMeElmo@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    But of course.
    
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Reisen@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
the thing while yes, inflation will make things more expensive, the more expensive things become the less folks will just spend on random entertainment. they will have to use their money more deliberately and frugally.

and the problem with games are that there are many free and cheaper alternatives. if you wanna game you can just spend less and still game and have fun.

if you wanna go to the cinema it pretty much costs what it costs so you might go less often or buy less popcorn but you won’t skip one movie because it’s more expensive than another.

you can just skip full price AAA games. buy them on sales, play games you already have, play free to play games, emulate retro games, play indie games.

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- Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Exactly. Also it’s way costlier to set up a hone theatre at home compared to buying a cheap gaming laptop and play indie oe competitive fps games.
  
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stoy@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
B1 was fun and interesting, B2 was brilliant, BTPS was fun, but slightly less so than B2, B3 was just annoying cringe.

And yeah, I played through all the games to completion including the DLCs.

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- DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I was just flabbergasted that they decided to make all of their perk trees boring and lame. I genuinely don’t remember anything about the characters other than disappointment.
  
  Roland, Mordecai, Brick, Lilith: character design masterpieces. Distinct styles and strengths but not overly limited. Zer0, Salvador, Gage, Axton, Magic Chick 2: great, less type specialized but that’s not a bad thing.
  
  Everyone else? Just walking gun stats. And not particularly fun ones.
  
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  - stoy@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I don’t even remember bothering with the spec trees on B3.
    
    I did play as Claptrap i B3 to get some variation, his special was just stupid
    
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- Marighost@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Borderlands 3 had some of the best gameplay in any shooter I’ve played, story and difficulty be damned. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands was back to form, despite its disappointing post-game and 3-room DLCs. The only reason I’m excited for 4 is because the gameplay looks solid and they’ve yet to tell a single joke.
  
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  - stoy@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I never liked the gamplay in B3, though to be fair, I did grow up on UT2004, which other have told me is very floaty, so I may be biased on that…
    
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Surp@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
BL3 was generic and forgettable. BL4 anything more than 40$ is easily forgettable. Don’t these guys know most gamers have backlogs at this point? No one has the money for this shit.

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- vxx@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  My wishlist is long and at least one game on it gets a deep discount every week. I’m busy playing games between 2€-20€.
  
  There hasn’t been a major release that would justify paying 50€ and more.
  
  Baldurs Gate 3 was the last game I got at full price and didn’t regret.
  
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- VitoRobles@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  The more I think about it, maybe it’s for the whales of PC gaming.
  
  Let the streamers, YouTubers and FOMO folks pay a premium to do all the bug testing.
  
  Then release a polished version for half the price.
  
  A person like me with a massive backlog is absolutely going to wait until this hits less than $20 anyways.
  
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TommySoda@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Borderlands 3 was barely worth $60 and I still waited for it to go on sale.

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- Lightsong@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I bought it in Fall 2024 for like 25 bucks with all DLCs. So I’ll wait year or two with BL4 no problem, there’s plenty other games I can play. I never buy brand new games.
  
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cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Aaaaaand I’ll wait for a sale. If I consider it in the first place. Gaming is so saturated, all these days 1 buyers are fucking us over.

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- tatann@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Even worse than my backlog, there are all the comfort games I play every few years and which takes me months to complete (cause some of them are fairly long like The Witcher 3) and thanks to my crappy memory, multiple choices and mods I can enjoy them as much every time
  
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  - cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Been having that itch for witcher 3 again. What an amazing adveture
    
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arakhis_@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
c/patientgamers@sh.itjust.works

the more of us just wait a couple months, the cheaper it’ll get and the sooner too

:p

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DarkFuture@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I’ll enjoy buying it in 5 years during a Steam sale.

There’s an overabundance of games out there. I can wait.

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Hermit_Lailoken@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I don’t know if I will buy this game then.

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- bcgm3@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Will it be yet another Borderlands game that I don’t buy until the GOTY edition goes on sale for less than $20? “It might be.”
  
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  - Hermit_Lailoken@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Indeed.
    
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- altima_neo@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I didn’t bother with 3 thanks to it’s stupid epic store exclusivity
  
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  - Hermit_Lailoken@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Yeah, that was a bold strategy.
    
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PunkRockSportsFan@fanaticus.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Super Mario bros 3 was $59 in 1992

Borderlands 4 should be like $180 accounting for inflation

At $80 it’s not a terrible price.

Don’t get mad at me about our money being worthless.

I just wanna play games too.

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- TrippyHippyDan@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Super Mario Bros. 3 was released as a fully finished product that I actually own a physical copy of.
  
  Borderlands 4, will probably be a quarter finished when it released, filled with all kinds of apologies, possibly have micro transactions, and will likely be able to be taken out of my library at some point as it’s digital only.
  
  The value is not the same.
  
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  - PunkRockSportsFan@fanaticus.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    You’re right the value is not the same.
    
    Super Mario 3 would be $180 today.
    
    Borderlands 4 will be less than half that.
    
    It’s a good deal.
    
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  - etchinghillside@reddthat.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Think of how many more pixels you’re getting though.
    
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- acosmichippo@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  you can’t use straight 1:1 inflation to infer what the contemporary cost should be of digital products like video games, movies, tv shows, music etc. There is no physical asset to tie the individual product value to. There are of course production costs, but those are the same whether you make 10 thousand copies or 10 million.
  
  The reason inflation hasn’t hit video game prices is because the video game market has grown exponentially since the 90s. They make more money by selling low margin at higher volume, compared to high margin and low volume. It’s all about maximizing that total profit, not individual sales.
  
  Publishers can try to charge more, but it’ll be up to consumers if that actually gets them any more money overall. only time will tell.
  
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- jinarched@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Nah. I keep seeing this argument and I really disagree with it. It’s actually really simple economics; we don’t need to calculate inflation into this. If I think the price of something is too high (especially something I don’t need to survive), I don’t buy it. Companies can cry all they want, in the end I don’t care.
  
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  - prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    It doesn’t seem like you disagree with anything they said?
    
    If everyone followed your lead, the end result would be that video games don’t exist anymore. Just in case you didn’t play that out completely in your mind.
    
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  - Glide@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    What in the late-stage capitalist brainrot.
    
    It’s “simple economics” to attack people trying to make art and entertainment for having the gall to ever consider increasing their prices, knowing full well that the cost of living has increased drastically? You’re going with “that’s just the market telling them they’re charging too much” while ignoring the reality that rent has doubled - and in some cases tripled - food costs have gone up 50%, and wages have barely improved? It’s the fault of video game developers that you have relatively less money and cannot afford to purchase their product around the other products you need or are expected to purchase?
    
    If your wage increased with the cost of living, you would not see this price as “too high.” But because some price increases are on necessary purchases, we attack the unnessecary ones, like good little capitalists. Adam Smith would be proud.
    
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- ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  The industry is completely different now. The original was made in the 80s where programmers were hard to find and it took 10 of them 2 years and a million dollars to make. Then physical cartridges needed to be made and distributed that only ran on specialized hardware that also needed to be made and distributed. It selling for the equivalent of $180 could be justified since it was niche technology. There’s a reason Biggie Smalls brags about owning a Super Nintendo and a Sega Genesis in a rap song. That shit was expensive even in 1994.
  
  Today, someone can make Super Mario Bros 3 in a month after watching some game dev tutorials on YouTube, upload the .exe to Steam, and sell limitless copies to anyone who owns a computer. Selling it for $180 would be ridiculous. There’s no reason tech today should cost the exact same as it did in the 80s.
  
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- anyhow2503@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  1992 was a very different time with very different market conditions and consumer behaviour for video games. Games used to have a much greater perceived entertainment value, despite their relatively small development budgets compared with today. They were also entirely physical media and renting was still a very common way to play them. From what I remember, it wasn’t the most financially accessible hobby either. Most of my friends growing up didn’t have permanent access to their own gaming console and not everyone that did had all the latest games. Nowadays, the gaming market is completely saturated with high quality titles, most of which are fairly cheap as well if you don’t buy them on release.
  
  In any case: Super Mario Bros 3 came out in 1988 and released 1990 and 1991 for the US and Europe respectively. It also didn’t cost $59 and your inflation calculation seems off…
  
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- Aidinthel@reddthat.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I’m not sure where you’re numbers are coming from, but the inflation calculator I found through Google says that $59 in 1992 is more like $135 today. That’s still a significant increase of course, although I wonder how much publishers benefit from not needing as much physical distribution. After the initial investment selling digital keys on a third-party storefront like Steam should be pure profit, no?
  
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- Glide@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I hate that you get downvoted for pointing out the reality of the situation.
  
  Relative to the price of every else, $80 for a AAA videogame is actually reasonable. The problem is that rent has gone up drastically, food has gone up drastically, and our wages have stagnated. Getting pissed off at Gearbox for charging $80 for Borderlands 4, and then paying $15 for a burger and fries without an equal reaction just doesn’t seem sensible to me.
  
  Everything is awful, and videogame devs aren’t the ones stealing all our buying power.
  
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  - Drbreen@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Very in point. These same people complaining about the price of games will still buy a packet of chocolate biscuits for $7.
    
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- arakhis_@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  reddit moment
  
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- Dremor@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  $60 in 1992 is about $135 in April 2025, inflation included.
  
  Sure games became more complex, but tools became more powerfull, and so did computers.
  
  When in 1992 you often had to code your own engine, which amounted for a good chunk of the development cost. They had to do that using a ressource envelope magnitudes smaller than what we have today. Heck, a jpeg caoture of the original Mario game is bigger than the whole original game itself. And then, games where physical, which had to be included in the final price.
  
  Todays devs often uses off the shelf engines, tools that automate some of the tedious task, like naking trees (Speedtree) and asset reuse is done on an industrial level, there are even marketplaces for that. Moreober, game distribution changed to be mostly digital, you don’t need to factor the medium price into the asked price.
  
  You cannot really compare 1992 dev costs with modern ones. The whole way games are done changed way too much for that.
  
  Moreover, the market has grown way beyond what is was then. The required profit per copy sold is a lot smaller than it was then, and thus should be accojnted for.
  
  Honesty, I don’t see a AAA needing to have more than $60-70 atm, and I think this bump in price is entirely due to the ever increasing marketing cost, more than the game development.
  
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- Blaiz0r@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  That’s not how the market works
  
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scbasteve7@lemmynsfw.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
If it might be 80$, it might be the only borderlands game I don’t buy.

Don’t get it twisted, I’ll still play it. But I sure as shit won’t be buying it.

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- VitoRobles@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I bought Borderlands for like $30.
  
  I bought BL2 for $20.
  
  I got BL3 for free. (Which in kinda glad. The story was so ass.)
  
  Then I got Tiny Tina’s for like $5 from a bundle.
  
  Borderlands series hasn’t earned the $80 price tag.
  
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secret300@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
But is it any good? Just because the budget is higher doesn’t mean it’s good. I didn’t like the story and writing of 3 but the rest of the game I enjoyed. I’m kinda expecting the same, hopefully. Every AAA release somehow gets worse every year tho

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- 13igTyme@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I could look past the story and enjoy the gameplay. But the game itself still sucked and was very empty. A few months after launch they did an event where each week a different planet had a lot event and you could target items. 3 of the planets only had one or two areas to even farm decent numbers. Most of the game is empty.
  
  Combine that with my own personal issue with Gearbox removing the official forums, (which had years of builds and information going back to BL1) and a certain YouTuber stealing content and using modded weapons and then denying it. I have no interest in BL4.
  
  The old gearbox is dead. Even watching the video it just looks like reused skills. Oh look another character that puts enemies into floating balls, how original.
  
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the_q@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Nintendo really is the Apple of gaming.

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kurcatovium@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Sure, it might be $80,why not? Also I might skip it. Or wait for sensible sale like $5 in a bundle. Backlog keeps expanding anyway and I doubt this will be even worth half the rrlease asking price…

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Bakkoda@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
“Initial sales fall short of predictions”

At this point i appreciate the heads up from all the studios. Makes not buying the games much easier if you don’t even get on the hype train.

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Cris16228@lemmy.today ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I’ll wait for my girl to gift me the game 😍

She is fit 😏

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OmegaMan@lemmings.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Is anyone really excited for borderlands anymore? Feel like 2 of the last 3 were pretty mid.

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- samus12345@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  1 - good
  
  2 - good
  
  everything else - meh
  
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7arakun@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I feel like we keep seeing this headline. “AAA studio says current prices can’t support current budgets”

I almost never buy games at $60. I buy everything on sale, and there are constantly sales and way more games than I can play. They can charge whatever they want, I personally will be paying less.

Will the market bear $80 games? Maybe. I feel like a better strategy would be to reign in scope and budget and sell games at prices most people can afford. But who knows?

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- Yeller_king@reddthat.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Yeah, and half the time I prefer the games that were originally $20-$40 MSRP that I bought 50% off.
  
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  - 7arakun@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Yeah, I joke with my friends that game quality is inversely correlated with install size. 100GB+ open world or multiplayer game? Probably mid. 50MB indie game? Probably stays installed for the next 10 years.
    
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Blackmist@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
So $89.99 then.

Special edition with a 6" plastic Temu tat figurine and 1000 FREE BorderBucks will be $249.99.

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_spiffy@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I’ve been buying $80 for years thanks to being Canadian!

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- samus12345@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Now it’ll be $110!
  
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hperrin@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I’d be willing to pay that. But honestly, I’ll probably wait until it’s on sale.

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ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I once paid $140 (just pre-pandemic inflation) for a meal with two drinks at a fancy restaurant for a friend’s bachelor party. It was delicious. At the same time, I realized that no one meal, no matter how good, was worth that price. I don’t know what the threshold is for how much I’ll pay for a single video game, but $80 is more palatable to me when the game asking for it isn’t Mario Kart.

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- Droechai@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I’d gladly pay 80 bucks for games, Ive paid way more than that in 40K, Warmahordes and Advanced Squad Leader.
  
  If digital games would give me the same kind of “ownership”, like full access to the code and free reign to modify the rules sets as well as spreading those changes to friends and strangers I wouldn’t hesitate to spend similar amounts. However digital games, even physical on disks, has too many limitations as riders for that price to be motivated
  
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  - ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I wish we lived in a world close to that one, and maybe someday we’ll get there. Guilty Gear Strive’s source code just got leaked in its entirety, so complete that it can just be loaded as is into the Unreal editor, and a lot of people see this as a bad thing rather than the game ascending to immortality.
    
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Linktank@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
No thanks.

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peetabix@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Have any large developers ever made small high quality games? Or is that just not sustainable? I suppose the games would have to be repayable.

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lemmyhavesome@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
They’ll probably start it at $80 and be prepared to drop it down if sales are lower than expected. So gamers can tell them that the $80 price point is not ok by being patient and holding off on the purchase.

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- Mike_The_TV@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  They’ll still have plenty of people buy it for that shit price if only because they’ll give it free to a bunch of streamers and fomo will get the viewers.
  
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ABetterTomorrow@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Ok…… then do borderlands 1. That’s fine.

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vonxylofon@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I’ve paid money like that when I could see the effort and love thwt went into the game. I kinda saw that in BL2, but nothing in the series since comes even close.

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hedgehogging_the_bed@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
But are getting argyle gun skins?

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