Video game prices have remained the same for nearly 3 decades so why do we complain?

Zazen

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This is something I've never understood. Modern gamers are so spoiled. With the recent backlash against EA I find myself having mixed feelings. On one hand I do think EA could have handled this better but on the other hand I'm not completely against loot boxes. Things have changed a lot since the early days of gaming. Think of all the work that goes into making these beautiful cut scenes. Everyone wants hundreds of hours of content and nobody wants to read text anymore therefore companies are paying top voice talent to record character voices.

Now go back in time when we didn't have any of these things and guess what? I still paid the same price for those games. I remember buying some N64 games for 60 dollars or more when they were brand new. If I remember correctly Sega Genesis games were priced at 49.99.

So why are so many people complaining about DLC?
 
I hate feeling Nickled and dimed. I would rather they sell full games and raise the price then sell a games with a bunch of content held back and sold seperately
 
I hate feeling Nickled and dimed. I would rather they sell full games and raise the price then sell a games with a bunch of content held back and sold seperately
I totally agree with this. I'd gladly pay more for a full game than feeling pressured to buy upgrades, DLC, etc.
 
I think that the increase in games being brought out constantly doesn't help. You could blow so much on new releases each month its insane.

People appreciated games more years back. All my fondest gaming memories are before the huge hardware race took place.
 
So why are so many people complaining about DLC?

You kind of skipped over a lot. There is some DLC that is OK. There is some that is not OK. Charging $60 for an incomplete game and expecting players to buy DLC to finish out the game is not OK.

In the case of EA, they are guilty of locking a big chunk of the game behind a pay wall. The last estimate was $2100 to fully unlock everything in Battlefront II. Is that an acceptable cost to you?

You say game prices have remained the same, but failed to mention AAA companies are selling more copies than ever before.
 
You kind of skipped over a lot. There is some DLC that is OK. There is some that is not OK. Charging $60 for an incomplete game and expecting players to buy DLC to finish out the game is not OK.

In the case of EA, they are guilty of locking a big chunk of the game behind a pay wall. The last estimate was $2100 to fully unlock everything in Battlefront II. Is that an acceptable cost to you?

You say game prices have remained the same, but failed to mention AAA companies are selling more copies than ever before.

You don't have to buy it though. I also own Injustice II and I love that game and it also has a lot of DLC.
 
Paying 80 dollars for a game only to have a bunch of shit behind a paywall or a insane grind is retarded.
 
You kind of skipped over a lot. There is some DLC that is OK. There is some that is not OK. Charging $60 for an incomplete game and expecting players to buy DLC to finish out the game is not OK.

In the case of EA, they are guilty of locking a big chunk of the game behind a pay wall. The last estimate was $2100 to fully unlock everything in Battlefront II. Is that an acceptable cost to you?

You say game prices have remained the same, but failed to mention AAA companies are selling more copies than ever before.

They're also spending a lot more to make them than ever before.
 
But making more money then ever

But the budgets increase is still larger than whatever increase in sales they might have. A million copies of Doom was a big deal. Now it's considered underperforming for a AAA title.

But doom was also made in like 15 months by a team of what? Like 12-15? Nowadays you literally have hundreds of people working for years on one title, and most of the positions requiring education and expertise. The budgets for some of these games are on par with Hollywood blockbusters. The increase in budgets is astronomical. Sales have increased as well, but not nearly at the same rate.

This TS raises a point I've brought up somewhat regularly. DLC is a necessity if we don't want a price hike. there's certainly crap content that's overpriced, I find almost all of it overpriced honestly. But I also feel like there's a lot of "sky is falling" overdramatics about it as well. It should be judged on an individual basis but often times the drama overshadows the actual content being provided. Evolve is a classic example. The DLC was fair, but people bitched and moaned and didn't even understand what the DLC was.
 
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But the budgets increase is still larger than whatever increase in sales they might have. A million copies of Doom was a big deal. Now it's considered underperforming for a AAA title.

But doom was also made in like 15 months by a team of what? Like 12-15? Nowadays you literally have hundreds of people working for years on one title, and most of the positions requiring education and expertise. The budgets for some of these games are on par with Hollywood blockbusters. The increase in budgets is astronomical. Sales have increased as well, but not nearly at the same rate.

This TS raises a point I've brought up somewhat regularly. DLC is a necessity if we don't want a price hike. there's certainly crap content that's overpriced, I find almost all of it overpriced honestly. But I also feel like there's a lot of "sky is falling" overdramatics about it as well. It should be judged on an individual basis but often times the drama overshadows the actual content being provided. Evolve is a classic example. The DLC was fair, but people hitched and moaned and didn't even understand what the DLC was.

DLC is a good thing when used right. Anything that does not alter the story of the main game is ok, cosmetics are ok. What I don't like are DLC that finish the story of the main game, and day 1 DLC.
 
But the budgets increase is still larger than whatever increase in sales they might have. A million copies of Doom was a big deal. Now it's considered underperforming for a AAA title.

But doom was also made in like 15 months by a team of what? Like 12-15? Nowadays you literally have hundreds of people working for years on one title, and most of the positions requiring education and expertise. The budgets for some of these games are on par with Hollywood blockbusters. The increase in budgets is astronomical. Sales have increased as well, but not nearly at the same rate.

This TS raises a point I've brought up somewhat regularly. DLC is a necessity if we don't want a price hike. there's certainly crap content that's overpriced, I find almost all of it overpriced honestly. But I also feel like there's a lot of "sky is falling" overdramatics about it as well. It should be judged on an individual basis but often times the drama overshadows the actual content being provided. Evolve is a classic example. The DLC was fair, but people hitched and moaned and didn't even understand what the DLC was.

If you think billion dollar companies and franchises are doing this because they are hurting for money thats pretty naive. They have armies of people researching how to squeeze every last penny out of people not to mention the hundreds of millions they spend on marketing trying to get people to buy into their shit. Not all DLC is bad a lot is still fair I think but the backlash you see now is they pushed it to far and people are pissed.
 
Seems like I remember buying PS1 games at like 29.99....not 59.
 
If you think billion dollar companies and franchises are doing this because they are hurting for money thats pretty naive. They have armies of people researching how to squeeze every last penny out of people not to mention the hundreds of millions they spend on marketing trying to get people to buy into their shit. Not all DLC is bad a lot is still fair I think but the backlash you see now is they pushed it to far and people are pissed.

I didn't say they were hurting for money. But it's just as naive to think costs will undergo a rapid increase without affecting price.

I doubt "armies" of people are doing this. And at the end of the day buying something is a personal choice regardless of how much advertisement is done.
 
DLC is a good thing when used right. Anything that does not alter the story of the main game is ok, cosmetics are ok. What I don't like are DLC that finish the story of the main game, and day 1 DLC.

I doubt you'll find many people disagreeing with you for the most part. Although it has been shown how day one DLC is, imo, perfectly acceptable depending on cost/content. What I mean is it isn't the same thing as "withholding" content.

I play a lot of games. I can't say Ive ever had the main story unable to be finished without buying DLC. I'm sure it's happened at some point, but I can't say I'm too worried about it because it seems so rare.
 
The last estimate was $2100 to fully unlock everything in Battlefront II. Is that an acceptable cost to you?

Good god. No wonder everyone is complaining.
 
I didn't say they were hurting for money. But it's just as naive to think costs will undergo a rapid increase without affecting price.

I doubt "armies" of people are doing this. And at the end of the day buying something is a personal choice regardless of how much advertisement is done.

The cost of game development are low compared to the marketing and research that goes into selling people some of this crap. The production companies absolutely have groups coming up with ways to try and get people to buy their loot boxes and in game currency and its shady as hell and only getting worse as time goes on.
 
Gaming is an incredibly affordable hobby. My problem isn't with the cost of gaming, but with the deceitful tactics of modern gaming companies. If you want to charge $100 for a game, then charge $100 for a game... but don't charge me $60 for a game, and then ruin the gaming experience by purposefully forcing me to grind, or play the game in a tedious way, in an attempt to encourage (or trick) me into spending more money to play the game the way it should have been designed from the start.
 
They're also spending a lot more to make them than ever before.
Not a good excuse. Many Indy companies are pumping out much better games on a significantly lower budget.

The main criticism I think we can all agree on is that once a company reaches a certain size money drives them more than quality of games.
 
If you really don't understand why anyone is upset at the practices of companies like EA, Activision, etc, then nothing anyone says here will convince you otherwise.
 
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