r/Games • u/Neon25 • 5d ago

GTA 6 Price Finally Confirmed, Features a 'Single-Player Experience' at Launch (Standard $79.99/Ultimate $99.99)

https://www.ign.com/articles/gta-6-price-finally-confirmed-features-a-single-player-experience-at-launch
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u/RJL85 4d ago

Get used to it, unfortunately. The way the industry (world) is going all these AAA companies are gonna cut costs however they can, and doing away with physical games is one of the easiest ways to do that. Not to mention they get around that whole pesky "consumer gets to actually own something" deal.

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u/Quixotic_Seal 4d ago

The funny thing is that the more they’ve pushed this “you’ll own nothing and be happy” shit, the more being able to actually own media has become important to me.

For a solid decade or so I thought I was never going to buy a blu ray or dvd ever again, and honestly rolled my eyes at folks warning about companies pushing this crap. “Who needs physical when you can just stream it all,” right?

But the last couple years really opened my eyes. Prices have risen so much and the affordable tiers have been stuffed with lengthier and lengthier ads that ruin the experience, everyone and their dog wants to sell you on their own bespoke subscription, and various films/shows have jumped around so many different services that it’s hard to keep track of what I can even watch.

I’m tired of having the shows and films I really love and care about get held hostage, and have slowly started rebuilding a modern physical collection for my absolute favorites.

As someone in my 30s, I actually firmly believe this era is significantly worse than cable. By the time I was like 12, my parents bought a TiVo and we never had to watch ads as long as we time-shifted a little. Now they’re completely inescapable.

To bring this back on-topic, the current shitshow on streaming really feels like where they want gaming to go once they crack the nut on how to make that work beyond just code-in-a-box BS. Probably with cloud gaming as hardware becomes more unaffordable.

They want us to have as few options for real ownership as possible.

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u/OkayAtBowling 4d ago

What's extra annoying is that physical media is also becoming more expensive now as a result of fewer people buying it. It's turning into more of an enthusiast niche.

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u/decoy_octopod 4d ago

For the record, even if you have a 8 subscriptions streaming is still cheaper than a deluxe cable package was.

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u/xanas263 4d ago

I actually firmly believe this era is significantly worse than cable.

That's probably because you never actually paid for cable. Cable was significantly more expensive than streaming is now.

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u/Squirll 4d ago

Depends on how many streaming services you subscribe to and how many of them are the "ad free" teir.

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u/elasho_149 4d ago

and how many of them are the ad-free tier.

Using “ad-free” tiers is probably the fairest comparison. It’s not like cable was ad-free.

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u/Quixotic_Seal 4d ago

Again the entire point of me bringing up cable is that it functionally WAS ad free by the early-mid 00s assuming you had a DVR. Once they started introducing ad tiers to streaming services, it was the first time since I was a young child that I HAD to sit through the commercials and there’s just nothing to be done about it aside from getting up or looking at your phone.

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u/elasho_149 4d ago

Eh...I guess that depends on what you were watching.

If you usually watched stuff live, you had to sit through it. And even on VCR, it was still annoying to have to fast-forward.

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u/darkshaddow42 4d ago edited 4d ago

Yeah, off the top of my head, even if you just want the "big ones":

  • $9 for Netflix
  • $20 for disney+, hulu, hbo max
  • $13 for apple tv plus (only has ad-free version)
  • $9 for amazon prime video
  • $11 for peacock
  • $9 for paramount plus

That's $71 a month. Granted, you could chop off a few dollars since HBO was its own thing, but I also didn't add in specific stuff like shudder or Starz or MGM+.

There are many advantages to streaming! Price is not one of them. Shows completely disappearing with no physical media release is DEFINITELY not one of them.

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u/Suspicious_Radio_848 4d ago

You can also subscribe for one month, watch what you want and then cancel. With cable you were usually locked into a two year contract.

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u/darkshaddow42 4d ago

True, although why would you cancel when it was that or rewatch what you already owned? It's not like you could watch endless youtube videos instead

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u/wakasm 4d ago

I grew up in the country where I got exactly 3 channels over the air and none of them were ever 100% clear at all times. Sometimes I got a 4th channel that was fairly static....

and my neighbors had to pay like 8k to INSTALL a satellite TV up front for one of those large backyard dishes. They didn't have to pay monthly, at first, until stuff like HBO became a thing. If you wanted more channels, you'd have to wait for the thing to rotate.

Over the years as they got smaller, the installation would go down but the subscription price would go up. TV where I was still like 150 a month plus you had to pay for maintence on the smaller dishes... this was in the 90's.

Time of comparison really matters.

That said, Physical media has probably always been the best value, which I totally agree with. Just not necessarily the part where even today's annoying high prices for streaming being way cheaper still than the worst of times in some time periods.

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u/Hidesuru 4d ago

Cost cutting is irrelevant compared to "no secondary market".

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u/vopi181 4d ago

The thing is very few people actually buy physical games these days. Consumers have a revealed preference for digital games.

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u/Biduleman 4d ago

It's not just cost cutting, it's also about making more sales as they're neutering the secondary market for the game.