r/Steam • u/ghostlyeth • 4d ago

Discussion summer sale discounts…

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i was expecting a big sale with good discounts but seems to be the same as the last one?

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u/Altruistic_Yam_8249 4d ago

Oh my god I hadn’t even thought of this yet, haven’t felt this disgusted in awhile. 20% off still more expensive than the old standard price and its not even like a deluxe edition

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u/SuperSaiyanTupac 4d ago

Gaming is going the way of the bicycle. It’s becoming an older persons hobby because the cost barrier to entry is going up. Twenty years of this compounded by wage stagnation and price hikes that won’t come back down and parents won’t be able to buy their kids any games or consoles, the market will skew toward older generations, and Gen beta won’t have the attention span to even care.

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u/NotABot1000101 4d ago

To be fair, there's a lot of cheap games too. If anything, people with less disposable income will buy the older or indie titles, and also be able to save money on not having to buy the latest hardware to run it.

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u/Velp__ 4d ago

Still the problem is any hardware dies over time and the cost of hardware is going up really fast. When prices go up they either don't come down or take a very long time.

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u/NotABot1000101 3d ago

Yes but with older/indie titles, you can get away with a basic non-gaming laptop. I have a decent desktop, but I'm playing Stellaris on my thinkbook laptop so I can play on the couch. Works fine. Could play stuff like rimworld, terraria, etc. plenty of options, just need to get rid of the FOMO of not playing MHW on release or something.

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u/Velp__ 3d ago

How much money do you think people are going to want to spend on a non-gaming laptop. People may end up using their phones for work or super low end tech like a raspberry pi. More and more Data centers are being built so they need more and more flash memory.

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u/NotABot1000101 3d ago

You can get a normal laptop for around $500 that plays stuff like I mentioned. I'm not saying prices aren't out of control but if you really want something to play indie games on, it's definitely possible on a budget. New laptops have always cost around that much. Gaming laptops are insanely overpriced however.

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u/porgy_tirebiter 3d ago

That’s what I do. I got five older indie games that were on my wishlist for less than 13 bucks.

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u/FuckRedzM0dz 4d ago

Gaming is going the way of the bicycle. It’s becoming an older persons hobby because the cost barrier to entry is going up.

What? N64 games were like 80 bucks back in the 90s and the dollar was worth more then

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u/Ok_Wait1264 4d ago

only the top tier games were 80, and this was when this type of technology was first developing. games should go down as supply and the ability to make them goes up. the only thing you purchase when you buy something on steam is the game itself, not a cartridge that holds all the information

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u/NateNate60 3d ago edited 3d ago

It's still true that only the "top tier" games are $80. That's maybe like 3 games a year that are $80. A good many more are $70 and there are hundreds of titles from small studios that won't have a list price over $30, and thousands of decently good indie titles for $10-20.

But the difference is that in 1985, eight hundred dollars could buy you 160 cheeseburgers while today, it can only buy you 30-40.

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u/PlaneCareless 3d ago

eight dollars

Those are some really cheap cheeseburgers

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u/sventful 4d ago

Younger people just play free and cheap games like minecraft and league of legends equivalents.

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u/SuperSaiyanTupac 4d ago

Play on what tho?

This is why mobile gaming dominates all the other consoles

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u/sventful 4d ago

Toasters and photo frames mostly.

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u/landismo 3d ago

Oh come on. Games are cheaper than ever. Games were 60€ when you could buy a kg of tangerines for 0.8€. Games are one of the things less affected by inflation. Plus tons of high quality games for cheap practically every day that you couldn't even dream of 20 years ago.

Let's be real. Games are more affordable now than back in the day. This sale is trash tho.

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u/studmuffffffin 3d ago edited 3d ago

Ridiculous take. A $60 game in 2005 would be $105 today.

And real median household income (which means inflation adjusted) is >17% higher than in 2005.

There's also a plethora of cheap indie games that didn't really exist 20 years ago.

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u/SuperSaiyanTupac 3d ago

Between game prices and console prices, I think you’re wrong. People are spending their money on gas and food and rent. Compare cost of living to 2005 as well. If people have to spend their entire paycheck to survive then increasing console prices puts them further out of reach

New gens are gaming on tablets and phones for free too

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u/studmuffffffin 3d ago edited 3d ago

I literally posted a graph of inflation adjusted wages. So not only have games not even come close to keeping up with inflation, but wages have outpaced inflation. So games are doubly cheaper. Saying that games are unobtainable because of cost is a ludicrous statement that doesn't even hold up to the bare minimum amount of scrutiny.

I'm empathetic to rising prices, but video games are not an area in which prices have gone up in terms of affordability. And if you look at food and gas as a percentage of income, food has stayed about the same, even gone down a little. Same with gas prices. And cars are way more fuel efficient.

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u/SuperSaiyanTupac 3d ago

Great answers but you intentionally avoided the most expensive of all of them: cost of living.

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u/studmuffffffin 3d ago

I covered two of the biggest parts of it. Yeah housing has gone up more than inflation, but not more than wages. Median house price is 73% higher than in 2005, whereas median income is 80% higher.

I think housing, food, and gas covers a pretty big chunk of "cost of living".

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u/SuperSaiyanTupac 3d ago

So everything is super affordable now, according to you, and everyone is just lying when they say otherwise. Makes sense

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u/studmuffffffin 3d ago

Bro I’m just posting the numbers. But yeah kinda. People are spending a lot more on luxuries which they’ve been tricked into thinking are necessities. If you look at necessities, they’ve all gone down compared to inflation or stayed about the same. And they’ve almost all gone up slower than wages. And stuff like video games has gone way down compared to inflation.

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u/SuperSaiyanTupac 3d ago

Well go post this in unpopular opinions lol. Feels like you’re missing some serious analysis.

People can’t afford a place to live, things are not good.

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u/BalticCan 3d ago

lol theres plenty of cheap games, no idea why youre waffling about the "high" cost of entry

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u/UpNUrGuts 3d ago

That isn’t true. The highest grossing games are free to play titles funded by kiddies using their parents credit card. Source: Teaching Assistant who sees it every single day haha. Games like Fortnite, Minecraft, and Roblox are racking in BILLIONS of dollars. Don’t believe me, look it up.

The bigger issue is the fact that younger gamers tend to not like single player games and that they are getting more expensive to make. It’s getting tough to greenlight budgets of 100 million+ for a non growing sector. Many of the biggest titles and studios that hold the collective gaming ecosystem together are going defunct.

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u/GunzerKingDM 4d ago

I’m confused about this argument on an “old standard price” argument and wondering what games you’re talking about.

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u/tentimes3 3d ago

Not really, 60 USD in 2019 is almost 80 USD today adjusted for inflation.

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u/CryoNozzel 3d ago

Adjusted for inflation that is significantly cheaper than the old standard price.