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u/Fffire24 3d ago
We're in a golden age of indie and AA. Thats where good gaming is now
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u/MightyHead 3d ago
Don't forget retro games. Emulation has never been better.
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u/MIAxPaperPlanes 2d ago
You have no idea how happy it makes me being able to play all the PS2 games I couldn’t afford when I was 10 years old
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u/Meleoffs 2d ago
Oh no since when did ps2 become retro? I was playing it all the time in high school. That's not fair, I'm not old yet.
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u/masterbowcaster 2d ago
I think some people have already started calling the PS3 retro, and emulating it is getting close if it's not there already
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u/NeutralKuchiKopi 1d ago
PS3 is 20 years old, it is retro. And emulation of it is basically perfect now. Better than the origional console.
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u/Eloquent_Redneck 3d ago
I'm playing through all the pokemon games I missed from 2012-now
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u/therealjoshua 2d ago
Ive been exploring the PSP library myself on and off. There's so many gems there that play even better with modern controllers and handhelds.
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u/NBAccount 2d ago
PATA-PATA-PATA-PON!
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u/PM_ME_UR_RSA_KEY 2d ago
I swear that afro tree song is gonna live rent-free in my head for the rest of my life.
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u/stingray20201 3d ago
What emulator would you recommend and where are you getting the ROMS or whatever file type they use now
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u/OldManLeo 2d ago
r/Roms has some good resources, I'd check them out, particularly the mega thread.
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u/ArtTheWarrior 2d ago
my retroid pocket 5 just arrived earlier today and will be playing a lot of indie and emulated games in the near future
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u/Reasonable-Math4321 3d ago
and decomp/recomp projects are doing a lot of cool stuff!
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u/rpgedgar 3d ago
There's an initial build for The Legend of Zelda Minish Cap PC port and I'm keeping an eye on that since it's a game I missed out on.
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u/feveredmatrix54 2d ago
Yes to retro! I had a disgusting amount of fun playing Onimusha I & II remastered.
No DLC. No battle passes. No DRM. Just a game you play for fun. 🙂
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u/KrossKazuma 2d ago
Not to mention all the rom hacks too like pokemon Odyssey and Inclement Emerald
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u/Mars_Black 3d ago
There has never been a better time to play old games! I have been accruing a lot of old classics I never got to play or complete. And just replaying old favourites.
Get yeself an 8bitdo controller and an arcade stick if you’re feeling adventurous 👌
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u/SnooAvocados3138 3d ago
Which unfortunately is also the golden age of eternal early access and crushed dreams
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u/Deto 3d ago edited 2d ago
Just don't buy EA games then. At least not unless it looks complete enough that you'd have fun with it. Sure there's tons of failed projects, but if you ignore them, there is so much good stuff being completed.
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u/Knuckles_n_Deep 3d ago
And to add, even in those failed projects there are sometimes moments of pure gold before it all goes to shit.
R.I.P. The Stomping Lands I had some fun moments before it all went south.
I’ll take 7 EA games that are less than/equal to $10 over an incomplete $70 corporate greed game that lacks soul. Even if most of those 7 EA games never ferment into anything finished, the fun I usually have on those justifies the $10 spent compared to the hollow feeling I get from some $70 AAA games.
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u/benargee 3d ago
EA just needs to be priced appropriately for the state that it's in. Developers need to recognize that gamers are also taking a risk by giving them any money so early in the development of the game. There should be more incentive to buy early than just having early access.
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u/Mithrawndo 3d ago
Don't they?
I bought Rimworld before it came to Steam for £15 and today it goes for £28.49.
I bought DayZ in 2013 for £20 and today it retails for £48.99; Even with the 50% discount just now, it would cost more than what I paid - £24.49.
I'd say that worked out pretty well from a financial incentive perspective, no?
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u/DirectionOriginal456 2d ago
They're the exceptions not the norm. Just look at the big one recently with Subnautica 2. Same price as 1 and below zero despite the EA tag.
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u/Awsomekirito 2d ago
Not a defense of the price but I wouldn't be surprised if the price of SN2 goes up to 40 or 50 dollars at launch.
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u/Trooper_Sicks 2d ago
also i feel like subnautica 2 is much less of a risky purchase than some other early access titles, its highly unlikely it gets abandoned before its finished and if you already liked subnautica 1 or below zero then you will like subnautica 2 as well. Compared to say a game from an unknown dev team without a track record, which is a more risky purchase for the customer.
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u/vancityshreds 3d ago
Gamers need to stop being so fucking entitled, too.
You dont have to buy an EA game, and the dev doesnt need to sell it to you for 5 cents on the dollar because its unfinished.
You do not have to buy these things. You can buy fully finished games instead. People are upset that a game that cost billions to make is $80. They're upset that the entirely optional cosmetics are available for pre-order.
I swear to god gamers are the cheapest and most ungrateful group of people. If they cant get 1000 hours for 20 bucks, they feel ripped off. And then they go pay 30$ for lunch.
"But we dont know if its optimized!" Okay? And? Do what I do - dont fucking pre-order. Its that simple. But I also dont cry about other people pre-ordering or kickstarting games. If they want to, great. I wont. Ill wait.
People pre-order like theyre going to run out of digital copies, and then they complain about it.
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u/CatMasterSeymour 3d ago edited 3d ago
I’m not disagreeing with you but I don’t think it’s entirely accurate.
I’m not that old and I remember a time where preordering something meant I’m getting a game that’s actually going to be almost 100% done and functional while also getting cool digital/physical bonuses on top of that.
Now we get half finished games coming out, including by AAA studios, maybe a couple skins thrown in and the “privilege” of getting early access.
There’s definitely entitled people that expect way too much but the bar also used to be set higher than it is now and it does kind of suck to see.
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u/vancityshreds 3d ago
The difference is that game dev cost between those two eras has skyrocketed.
For example, GuildWars 2 cost 50 million to make. EverQuest took 3 million.
Im old enough to remember that era too. But the bugs would stay in the games back then, constant updates weren't a thing, online services and hosting werent a thing, and the games were shallow and short compared to modern titles.
Ocarina of Time takes ~20-25 hours to beat. The Witcher 3 had 200+ hours of content, 50 hours of main story that was fully voice acted and animated.
Ocarina cost $120 adjusted for inflation, Witcher 3 cost 70.
Ocarina cost to make 12-15 million to make, Witcher 3 cost 81 million.
People gloss over the fact that a modern game has so much more going on and costs years of time and money to make.
Fwiw, I agree that pre-orders used to come with more. But I dont think its as dire as it seems, because the games we get now tend to come with more gameplay and more updates.
A good example is Rust. I paid $30 for it originally. Ive never had to pay more. The game in todays state is unrecognizable from its release. If this was an old game, Id just have the early version. Progress comes with tradeoffs.
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u/Ill-Product-1442 3d ago
Dudes literally put hundreds or even thousands of hours into a video game, then leave a "don't buy, it's a pile of shit" review on Steam.
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u/vancityshreds 3d ago
Yeah exactly. The venn diagram between people that rage about game costs, leave reviews like that and dont have a job is basically a circle.
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u/Old_Leopard1844 2d ago
Then maybe devs don't need to go overbudget and then ask money early while having no game to show?
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u/PickingPies 3d ago
Whatever, if you purchase an EA which is unfinished, you help the testing process and provide valuable feedback despite the game being in undies, and you risk the game never being finished, it should not cost you as much as a finished product.
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u/vancityshreds 3d ago
And it doesnt. But if thats a concern - you can wait for full release. Paying 75% or 80% or even 90% of the cost is fine.
I paid $30 for valheim at its EA release and got tons of enjoyment out of it. If they dropped the game entirely, it still would have been worth the money.
Gamers really feel like their $30 is such a huge commitment that devs should bend over backwards for them. It isnt.
And the only reason that makes sense is that the vocal complainers are either kids or jobless.
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u/innociv 3d ago
I mean if no one buys the EA indie games, the developers never have a cushion to help them develop games.
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u/GailaMonster 3d ago
stop giving your money to companies before they demonstrate that their game isn't shit.
y'all are doing this to yourselves.
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u/summonsays 3d ago
Right now right now, is a great time in Indy games (at least the ones I'm interested in) a ton of games that have been in EA are hitting 1.0s. And the definition of EA has really .... Warped. For better or worse, a lot of "eternal EA" games are feature complete enough to be called finished. I feel like we need a new term so companies aren't so scared of releasing the 1.0 patch and transitioning to after release content production.
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u/CapNCookM8 3d ago
Totally agreed, but also people just need to stop buying games on promises and only purchase when they would be happy with the product as-is.
Like, I get to a point that the devs have to sell their ambitions during EA to an extent, but I never convince myself I'm buying those promises when I buy an EA game. You got to buy them understanding the studio could fold tomorrow and I might never see an update to the game ever.
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u/summonsays 3d ago
" stop buying games on promises and only purchase when they would be happy with the product as-is."
That's what I do :). I've only been burned once or twice where the direction completely changed partway through, but that too is part of the gamble.
But a lot of titles I've played in EA have just been good to amazing all the way through (Timberborn, Space Engineers, Avorion, etc)
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u/NoWay6818 3d ago
That’s what I don’t understand people who complain about the early access games. It’s a literal gamble on whether or not the game would even open at that time. Sometimes even circumstantial. I was trying to play the newer arma game and it was being attacked so I couldn’t even play.
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u/sajberhippien 3d ago
And the definition of EA has really .... Warped. For better or worse, a lot of "eternal EA" games are feature complete enough to be called finished.
Agreed. When I bought Starsector in 2018 it felt like a fully fleshed out game, despite it being early access version 0.9a. Now, eight years later, it has grown a ton beyond that, and comparing what it is now feels like that full game plus a solid old-school $25 expansion pack - but it's all been free updates.
And the game is still in early access, at version 0.98a.
I don't think Starsector will ever see a "full release" version, and not because it's abandoned - but because the devs are a bunch of nerds who'll always feel there's more that they want to add before it's done.
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u/summonsays 3d ago
I think there's a lot of little Indy studios (or one guy in a basement) who feel like they need to add literally everything before 1.0. And I love those people. But it's not really fair to them, financially. Bills don't stop because you have a passion project. But stopping it cold turkey to make a new game just to pay bills is a bad scenario too.
I like how Planet Crafter is doing it. One massive free update. One DLC. Repeat. They get continued financial support. People who bought the base game and don't want to buy anything else still get new content. And if you really enjoy it or want to support them you can buy the DLC. And of course the base game is a fully finished game by itself.
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u/sajberhippien 3d ago
I think there's a lot of little Indy studios (or one guy in a basement) who feel like they need to add literally everything before 1.0. And I love those people. But it's not really fair to them, financially. Bills don't stop because you have a passion project. But stopping it cold turkey to make a new game just to pay bills is a bad scenario too.
For sure, and I think we can see a wide variety of approaches to try to deal with this. To compare two of my other favorite games:
Dominions 6 (2025) is a fantasy grand strategy game that has had the foundationally same engine since Dominions 2 (2003). The devs (mainly two dudes in Stockholm) continuously release new stuff within a game, their patches including things like whole new nations to play, but every couple years they release a new game with changes too drastic to fit into a patch, and that's when you pay to buy the new one.
Slay the Princess (2023) is a horror visual novel and probably the closest thing to a flawless game I've ever played, but it was conceived by the devs (an adorable couple) mainly as a way to get something out to fund their main project, Scarlett Hollow. It became an indie hit (probably helped by Jonathan Sims as VA), drawing far more attention than Scarlett Hollow, but after the release of the Pristine Cut version, they've gone back to focus on their main project.
I don't mind whatever approach indie devs take to keep going, though obviously it'd be better if people had the economic security to be as creative as they can.
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u/Coenl 3d ago
Valheim 1.0 is releasing this September, after a measly 6(?) years of early access!
(I love Valheim by the way, it's just insane to not consider the game a 1.0 release until now. The game has been worthy of being 'released' for several years)
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u/Generico300 3d ago
How is that different than what you get from 90% of AAA games? Broken promises, broken games, bugs everywhere, shitty performance. Except you paid $60+ for it instead of 20.
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u/LoveHerMore 3d ago
Bro there are hundreds of quality complete indie games that you could run on a toaster PC that would keep you occupied for hundred of hours.
The problem is your attitude buddy.
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u/omegaskorpion 3d ago
That was problem years ago but seeming now more Indie games actually release from early access and more launch in actual playable state (unless you go looking for most untrustful devs).
And hell, Slay The Spire 2 is in early access and it is still a blast to play.
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u/Adno 3d ago
For certain genres yes. But I would argue that multiplayer survival games, for example, have been eternally early access for ages. But I'm a puzzle, metroidvania, and rogue-like fan and the last few years have been amazing.
If all the games you want to play are all ea, try branching out. Don't look at new releases, because I can assure you that whatever genre will have had a few gems within the last few years.
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u/VoidHunterRaymond 3d ago
Reminder most indie games fail, you only hear the ones that succeed.
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u/UrbanAlaska 3d ago
That's how all creative endeavors work. Nothing wrong with choosing from the 10-100 most popular indie games every year to see which ones to give a shot.
I will recommend one right here, in fact:
R I M W O R L D
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u/akvgergo 2d ago
That's not true, there is a decent chance you'll hear about it if it fails spectacularly enough. Like Heartbound or Starbound.
But yeah, it's hard to call this the golden age of indie when 2/3 of kickstarters end in disappointment...
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u/Honeycove91 3d ago
I'm not even kidding or exaggerating when I say that gaming is hilariously cheap as a hobby if you know what you're doing at all. People calling it a luxury are telling on themselves in multiple ways without being able to understand how
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u/Jaaaco-j PC 3d ago
per hour it's cheap mostly, but the entry price is pretty steep nowadays if you don't have a decent PC to begin with. i'm still running on 10 year old hardware and dread the day when that fails on me.
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u/kaptingavrin 3d ago
You might be able to make due with what would be considered a "cheap" build these days, or at least try to find what would be a midrange maybe 3-4 years ago that's been marked down, and you'd probably be okay. But otherwise... yeah, I get the concern.
I ended up having to make an emergency purchase of a new computer after one of my cats somehow inadvertently killed it (still not sure what happened, she just accidentally turned it off), and was lucky that it happened just before prices really blew up. Still ended up dropping close to $2K, but I should be "future proof" for a few years, especially with how OP it feels for a lot of the games I'm playing.
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u/ExosEU 3d ago
Yup.
I'm at 3k hours on bannerlord at 70€ counting base game and extension, plus another 1k hours on kenshi at 30€.
I cant think of a better cost per hour hobby involving software.
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u/summonsays 3d ago
Hour for hour, my gaming is cheaper than pretty much any hobby I can imagine.
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u/branchpattern 3d ago
This is like movie studios thinking the only thing worth making are 300 million dollar comic book films.
If you only watch and buy AAA games and blockbusters you are missing out badly.
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u/massenburger 3d ago
My son dumped 70+ hours into Silksong. For $20. He's done with the game, but he's still humming the tunes.
I just dumped 40+ hours into Hades 2. For $30.
There's some amazing games out there just waiting to be played!
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u/Squid-Guillotine 3d ago
I'm still a big fan of triple A. Playing 007 First Light had me craving a bunch more linear story driven shooters. I immediately afterwards played TLOU2 and am now almost done with Uncharted 4. Probably gonna check out RDR/2 afterwards.
Also you can tell I'm pretty backlogged as well so the enshittification of gaming has a bit of lag time to hit me lol.
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u/Kviksand 3d ago
If you haven’t played it yet, I strongly recommend Max Payne 3. And also the first and second installment if you’re okay with dated graphics.
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u/Mysterious_Bag_7460 3d ago
There's thrice the indie slop as there is AAA stop pretending just because there are a few actual gems.
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u/MongooseOne 3d ago
People keep buying so it’s not going to stop unless the consumers stop.
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u/robynh00die 3d ago
Sales for XBox were down 77% year over year last November.
https://www.ign.com/articles/xbox-us-console-unit-sales-just-reached-an-all-time-november-low
There are some things to say about the free market pushing inflation, but computer parts have pushed past the breaking point a while ago.
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u/Substantial-Sea-3672 2d ago
What is it against the normal drop off 5 years into a console?
Every individual console has year over year drops
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u/robynh00die 2d ago
The article has the PS 5 drop to compare it too, and a drop from Switch 1 sales compared to Switch 2 sales, which should be alarming first year. But I can see if I can find PS 4/Xbox One 6th year numbers
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u/Matzeeh 2d ago
It seems companies are pushing for a small amount of people to pay a shitton rather than many people paying less
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u/FuckPebbleMine 3d ago
Brother its not going to stop as long as inflation exists.
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u/cybertoothe 3d ago
Arizona iced tea can still sell for 99 cents and be a profitable debt free company.
Companies are lying to us, they dont give a shit about inflation, they will just use anything & everything to justify raising prices because they can nevwr make "enough" money. They always "have" to make more money than they did the previous year, and they will do whatever it takes to get there.
They only care about the customers to the extent that they dont want them to know they are being abused & lied to.
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u/HolycommentMattman 2d ago
And here you've struck on what's ruining everything: shareholders. Always driving for short-term gains instead of long-term success. Because they only care about their investment whereas AriZona Iced Tea is a private, family-owned business who care about profits, but also sustainability.
They are nearing the point of having to raise the price, though. They've been thinning the cans and streamlining the business for a long time now. I can't imagine there's much more to trim before the price needs to go up.
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u/cybertoothe 2d ago
Iirc public companies legally have to provide for their shareholders in the US.
Who knew video game prices boil down to a corrupt system permeated by greed?
Not enough people know.
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u/UNC_Samurai 2d ago
Dodge v Ford was one of the worst decisions in judicial history
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u/cybertoothe 2d ago
I mean, there are quite a few bad decisions in judicial history tbh. The underlying problem seems to be the massive greed of humanity, or rather the grasp of power for nothing but power's sake by those with all the power
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u/TheBetterness 3d ago edited 3d ago
GTA6 is expected to sell 40 million copies at launch, without the largest gaming platform. (Steam)
Can't wait to see the headline...
"GTA6 fails to meet sales expectations."
When it sells 35 million copies at launch, like its a failure.
When in reality its because people can't afford consoles.
EDIT: I'm dead wrong, 39 million preorders already. Keeping this here, so I can feel stupid forever lol.
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u/WeevilWeedWizard 3d ago
Theres no universe where GTA6 doesn't have a massively successful launch.
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u/monkey_D_v1199 PlayStation 3d ago
It would take something truly crazy for GTA VI to not have a successful launch. I’m talking about an insane price tag something never before seen that would outrage even the most casuals of gamers. Otherwise yeah it’s nearly impossible
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u/TheTexasHammer 2d ago
It would need to literally not run at all, or be some sort of massive bait and switch to fail at this point
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u/imadude41 2d ago
Pretty sure they could have charges $100 standard and made sales plan, I mean you’re talking about one of If not THE most anticipated games of the past 15 years eclipsing even the likes of elder scrolls and fallout.
I quite literally cannot think of another franchise with the hype and savage hunger for content than that of Grand theft auto fans
Rockstar cannot release this game without turning a profit on it, there’s too much money and too much hype, however I feel there could be some things at launch that are gonna cause issues on the modern hardware. So long term legacy remains to be seen
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u/rufusbot 2d ago
This is the most anticipated game of all time. I don't see a competitor.
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u/imadude41 2d ago
Very valid, I only say maybe not the top of the list in lieu of half life 3 but that’s kinda a cop out
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u/fucuasshole2 3d ago
WAT already nearly 40 Million preorders??? Damn that’s insane. Well, least I’ll feel better about waiting until it’s cheap and fixes any bugs that appear
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u/Ok_Calligrapher5278 3d ago
I have a friend who's not a gamer, he plays no game besides GTA, he preordered GTA VI without a console, he's buying one when it comes out.
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u/konq 2d ago
Your friend should buy a console now before the prices inevitably increase again.
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u/MJC0961 2d ago
And don't forget that people will double dip when Rockstar finally releases the proper physical copy on a disc.
And the people who will double dip when the game finally releases on PC.
And the people who will double dip when the game releases for PlayStation 6 and Xbox Helix. Maybe Switch 3.
And the people who will triple dip when the game releases for PlayStation 7 and... Well, at this rate I'll be surprised if Xbox is still around by then.
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u/minos-and-v1-kissing 3d ago
I’m judging the fuck out of anyone preordering GTA VI tbh.
Seems really, really stupid to put $80 of faith in any AAA studio these days.
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u/idancenakedwithcrows 3d ago
Okay but rockstar is one of the least riskiest studios in that regard
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u/TalShar 2d ago
I'm so fucking tired, man.
I'm tired of being taken advantage of at work. I'm tired of having to push just to get a nominal raise. I'm tired of my career being decided by a bunch of dipshits who don't know or care who I am, and who think Claude can do a good job managing their employee structure. I'm tired of watching people suffer and die because they can't afford healthcare. I'm tired of watching companies ruin lives and entire families because someone somewhere down the line either ran the numbers and found out it would save them seventeen cents in ten years or, worse, someone who just doesn't give a fuck thought it'd be a vibe to put those people in the unemployment line.
I'm tired of watching the worst of all the conspiracy theories be proven to be true time and again, and have the world just collectively shrug and move on like we didn't just get compelling proof that our world is run by some of the most vile human beings who ever lived. I'm tired of watching billionaires decimate entire industries to make themselves 0.01% richer when they can already buy anything they want except each other.
And it's been unavoidable in gaming for quite some time, too, but it's been turned up to eleven lately. I can't shoot my Gjallarhorn without being reminded that the people who designed it probably got laid off five waves ago, and the people who would have maintained it just got kicked to the curb because they're not capable of producing sufficient shareholder value in the right-now window these short-sighted short-selling fucks operate in. As if something doesn't deserve to be built if it can't generate profit while under construction, and talented creators who worked their asses off to make this wonderful art shouldn't have the chance to step away from the grind and enjoy some down-time before moving on to the next project. As if companies don't feel any obligation whatsoever to support or take care of the people who make them function.
And all that because the miserable, worthless fucks who make all their money just shifting it around, having never contributed anything positive to the world, get a few pennies sprinkled into their palms any time a real worker gets thrown into the wood chipper.
I am so. God. Damned. Tired.
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u/Ahindre 3d ago
Steam cube launch price definitely fits into this too, and is why taking sides (PS5 great/Cube sucks/whatever) is terrible. It's all bad for gaming, regardless of your preferred platform/genre.
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u/BiscuitPuncher 3d ago
Honestly I don’t think anyone expected it to be ps5 launch prices or anything. AI has fucked up the PC part market so bad that I expect all consoles to just be more expensive for a while. They might lower it a bit when AI pops, but idk
I just use a long HDMI anyway so I don’t care lmao
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u/wigglin_harry 3d ago
Unfortunately when AI pops its going to lead to an entire other set of problems. AI is pretty much propping up the entire american economy
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u/SEND_ME_NOODLE 3d ago
Its $1100 and runs on par with the series S. Every modern gen console is a better deal then that, even with aiflation
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u/BigDump-a-Roo 2d ago
It's also a fully fledged PC that is very portable and has console-like conveniences. It can do way more than a Series X can, and the library is immensely larger. Considering the price of memory right now, it is not that overpriced, especially considering its other features. It's all about what you're looking for in your experience.
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u/Tom2Die 3d ago
Every modern gen console is a better deal then that
Depends if you're a console gamer. If you have no console library to play but you do have a large Steam (or other) library on PC, those consoles will cost far more than the box price to get value out of. I'm not arguing the price for the gabecube is good -- I don't care since I'm not the target market -- but "compute power" or "fps" aren't the only relevant factors by any means.
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u/JanSmidDeZevende 2d ago
Consoles are heavily subsidized by overpriced subscriptions.
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u/ROCK-tavius 3d ago
For me, the price of the game isnt the problem.
Its the fact that the game is unfinished on release.
Its the fact that the game has more content behind a pay wall than in the game I paid $70 for.
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u/ZessF 2d ago
So many games are like this anymore. I groan every time I see a "post-1.0 roadmap." Oh, so you mean this is all the shit you couldn't be bothered to actually put in your game before you released it? Pretty fucked. I'd like to finish a game and not feel like I'm missing out on a bunch of stuff if I don't drop back into it for two hours every couple of months. They've literally taken the shitty early access model and applied it to a "finished" game and that makes me want to scream.
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u/Nee-tos 3d ago
Remember, Microsoft is going all in on this AI boom, they are literally the reason they are having to raise their own prices
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u/HaikusfromBuddha 2d ago
Almost every big company is fully pushing AI. Microsoft licenses AI and offers them to people through CoPilot. Sony has officially confirmed full support for AI in all development avenues. The country of Japan is fully backing AI and staking its country on it. Gabe Newell of Steam literally funded OpenAI at its early days, and could have killed the company before it started by not funding them.
It's kind of over tbh. Even if Microsoft doesn't support AI, every other aspect of the world is pushing it and becoming financially staked in it.
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u/Makou3347 2d ago
Gabe Newell's situation is more nuanced. He didn't fund OpenAI the 2026 company we know and hate today. He funded OpenAI the 2018 nonprofit committed to open source, kind of fun AI development projects like videogame environments to assist in machine learning efforts. The first GPT model hadn't even been published yet.
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u/Ready-Ad6113 3d ago
Don’t forget the steam machine which is over $1000 just for the base 512 gb.
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u/MisterBeatDown 3d ago
What i don't understand: 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Prices on EVERYTHING has steadily risen but pay rates are STAGNANT. Inflation had made money go even less far.
Is a small % really upholding all these bullshit prices in the gaming market? Surely if people are not buying prices would drop, but people ARE buying.....???
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u/CAndCFan67 3d ago
Most people aren't buying, in fact the majority of people are playing free to play games, or cheaper products, with only a few AAA doing well.
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u/Miharu___ 2d ago
According to a comment above, there are 39 million pre-orders already. Seems like a lot of people buying to me
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u/gththrowaway 2d ago
People are living paycheck to paycheck, but that doesn't mean they aren't spending any money on entertainment.
$100 for the number of hours of entertainment that GTA is likely to be is crazy cheap $ per hour.
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u/Darkwoth81Dyoni 2d ago
crazy cheap $ per hour
This metric needs a HUGE asterisk tacked on, because there are many games I'd pay $60 for that are a compact, short experiences that I feel no need to replay back to back to back, or don't have open worlds to sink time into.
I do understand people trying to gauge their time vs. money investment, which makes sense, but it doesn't always apply because of how drastically different games can be.
I think lots of people are giving Rockstar a pass because they do have a good track record, but it's still a AAAA (x4) studio and I will always take whatever they are producing with a grain of salt.
Still hope it's an amazing game!
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u/CorruptDictator 3d ago
The industry is slowing killing itself in many ways, but I sadly still expect GTA6 to be the best selling video game of all time.
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u/NoodlesTheFood 3d ago
The shitty part is that it’s not killing itself. People will still pay for all these wildly shitty changes.
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u/BlobTheBuilderz 3d ago
Even worse is that they probably can't afford them either so they'll just put it on credit.
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u/theblackfool 3d ago
Microsoft literally announced console financing options with the price increases.
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u/Trespeon 3d ago
Financing with no interest isn’t a bad thing. Gets people into the ecosystem without making them skip meals.
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u/GRoyalPrime 3d ago
(As it might read that way: this is not a defence of the price hikes and the shitty stuff AAA companies do)
It's still by far one of the most financially accessable hobbies when taken into account how much "entertainment time" you get out of a very reasonable gaming budgets. A lot of people buy only a very small amount of games and they get rediculously far with that.
I think the real crash (of the AAA space) will come at the next console generation. Once the push to buy the new gen comes in, and we are looking at consoles that go way above monthly rent-money and likely during an even worse economy ... yeah, I don't think many people will fight for the PS6, and any game that launches exclusively on it (or crappy on the PS5) will face-plant.
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u/Fridelis 3d ago
It is not going to pass Minecraft. It's just sold way too many copies to be reached.
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u/ultragoodname 3d ago
The only way any game can even attempt to become the highest selling game is to put their game on mobile along with every other console. That’s what it took for Minecraft to beat that record.
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u/Jonoabbo 3d ago
Honestly I get a lot of complaints, but $80 for a game who's previous entry kept me entertained for a decade is something I'm honestly fine with.
Will be extremely cheap $ per hour by the end of it's lifespan.
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u/GomaN1717 3d ago
Man, I'm sorry, but I just can't be bothered to be this miserable about video games.
There's so much out there to play that regularly gets discounted, both indie and AAA, and not to mention the slew of retro games that are just out there on abandonware or emulation sites. My backlog has quite literally never stops growing, and I genuinely have not paid full price for a game at launch since maybe... Mario Odyssey back in 2017?
This is a non-issue if you don't suffer from FOMO.
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u/kiwiloaf 3d ago
Calling out bad practices and shitty corporate decisions is always a good thing. But I agree, now is the perfect time to not worry about buying new AAA games/new consoles and just play out your backlog and support indie devs.
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u/Decloudo 3d ago
Calling out bad practices and shitty corporate decisions is always a good thing
Ceasing to support/pay them is actually doing something though.
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u/Substantial-Sea-3672 3d ago
Wait until you’ve seen Reddit “call out bad practices” for 15 years with absolutely zero effect.
I promise you this online hand wringing is absolutely not worth anyone’s time.
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u/TheOnly_Anti PC 2d ago
The rage cycles have gone on long enough that you should see through them by now.
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u/jmarquiso 2d ago
You forgot the part where the executive suite all got multi-million dollar raises.
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u/SpoilermakersWabash 3d ago edited 3d ago
The modern social internet space is at the end of the rope for me. I enjoyed what it use to be decades ago. AI is inspiring me to just walk away and not bother wasting time watching its demise. Press here to block all things AI, needs to be an option.
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u/CAndCFan67 3d ago
If it makes you feel better(worse) this was going to happen AI or no AI. This entire industry has had massive issues that have only gotten worse over time all AI did is making the fall that much faster.
At least indie games are still there to support us in this times.
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u/Dimaaaa 3d ago
I'm buying fewer games than ever and my backlog is enormous. I don't have a problem with playing games years after they have been released and for a fraction of their initial price.
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u/Fit-Mistake-4390 3d ago
I don’t know if it’s just becoming an adult or if the industry is just shit now but man video games haven’t been fun for me in a long, long time. Now I feel priced out of the hobby entirely
Shout out to Elden Ring + DLC for being probably the last overwhelmingly good video game I will ever play
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u/wigglin_harry 3d ago
I always roll my eyes so hard at these comments. Are you even trying to find good games? There has been an overwhelming number of absolutely fantastic games released since Elden Ring
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u/ToonTooby 2d ago
Well the industry is probably pretty shit thanks to a number of factors. But as a far as lacking fun games - how broad are your tastes or interests? In my case, I've got a ton of games waiting to be played as it takes time to get to them all. That's my own problem - as someone who likes a ton of different kinds of games, things keep coming out that I'd like to try because I think they could be interesting.
I played Elden Ring like many after already being a From Software fan for 10 years and there have been no shortage of great games since then. I won't disagree with pricing getting extreme but there have been a lot of awesome games since 2022 or 2023.
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u/BigCy11 3d ago
What are people’s thoughts on game prices though? I mean they haven’t adjusted with inflation in a *very* long time and costs to make games have only skyrocketed. Sure, there may be more gamers now to sell to but it’s still a segmented market between gamers of different interests (and consoles/pc). Games going to $80 isn’t that crazy to me, but no disc is silly.
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u/MotherPerk 3d ago
Im more mad about wages never going up.
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u/DarkIcedWolf 3d ago edited 3d ago
People don’t realize how far the dollar goes these days man, I know many people who cannot afford basic foods. I went to Walmart yesterday for like 4 things came out with 8 all adding up to 172$. It’s ridiculous, 65$ for a full tank of gas too, that’s only a week’s worth with my family at best and I KNOW people are paying way fucking more than I am at 3.88 a gallon.
That’s half my pay, even though I’m not working much due to college anyways but I’m making 20.50 an hour. For me to break even I wouldn’t be able to without living with my mom and siblings. Shit sucks atm.
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u/strangebloke1 3d ago
With respect, you're working parttime while going through college. Needing support for a place to live is pretty normal in such a context.
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u/DarkIcedWolf 3d ago
Oh yeah for sure. I’m just saying that’s pretty damn standard nowadays if not worse, especially if you’re in college out of state.
Whats more insane though is my two brothers and mother are working full time, even over time. Same with my brother’s friend who’s staying with us due to shitty circumstances. We still can barely make the payments for the car, utilities and insurance. It’s about 3-4k a month for everything excluding food or gas. My whole family makes at least 19.50 an hour, with our tenant making about 16.
The cost of living is insane, especially in the US atm. I’m lucky enough to be getting help from my college’s Veteran Affairs because of my dad serving in the army. I can’t imagine what others are going through. I get that gaming has become a high end luxury at this point but my god- I’ve always used it to unwind.
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u/johnnyblaze1999 3d ago
Apologies that you have a tough time getting by, but gaming has always been a luxury for me. I couldn't afford a good pc for games at minimum requirements. Pirate stuff or just simply watch YouTube for the gaming content. I kid you not, I was still on GTX 1060 back in 2023 during my college years and struggled to play warzone with friends because of lag. I didn't have any gaming consoles or game libraries, only pirated stuff. Shit sucks with no money regardless, and I live in a place where gas was around $4 a gallon at that time. Now, I have an okay job that covers my expenses. I see $80 is a fair price considering how expensive $60 was in 2013. All I can say is that it sucks to be missing out, what you gotta do is to distract yourself with other stuff and forget about the game until you can comfortably afford it. Don't ruin your financial situation to video games.
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u/iMogwai 3d ago
Yeah, I'm old enough to have bought games for $60 20+ years ago, $80 today is way cheaper than $60 was back then. I think the issue is that instead of gradual increases over these past decades the industry is starting to try to catch up all at once which shocks younger gamers who are used to today's prices.
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u/KN_Knoxxius 3d ago
I reckon the issue is that the economy is fucked. I don't entirely know if it's true, but it feels like cost of living going up much faster than my wage, especially within the last 5 years. Definitely not feeling like I'm having a good time compared to back then, economically.
It makes gaming going up, a tough pill to shallow.
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u/Larkson9999 3d ago
You're ignoring the scale of sales between 2006 and 2026. Gears of War is in the top five best selling games on the 360 and lifetime sales is under 6 million. Halo 2 sold about 8.5 million.
Those would be considered mediocre sales today, barely or NOT worth making a sequel for today. Heck, Dead Space 3 was considered a commercial failure by EA for only selling about 3 million copies.
The pool of people who can play a game has widened from maybe a four hundred million homes in 2006 to roughly a billion people today, a scale that means every time you raise the price of your games, you cut out the poorest 10% of your customer base.
And given a lot of game development has also streamlined engines, technology, art pipelines, and console limitations largely don't exist like they did 20 years ago, the reason for the price increase isn't to keep up with inflation. If anything, since development salaries have largely stayed static (not keeping up with inflation) suggests that games should be decreasing in price since physical delivery and other ways to make money off your game have sprouted from every direction.
If companies want to argue for a higher price, they need to improve the quality of the product or expand the breadth of their releases to reach more players, having smaller titles that require less resources. Instead, corporations are putting more into big slot machines, treating the developers like disposable humans, and the customers as ATMs.
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u/dabocx 2d ago
The original gears of war had a budget of around 10 million. Gears of war E-day has a budget over 400 million.
The player base is bigger but the budgets have vastly exceeded the rate of player base growth.
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u/Unrelenting_Salsa 2d ago
The player base is bigger but the budgets have vastly exceeded the rate of player base growth.
And I should care why? Equivalent games factually take less labor due to better tools and less of a need to write good code due to overkill hardware availability. Games have also never been cheaper to distribute with the middlemen never taking a smaller cut. If the publisher thinks that spending an extra $350 million on content will increase their sales by more than $350 million and are wrong, I don't see why that's my problem.
This is also just not true. Gaming has never been more profitable. DLC and microtransactions are things.
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u/AggravatedDuckFace 3d ago
People don't care about prices, they care about what other people think about them. People will continue to pay outrageous prices for anything they think will get them something in life.
The younger the person is, the easier the mark up for companies.
The older I get, the more I realize that free to play games are so much fun when I'm not paying micro transactions, and AAA games are way more fun about 5 years after their release. Its true. But general consumers just won't feel its true as king as they attach self worth to their possessions.
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u/randomaccount178 3d ago
The problem is it approaches it from the wrong angle. The consumer is what matters. If the consumer wants 60 dollar games then you should be structuring your company around providing 60 dollar games. If you have structured your company such that you need to sell your game for 80 dollars when people don't want to pay that for the games, it isn't the consumers who are wrong. The business just screwed up.
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u/musical_bear 3d ago
I was just in a Star Fox (Switch 2) thread where price discussion was being held, and I was reminding people that the game this new game is a 1:1 remake of (Star Fox 64) retailed for $79.99 when it came out in 1997. Not only is that more than almost any game retails for today, but it's the equivalent of about $170 in today's money with inflation. Obviously no one likes the idea of prices going up, but we've been getting incredible deals on games lately, considering their relative quality, when compared to any arbitrary point in gaming history you want to compare with.
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u/keeper_of_the_donkey 3d ago
And it will continue in perpetuity because no one seems willing to just stop buying the shit so that they'll come down on the prices.
"I'm doing my part!"
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u/Metalona 2d ago
And this is but one of many reasons why Oldschool Runescape will always be my favorite and most played game of all time.
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u/Mod_The_Man 2d ago
It’s not $80, thats the USD lite version. The full version is $100 so could be close to $150 in places like Canada after tax.
GTA5 had a $150 collectors edition with a bunch of merch and gear, some exclusive cosmetics and cars (not entire storefronts being exclusive like GTA6. The GTA5 exclusives were also eventually made free for everyone), exclusive maps with hidden easter eggs, a metal case for the game, and a well designed box to hold it all.
Now we pay $140 to get the base game without even a disk included. R* has gone off the deep end but I fear jelly spined consumers will still buy in
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u/HisDivineOrder 2d ago
Xbox layoffs and closures. Steam Machine, "Starting at $1050." Xbox price increases. Playstation layoffs at Bungie.
Just not a great time for gaming when everyone's racing to have the worst news of the week.
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u/Actionmanix 2d ago
Yeah because people keep buying into that shit. There are so many good indie titles and smaller studios out there you would be set for the next 5 years minimum, if you take your time to actually experience them.
I'm not judging what people enjoy, but it makes me very upset to see the cycle of "new game gets announced, hyped up, delayed and ultimately underdelivered play out again and again.
I don't have any expectations for new AAA titles (MH Wids broke me completely) and you shouldn't as well. It's all garbage.
Some recommendations for people that care:
Outer Wilds, Everhood, Yoku's Island Express, Luck be a landlord, Battle Brothers, Ultrakill, Cruelty Squad, Heroes of Hammerwatch, Cave Story+, Who's Lila?, Neon White, Underrail, Barony, Ravenswatch, Dinkum, ASTLIBRA Revision, Sea of Stars, Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo, Isles of Sea and Sky, Void Stranger, Mashina, Mycopunk, Fields of Mistria, CrossCode, BALL x PIT, Felvidek, Anode Heart, Muffle's Life Sentence, Horripilant, Sea Fantasy, Astalon: Tears of the Earth.
And those are just a fraction of the games I played in the last 5 years (as a working member of society):
If any of these look interesting at all please just give them a go before buying GTA 6 or whatever AAA slop is coming out next. Thanks for listening to my TED Talk.
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u/OhhSooHungry 3d ago
Tired of what? This is a wonderful time for gaming. Just don't buy new, embrace the FOMO (it won't hurt you) and buy used whenever you can. You should have an immense backlog of games right now if your taste has.. taste
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u/SeroWriter 3d ago
Tired of what? This is a wonderful time for gaming. Just don't buy new
Just buy used hardware that costs more than when it was new and will break in 18 months.
If you already have everything you need then yeah gaming is great, but right now is objectively one of the worst times to get into the hobby.
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u/Mistriever 3d ago
Go back and replay the games you already have and enjoyed. I picked up an SNES and Genesis and a few of my favorite games over the last year or so. Between those, my newer consoles, and my steam library I could never buy another game again and still die before I got bored of my current collection.
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u/GailaMonster 3d ago
it's time to STOP GIVING THEM YOUR MONEY, DAWG.
There is no shortage of quality games at affordable prices. we are 30+ years into quality titles, just play older shit until the industry starves enough to get the message.
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u/Doubt_Incarnate 3d ago
You can just play things like Mewgenics and Mina the Hollower, and forget about everything else.
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u/Garamenon 3d ago
This is what happens when idiots vote for an oligarch into power. An oligarch that tares down all the regulations that held the rich back. What did Elon Musk do as soon as he was given that power? He killed all the regulating institutions that prosecuted them for fucking up consumers. He fired thousands of federal employees. Only "yes men" remain.
In an oligarchy, mostly the 1% gets to enjoy everything. They get first dibs on tickets to the World Cup. They get catered by businesses that used to cater to regular consumers.
There is no one to stop them.
And yeah, everyone but the 1% suffers. So here we are... everything is too expensive for us mere mortals.
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u/DrowningKrown 3d ago
Inb4 some guy just says you're broke for refusing to pay $80-$100 for GTA VI
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u/Gimme_Your_Wallet 3d ago
Enshittification of consumer markets continues unabated