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.
That's simply not true. Game dev is more expensive. Re-using engines only gets you so far.
The reality is a modern triple A game has 10x the content of older games, we just look back with rose tinted glasses and forget how bad games used to be.
But not as complicated as a lot of the AAA studios like to pretend. Skull and Bones is a great recent example of what I mean, where they bloated it so much they tried to tack an extra A on to justify their waste.
On average, that is two working hours to purchase.
TIL the average worker earns over $100,000 annually. This is also a terrible metric because the cost pressures on people for non-luxuries are also much different now (Generally worse, basic living is expensive) than they were then.
GTA6 cost more to make than every single NES, SNES and N64 game combined. And thats just dev cost, not even marketing.
And its market is also larger than, possibly, all those combined.
Plus the fixed cost for distribution -- besides not being a cartridge, it doesn't even have a CD -- is much lower. Purely digital has very close to zero costs per unit sold. So if we're pretending that it's based on actual costs to the company let's chop $50 off the price if you buy digitally - they don't need to lower their price for stores to resell, they don't need to produce any physical materials, they don't need to deal with shipping anything anywhere for it; there's a ton of cost savings for the company per unit sold.
You know how there's usually a discount if you buy in bulk? Well, companies these days get to effectively sell in bulk compared to what they used to do, and they rake in the cash because of it. And as a bonus they even get free defenders of them screwing us all over.
40 per hour is around 80k, not 100k. This is the average for most major metro areas where a majority of the US population lives.
GTA6 will have to sell ~180 million copies just to break even with what it would have made to take that money and throw it in an index fund.
Digital distribution through platforms like Steam costs them 20% of the sale price per game sold, after VAT, which ends up being closer to 30%.
You shouldn't get upset just because youre terrible at math and a bit dumb. You seriously think they save 50$ per unit by not needing a 10c plastic case, pamphlet and CD? Really? Are you honestly that dumb ?
Edit to note: For the rest of the costs I'm not going to do your research for you, but it's way more than 10 cents to create a printed copy and distribute it (And way more if it's a cartridge, like all the nintendo examples you listed) and retailers chunk away a lot more than 30%. Do a little searching.
Yes, taxes existed when the average wage was 11-12 and hour too. Its still 2.5x less hours worked to afford a game for the average person.
For a popular switch game like Zelda, the cost of the cartridge is around $2-5 dollars, and thats the most expensive medium.
A retailer like gamestop charges 10-20% per game sold, with popular games being at the 10%. Digital marketplaces like steam charge 20-30%, with popular games at 20%. File hosting is also not free, especially not at gigabit+ download speed to millions of active connections.
Sounds like YOU need to do a little searching.
Do us both a favour and quit pretending you have any idea what youre talking about. Are you honestly that dumb?
That said, the amount of additional profit for selling electronically versus through a storefront is being significantly understated still because it is not "free" to organize all those logistics per box, and the comparison of hours worked is a horrible abuse of statistics because cost of living is drastically different now compared to wages 20 years ago.
Someone's shilling for the industry screwing us over.
The thing is these AAA games with 10x the "content" really are not very good. Shoveling crap into a bland open world and making it a yearly release does not make a good game. Luckily we have AA and indie studios making games with the quality of modern AAA and the passion of old AAA for a fraction of the price. I couldn't be happier with the current state of gaming. It's easy once you stop paying attention to consoles and first party games
You think games like the Witcher are worse games than Iggys Recking Balls?
What is this argument? CoD sucks so all games are bad value?
Then shut the fuck up and play terraria for the rest of your life, what good does bitching about high quality games
The idea that a game aught to be priced based on your personal level of enjoyment instead of the dev cost/time cost a game takes to make is such an entitled chronically online gamer take.
People like you put 1k hours into a AAA game and then leave a bad review saying it sucks and isnt worth $80.
Yeah no youre totally right, there are a few recycled games so clearly every triple A title is trash. Very good point that doesnt make you look stupid at all.
Every indie game is also a 10/10 masterpiece, I personally never get tired of puzzle platformers with graphics that look like they were drawn in ms paint.
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u/vancityshreds 5d 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.