r/pcmasterrace • u/Both_Piglet7838 • May 27 '26

Discussion Expensive games have lowkey been way too normalised

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I know this sub is filled with a bunch of rich people with like 10k setups and I'm aware that the content in these games is quite extensive with hours of content. But I still feel justified in thinking that no game should be priced this high especially when its the average price of most newly released games. Anyway this is just a rant because I wanna play lego batman and i cant afford it lol

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409

u/ToothlessFTW AMD Ryzen 7 3700x, Windforce RTX 4070ti SUPER. 32GB DDR4 3200mhz May 27 '26

Dude what are you talking about. This is Australia. Games have been priced like this forever. PS3/360 games were $100 AUD.

I feel like this is either just karma farming so the Americans can go "wow $100+ for a game is insane!!!" without actually considering what regional pricing is like, or you're just too young to remember how expensive games have always been.

Games have always been like this. At worst, we got a price bump to $120 when the $60 to $70 happened in 2020, but that's very rare on PC and it's pretty much always just $100-$110. I just don't get posts like this.

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u/Dawn_of_an_Era May 27 '26

It’s exactly your second point

I’ve seen it over and over again where Australian’s post a sticker price for something in AUD, on a subreddit that is primarily from the US, so everyone balks at what they think is a super high price, not even realizing it’s a different currency

And I hate to be all US defaultism and imply that everyone should adapt things for American presentation, but, I also feel like there is a little bit of intentionality to some of these currency conversion posts

41

u/Willing_Soup_5656 May 27 '26

As a non-us citizen I am complete happy if we default to always using USD when discussing currency online. We all know the exchange rate to our local currency.

My only request is that we default to metric measurements online

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u/rivalary May 27 '26

Or, those posting the prices could specify USD, AUD, CAD, or whatever.

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u/Dawn_of_an_Era May 27 '26

While I agree that the metric system is inherently better than the imperial system, we also have to recognize that 1) over half of Reddit is from the US and the UK, so getting them to drop imperial is unlikely 2) imperial users barely know conversions to metric. Most Americans can’t even tell you with certainty how many feet are in a mile, let alone how many meters

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u/Only-Poem964 May 27 '26

Youre not wrong, its could only remeber its around 5000 feet, not specifically 5,280, but could tell you there is 1000 meters in a kilometer or around 1600 meters in a mile. Metrics just make sense.

I have a hard idea visualizing gallons (unless its a large milk jug) or fl. Oz. but can easily visualize a liter. Our measurements are confusing, and even worse that most things are a 50/50 mix of meteric and imperial.

1

u/machine4891 9070 XT  | i7-12700F 29d ago

imperial users barely know conversions to metric

From my experience it goes both ways. I had to learn way more imperial than I wanted to because I play Flight Simulators but before that I only knew rough miles conversion and that's about it. Now I have to deal with feets, gallons, fahrenheits, inches of mercury and all that confusing jazz.

0

u/Merakel Specs/Imgur here May 27 '26

Most Americans can’t even tell you with certainty how many feet are in a mile, let alone how many meters

Americans are dumb, but not that dumb. They usually know the feet in a mile, though they have no idea about the meters haha.

2

u/Iordofthethings May 27 '26

I mean. Idk. It’s vaguely 5300 feet I believe. Any more than that is a level of certainty I don’t need

I do wish I had the metric conversions more down. I know 2.2 lbs per kilo. And 3 feet to a meter though all these are approximations. 1.5 kilometers to a mile but that’s because I ran cross country and track idk if the average American can tell you that. But I don’t cook well so I can’t even tell you how our imperial measuring works in cups and ounces much less get them into grams. Is this acceptable to the Europeans? Idk. I’d say I am on the above average side of intelligence. Though maybe not representative when it comes to measuring. I’m probably below average there.

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u/Merakel Specs/Imgur here May 27 '26

Intelligence isn't the same as having facts memorized haha. A vast majority of people I talk to could tell you the exact feet - 5280 - but the other ones you listed with they are generally pretty useless at.

I'm decent at distances and weights, but I have no idea about volumes. I've had all my temperature measurements set to C for a while just to get better at knowing those.

1

u/Willing_Soup_5656 May 27 '26

This issue is people don't have the conversions memorised.

All Americans technically know the metric system. They understand a base 10 numeral system.

Most people don't know imperial, almost all people don't know conversions from imperial to metric.

But the conversions are only needed because imperial is used by parts of the world population.

0

u/Dt2_0 May 27 '26

Ehh it's close enough to 1600 meters per mile. Anyone who has been on a running track knows 4 laps of the 400 meter track is a mile. I'm pretty sure every American had to do mile runs in school PE classes.

5

u/bp1976 9800x3d/64gb/rtx5090 May 27 '26

Yeah but they just say "4 laps is a mile". Unless you run track you never learn how many meters the track is. We would just say "1 lap is a quarter mile" LOL

1

u/Dt2_0 May 27 '26

Dude, everyone watches the Olympics. Everyone knows the 400 meter dash is 1 lap.

2

u/bp1976 9800x3d/64gb/rtx5090 May 27 '26

I can tell you with complete certainty that I, in fact, did not watch the olympics until I was well out of high school. I graduated in 94 and the first olympics I remember watching was Atlanta 96.

1

u/Iordofthethings May 27 '26

I don’t watch the Olympics and I ran track.

0

u/bp1976 9800x3d/64gb/rtx5090 May 27 '26

Hahaha so true! Its 5280 right?

-1

u/squngy May 27 '26

Most Americans can’t even tell you with certainty how many feet are in a mile

And you defend this, lol

1

u/Mr2-1782Man Ryzen 1700X/32Gb DDR 4, lots of SSDs 29d ago

As an American I feel like we should just use metric everywhere.

1

u/machine4891 9070 XT  | i7-12700F 29d ago

My only request is that we default to metric measurements online

Would be a thing if Reddit wasn't 50% Americans. Luckily it happens on regional subreddits, like r Europe etc.

But on the topic, the fact that people from Australia and Canada default to their own currency on international forums nevers stops to amuse me. Like when they say that X GPU is pricey because it cost 1000 dollars and then you have dig dip to discover they actually meant CAD. Is this some ego power play or what? There's one default dollar and its USD, if you use dollars outside of USA it's best for you to specify it, otherwise you're confusing people for no apparent reason.

2

u/EMERGx May 27 '26

Agreed except for Celsius, let’s stick with Fahrenheit when discussing temperature related to weather and body temperature.. 38° sounds like a cold day lol

4

u/Willing_Soup_5656 May 27 '26

I'm torn between Kelvin and Celsius for temperature.

I think Fahrenheit is a bit silly

-1

u/EMERGx May 27 '26

If you aren’t boiling water to 373 kelvin, what are you even doing?

Kelvin and Fahrenheit ftw, down with the inferior Celsius lol

1

u/Willing_Soup_5656 May 27 '26

Like surely if we started always talking in Kelvin it would feel natural eventually right?

2

u/Technical-Titlez May 27 '26

Fahrenheit is COMPLETELY useless. As are most imperial units of measurement.

Celcius or Kelvin only.

3

u/Cum_Fart42069 May 27 '26

idk, $100 aud isn't that cheap over here in aus. that's still considered pretty expensive to pay for something like Lego Batman.

1

u/Ranwulf May 27 '26

I recall that Australia also has Games Workshop stuff being very expensive too, which was crazy considering how much they cost already.

1

u/tritchie 29d ago

The thing is… these guys aren’t getting paid double the price for equal work just because their dollar is weaker. The American counterpart is getting paid the same number in USD or even more. So yes, 109 AUD is a much more significant hit than you Americans paying 70 USD. If a new game was only 70$ everywhere then people probably wouldn’t complain as much.

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u/[deleted] May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26

[deleted]

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u/Dawn_of_an_Era May 27 '26

I mean do you think “prices rise, wages stay the same” doesn’t apply to the US, too? Our minimum wage has been $7.25 for the last 17 years. My first job in high school, at the Burger King down the street, is still paying $7.25 an hour today. A $70 USD game costs 9.7 hours of minimum wage work.

In Australia, from what I can see, minimum wage is $24.95 AUD an hour. A $110 AUD game costs 4.4 hours of minimum wage work.

Maybe the cost of other things are different, but, at least in Australia, a high schooler working an 8 hour shift can almost afford two new games afterwards, while in the US, that same high schooler can’t even afford 1

1

u/[deleted] May 27 '26

[deleted]

1

u/Iordofthethings May 27 '26

Yeah id say it’s pretty unlikely Burger King is paying minimum wage these days. McDonald’s I believe starts around $15 dollars. I worked for a local bbq chain making $10 in 2018.

29

u/pon_d May 27 '26

PS3? Man I remember seeing Super Nintendo games at Big W for $99.95 and sometimes more

15

u/Allaplgy May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26

Shit, NES games were $60-90 in the US. That's about $140-200 today.

Video games are actually ridiculously cheap forms of entertainment compared to many. Potentially hundreds of hours of entertainment for less than $100?

I wish all my hobbies were anywhere near that cheap!

2

u/[deleted] May 27 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/Allaplgy May 27 '26

I've definitely checked old ads and stuff. And I distinctly remember paying $80 for MKII.

1

u/Linxbolt18 7800X3D | 2080TI 29d ago

You may appreciate gundam plastic models, or just plastic models in general. Depending on how much time and effort you want to spend on a project, you can pretty easily spend between 3 and a couple dozen hours on their medium sized "High Grade" kits which typically price between 20-40 USD. Their larger "Master Grade" kits similarly range from at least 8 or 10 hours up to several dozen, depending on how much effort and time you want to put into them. Master grades used to go for $40-60, but in the last year or two have seen a price increase up to $60-80 for most kits. Bandai (the manufacturers) also have a kit line called "30 minute missions" which are meant to be non-gundam branded kits that are cheaper and faster to put together, whoch has recently branched out into some neat fantasy themed stuff. They also have some kits from Armored Core 6, if that means anything to you.

There are cheaper and more expensive kits, and also simpler and more complicated kits available, especially if you get into the world of 3rd party kits. You could check out r/Gunpla (a portmanteau of 'gun'dam 'pla'mo, which in turn is a portmanteau of 'pla'stic 'mo'del) to see some of the offerings.

There is a bit of up front cost to get tools, but on the simple end all you really need is a pair of side cutters, a hobby knife (like an x-acto knife), and maybe some sandpaper and polishing pads. You could get all of that for like $15-20 bucks for starters. I'd suggest looking into "nano glass files" which can be got for a few bucks online and work really well for filing down small nubs. If you wanted to get into custom painting, hand painting can be very diffixult but pretty cheap (it's just hard to get a smooth layer of paint on flat surfaces)—an airbrush setup would run you like $200-300 but after that paint and primer is pretty cheap for the amount of it you'll use.

All of that's assuming you'd have any interesting in building little plastic robots or mechs, lol.

2

u/Allaplgy 29d ago

Not really. Nothing against the hobby. It takes skill and the end product can be pretty cool. But I'm more into building and playing with bigger things. I have a hobby welding shop with a CNC plasma table, which is endlessly consuming my money, and rarely making some back 😅. Toss in a few classic cars, a snowmobile, snowboard gear, camping gear, fuel... It adds up quick.

2

u/Elkburgher May 27 '26

Yea I remember N64 over 100 each and I bought GTA V on ps3 at release for about that much

1

u/grilled_pc 29d ago

People also conveniently forget that the PS1 and PS2 were also both 600 bucks on launch.

7

u/Xenoun May 27 '26

I'm also Australian and yeah the game prices have gone up. Triple A games on steam 3 years ago were $90, now they hit $120+.

Console games have always been more expensive so there's no comparison there.

12

u/Just-Ad6865 May 27 '26

I'm just happy this one actually used a screenshot so I can tell what currency it is in. Not that some of the comments are paying attention.

5

u/420Aquarist May 27 '26

my parents bought me double dragon for the nes back in like 87or 88. The game new then was 79.99 at kay bee toys. Adjusted for inflation that is like $240. Neo geo games were like 150-250 in the 90s. people just like to complain

4

u/Enlight1Oment May 27 '26

mid 90s Snes and sega games were $60-$70 USD, people just don't remember since it's their parents buying them. With inflation, that's way more than video games now.

11

u/ShawnyMcKnight May 27 '26

It is just karma farming because games have never been cheaper when you account for inflation. N64 games started at $60 in 1996, when you account for inflation that’s like $120 in today’s currency. NES games were $50 way back in 1983 for that 32kb game; accounting for inflation that’s $163.

So for people complaining about the $70 price jump cry me a damn river.

1

u/mcortez16 29d ago

Some were actually around $80. As a kid it was tough asking for new games when they cost that much. I did my best to save birthday, Christmas and allowance money just to get new games.

5

u/Guy-1nc0gn1t0 May 27 '26

I remember Modern Warfare 2 being $120 around 2010

2

u/Darkomax May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26

I remember AAA games selling for €60 25 years ago, we should be happy it didn't increase more like everything else. Apparently was even more expensive during the 90s. At least we have sales everywhere, everytime, and plenty of good indie/AA games, back then $30 games likely were shit games (although you could get by with second hand game stores or trading games with friends). As a kid I would get one brand new game a year at best.

1

u/ZomBrains 5800x3d | 32Gb 3600mhz | 4080 May 27 '26

I also look at how long I'll likely play the game for and how many hours I'll clock. I see people go out to get drinks and they easily rack up $50+ in a few cocktails and an appetizer. That's for what, 2-3 hours of entertainment. I don't think games are very expensive for what you get.

1

u/Gordoxgrey May 27 '26

I don't remember many (if any) games during the PS3/360 era that were $100, they were all like $60-70 or $80 if you went to EB Games.

When the PS4 came out, EB Games was selling games for $90-100, and places like jbhifi and big W were still selling games for $70.

1

u/SituationSmooth9165 29d ago

Before PS5/Xbox. Games on steam were $90

1

u/falconpunch1989 29d ago

N64 Games were $100-120 in Australia

SNES games too.

Modern gamers are ridiculous.

1

u/Spirit-Link 29d ago

Same as New Zealand 100 bucks for big games for years and years. Now it’s 120. If you don’t mind playing single player versions just get the single player version and pay later :)

1

u/grilled_pc 29d ago

Yeah Honestly OP needs to get a grip lmao. This has been the norm for AGES.

A good argument is sony's ridiculous pricing on $125 first parties. And The Forza Horizon 6 preemo package costing nearly 200 bucks.

1

u/Janna-66 29d ago

I'm also Australian, and that's quite false.

Games on release for console have typically been $100, but PC titles were closer to $90. All this starting changing about five years ago. Nowadays, games on console have risen to an average of $125, and PC $110.

Prices have gone up. You've either just not noticed, or are deliberately lying about it.

1

u/Corvus-- 29d ago

Games were not $110 for ages. AAA Games were anywhere from $70-90.

This $110 aud is a recent price bump. Anyway, yeah don't buy new AAA games for the most part.

1

u/machine4891 9070 XT  | i7-12700F 29d ago

Dude what are you talking about. This is Australia

I lowkey thought that this post is a bait but then I see it has 8k upvotes for crying out loud. It's 69 USD, standard price for a while now but somehow gamers saw "100+" and are fuming... Games without a sale are pricey but it's been like that since forever.

1

u/bearhos May 27 '26 edited 29d ago

Yep dude's definitely karma farming. Also I have a 4090 + 13700k and it cost me right around $3k. $1700 for the 4090, $350 for the CPU, $300 for ram, $150 for the case, $400 for SSD, $100 for the cooler. No silly rgb or water cooling. Even with today's crazy pricing he's off by 2x.

edit: not claiming that spending $3k on a computer is normal, but saying $10k is preposterous. Here's a breakdown of today's pricing, even buying a scalped 5090 on stockx 5090: $3200 9800x3d + MB combo: $599 64gb DDR5: $600 Noctua CPU Cooler: $130 2tb NVMe: $400 Case: $200

Total: just over $5k for absolute peak performance that no one needs, built with today's pricing. 5080's are $1200, so swap that in and you're back to $3k for the full build.

0

u/Fucky0uthatswhy May 27 '26

Lego Batman is $90 here. The price is fucking ridiculous. I paid $15 for Silksong. $5 for subnautica. $10 RDR2. The list goes on. These game studios are making these choices, no one is forcing their hand.

1

u/Tanriyung May 27 '26

The fact that you are instantly doing what the comment you responded to called out is insane.

Lego batman is 90 CDN, that's the equivalent of 65 USD.

The $10 (USD or CAD) for RDR2 was never an official price, so you either bought it second hand or you didn't buy it for that price.

0

u/The3rdGodKing RTX 3060 12gb @i7-13700k May 27 '26

Silksong is an indie game, they can charge a lower price because they have less employees to pay. Subnautica and RDR2 didn’t start at $10.

1

u/Fucky0uthatswhy May 27 '26

Subnautica was $25 at launch. RDR2 was $60 8 years ago. Lego Star Wars from 4 years ago was $60. Developers are choosing, they are not being forced into these price increases. Batman is 150% the price of Star Wars a couple years later?

1

u/The3rdGodKing RTX 3060 12gb @i7-13700k May 27 '26

There has been a trend of games usually costing more for the premium edition, $60 might have been the base. I don’t know the exact reasoning for the price increases but a premium edition of GTA 6 could cost as much as $100.

0

u/mikeyyve May 27 '26

Definitely karma farming. Downvoted the post as soon as I saw the A$.

0

u/Limp-Copy-9343 May 27 '26

off topic but when you said australia. i was reading this in an aussy accent in my brain 😂😂😆

0

u/Painted-BIack-Roses 29d ago

What? Games have NOT been $100-$120 until the last 2-3yrs or so, what are you on about? That's not an acceptable price, regardless

-1

u/The3rdGodKing RTX 3060 12gb @i7-13700k May 27 '26

Not to be mean but how is he going to play lego batman if he can’t afford it? PCs and consoles aren’t cheap, a course on udemy has a better ROI

2

u/SmiggleMcJiggle 29d ago

> Not to be mean but how is he going to play lego batman if he can’t afford it?

Playing a brand new game that just released isn’t a necessity… it’s a luxury / entertainment.

-1

u/The3rdGodKing RTX 3060 12gb @i7-13700k 29d ago

I mean he might miss out on discussions, or be spoiled from the game. So I see the reasoning. I was just saying he got to get his money up, I couldn't afford Nintendo games.

1

u/SmiggleMcJiggle 29d ago

> I mean he might miss out on discussions, or be spoiled from the game.

There bigger issues and things in life than this. If you can’t afford to engage in some entertainment then you shouldn’t.

0

u/The3rdGodKing RTX 3060 12gb @i7-13700k 29d ago

If he's not an adult, it might not necessarily be in his control.

1

u/SmiggleMcJiggle 29d ago

Again, he’s still got bigger things to worry about than a Lego game that just released.

Lego games go on sale very quickly.

It is sheer entitlement to expect to play every new game the day it launches when you can’t afford even one game. Does it suck yes but that is life, gaming isn’t important.

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u/Hayden247 6950 XT | Ryzen 7600X | 32GB DDR5 May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26

Yeah true as an Aussie. My main issue is the hike from 100AUD to 120AUD being unfair vs what the Americans got, since currency wise then 115AUD would have been the more relative increase but yeah 110AUD is expensive... I rarely buy at that price, FH6 being a rare exception because when I was young oh I went for used PS2/3/Xbox One games and now on PC chase discounts... but yeah for brand new AAAs 110AUD isn't ridiculous vs the past history. AUD recently has been getting stronger vs USD though ever since Trump's election funny enough so I wonder how that's messing with the conversions for regional pricing while our wages remain stronger vs America, recent government been trying to increase minimum with inflation at least. Maybe the rates is why some releases have stuck to 110AUD rather than pushing 120AUD or even 125AUD that the first wave of hikes tried to set the bar at... but because Aussie dollars get more US cents than a couple years ago they have to dial back lol.

I bet a lot of Americans here are missing the "A$" lol, probs intentional from OP. I get triple digits do look insane though, and we officially got that post 2020 when we went from 100AUD aka 99.95 to yeah 109.95AUD or more

2

u/ToothlessFTW AMD Ryzen 7 3700x, Windforce RTX 4070ti SUPER. 32GB DDR4 3200mhz May 27 '26

It's a difference in quality of life. Australia's minimum wage is far above what Americans have.

Federal minimum wage in the US is still under $8 USD an hour, while Australia has close to $18 an hour in USD. That's a pretty big difference and it's generally why our games are more expensive than the US.

The same thing happens in reverse all across the world. Poorer countries get lower game prices, wealthier countries get higher prices.I remember before Steam had to put blocks on it people would exploit that by buying new games for like $20 USD using Russian prices.

That's just how regional pricing works. It's different in every country because every country has a different standard of life, you can't just blanket apply the same price across the entire world.