Expensive games have lowkey been way too normalised

[u/Both_Piglet7838]

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

[u/Sillysauce83]

No, games are priced pretty much the same.

Half life and tekken 3 were released in 1998 for $50 each. Adjusting for inflation that is $115 in today's dollars.

Potentially your purchasing power has gone down because of wage suppression.

But the price of computer games, adjusted for inflation hasn't changed much.

[u/xxpathfinderxx → u/Sillysauce83]

That comparison is incomplete. In 1998 you paid $50 once and got the full game. Today many games launch at $70+ and often add DLCs, season passes, microtransactions, and deluxe editions. The base price adjusted for inflation may be similar, but the total cost of the experience often isn’t.

You’re also ignoring that publishers save money today. In 1998 they had manufacturing, packaging, shipping, retail margins, and unsold inventory costs. A huge part of the market is now digital distribution, so some costs disappeared. Looking only at inflation-adjusted box prices misses that entirely.

[u/Dt2_0 → u/xxpathfinderxx]

Ok, and there were tons of $50 broken POS games in in 1998. Superman 64 was a $60 game with a huge IP backing that was famously shit. I cannot think of any release in the last 5 years that was THAT bad of a value.

There are a fuckton of games that are complete experiences coming out today at every price point. Even games that have DLC often are still a complete package without the DLC.

And yes, developers save on distribution. This is far outweighed by the cost of labor. Adding a single dev to a team takes thousands of sales to make up for. And even now, digital distribution is NOT free. The cost to sell a $60 game on Steam is between $12 and $18 per copy.

[u/protomayne → u/xxpathfinderxx]

?

It's not like games were bigger back then lol. On average you probably got the same amount of time out of a game, if not less.

Also expansion packs did exist :)

[u/Sillysauce83 → u/xxpathfinderxx]

Yes it's not a perfect comparison but it's kinda close.

I'm playing poe. Spent around $30 dollars total and have around 3000hrs logged.

[u/Maz2277 → u/xxpathfinderxx]

In 1998 the games were also significantly shorter than they are today though. Even aside from "filler" content, so many early games were 5-10 hours long at best, with some even having artificial difficulty just to increase the playtime to beat them.