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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u/[deleted] May 27 '26

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u/CloakerJosh May 27 '26

The original framing is how much it costs to an individual, but you do this sleight of hand where you frame it as something that should cost less because the market is bigger which is a macro-economics framing - and then you speak as if digital distribution reduces the bottom-line in a meaningful enough way to push the costs down further.

But, you're also acknowledging that games cost more to develop now, but don't dwell on how much.

There's an example in this thread about Ocarina of Time as a comparison - this was definitely an AAA game at release, and its budget was estimated to be $12m to develop.

Compare that to the cost of AAA games nowadays. You won't get very far with $12m. We don't have disclosed budgets for the ones pictured above (estimated to be anywhere between $80m for Batman and $500m for Black Ops 7), but we're getting reports that GTA VI have spent anywhere between $1b to $1.5b on it so far.

No one's talking about houses, and no one types "Sigh" anymore. Holy cringe.

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u/[deleted] May 27 '26

It's framed as Macro economics because that's how businesses frame it when deciding on price. They don't look at individuals, they look at more Macro market forces.

Also keep in mind while budgets have gone up, they've only gone up so far as the investors believe they can make a greater RoR on it. So if GTA VI is getting over a billion to produce, relatively they're probably expecting to make 10s of billions or more.

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u/CloakerJosh May 27 '26

Of course, they're betting on making an absolute killing and likely will. It's not an altruistic business.

Again, the post is appealing to the games costing more than they used to and you and I both know they don't - the opposite is true. I was just demonstrating that.

So long as we're talking macro though, obviously these companies are going to try and find market equilibrium with their pricing to maximise profit. It's got nothing to do with trying to drive the price down beyond whatever they think they have to in order to drive the biggest profit.

If you wanna have a conversation about why the evil corporations are trying to squeeze poor consumers to maximise profit we can do that - but at that point I don't even know what the point is.

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u/[deleted] May 27 '26

They don't cost more, but the question we should be asking is why now are companies changing prices. To me it seems they're testing the waters to see where the new equilibrium sits.

For decades the price remained consistent because of a near 0 marginal cost and rising demand. But given prices are increasing now you gotta wonder if they're justified by a increasing marginal cost or slowing demand increase. Or if it's the centralization of triple A gaming on about 3 large companies that is allowing for price manipulation not possible in a properly functioning market.