Games Are Cheaper* Than They’ve Ever Been | Extra Credits Gaming
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🎮 Are video games currently cheaper than ever before? From the Atari 2600 era to the digital age, the industry has managed to keep prices steady, even as budgets for AAA titles have soared. But why does it feel like games are more expensive now? Join the conversation and share your thoughts on this fascinating paradox in the gaming world! 🤔🎮
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It doesnt feel right because it's not the hard numbers that matter but the precentages.
According to statista the median hourly wage in 1982 was $5.4 extrapolating via the 325% quoted would give 140 dollars for a days wage.
Some places today you get $80 for a days wage.
This means even though youre paying effectively 90 dollars in 1982 its being taken out of 140 dollars meaning you have the equivalent of $50.
For a 70 dollar game today, the average person has $10 left over, or roughly 1 hour of wages or maybe 2 hours if you get paid a bit more.
And this is all under the assumption that wages grew at the same rate. Which isn't the case. Games actually cost MORE than ever before because the actual hours you have to put in to get the money to buy a game is at an all time high for the average person.
it doesn't feel that it is the lowest it has ever been, because you forget that personal wages haven't gone up; so even though though inflation the cost hasn't gone up, having income not go up with it means the funds available are less than they used to be, meaning the regular people can afford less as inflation moves upwards.
It also doesn't help when you factor just how many games get released now in days as a buggy mess rather than solid games. Back in the 80's and 90's even games released incomplete were still playable, some games released today are so full of bugs they cannot be played till a patch or 2 and even then have major issues.
The Gaming Community is going to be out for blood.
Income hasn't kept up with inflation.
So even though games technically have become cheaper,
its recently been getting harder to afford them for most people.
Yeah, the median household salary just hasn't kept up with the cost of living expenses. This makes entertainment a luxury commodity that is going to both feel more expensive and be more expensive.
Yes and no. On average, real wages in USA actually have gone up... but to a level they were in the late 70s. But something else seem to be happing because I know a lot of Americans that do not feel this increase in wages. Now, I personally do not have any good data on hand to support my claim. But I do have a hypothesis that maybe we are actually seeing even greater divides in the US economy. That is while on average people have been earning a bit more, had a bit more left of their pay cheque, this is just an average. And a lot of people do not feel any such improvement at all.
There could be other factors. But I do not generally like explanations that just try to explain it all away as a feeling.
I don't think the argument is games are cheap, just that they aren't expensive as they used to be. I lived throughout the 90s and 2000s and only got games during birthdays or Christmas. Most times I had to rent, borrow from a friend, or wait for massive discounts
@@Cythil more or less what I was saying. Wages may have gone up and games may be cheaper based on the value of the dollar. That does not mean that they are actually cheaper compared to what the median family makes. Living wage for the US from what I see, it's something and 25 an hour or 50,000 a year. That is the salary required by a single person to comfortably make ends meet. Living wage per household is somewhere around 100,000 Dollars a year. Median income this year for the US is 44k. That means most people do not reach a living wage to be able to afford luxury goods without bending on things they need.
Notice I am using the median wage to get a more accurate idea of what people's wages are. The average wage gets skewed higher because of how big the gap is between the rich and poor.
This is just looking at the section of this conversation that makes the most sense. Things feel more expensive if they are a larger part of what you have left over after all the bills. This also makes them more expensive compared to what families had for fun money in the past. In times like 2012, there was a 4000 dollar surplus between living wage and median wage. It is now a negative.
@@Cythil I think that usually can be attributed to bills, I don't know how it is in the US but here in Brazil and for me energy and water bills have gone up and taxes too so even if there was an increase in money earned it doesn't feel that way due to expenses like that.
In your case try to compile at least the last 3 to 5 years of bills (electrical, water, subscriptions, internet, phone, etc) and see if they have gone up.
this has some real "the economy is actually doing better than ever" vibes
This 😂
100%
Amazing counter argument.
Yeah but video games are probably easier and cheaper to produce
Also it’s going to get worse
"If you don't pay me more I'll starve"
Multimillion dollar companies
THEN STARVE!!!!
The same companies that made Billions of Profit and dont need to raise the price of their Games at all
More like Billion in some cases
I hate how people say this like this as if they're making some profound point. Yes actually, most huge companions literally do need a huge revenue, otherwise they'll go bankrupt.
A company that costs 100 million dollars a year to run needs to make a lot more than 100 million dollars to justify its existence.
The opportunity cost of that $100 million is large. If a company with $100 million of expenses grosses $101 million dollars, that's only a 1% annual return on investment (which isn't passive).
Then people seem to always compare profit numbers inconsistently based on what point they're trying to make (if not completely pull it out of thin air). The profit margins on these games are not already large enough to be comfortable, in many cases the costs of individual games are very close to the revenue they bring in
Opening Premise is Not true. Sorry I remember when we had video games in the early pre-Windows era (1980) that sold for $10 each (and maxed around $20). Minimum wage was $3.10 an hour. So a video game was worth a little over 3 hours of minimum wage employment, and 6 hours for that $20 game. At $70 and a minimum of $7.25 an hour is 9-10 hours of minimum wage employment. Tell me how that is cheaper.
CORRECT
Don't bring facts into this, Extra Credits can't possibly argue with facts, it would destroy his whole channel.
You have to remember that minimum wage has not kept pace with inflation-so it’s not the best yardstick to use in this type of comparison.
I see you conveniently left out the 90s were games would releases at upwards of $60-$75.
@@nancycariker-moon9890 that's precisely why it's the best yardstick for this comparison
A "yes, and" to the point of why they don't "feel" cheaper, in extreme brief: aggregate studies (i.e.: bureau of labor statistics data) count all dollars as equally effective, act as though money is normally distributed (i.e.: along an even curve), and are completely ignorant of what you must spend (i.e.: taxes; costs of living) because the concept of inflexible goods/services, necessary variability, or imperfect agency get in the way of neat models. The reality is, as a percentage of discretionary spending, AAA games are still pretty pricey for most people, as other specific costs have way outpaced general inflation and wages.
yep income inequality has gotten worse so for middle class folks the price of games hasnt actually improved
I came here to say something like this. I would be interested to see how the cost of a game as a percent of average total income has changed over time, and also as a percent of average discretionary income (if that can even be calculated).
so they dont look at the difference in the cost of goods area by area? geez that can explain so much.
Amazing reply! While in general it could be argued the way they lay it out in the video, money just isn’t general.
Yeah, I have more money coming in, but I'm also spending significantly more on food, which means my disposable income has shrunk in absolute terms, and even a $60 game that I could have purchased on a whim in 2019 is something I'd have to save up for a couple of months for here in 2024.
From the people that was saying lootboxes are the same as dlc expansions
"Who are you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?"
-Flat earthers
These people are just mouth pieces for Corpos
You see how he lies!
Extra Credits - "games are cheaper than ever"
Tarkov - "hold my beer"
My conclusion from watching this video is that Factor foods gives you brain damage.
Love my food being shipped in plastic containers I'll put in the microwave! I'm a gamer I don't have time to cook like an adult.
@@RyutaaKuzunoha case & point
that stuff has to have lead in it
I didn't see the bullet point about CEOs and shareholders getting larger and larger slices of the pie
Theyd be outed from the industry for ackowledging that
they aren't, companies are bleeding like stuffed pigs, even the big ones
@@goldsteed8832 yet you'll never see a ceo or other executive suffer a pay cut or redundancy. In fact even if the company goes bankrupt they will be mysteriously hired straight into another leading position elsewhere until that company goes bust.
Its an almost society wide pattern and problem. We are led by a class of owners who dont work their way into ownership
@@Rynewulf You mean like how they did in previous videos where they praise Nintendo execs for taking paycuts to avoid layoffs? In your delusion, why do you think they weren't outed for that one?
That was covered by the "adjusted for inflation" portion of the pitch.
If a publisher justified a higher sticker price with a promise of no microtransactions and free DLC I would just assume they were lying and would renege on it about a month after it released
Nintendo games regularly do that. Tears of the Kingdom, for instance.
@@PlaylistWatching1234 That never had dlc?
@@ASpaceOstrich 'Aonuma wrote that in Tears of the Kingdom, "we were able to implement all of the elements that we wanted to achieve in this world and this story, so there will not be any DLC. Please continue to enjoy the vast world of Hyrule."'
@@PlaylistWatching1234 Yeah. And there haven't been any. Thats what I was wondering about.
"Free DLC" as a selling point would be awful. They could (and many would) just chop off even more of the game to later give as a "free DLC"
Others here mention that income isn't keeping up. Lets not forget that the cost of living is getting ridiculous! Rent (+utility), groceries, and phone bills come to mind, plus emergency funds and maybe savings. If you add in the recreational stuff like subscriptions (of which, there will always be _way_ more each year and always with a price hike), you now don't feel so content in spending a full price of a game.
Income has been going up. Disposable income has not.
I think part of the reason is because EVERYTHING has gone up. That 70 just hits harder now that streaming has gone up, eating out has gone up, broadband has gone up, etc.
Just plain eating period has gone up, not just eating out. Your point is still totally valid though- just saying ;)
>streaming has gone up
then cancel your subscription, its not a necessity
@@sticklyboior just jailbreak
If you're outside the 10% of the population that lives in the first world countries, paying 60$ for a game is insane. Even if regional prices are half that, our salaries are at least five times less, so it's still extremely expensive, so with rare exceptions, most people of this planet will keep investing in hardware and either pirate or wait for major discounts on software.
Luckily though I've seen some games be pretty progressive on the matter by selling their games at technically huge losses for some of those regions to match the economy, trusting consumers in first world countries to buy their games at first world prices.
best way to fight piracy is to make a offer better then the Pirates after all.
Try being Australian, where a lot of them have been over $100 for a long time, and that's base price before you add on all the additional DLC and microtransactions.
I mean, they are way more than halved tbf.
Like I live in Colombia and some games here are sold for a fifth of the price they are sold in the west, so that's only an issue if you buy games that don't localise their prices (such as nintendo games).
@@pangake There's no such thing as a game that makes a loss on a sale unless the game is priced below the cost of distribution (which today is some $0.30). The development cost was already paid and therefore the more sales to divide that cost the better. Selling at $10 in some countries is better than not selling at all because at the end of the day it's an additional $9.70 in revenue per sale.
Technically cheaper, sure.
But the buying power of the dollar for the common household on their disposable income is lower than ever.
Most financial statistics fail to capture or account for the widening wealth accumulation.
A lot of metrics based on inflation are incredibly skewed, since a fair part of mandatory monthly expenditures prices were raised above inflation, but other superfluous goods and services were lower, keeping the "inflation metric" lower on paper.
And the vast majority of AAA games now have 5 different premium versions, in game monetization and MTX on top of sticker price.
Games are only cheaper in theory.
AAAs tend to have over-inflated budgets and low content delivery for the sticker price.
There is a reason you feel like you are paying more for less. You are. When you consider you have relatively less surplus income for entertainment. Your money is worth less than before.
I would rather watch a nine minute video on your point.
This entire video felt very gaslighty. “Don’t believe your lying eyes” type beat. Legit worst possible take.
Dude doesn’t understand wages/ inflation or how tone deaf he sounded. This is the take of a super comfortable privileged person who’s only ever had their wages increase YOY.
the only problem here is that wages haven't followed inflation since reagan
This isn't true.
@@pax6833 You're right, the correct term is greedflation
@@Sinaeb No, it's jst not true that wages haven't risen. The median inflation adjusted weekly salary in the 80s: 896$, median inflation adjusted weekly salary today: 1,053$
Wages outpaced inflation.
Most people aren't making the "median inflation adjusted" wages though, half the population is BELOW that line. That's what "median" means.
But the cost of living has increased faster than wages in that same period. The average Consumer Price Index (CPI) has tripled, home prices have nearly doubled, and rents more than doubled. [Sources: Consumer Affairs, “Comparing the costs of generations”, 2023-06-01; Marketplace, “Money and millenials: The cost of living in 2022 vs. 1972”, 2022-08-17; Statista, “Consumer Price Index (CPI) of all urban consumers in the United Status from 1992 to 2023”]
never paid $70 for a game and never will
The only exception for me MIGHT be GTA 6.
@@TheSweetTeaGuy tool
@@TheSweetTeaGuy no way bro
@@TheSweetTeaGuy Target market.
If a game costs $70 it's automatic piracy
Gotta say, that point about $70 not covering the cost of production is nonsense. Bobby Kotick and Yves Guillmot (spelling?) are both filthy rich as the CEO’s of the biggest game publishers. They wouldn’t be that rich if the cost of games didn’t cover production. I’ll happily pay $90 for a game if I know the developers are getting paid and it’s not all going into some CEO’s pocket who then lays off all the staff after publishing their best earnings report in years.
How does bro have the worst takes in gaming 💀
Remember when he thought we were orcs ☠️☠️
Remember - it's bad to let you play the Germans in a WW2 game's multiplayer, because you might decide that a certain event didn't happen and was entirely justified if it did.
@@mortemtyrannus8813 I feel like he’s just telling in himself
Yes, these people are some of the most un-ironically racist, condescending a-holes on the website.
What???
haha I heard he tried arguing games were cheaper. So I came here to see just what a trainwreck he managed to churn out. I was not disappointed, good comedy.
I think another big factor is that everything else has gotten more expensive and wages havent increased at the same pace. So even if "% of paycheck" is equivalent, "% of discretionary budget" isn't because people are needing to spend more of their paycheck on food/shelter/healthcare etc.
The thing is that even if the wage increases
It will cause everything else to increase much quicker
Wages do increase. What the video fails to take into account is the cost of essentials. Our income may have increased, but our _disposable_ income keeps steadily dropping.
"GAWK PLEASE GAWK GIVE GAWK ME GOK AN GOK INDUSTRY GAWK JOB"
🤣🤣🤣
What a tone deaf and out of touch video, minimum wage hasn't increased in nearly 20 years, the income hasn't been keeping up with the inflation. Pay 70 dollars for an unfinished game, just to be riddle with microtransactions. The people who actually put effort into said games are getting less and less with CEOs stealing the money from them.
They aren't dismissing that. Watch the actual video😊
@chef-kiss bot they never even mentioned any of his complaints
We are now seeing that it doesn’t actually cost much to create a great game if you don’t want it to. Indie developers have been eating triple A’s lunch with higher quality games at less than half the price tag because it’s much cheaper to fund 1-10 devs than 500. And the triple A publishers are laying off thousands because people aren’t buying their lower quality games.
The vast majority of their money is going to graphics. Shiny keys to distract, that add nothing to the game. Sure, when I throw that grenade and the dust cloud comes up, real time volumetric lighting that realistically moves through the dust cloud in real time for photo realism LOOKS cool. But it didn't add anything to your otherwise generic, samey, probably broken assed title.
Graphics peaked in the 360/ps3 era. Everything after that has been icing. There's too much icing. NOTHING graphically has actually improved the gameplay in any way. In the 360/ps3 era you could, right then, do ANYTHING you wanted to do, graphically. NOTHING was off limits. Now, it's just over indulgent, overly expensive, and with most every AAA title trying to look realistic, overly samey. Good job, your game looks real. Just like these fifty other titles that you in no way stand out from. You bored me. And your gameplay hasn't changed in 20 years.
No really. Name me one gameplay innovation in the last 20 years. I can only think of one, the Nemesis system from Shadow Of Mordor, and that was in a total of TWO games. One MIGHT argue VR, but... let's face it, IF that ever takes off for real, it won't be for a LONG assed time. And even then it'll never actually take over.
Triple A publishers are laying off thousands because investors want to see record profits, and that's impossible with a static cost of labor.
@@tyrongkojy Nice graphics are actually detriment to game play. How many games out there look great but then you turn off half of fancy stuff because it makes you worse at game (like extra foliage and grass in games like Escape from Tarkov or PUBG). Clarity of what is happening in the game is far more important then pretty effects. Even in Valheim, if you turn grass to low you have much easier time finding resources like mushrooms for example. So they spend all this time on making stuff look great just for people to turn it off xD
@@quietone610 It’s also impossible to make a profit when you invest too much in a single venture. The studios have too many employees on each project. Manor lords has a single dev, I think it was Microsoft but don’t quote me, just laid off 2,000 employees. If each makes 50k (low ball), that’s 100,000,000 a year. Smaller teams producing more games on a smaller budget is a better investment
@@Mithguar To me that does add to the atmosphere, btu assets in the game are not graphics. Plus you'd not be at a disadvantage if you removed the ability to, well, remove those. I do see your general point, but I'm not with you, there.
There's also the relative age of the player as you grow up. Those who were children or teens during the 90s were mostly either not paying for games themselves, or were doing so while not responsible for rent, food, etc. Their "percentage of a paycheck" concept doesn't really start until after games had started settling at 60$, making the cost seem even more static.
On top of that, those of us who were coming of age in the 90s and 00s in the developed world mostly saw relatively low inflation (at least in CPI terms -- not counting things like rent and real estate), and are too young to remember the high inflation of the 70s and early 80s. We very much got used to prices of _everything_ staying flat or rising slowly -- or even _falling_ in the case of some consumer electronics -- so this recent higher inflation hits that much harder.
Also, there are _a lot more games_ available to the average player now, especially on the more open platforms like PCs and phones/tablets. As mentioned, many of these are lower-cost indie titles -- especially since online distribution made it easier and cheaper for more developers to get their games out there. And rising living standards and increased connectivity means developers in more parts of the world can get in on it too, now -- not just North America, Western Europe, and Japan. I fully expect something from Africa or India or Southeast Asia or Latin America to be a worldwide hit eventually (assuming I haven't missed one already), much like how The Witcher series came out of Eastern Europe.
Beo is not even trying to hide his sellout power levels
The customer base for video games has also massively expanded
I am glad someone finally mentioned this. If they can sell several times more copies, they can keep the price down and make a profit. The extra cost per copy sold is pretty much negligible.
I think this is by far the most importartant point: Games are not physical products that have a production price or value attached to each piece, but content that has a value attached to the entire concept, including all copies sold. Physical pruducts and products that can be copied just sell differently.
A good example is how nobody thinks about the price difference one person pays for a normal performance of a superstar (e.g. Taylor Swift in front of a stadium of 60 000) and the huge price paid by the super-rich for having an identical or similiar private performance for a party. Because our thinking is: That performance is is worth something (let's say 50m $), no matter if one persons or thousand people share that cost. Although a vastly different price is paid for roughtly the same thing.
Also holds true for any kind of lecture, lesson or teaching: We expect a private lecture to be much more expensive than one in front of a classroom of 30 which is still more expensive than recording of the lecture broadcast to millions. Even if no additional service (like tutoring) is offered.
In summary I would argue that inflation does not influence content (that can be copied without loss) or shared services similiar to physical goods or individual services.
@@williamwilson2020 Plus more and more games are becoming digital there's less cost to production.
"Leave the multibillion dollar company alone.... or else.."
To convince me of this, you need to show me over the years how much a game and console costs, and then compare that against a minimum wage paycheck after expenses, aka fun money.
Other people have mentioned how stagnant income has been and I think that's the biggest factor, but another thing I think often goes overlooked is diminishing returns. Games are more expensive to make because of their scope and new technologies, but a lot of that effort makes less and less of a difference overtime. The quality of a game from 2020 and a game from now don't feel all that different to me, but the quality of a game from 2015 and a game from 2020 feels like a huge jump, and that just gets more extreme the further back you go. If I'm paying 20%(ish) more for a game that only feels 5% better, it's gonna seem like games have gotten more expensive.
Heck even going back to the original modern warfare the newer CODs have essentially only added more progression systems over a whole 2 decades. There's an utter lack of progress in anything but graphics. Everything is focused on player retention and wringing people of the most money possible nowadays and it shows.
Back when you called the tech support line and one of the 2 devs answered grandpa?
So what you're telling me is that for the better part of 40 years, we've been overpaying for games, given that companies still report record profits today? Good to know.
I call flipping bs.
Part of that is just having lower costs per unit and a much larger audience then ever. Cartridges weren’t cheap to produce compared to disks and digital copies cost literally nothing to produce.
Most video game companies profits are growing slower than inflation, aka, they're actually decreasing in real terms
every time this channel comes up its always the most brimstone ass coal post
Its like these people are deathly allergic to having an intelligent thought
Wut
Prices go up, quality and quantity goes down.
It's probably got to do with how they shove all the monetization in our faces all the time. In the past the games might have been more expensive, but we only saw that price tag once. After buying we went on to just play the game. Now everything has a store front built into it and we can't stop thinking about it cause the game won't let us.
Yep. People complain about the cost of DLC in a game like street Fighter 6, without taking into account that the "Champions Edition" DLC pack for SFII cost over $100 for only four new characters, and then the "Super" DLC cost another $100 for four more new characters, and each only had a single costume. The "Turbo" DLC cost _another_ $100 and was barely even a balance patch!
If people will buy it, they will make it. Blame the consumer.
Median purchasing power (which have gone down since the 80s) plays a big role, not just inflation.
The median real wages have gone up tho?
@@quedtion_marks_kirby_modding Source?
@@CaitiffPrimogen US census Bureau.
Search usa real median income overtime in google and it should be one of the first results (it seems I can't send links here).
I think a part of it is, as mentioned, the consumer experience. When you are "buying" a game, you are buying the right to use a piece of software currently rather than before where you got a physical cd, a box or case you can show off or throw away at your discretion, the manual, and a complete game. So while overall quality has improved, part of why it feels so expensive is because we are getting so much less.
As corporate CEOs and shareholders gain skyrocketing profits year after year while firing legions of staff, as eggs are now double the price they were ten years ago (and look up greedflation), as companies push higher and higher arbitrary numbers that given diminishing returns for their games, as rent continues rise and wages continue to stagnate. No I don't FEEL like games are more expensive. They are, because we're not soley purchasing video games and living off that. Its a luxury good, and one I'm not putting money into at 70. I usually really like your guys' stuff but on this I have to really disagree.
1000%
Completely agree with you. You could’ve made a much better video than this schmuck.
Legitimately the worst, and most tone deaf thing I have ever seen from this team
Look, I'll start looking at games that run $70 once I can properly afford groceries again.
Back in the days, when you bought a game you either had it forever or could sell it. Today you can't. So if games are cheaper now, they are cheaper to rent up until somebody decides to turn of servers and you can't.
The main reason you're missing is that in much of the world pay checks have failed to keep up with inflation. Therefore yes technically you are correct but while the price compared to the value of the money is lower than ever the percentage of a paycheck that represents is not scaling accordingly.
Median wage adjusted for inflation in the US is higher than any point before 2019.
This channel has become the reason I am CHEERING for the Next Videogame CRASH!
Oh yeah, 100%, I looked up last year that when i was a kid, Chrono Trigger released at 80$ in the US (1995). It was actually more expensive than normal because the cartridge because most cartridges were 24 bit, but they went with a 32 bit cartridge. It would be the closest thing to a AAA game today. Last year happened to be about the time the modern dollar doubled compared to 1995. So that sublime 30 hour experience would be 160$+ today (plus tax).
I have a couple theories on why I think it feels expensive.
1.) Comparable pricing. Kind of mentioned with the Indie example but id argue the micro transactions, and post sale monetization in many AAA games is also now found in F2P games. F2P games have jumped significantly in scale/quality in the last 5 years and I think that the fact they are closing the gap makes us question why we are paying 70$ AND the micro transactions.
2.) Steam. Steam sales, especially when companies do aggressive price cuts after the game has been out for a few months. It kind makes us think that we are paying a premium at launch much greater than actual cost . Its much different than years ago when price drops would only occur around holidays or when a game was re released under a "greatest hits" label.
3.) Decreased distinct difference between console generations. There isnt a big jump in visual difference now with the jump from 60-70$ as say the 50->60$ jump going from SD to HD. The jump from PS4 to PS5 just wasnt nearly as great and graphics typically have been the leading cost factor. Instead the primary improvement in games seems to be scale, and honestly a lot of scale is harder to really express to consumers as easily. Especially if its not used effectively.
4.) Modern development. Most games launch with a ton of bugs, and day one patches. Back in the day, games just worked. What do you think feels more valuable, something that works as intended in 99% of cases or something that can be neigh unplayable until a year later when everything is patched and working correctly? Especially since all the marketing and hype is around the release.
5.) Open World games/ trend chasing. Most AAA studios play it safe and 95% of AAA games feel like they are Open World. Having so many games in the same genre take away the uniqueness of those games so I dont think players get the same "highs". As such I think many AAA games lose "value" to the consumer because the experiences are similar. To use a hyper specific example, BotW vs TotK and many peoples dialogue around revisiting that world. I think this is also a big reason why BG3 took off. The mass market hadnt seen a AAA game like that... ever as that genre has always been niche as far as the mass market was concerned.
"Hey, games are cheap, a bargain at just $70.00, so you can definitely buy my sponsor's $12.00 per meal microwavables!"
Extra Credits: hey we haven’t had a bad take in a while.
Let’s get the internet angry at us again.
As Stephanie Sterling likes to remind us all about, 70 Dollars or whatever it is, now is only the entry fee. You don't get to have the full experience of the game without paying for collector's edition, season pass, dlc, microtransactions and so on. So, yes, the shelf price is cheaper than inflation suggests, but what you get is oftentimes far less than you would have in the past, e.g. content or features cut from the game just to be sold to us seperately again. And don't forget the fabled time savers that are sold to solve problems that were deliberately introduced during development...
Part of why the "low price" + DLC model feels bad is because it's a backhanded way of raising the price, and we know it. That "$70" game isn't $70, but $120 in the most spurious way possible.
You have to factor in DLC though. When you bought a game pre-PS3/X360, you got the _entire_ game. So pricing needs to be compared to the base game + DLC. Plus you didn’t have to worry about your “license” being rescinded (sorry, no refunds) because the store closed.
There were DLCs back then too. But nowadays there is far more free, non-paywalled post development.
I don’t think PS2 was capable of that besides _Final Fantasy XI._ Xbox OG maybe, but I didn’t have one. The closest thing would be _Sonic 3 & Knuckles_ on the Genesis, but even then you still had 2 games that could fully play on their own.
@@GamerFromJump I think they were meaning things like physical expansions being the then-technological equivalent of dlc.
I get the idea but salaries haven't been rising to accommodate inflation this time around, games aren't really "cheaper" in that sense.
"I'm just a widdle multimillion dollar corporation, and you have to fund me!"
"I am not doing that."
"AND JUST LET HIM FUCKING DIE?"
>This Video.
EC has been cranking out consistently bad takes for years now
Facts don't care about your feelings. Just because you can't handle the truth doesn't mean it shouldn't be reported
@@cjlister8508What truth? Don't tell me you're one of those "The economy is doing great, actually" people.
@@cjlister8508
You mean the fact that the buying power of the dollar in households of their their disposable income is as low as it has ever been ?
That Fact ?
@@Ixiah27 No that wasbt the topic of the video. Video games are cheaper now than in the 90s. That's a fact. Especially in the UK.
@@cjlister8508Yeah if you completely ignore the purchasing power of that money, other costs, the actual cost of making the game, the fact that the cost is upfront and not per product so extra copies costs them nothing, that the amount of content much like your bag of chips is less for the same amount of money, corporate taking bigger cuts, or a hundred other factors it totally makes sense.
Or in other words it's wrong but let's ignore that.
I just googled 90's videogame ad and found several examples of games costing 60-70 bucks...in 90's money!
And that was when they had to physical produce cartridges, and later, disks, which is why so many people rented games and bought them used. Like how VHS tapes costs and arm and a leg back them. I got TMNT on VHS and babied that tape because I knew we weren't replacing it.
If an Extra Credits take isn't the most tepid, universally-accepted one, it's the dumbest take imaginable.
"and as wages grew with inflation"
well ours fuckin didn't
Neither did mine
Something to add is the balancing of the price vs DLC content volume that's made games feel more expensive because we've seen a really mixed bag of results over the years.
For example, Elden Ring's DLC is $40, but it adds a slew of new content (i.e. bosses, gear, classes, etc.) that makes it feel like it's a whole game of its own to add on top of an already complete game. They had reached a fair balance where the full priced game and the price for DLC were both justified due to the volume of content and high quality of the products.
On the other hand, there was Fallout 76's subscription service introduced back in 2019. It wanted to charge $13 a month to allow players access to highly requested features in the game, which that price was more than the Xbox Game Pass at the time. Here, you had players already frustrated with an incomplete game now being asked to pay a monthly sub just to get features that, the players repeatedly communicated, should've been in the base game from the start.
While it is hard to find that middle ground when pricing DLC, the players/market definitely has felt the pinch in numerous ways and now hold higher expectations when it comes to DLC.
I think an issue is partly that we buy more games now, and we can't be sure if a certain game will give us 4 hours of meh, or 140 hours and great replay value. There weren't as many games released "back in the day", so you tended to invest more of your time in the ones you got. Today, there is always a bunch of new releases increasing the FOMO feeling. It's kind of interesting comparing video games with other entertainment industry. While some blockbuster movies can have more expensive tickets, these prices are usually tied to the type of screen or time of day, not the cost of making the movie. And some streaming services are more expensive that others, but we pay a flat fee for all the content - whether it's 60 hours of a favourite sitcom or 2,5 hours for a prestige movie.
I've seen games as expensive as 89.99...
That's cute, look at escape from tarkov asking for $250 for dlc.
@@HeroineDarkwhich should've been available to the tier that gets ALL DLC already
@@HeroineDark That's cheap compared to all the DLC for train sims. and speaking of sims, Sims 4
Tarkov DLC 😂
You haven't seen them all then! 70 Dollars is the base line, it gets WAAAAAY more expensive.
There are MORE GAMES being made now than ever, so the RATE at which we spend money to keep up with the industry is insane.
I think the feeling is a combination of:
1) Expectation: games have held at $60 for so long that its been ingrained that's just what a AAA game costs.
2) Cheap, but quality Independent games providing a high quality experience for much less, and our brain compares the value we get from our time playing the games against the dollars we spend. Not really looking at all the line items that may have gone into each games creation.
3) Those of us that remember the era of $40-$50 games were probably kids when that price point was a thing. While we may have been aware of the price of games we were likely not very cognizant of the relative cost of those games against our parent's paychecks. So, we are unable to appreciate how much more affordable they are.
4) Wages are a lagging indicator, and we've had about 7-10 once in a lifetime events in the last couple of decades. Inflation is rising without wages keeping pace. As basic living expenses have increased and wages have not (or at least not as much) the amount that one can budget for games has gone down, and when the list price goes up it feels like a slap in the face.
In Canada, Tears of the Kingdom was $90 which came to $101 after tax. It was painful.
Reasons games are "cheaper" now. The market and ease of making them. The market is bigger than ever. The size of the market dwarves most entertainment markets.
Nothing like hearing from the corporate bootlicks over at Extra Credits. EFAP roasting you boys rn.
Ah, I see you are a man of culture.
Obsessing over inflation data is nonsensical when wages haven't kept up. In actual practical terms games are more expensive because for normal people they make up a bigger chunk of your income.
This also ignores the rest of the world outside of the US where game prices absolutely do up at least with the official rate of inflation if not more.
You also have to keep in mind that disposable income is shrinking due to the price of necessities increasing, so games take up more relative space of our extra budget. If this isn't fixed, games may just have to lose their playerbase and a lot of developers may just have to go back to bagging groceries.
It's funny how it never even crossed their minds that it might not be the percent of the paycheck, but how much of that money you can actually spend on having fun. You can't spend 70 on something other than food and rent when you get paid under 15 dollars an hour.
This video was brought to you in part by Big Video Game
Let's also not ignore the fact that a lot of AAA revenue doesn't go to devs or dev costs, it goes to the executives
IKR! Do you remember which company doubled the CEO salary while laying off 600 employees?
@@sethlangston181 Was it "all of them"?
Something else to consider in the value proposition is that we aer very aware of not owning our games these days. I suspect that if gamers had an option to pay 100 us and be able to resell their games and retain them even if they mod them it would make a reap difference in price feeling.
Everyone seems to forget that part of what makes the market's prices acceptable at the lower level was because the market size is much bigger. More people gaming now than in the 90s. 90s was more niche and so it required higher prices to make ends meet and make profit, but in modern times, everyone was still turning a profit when prices were $50-60 before this $70 new price... why ignore this?
The price raise isn't about covering budgets, it's PURELY corporate greed.
If a game takes £000000000 to make… it doesn’t by itself justify its cost.
No shade to the game devs getting paid, this is an executives decision. but if you can’t make back your money, your business model is the issue not the consumer.
Also Second wind did a great video on what does AAA mean? And basically it’s just how much money is spent on the game.
"I have done a whole night of research on the topic of monetization, DLCs, and microtransaction, and I will include my finding in a DLC to this video"
How do you even recognise your reflection with so little self awareness?
The absolute level of corporate apologia on display here is remarkable lmao.
“Cheaper” on point of purchase. And then rammed full of paid cosmetics, currency microtransactions, day 1 dlc, deluxe edition upgrades, season passes and battle passes.
and lets also not forget carving out chunks of the game that were already completed just to sell it to ya later.
Yeah, I think this is the bigger piece. I would be curious to know how much the average spend for some of these games? It think it is probably a lot higher than $70, once season passes or ultimate editions get added in.
@@Sniperbear13 My sweet summer child. All games have had cut content, always.
@@HerrCron yes but not to the extent we have been seeing. in the past, they cut content because they couldn't fit it, or time didn't allow them to finish.
now and days, content is being cut because they want to charge you for it.
@@Sniperbear13 "we've been seeing"
You've been imagining, you mean.
"Leave the billion dollor corporation alone!" In video form.
International audiences mostly pay more nowadays tbh, in Brazil's case the exchange from R$ to US$ was 1 to 1 in 1994, today it's R$ 5.20 to US$ 1.00.
Billionaire executives selling the same unfinished products year after year and demanding hundreds of dollars for dlcs...
Extra credits: gamers are too greedy and games are cheap.
$70 for a game that is a souless remake of a previous game doesn’t feel good. You know the framework for these games are built already. You see Indie studios (No Man's Sky) putting more effort into free game updates than you will see from a sequel of a AAA game.
game + season pass 1 (a few dlcs) + season pass 2 (a few dlcs) + "micro" transactions, suuure, so much cheaper... The only thing that is cheap are indie games...
If the "Leave alone the multibillion dollar company" meme was a video.
I don't even remember the last time I played and enjoyed a AAA title.
I hope mommy corporation sees this bro...
Corporate higher-ups are lagging the devs for years, and then when the game needs to come out, it only has 1/5 of the content for the original price of $60, but is priced at $70 with a deluxe edition at $100 and a collector's at $150.
But CEOs and executives salaries never stopped growing. Funny how that goes but no one talks aboth it.
It feels untrue because, in terms of inflation, it might be lower. But what you measure it by isn't full year financial records calculated for inflation. What you measure it against is your personal budget. Taken in terms of hours of work required to pay for the game, it's higher, if you factor in other expenses first. After rent, gas, food... how much DO you have left?
And the whole thing on top of this is. That this whole thing is US based. The usa kept kinda okay among the pandemic times. Other countries sure as hell didnt. I live in eastern eu. And while i got a significantly better paying job in the same time. The price i pay for games more than doubled because of the fall of currency value. At this point a aaa game is costed at around 8 to 10% of monthly wage. Pre dlc and all the whistles.
Its getting very hard to justify paying that tag. When price of 2 aaa games gets me a medium quality musical instrument or other tool.
I usually just end up buying 1-2 15-20 dollar indie games instead and buy a triple aaa priced game once or twice a year at most.
Its really starting to become a luxury good.
Currency exchange is a mean bitch. Factors external to your control can make your life harder or more expensive. In the case of the pandemic those with much more money than you and me decided to bet on the mighty dollar. It worked for them at the expense of those who import. Video game publishers make most of their money in US dollars and while they do appreciate selling in oversea markets, come the end of the day they will trade any foreign currency for American dollars. Even big publishers don't make a huge money basket outside of US dollars and sometimes Euros.
Those 2 thousands like are rich people
You know what? You're right. I am spending a lot less on games these days.
Firstly, I buy less new games as I have Game Pass. Secondly I only buy on sale. And probably the most important difference, I found the archive.
I will consider paying for new games when games have a fully offline mode that will never update unless you specifically go to their store and force install the updates they recommend. Free updates. But optional
The games industry makes more money than it ever has. Stop trying to justify them cranking up prices even higher.
Yea they're cheaper if you pirate them.
Its a half truth; between inflation and the quality of product yes we are getting a lot more for less than we used to, however wages have not kept up with inflation at all so it is harder to _afford_ a game today than it has been in the past. That is the key distinction; cheap and affordable are two very different things and budgeting gets tighter and tighter every day. So ironically despite games being cheaper than ever they are the least affordable now in the entire history of gaming. Is it any wonder why people suck up terrible free to play models just to be able to play _something?_
Not to mention that a console/up scale pc is very expensive. A ps5 is $499. Way more than the $299 a ps4 could be. Heck you could easily buy a cheaper used one. It’s all more expensive.
I have no problem believing games are cheaper now then ever before. Two things.
Obviously inflation - When Super Mario Bros came out in 1985 (30 years ago) it was $25. What kid in 85 had that much money to spend on ONE game. That was probably the ONLY thing that kid got for Christmas that whole year.
Today Game prices are all over the place - While top AAA games cost $70 today, they aren't the only games you can buy anymore. With services like Steam we are buying more indie games and the prices vary widely, in 2024 you can buy a lot of new games for LESS than $25 now.
So after adjusting for inflation and using the AVERAGE cost of new games, overall we're paying pennies for gaming compared to past gamers.
Say, what if instead inflation we compare minimal wage hours?, also I don't think that its fair to compare physical games with digital licenses.
How have they not learnt their lesson. This is the third time now
It's not that games are "more expensive" in the modern day. It's that modern AAA games are too expensive for what they actually give you in terms of enjoyment (read: no enjoyment whatsoever).
Game companies can makre more money without increasing the sale price or adding microtransactions. They do it by selling more games. The number of gamers and thus the number of people buying games has increased massively.
Did you know your wife cheats on you more than ever?
Wait, _WTF??_ Where'd THAT come from?? XD
@@TaoScribble This statement is equally credible to the one made in this video
@@alexclarke152 Ah, okay. I thought I'd missed some tea.
One thing not brought up here is that while game dev costs have risen, so to has the consumer base. They might make less per sale, but they have the potential to make a lot more sales. Even some fad of the week indie game can hit nearly 10 million now. The large market has been kept up with in indie by having way more indie games now but AAA hasn't really increased the amount of games coming out.
"Be grateful you aren't paying even more for the slop on the market"
I think people are proving you wrong. Sales are down gamers reject a $70 price tag