[sidlls]

They’re flat for years. Ten years ago a premium AAA title would typically release at $49.99 to $59.99 and still have expansions and other DLC for sale.

In constant dollars the retail price of top-end games is basically flat, or even lower now.

[Red_Leaves_Flyy]

Your argument is disingenuous.

Most aaa titles have significant dlc that hardly expands the game. Gtav is an exception, and that's only because stupid/rich people whale on shark cards. Also repeat purchases from banned players.

Cod is now $120/yr. Without and iaps. If you don't buy the dlc you'll have a hard timemaking friends and playing pvp.

Most games are like that now. Looking at title prices is a flawed metric. A good metric total cost of all iaps. If there are unlimited purchases available then you can be sure that the game has been crippled to coerce vulnerable players into spending irrational amounts. This trend is unethical and everyone involved in allowing this to continue is no better than the sacklers.

[sidlls]

Games ten years ago had DLC, too. Certainly not as much but it did exist, and often was priced on par with equivalent DLC offered today.

Also, it’s frequently the case that DLC today has development and maintenance costs that the base retail package simply doesn’t.

[Red_Leaves_Flyy]

Ten years ago it wasn't common for dlc to have unlimited purchases or even for the cumulative price to double the base cost. Now, it's rather common for games to have gambling mechanics that put a floor on the cost of time limited items that is measured in the hundreds or thousands of dollars.

I have less of a problem with buying a game and its season pass for $120 than I do when I buy a game and season pass for $120 to find thousands of dollars in iaps required to get everything. This trend is disgusting and I for one have written off all companies with even a single product engaging in this. This includes Blizzard, rockstar, Microsoft's label, bungie, Activision, ea, etc. To earn my purchases they'll need to ditch all the unethical iaps and find an ethical and sustainable business model. Though I'd rather see them go bankrupt and firesale all their ip to indie studios.

[sidlls]

The market exists in its current state because the gambling/loot box/DLC whales subsidize the rest of the market, because by far most of the rest of the market think they're entitled to $200 worth of content and support for $60 at retail and are very vocal about it.

I'm the last one to defend Big Business in any industry, but I've seen the gaming industry from the inside and as a consumer. Here's my opinion: gamers are absolutely the worst customer base I've ever seen.

[Red_Leaves_Flyy]

That's easy to say. There's certainly no dearth of miserable people that play video games and try to being everyone there down with them too. But these peoplealso act these ways in real life too.

I don't feel entitled to a $n game for less than $n. However, if a company sells 0.5 of a $n game for the $n price I will take issue with them. There is no shortage of half assed games sold with dlc and gambling for aaa prices. No man's sky is the epitome of this. How they didn't get arrested and sued for fraud/false advertising boggles my mind. The industry is ripe with huge promises from the scummy advertising department, that turn out to usually be a shadow of what was promised.

Studios cut just about every corner, blatantly reuse assets yoy in dlc/new titles, skimp on infra, and have the audacity to complain about the players being cheap? The industry has pushed away so many deep pockets with these awful tactics. Try delivering good products first without selling me a bridge.

[catalogia]

> This trend is unethical and everyone involved in allowing this to continue is no better than the sacklers.

This is one of the reasons I dropped out of the gaming market almost entirely. The way I see it, 'gamers' are some of the least savvy consumers on the planet. They continue to buy games from companies they know have burned them numerous times. In some markets, consumers are known for holding decades long grudges against companies that have wronged consumers, but not gamers. Gamers seem to be exceptionally forgiving and naive in this regard, and that lets games companies walk all over them.

Invasive rootkit DRM, games broken on launch, games broken forever with the expectation that community modders will donate their labor to fix it for free, games that don't facilitate community servers, games that are split in two before launch with half the game being labeled "DLC", thinly veiled skinner boxes designed like slot machines designed to encourage binge-play ("grinding for rare loot") and sometimes designed to extract even more money from players who've already purchased the game ("lootcrates".) A DRM company, widely beloved by gamers, being forced by the courts to revise their abhorrent returns policy (https://www.engadget.com/2016/12/23/valve-steam-fined-2-mill...) Shit, I've had 'gamers' get fuming mad at me before for not worshiping at the altar of Valve, as though it were religious heresy for me to criticize a for-profit American corporation.

Even when the 'gamer community' recognizes something as broken, they seem to forget by the time the next game comes around. Just look at the history of Bethesda releases. Morrowind was broken but somewhat novel. Oblivion was again broken, though perhaps with some of the edges rounded over. Next was Fallout 3, which was still broken. Skyrim was very broken, at this point the pattern should have been obvious to everybody paying attention, and to be fair to the gamers the brokenness of Bethesda games was becoming a meme at this point. Fallout 4 comes around and it's their most nerfed game yet, but still broken as fuck. How could anybody be surprised at this point? Yet people still bought that, and they even bought the next game, Fallout 76, which was the most egregiously Bethesda broken game yet. Currently the 'gamer community' recognizes Fallout 76 and Bethesda as dumpster fires, but will they buy the next Bethesda game? I'd bet on it. When it comes time to vote with their wallets, I wager they'll be compliant consumers and do as the marketing tells them to. Even when they learn, they don't learn. The lesson doesn't set in, a new game is released, and the cycle continues.

[friendlybus]

Games are games, game companies are games too. People want to be in this world where you can play with anything, broken and burned is part of the game. There's no difference between company, customer and product, it's all play.

A straight up and down company like IBM or Ford would not dominate in the games industry. Valve, ea, bethseda are leaders in play. They give you the opportunity to play religious heresy, or witness a fallout 76 firestorm. Where else do you get to play with a billion dollar company?