@@ClevTrev7 Or games you bought and never played! I'm playing through Super Mario Odyssey right now and I can't believe I've had this game sitting on my shelf for years.
I think the constant need for growth in all industries is just so goofy. You can he profitable by millions or even billions of dollars but if it's not as much as you think it should be, then it's a failure. Completely silly
It's because of shareholders. Employees are just looking for a regular and reasonable salary, but shareholders buy up a controlling stake in the company and steer all the decision making towards short term growth so they can get a quick return on investment. They don't care about long term prospects, like trust and goodwill from customers, or having loyal veteran employees. They're the ones who are pushing for half baked releases, predatory monetisation and over reliance on contract workers. By the time these idiotic decisions have done their damage they've already cashed out and made a profit.
People may quick to blame "capitalism", but this problem has existed for thousands of years before capitalism came to be. Ecclesiastes 5:10-20 10 Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless. 11 As goods increase, so do those who consume them. And what benefit are they to the owners except to feast their eyes on them? 12 The sleep of a laborer is sweet, whether they eat little or much, but as for the rich, their abundance permits them no sleep. 13 I have seen a grievous evil under the sun: wealth hoarded to the harm of its owners, 14 or wealth lost through some misfortune, so that when they have children there is nothing left for them to inherit. 15 Everyone comes naked from their mother’s womb, and as everyone comes, so they depart. They take nothing from their toil that they can carry in their hands. 16 This too is a grievous evil: As everyone comes, so they depart, and what do they gain, since they toil for the wind? 17 All their days they eat in darkness, with great frustration, affliction and anger. 18 This is what I have observed to be good: that it is appropriate for a person to eat, to drink and to find satisfaction in their toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given them-for this is their lot. 19 Moreover, when God gives someone wealth and possessions, and the ability to enjoy them, to accept their lot and be happy in their toil-this is a gift of God. 20 They seldom reflect on the days of their life, because God keeps them occupied with gladness of heart.
That's the problem with public companies. All about the short term. If more big companies stayed private like Valve, they wouldn't be as obsessed about growth every year. Valve is more incentivized to play the long game. Which is why they're giving out Steam OS & continue to optimize the Steam Deck experience. More data and cash for future projects like the Steam Deck 2.
We're seeing this with the movie industry and movies are making at least 300-500mill profit after advertisements and such so that should be considered good right, RIGHT but it's because every studio now thinks they can make MARVEL money and it's simply not feasible, Fall Guy, Furiosa and TF One all to me did perform pretty well but none of these were touching 600mill or 1B like come on one had an actual good female lead over shadowed by people's misconceptions, TF One a surprisingly good storyline ruined by it's initial marketing making it look childish and the movie being animated makes it lesser in some movie goers eyes and Fall Guy was touted to have a big star(s) but you need more that just that to sell a movie.
It would be cheaper AND you'd sometimes get something with it in the game itself. It would just be like a skin or something but nowadays they're charging 10-20 for a skin lmao
@@Xornicus that was back when games were released complete as well... I can't remember a fully completed finished game at launch since BioShock Infinite in 2011
Exactly. Nobody asked them to spend a hundred million to animate every single blade of grass, every snowflake and every vein in a horse's ballsack. I ain't paying a hundred bucks for one damn game.
Well as a triple a game/studio if they didn’t do the thing you just mentioned those studios would get negatively talked about especially amongst the pc crowd. Hell look at how much crap spider-man 2 got for not making a crazy leap visually
Agreed. I think there's a place for these AAA games with "next gen" graphics. But would love to see more studios rolling back the scale and graphical quality to produce more games that are just as (if not more) fun to play.
It is kind of insane, we've had maybe 50 AAA games released in the last few years that I've interacted with, and out of all of them maybe just less than a dozen are worth it.
exactly, they can set the price at whatever they want. that doesn't mean im gonna pay it... i already don't buy games at full price so what difference does it make to me?
I don’t care if it’s GTA 6 or Elder Scrolls 6, I refuse to pay $80+ for any standard edition game at launch. $70 was already a ridiculous jump given that the quality of games has continued to decline. If they try and do this, more people are just skip out on getting games day 1 and wait for the game to inevitably go on sale
Games being more expensive to produce does not correlate with people having more money to spend. In fact the same inflation has hit most people just as hard, since wages have greatly fallen behind inflation and cost of living. Most people have less money to spend on luxuries like games now than they did 20 years ago and it is beyond insanity that these industry analysts can't understand this
Everyone said this during the $70 hike. That didn't do jack to stop the sales of College Football, Call of Duty, Spider-Man and Wukong. People will buy the game simply because it's the brand
I don't understand how we can expect games to keep getting bigger, better, and more innovative every year-constantly outdoing the last-while also demanding that their price remains stuck at $60. Game development costs have skyrocketed, with studios investing more time, talent, and resources than ever before to meet ever-growing expectations. Yet, unlike other industries where inflation and increased production costs lead to price adjustments, gaming has been held to an outdated standard. If we truly want groundbreaking experiences, it only makes sense that game prices should reflect the immense effort that goes into creating them.
If everyone charges $100, then something like game pass for like $30 or $40 a month, starts looking much more appealing to more people. This is where we’re headed.
@jaredrobinson7071 I mean, everybody's finances are different, but I don't think many would pay $100 for a game right now. Borderlands 2 I would put in my top 5 and I waited for a sale when I got a gaming PC.
The question is... Despite the costs of video games rising significantly "to meet player expectations" by and large has the the quality risen? I would argue no, which leads me to question how studios are investing their resources
I haven't bought a full price game in months. $70 is too much. Hell even then $60 is pushing it for me. If it goes $100 I will not purchase until it goes on sale majorly. Are some games worth it? Sure. Is every game worth it at that price, absolutely not.
Yeah I wait for end of year sales, I have such a backlog, I sometimes wait for a couple of years until games are 20 or 15 Bucks. Why buy em new if I have so much to play, its mostly single player games I do this with
same here and since I only played mostly call of duty most my life with a few exceptions and just started playing more single player games about 3 years ago, it's been fantastic I get to buy games from years ago for cheap and they're better quality than most games put out today. for example I just played my first playthrough of rdr2 in 2024 and it was so good and also my backlog has become so massive that by the time I finish all the old games the ones coming out now will probably be half the price so let them raise that price lmao
I payed full price for dragon's dogma 2, 50-60 dollars is my limit. Doesn't even matter if it's Larian Studios who I would be willing to fanboy a bit for. Even if they deliver prices above it I wouldn't. 60 dollars is like, I gotta be needy as hell, 50 dollars I am more inclined but the game must still be proven to be amazing.
I got GTA V after it was upscale, ported, and made beter over years and years for $12. That's how much they will from me basically for GTa 6. They can kiss my ass with pricey, buggy, broken, constantly updated games. Not to mention they're going to upgrade this game multiple times.
People in the U.S. are on the verge of a recession if not already in one. The price of daily necessities is skyrocketing and about to go up even more once the Tariffs take affect. You know what happens when people have less money to spend? They cut back on luxuries and hobbies. If the game industry Jacks up their games to $100 a lot of games and studios are going to collapse entirely. I have a backlog of hundreds of games across every platform, and tons of great free to play games are released all the time, like Marvel Rivals and Zenless Zone Zero. The only thing $100 prices would do is make me stop buying games.
Well it seems like the gaming industry isn’t the only that’s lost the plot.. the tariffs were a leverage strategy that was frozen when the countries on which we imposed those tariffs complied with our demands. As it stands now we currently have only increased tariffs on china by 10%. Canada and Mexico tariffs have been halted. That being said, we are by far china’s biggest importer so unless they want their own recession they really have no choice but to comply
@@williamburns3823 Chine economy is not nearly dependant on USA as USA is on China... not even close. The tariffs where a bluff who got called out and now the orange clown has the pants on his hands, the country will pay the price, looking weak or worsening the recession
@williamburns3823 even without the tariffs the price of things is already skyrocketing. Two dozen eggs cost me $7. Considering most AAA games these days can't even been bothered to release complete and aren't really a full fledged product until 3 to 6 months after release I can't see too many people choosing a single new AAA release over groceries or a tank of gas for their car.
Yup, and we just elected a moron that thinks Tariffs on other countries are going to fix these problems rather than add to them. SMH the lack of foresight is depressing but honestly the fact that we are here is scary. Its just gonna get worse. At this point, $100 might be cheap considering they manufacture physical games in china and brazil.
@@williamburns3823 buddy, you are so off the mark with that one. The tariffs on Mexico and Canada were lifted because they threatened to investigate Elon. Stop spreading misinformation please.
@@sweatyzeusgaming 1500 is 225% of their minimum wage. Their minimum wage is around 660 USD which to be frank is the minimum wage in half of the european countries as well.
If someones making minimum wage, video game purchases should take a backseat to growing income regardless. There are free and cheap games everywhere. If you want "premium" expect to pay it. Reviews tell us the quality so there isn't an excuse to be shocked by a 70 dollar game that sucks. We have the information to make better decisions and we choose not to
@@jacksheldon8566 are you telling me that YOU don't game anymore or are you assuming something about me? $70 is a reach for me so I don't buy games like I used to anymore unless it's something I'm loyal to. Pretty much only GT and Borderlands. I'm doing my part. I'm not even that mad at $70 cause it's been $60 for a few generations. $30 added on to an additional $10 is a lot more of a difference than $10
@@coreyaldridge1753 I was done long ago when going full digital didn't lowered the price. Now, I m willing to pay 60, and not a penny more, for very special games such as Baldur's gate 3. But this was an exception. Yeah, I did assume that 90 is fine for you since you said 100 was your limit. Personally, I am already boycotting alot of AAA games because of price, abusing microtransaction and annoying stores. With a very few exception like BG3, I will only buy games at lower price. Even wait for years for prices to get low enough while bugs get fixed and content full enough. And if I need to buy a new one to play with friends, I will seek grey market price first.
I will literally wait for a sale if they charge 100 bucks for GTA 6. The only case I'm paying 100 is if they show some truly groundbreaking stuff, the gap would have to be so much larger than what happened between GTA 5 and RDR2. 100 bucks sets a very bad precedent
@@StefantiusYou might be right. Honestly the problem for me isn't that I don't think GTA 6 will be incredibly in depth, it's that if we accept a company as large as rockstar/take two charging 100 bucks, every other game company will copycat it. It will just make games much more expensive, much faster
@@Simp_SupremeTrue, but a lot of AAA have. Usually we see AA around the 30-40 price point and Indie around 5-30. In the past year or two AAA companies have started doing 70, which is a small creep up but still there nonetheless
What other industry people that want gta 6 to be $100 are failing to realize is that although some are willing to buy gta 6 for $100, that comes at an opportunity cost of not buying other games. Especially if they also are charging $100. GTA 6 can get away with $100 price tag if we are being honest, but that will not trickle down to EA and Ubisoft games.
But there is only one GTA every 10 years. They want to sell us 100$ games from now on. Big companies will sell hundreds of AAA at 100$ compared to ONE GTA.
1 AAA game does not equal in value to another AAA. GTA may get away with it with its perception of gaming value, but it also potentially harms GTA at launch as not all gamers earn the same income. GTA online made billions so its interesting to see whether they would risk the launch of their next title by increasing its price tag to a new industry standard.
@ I doubt they will actually make the game $100, just saying that they probably could get away with it. And they'll most likely make GTA online free to play and charge for the single player no matter if the price is $60 or $100.
When the standard practice is to release an unfinished, bug-filled game at release, it's only common sense to wait a few months once it's on sale. Especially since too often games are crap and not worth buying to begin with (and you can't trust critics' ratings), so all the more reason to never pay full price.
Ever since games raised to 70$ I notice I am picky what games I buy anymore and look for sales when I can. If they go to 100$ base for all games I’ll probably quit gaming as a hobby not even kidding.
I dont think ill give up gaming. Ill probably just stick to indie games at that point but ya man, these AAA studios are digging themselves a deeper hole. A crash is coming soon, i feel it
What’s wild is that gaming “journalists” are actually encouraging games rising to $100. I remember when game journalists used to fight for and be the mouthpiece of the gamers. Now they’re simply just shills and the mouthpiece for these huge corporations. How times change. No wonder they’re all going out of business, while gamers rush over to content creators on UA-cam.
Gaming journalists are just bottom of the barrel college grads who graduated with barely enough GPA to squeeze by and no reputable source of journalism will take them.
That’s because it’s the ONE game most people probably find worth that price. If others follow suit they will fail HARD. I say let them learn the hard way if they want to be that sure of themselves.
0:33 those are dishonest bogus arguments made by corporates. It lacks all context. Yes games were 50-60$ back then. But back then you know what else what else was cheap? Everything! Housing, food, household expenses everything was lesser back then. People had money to spare. And now when one can barely keep up their your household expenses. You expect people to pay 100$ for a game?
Ikr ? You can't compare video games today with the past in a void, there were so many different factors that allowed people to spend more money back then, the biggest one being things were cheaper. I barely have $60 on me after two months of saving so why would I ever spend a $100 on a AAA game that I know won't be worth it ?
@@danialyousaf6456 I feel you dude, I've been trying to save to fix my laptop, the only place where I game and work. The Acer guys told me it needs around $180 to get fixed. So now my situation is to get money I need my laptop, to get my laptop I need money. It's a circle. And now I'm just barely scraping by. Living like this, 100$ is too much to waste on a game.
@@danialyousaf6456 I would also add that gaming as a hobby is much more popular. So your random AAA game is selling more copies than back then, so even with the same price they make a shitton more money.
I genuienly don't want any game bad enough that I will normalize paying this much, the $70 price tag is already too high as is. I will not pay more and will just wait even longer for deep sales.
$100? For that price, it better be perfect. No bugs, no crashes, 50+ single player experience, amazing fun online play. Now will it have all that? I highly doubt it. I will not pay $100, I’ll wait for a sale
@@RoKe-lu4fr Very true. That’s ok, I love GTA but I’ll wait for reviews. Not from IGN either. The sad part is, just like the people who spend money on COD, this game is gonna sell big. Hopefully more people start pushing back
@@bustercoutee8778 it would take massive backlash to this game at $80+ to stop what is coming in gaming. I know the thought of charging $100 for a base game of Madden, NBA 2K or COD has these companies’ CEOs excited. We have waited over 10 years for this game while they tried to milk us dry with 5. I love rockstar games but If I have to wait another year or 2 for the price to make sense then I will.
In most sectors unemployment is low, however inflation is still going up and wages are not. I'm not paying $100 for GTA6 and I am not paying even $70 for the uninspired crap that the AAA publishers are putting out these days. I will play the indies, Marvel Rivals, POE2, the Chinese and South Korean studios are showing strong promise and the Japanese studios unshackled from a poisonous modern Sony are still doing good stuff.
Even if GTA6 turns out to be the most epic and Legendary game in History... I can't find an excuse or reason to spend 100 bucks on it. I'd rather feed my family for two weeks
Nice analysis although one thing i can pick from last decade on music and video, is that music and video has become "cheaper" sort to speak, with probably a big chunk of it its being consumed either on Spotify, UA-cam and apple music, which is way cheaper than buying full albums, same with movies, its easier to wait for Netflix or Disney+ which now are huge, and gaming didn't had that. I could be wrong though.
If people buy micro transactions people will buy a hypothetical gta 6 price game. Look how many people buy shark cards in gta 5. People will buy anything and everything.
What doesn't help is that they make the games expensive by focusing on better graphics, higher polygon counts, high quality visuals in realism, and being longer in hours. Taking more longer to develop games and resources, with the reason of having games as online service only, having microtransactions, or having a higher price tag with multiple editions and missing content in the regular version. Which ends up being expensive. While indie games are the opposite of that.
I think you hit it. GTA6 is the ONLY game that I would consider paying the $100 price tag. Every other game I could wait for a sale. Between their single player and GTA online experience, it’s basically two separate games each worth $50 at launch.
Logic suggests they should just make AAA games smaller. (Of course that would require managers who're able to understand and implement such a concept, while also satisfying the finance aspects of its implementation. When lately, unfortunately, AAA gaming publishers' managers showed the opposite of competence, in general.) AAA games have been already costing too much for years, in terms of the time needed for players to enjoy them to the end. That's in the numbers, and it cannot be denied. Virtually nobody plays those big games to the end, let alone playing them multiple times, as it would be mandatory in order to explore a satisfactory chunk of the total content put into of those games by the developers. Smaller AAA games would take less time and people to be made, so they would be less costly to produce. No need to increase the price-tag, and the revenue would go up none the less. Thanks for your videos!
FYI I looked up when the first sale for RDR2 was on Xbox. The game launched on October 26, 2018, and the first big sale on the regular edition was 33% off on February 19, 2019. So I'll be waiting 4ish months if Rockstar does this.
There isn't a game I would pay 100$ base addition for. All we have to do is wait, and many already do that to not pay 70$. It's not as if there's a shortage of games anymore, that doesn't happen. Publishers can't bank on open release windows cause people will play older titles. It wouldn't be a feasible thing to try.
Interesting idea, although not sure they would want to risk losing multiplayer income by giving players the option to opt-out and just buy the single player only. Say if a quarter of SP players happen to spend $1 on the MP, that would be an extra $50m in revenue (in GTAV terms). You could be right though.
Nope, just look at a majority of the successful games that have been released. Games from China, Korea, Japan, ect. It's easy to see. @@vitaminwater9662
Did they finally fix Stalker 2? They had about two years, and multiple delays for polish and still couldn't release a functioning game. I get they're originally based in Ukraine, but they relocated to another country not too long after the war. @@Fred-rv2tu
In my mind the video game spiral downward is very similar to fast food. As inflation increases they need to make more money but they start by getting cheaper poorer quality ingredients which damages the brand which causes them to lose more money which means more cuts somewhere and so on and so on until they are bankrupt.
I'm going to be THAT guy and say as long as I remember, games have been $60 (12+years). $60 today does not go as far and thus, I think it's reasonable to pay $80-$100 for a game. The unfortunate thing is we have a chicken vs egg situation of poor quality games vs lack of finances for these studios. Did a lack of money cause poor quality? Or did their poor quality cause us to spend less? Either way, the cycle has to break somewhere or there we won't see many good games in the future.
"...the cycle has to break somewhere or there we won't see many good games in the future." LOL, where've you been? Good games is already a thing of hte past in the AAA space.
I remember when a brand new game used to cost $50 and you got the whole game and didn’t have to spend extra on DLC’s or micro transactions. When games jumped to $70 I thought that was crazy and now people are spending $100 for deluxe editions and spending money on cosmetics in the game which adds and you’re ending up spending $100’s of dollars just to play a game. I’m pretty sure kids or parents can’t afford to buy multiple games and all the extra micro transactions smh
I cannot think of another game outside of GTA 6 that is capable of charging $80-$100 for a base release and getting away with it. Any other game tries that it will flop and flop HARD. A massive mistake if someone else tries to follow that trend.
Most the games I play anyway are older, I either own them physically on older consoles or buy them when for sale. I don't mind spending $100 for a game I've been waiting on for 12+ years but I'm not trying out many games otherwise for that pricetag.
It doesn’t even make sense to keep making games bigger and longer. It has been researched and found that nearly 90% of gamers never even play a game halfway through and as little as 10% of gamers ever complete games
lol, it's R* dude, we all know the campaign in GTAs exist just to carousel players around the open world sand box so people can mess around within the virtual world of GTA.
For under $50, I've snagged Halo MCC, Gears of War Ultimate Edition, Skyrim Special Edition, Metro Exodus, Witcher 3, State of Decay 2, Forza Horizon 4, Battlefield 1, and Batman Arkham Knight for my Xbox Series X. With this incredible haul, I'll be set for months as a casual gamer! Given my financial constraints, spending $70 or even $50 on a single game is out of the question. Earning just $350 a month and being from India, dropping $100 on one game would break the bank. 😂 That's why I stick to Game Pass and only buy games when they're heavily discounted.
The problem with the possible price increase is that prices already went up fairly recently. And coming from a market that already pays $90-$100 via that recent increase for the base version of most games, it ends up only making me more choosy and I often wait for the prices to go down. I'm not going to pay $150 for a game if the price increases again. But if the price does increase again, then I think publishers need to seriously rethink how they're packaging their games. Give them a bit more for their money, and maybe rethink the microtransactions, because when you pay $100 or more for a game, it doesn't feel great to be asked to spend more.
This is a pretty American discussion cause just up here in Canada games already cost $90 after tax. If games go up to $100 American I’ll just never buy a new game again
What these kinda comments never understand stand. Y’all say things like “ but in Canada and Australia we pay more” no you don’t. You are paying what the USA dollar is worth in YOUR country. Just because you spend $90 of your dollar, in reality it’s $70 USA dollar or whatever the conversion is. That like saying in India you are paying more (1,000,000 rupees for a burger) when in reality it only equals $7 USA dollars. So you aren’t paying more for anything
It's insane to me how this industry generates so much money but at the same time certain companies waste all of it on failed products that nobody wanted in the first place. Imagine if they actually listened more often to consumers.
If it’s the standard version of the game, I’m not paying $100 for it like if it comes with DLC or something. Yes I’ll pay $100 for it, but it will be a cold day in hell before I pay $100 for a standard version of a game. But overall, I’m still super excited about this game. Love that GTA V background music you’re playing in the video too definitely one of my favorites. That the pause menu music which is definitely the best I wonder what GTA 6 pause music’s gonna be like or if it’s gonna be good or not and I don’t mind waiting for games to go on sale but if this game is gonna be $100 that’s what I would normally do is I normally get games that are on sale most of the time and on one rare occasion, I will spend a lot of money on, just like one big game but I rarely do that though yeah I could definitely see the game going for $79.99 and probably like the premium edition or something is probably gonna be $99.99 the mad edition is probably just gonna come with like shark cards or something for GTA online I played it a little bit of GTI online. It’s fun for a little bit. I’m not really into the online aspect of the game. I like the single player. Story mode, It’s really fun. I really hope they add director mode. Director mode was like the best part of GTA 5 just really sucks that I dead redemption two to have a director mode I think on PC you can mod it and make it a director mode or something because I know on PC you can play as different characters i’ve seen someone play as Jack Marston, which is pretty crazy play as a kid going around killing people with a gun that’s just funny
yeah, happens all the time, just look at instant 250k overwhelmingly negative reviews for overwatch on steam, yet for the first few months of its release it was constantly in the top 10 most played games on steam. Or the consistent hate for the new Call of Duty games yet they are always massive financial success and tons of people play them
That would include you since you are a part of "everyone" in the comment section, and you said it is a fact. I know for a fact that the only game I have bought full price on release in the last 15 years is Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, and that was only $40 on release. I have not paid any more than that for any game in 15 years. Sorry, your "fact" is hyperbolic nonsense.
@@JacobPaul-ix7oc I pay full price for every game I play because I'm not poor and $70-100 for a game is not a big deal. Too many people in this comment section that need to get a real job that's not taking orders at a fast food drive though.
One of the problems with these publishers and developers getting so big is the red tape. Having to schedule a meeting to get approval for every tiny change is a big reason game development time has grown so out of control. When a development studio was just 30 people in a little office, communication was so much faster and easier. Publishers weren't investing hundreds of millions of dollars into projects so you didn't need to get approval for every little detail. But as games got more complex, more people were needed. More people = higher budget and the higher the budget, the more involved the publisher wants to be. It's now grown into this broken industry we have today.
$100 for a game is acceptable. But ONLY if the FULL game is included, and ONLY there are NO in-game purchases of ANY kind. Like games used to be 20 years ago.
I think the problem with the $70 retail price isn't just that games are more expensive now, because we had $60 games for 15 years, it couldn't last forever. The problem is $70 games will still release purposefully incomplete. Games can have plenty of content and be released with all that content ready, but publishers don't wanna do that. Most of the time anyway. We will still see content immediately advertized as DLC the moment the game comes out at $70 and that DLC will still run you upwards of the price of the game itself on top. When we first got $60, we usually got a complete game. We won't always have that with $70 games, or even commonly have it. And games going beyond $70 soon is asinine. We just got the price increase to $70, sales will plummet if the highest price keeps going
As someone who worked at eBay in the collectible space... Price gouging always happens and it never works. They're a PS5 listings that are astronomical that have been on the site for years at this point. Same with vinyl. Don't look at eBay listing prices. Look at eBay Sold at prices. That's what actually matters.
If game companies want to up the prices on games they need to make it worth the price bump. You spent the better part of a decade and an exorbitant amount of money making it? That sounds like a you problem. If you want my money for that game it needs to offer a proportional return. It's why there's a few games out there that people play the crap out of and rarely switch off: it's worth their time and money. $80? If I'm gonna beat it in a week, the gameplay is meh, it's a buggy mess, cheaters are running rampant ect you've wasted your time and money not mine no thanks.
Is the $70 price the physical copy or digital? Cause it makes sense for digital to be far cheaper. Makes sense for it to be nearly $100 if theres bonus content and extras or costumes etc.
They never said they are going to charge 100$ they are saying the value and and demand for the product we all know always delivers a full product If it was to charge 100$ people won’t care being we kno what we get and how long the content last for the money spent It’s not a bad thing people are just acting dumb to make things headlines or seem negative If Matty waste 20 mins of my time to explain that I’m not coming back 😂
I feel like there's just no reason to play anything but the games that I already own and enjoy. The future of gaming is something I'm not willing to jump into.
Great video Matty. The world economy is in sambles. People in NA are having problems with housing and food. In Europe food prices have sky rocketed. I highly doubt people will pay over $60 for a video game. Also, technically, Rockstars last release was Red Dead Redemption on PC and if you read the reviews people say an over-priced 15-20 year old game, buy it at 50% off and I agree with every single one of those people. It's just greed at that point selling an old game that wasn't even remastered properly.
8:30 this chart is such a huge part of the story I know people don’t like games getting more expensive, but just look at that. I would gladly pay more upfront if it meant a better experience, and so the developer wouldn’t feel pressured to monetize game features after release
Back in PS1 days, remember new releases costing £40 here in the UK and thinking that was a lot. Crazy to think that consumers are being charged almost double that price tag now!
There are just SOOOO many gaming options today. It’s not just multiple platforms anymore with some exclusive games. There are literally hundreds of mobile games every year, there are things like GamePass easily making smaller games available, and of course you’ve got older games that are still available now at steep discounts. I have only a limited amount of time to play video games each week, so I’m generally only playing one or two at a time. I have great games released 5 years ago I still haven’t touched yet. A new game has to be amazing (or at least highly anticipated to me) for me to pick it up day one at full price.
Rockstar could pull off a $100.00 game, but as you pointed out, the bigger issue is that we will buy less games overall and be more choosey if that’s where the industry goes. Ubisoft, EA, etc would take successful sales of GTA at $100.00 as a green light, but the issue is a lot of us aren’t going to buy their games for $100.00, right now a lot of us might buy a mediocre Ubisoft game or EA game at $70.00, but we won’t for $100.00, so they’ll just be shooting themselves in the foot.
They’re going to do what they’re already doing with their other 2 recent games… sell story mode and online as one package for full price, and also sell just online mode separately at a discounted price so people are incentivized to spend more on in-game purchases
Ubisoft retailed an edition of Outlaws for $130. So, $100 for GTA VI is not asking too much for how big that game is and the amount of gameplay hours it contains.
The fact that remakes & remasters of ps2 and xbox 360 era games are thing atm tells me that modern games have really dropped the ball when it comes to quality and innovation. The reason most people would be willing to pay 80,90,100 bugs on GTA6 is that (despite all of Rockstars faults), when it comes to mainline entries of the series the studio has not disappointed so far. Each new game is a big step up to the previous. I feel like they are literally one of the only studios doing this.
Personally don’t have an issue with Rockstar charging $100 for GTA. They release nothing but bangers. But I’d advice caution for other studios. You are playing with fire and may lose your behind on some mid game that you try to sell for $100
Success is simple - know your audience, produce a product that's high quality, is fun to spend your limited time with, tells a compelling story, and transports you to place outside of your daily existence. Selling the sizzle only gets you so far, and gamers ultimately speak with their money if the product is worthy of a $70/80 price tag. Recent examples of losing the plot includes companies like BioWare (and Bethesda to some degree) believing they know better than gamers, and that's when they really lose not just the plot, but the real lessons learned around why their recent products didn't meet their unfounded expectations.
Honestly, this may sound crazy but I don’t mind studios committing to the remake model. If you can put your whole heart and soul into a true and faithful remake (of OLD games, not remakes from 2010/2015) I think you can do a lot of good. A remake from the 90s or 00s can be really refreshing. FF7 for example. I love it so far even tho I know it’s not as faithful to the original story as some would like. Imagine a KOTOR remake. An Oblivion remake. etc. just the great games of yesteryear that have a foundation of greatness but were made so long ago the industry couldn’t really do them justice
In a world where we can have a life changing experience with a game for dozens or hundreds of hours in exchange for the price of a 6 pack of beer, and basically never run out of these experiences if you're an adult with a job who can only play for a few hours a week. The price of games is almost irrelevant, it's the time spend, quality, and sentiment towards the developer that matters. Your Larians, your Obsidians, maybe your CDPRs, are trading on their properties, their names, not just whether their games are free or $10, or $60. Or how many hundreds of hours their games are.
Jack Sparrow still exists and you can always join his crew. The more the prices go up, the more people will become his fans. Not to mention the massive free-to-play games that bribe the player by letting him decide when and how much to pay.
Folks, its time to break open the backlog. There are too many games
100%
Yup, I have so many games in my backlog anyway
Already started and it's refreshing to play so many great games that are just a few years old that I picked up on heavy discounts.
My PS+ ends next month. My Game Pass ends in October. Everything will be backlog and Steam sales from that point on.
@@ClevTrev7 Or games you bought and never played! I'm playing through Super Mario Odyssey right now and I can't believe I've had this game sitting on my shelf for years.
I think the constant need for growth in all industries is just so goofy. You can he profitable by millions or even billions of dollars but if it's not as much as you think it should be, then it's a failure. Completely silly
It's because of shareholders. Employees are just looking for a regular and reasonable salary, but shareholders buy up a controlling stake in the company and steer all the decision making towards short term growth so they can get a quick return on investment. They don't care about long term prospects, like trust and goodwill from customers, or having loyal veteran employees. They're the ones who are pushing for half baked releases, predatory monetisation and over reliance on contract workers. By the time these idiotic decisions have done their damage they've already cashed out and made a profit.
People may quick to blame "capitalism", but this problem has existed for thousands of years before capitalism came to be.
Ecclesiastes 5:10-20
10 Whoever loves money never has enough;
whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income.
This too is meaningless.
11 As goods increase,
so do those who consume them.
And what benefit are they to the owners
except to feast their eyes on them?
12 The sleep of a laborer is sweet,
whether they eat little or much,
but as for the rich, their abundance
permits them no sleep.
13 I have seen a grievous evil under the sun:
wealth hoarded to the harm of its owners,
14 or wealth lost through some misfortune,
so that when they have children
there is nothing left for them to inherit.
15 Everyone comes naked from their mother’s womb,
and as everyone comes, so they depart.
They take nothing from their toil
that they can carry in their hands.
16 This too is a grievous evil:
As everyone comes, so they depart,
and what do they gain,
since they toil for the wind?
17 All their days they eat in darkness,
with great frustration, affliction and anger.
18 This is what I have observed to be good: that it is appropriate for a person to eat, to drink and to find satisfaction in their toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given them-for this is their lot. 19 Moreover, when God gives someone wealth and possessions, and the ability to enjoy them, to accept their lot and be happy in their toil-this is a gift of God. 20 They seldom reflect on the days of their life, because God keeps them occupied with gladness of heart.
Business people replaced creative people. It can lead only to crash.
That's the problem with public companies. All about the short term. If more big companies stayed private like Valve, they wouldn't be as obsessed about growth every year. Valve is more incentivized to play the long game. Which is why they're giving out Steam OS & continue to optimize the Steam Deck experience. More data and cash for future projects like the Steam Deck 2.
We're seeing this with the movie industry and movies are making at least 300-500mill profit after advertisements and such so that should be considered good right, RIGHT but it's because every studio now thinks they can make MARVEL money and it's simply not feasible, Fall Guy, Furiosa and TF One all to me did perform pretty well but none of these were touching 600mill or 1B like come on one had an actual good female lead over shadowed by people's misconceptions, TF One a surprisingly good storyline ruined by it's initial marketing making it look childish and the movie being animated makes it lesser in some movie goers eyes and Fall Guy was touted to have a big star(s) but you need more that just that to sell a movie.
I remember when you pre-ordered a game... You got a DISCOUNT! Wow have people forgot about that
I actually forgot about that too, good call. Those were the days
It would be cheaper AND you'd sometimes get something with it in the game itself. It would just be like a skin or something but nowadays they're charging 10-20 for a skin lmao
At GameStop would get 5$ off for pre order and you showed up at the store around 11pm but it was a discount! Lol
@@Xornicus that was back when games were released complete as well... I can't remember a fully completed finished game at launch since BioShock Infinite in 2011
@@Xornicus back when you could even put in a cheat code to get new skins... The original Tony Hawk had a ton of them
I didn’t force them to make 400 million dollar games. Its not my problem. In fact most of the games i have been buying are small budget indies and AA.
Exactly. Nobody asked them to spend a hundred million to animate every single blade of grass, every snowflake and every vein in a horse's ballsack. I ain't paying a hundred bucks for one damn game.
@@thelaughingrougeonly to have the story and game play be half baked, subpar and buggy.
They not forcing u to buy either. U can just wait bargain bin months later.
Well as a triple a game/studio if they didn’t do the thing you just mentioned those studios would get negatively talked about especially amongst the pc crowd. Hell look at how much crap spider-man 2 got for not making a crazy leap visually
Agreed. I think there's a place for these AAA games with "next gen" graphics. But would love to see more studios rolling back the scale and graphical quality to produce more games that are just as (if not more) fun to play.
Let the AAA swine make games 200$ for all i care. They hardly make anything worth 60$ nowadays to begin with.
It is kind of insane, we've had maybe 50 AAA games released in the last few years that I've interacted with, and out of all of them maybe just less than a dozen are worth it.
@@personalmelon-y7hiz but they’re so pretty… after their day one patches download. Soulless and boring but pretty.
exactly, they can set the price at whatever they want. that doesn't mean im gonna pay it...
i already don't buy games at full price so what difference does it make to me?
I don’t care if it’s GTA 6 or Elder Scrolls 6, I refuse to pay $80+ for any standard edition game at launch. $70 was already a ridiculous jump given that the quality of games has continued to decline. If they try and do this, more people are just skip out on getting games day 1 and wait for the game to inevitably go on sale
Games being more expensive to produce does not correlate with people having more money to spend. In fact the same inflation has hit most people just as hard, since wages have greatly fallen behind inflation and cost of living. Most people have less money to spend on luxuries like games now than they did 20 years ago and it is beyond insanity that these industry analysts can't understand this
Yup, I saw hundreds of comments just like this one about the $70 price hike.
Everyone said this during the $70 hike. That didn't do jack to stop the sales of College Football, Call of Duty, Spider-Man and Wukong.
People will buy the game simply because it's the brand
I don't understand how we can expect games to keep getting bigger, better, and more innovative every year-constantly outdoing the last-while also demanding that their price remains stuck at $60. Game development costs have skyrocketed, with studios investing more time, talent, and resources than ever before to meet ever-growing expectations. Yet, unlike other industries where inflation and increased production costs lead to price adjustments, gaming has been held to an outdated standard. If we truly want groundbreaking experiences, it only makes sense that game prices should reflect the immense effort that goes into creating them.
Yeah that's definitely where I'm tending. I used to enjoy release days too - all the community chatter
What's worse is some studios want to charge up to $100 like so in-complete buggy mess with mcirotransactions isn't enough?
If everyone charges $100, then something like game pass for like $30 or $40 a month, starts looking much more appealing to more people. This is where we’re headed.
"incomplete" is one word
@@Imperiallife3349 headed for piracy more likely. And cheaper indie games.
@@stanislavkimov2779 Smart people will do that. Everyone else will not. And I think we all know which one is the majority.
I wouldn't even pay $100 for my favorite game of all time. I'd wait for a sale.
I can't tell you that lie. I'd drop 300$ right now for a ps2 and a copy of jak 2 and 3.
@jaredrobinson7071 I mean, everybody's finances are different, but I don't think many would pay $100 for a game right now. Borderlands 2 I would put in my top 5 and I waited for a sale when I got a gaming PC.
Everything in the game industry even gamers have lost the plot.
This!
Gamers are ignorant to the plot
Gamers haven't lost the plot lol
Do a degree we all have.
Honestly 🙌
The question is... Despite the costs of video games rising significantly "to meet player expectations" by and large has the the quality risen?
I would argue no, which leads me to question how studios are investing their resources
Also most games are sold digitally.. They don't ship nearly as many discs as they used to
Quality has dipped in many respect and we are locked into an endless loop of COD/AssCreed/Uncharted clones.
Tax write offs at this point
That’s the thing, games haven’t increased in price much if at all
Coke mostly
I haven't bought a full price game in months. $70 is too much. Hell even then $60 is pushing it for me. If it goes $100 I will not purchase until it goes on sale majorly. Are some games worth it? Sure. Is every game worth it at that price, absolutely not.
Yeah I wait for end of year sales, I have such a backlog, I sometimes wait for a couple of years until games are 20 or 15 Bucks. Why buy em new if I have so much to play, its mostly single player games I do this with
@@Valhura77 Agree with you, i dont find playing game early as perks, but buying game cheaply and more complete game after more patch is a win for me.
I haven't paid full price for a game since the Wii's launch.
same here and since I only played mostly call of duty most my life with a few exceptions and just started playing more single player games about 3 years ago, it's been fantastic I get to buy games from years ago for cheap and they're better quality than most games put out today. for example I just played my first playthrough of rdr2 in 2024 and it was so good and also my backlog has become so massive that by the time I finish all the old games the ones coming out now will probably be half the price so let them raise that price lmao
I payed full price for dragon's dogma 2, 50-60 dollars is my limit. Doesn't even matter if it's Larian Studios who I would be willing to fanboy a bit for. Even if they deliver prices above it I wouldn't. 60 dollars is like, I gotta be needy as hell, 50 dollars I am more inclined but the game must still be proven to be amazing.
I got GTA V after it was upscale, ported, and made beter over years and years for $12. That's how much they will from me basically for GTa 6. They can kiss my ass with pricey, buggy, broken, constantly updated games. Not to mention they're going to upgrade this game multiple times.
People in the U.S. are on the verge of a recession if not already in one. The price of daily necessities is skyrocketing and about to go up even more once the Tariffs take affect. You know what happens when people have less money to spend? They cut back on luxuries and hobbies. If the game industry Jacks up their games to $100 a lot of games and studios are going to collapse entirely. I have a backlog of hundreds of games across every platform, and tons of great free to play games are released all the time, like Marvel Rivals and Zenless Zone Zero. The only thing $100 prices would do is make me stop buying games.
Well it seems like the gaming industry isn’t the only that’s lost the plot.. the tariffs were a leverage strategy that was frozen when the countries on which we imposed those tariffs complied with our demands. As it stands now we currently have only increased tariffs on china by 10%. Canada and Mexico tariffs have been halted. That being said, we are by far china’s biggest importer so unless they want their own recession they really have no choice but to comply
@@williamburns3823 Chine economy is not nearly dependant on USA as USA is on China... not even close. The tariffs where a bluff who got called out and now the orange clown has the pants on his hands, the country will pay the price, looking weak or worsening the recession
@williamburns3823 even without the tariffs the price of things is already skyrocketing. Two dozen eggs cost me $7. Considering most AAA games these days can't even been bothered to release complete and aren't really a full fledged product until 3 to 6 months after release I can't see too many people choosing a single new AAA release over groceries or a tank of gas for their car.
Yup, and we just elected a moron that thinks Tariffs on other countries are going to fix these problems rather than add to them. SMH the lack of foresight is depressing but honestly the fact that we are here is scary. Its just gonna get worse. At this point, $100 might be cheap considering they manufacture physical games in china and brazil.
@@williamburns3823 buddy, you are so off the mark with that one. The tariffs on Mexico and Canada were lifted because they threatened to investigate Elon. Stop spreading misinformation please.
I've already refused to pay $70 for games. I wait until they're on sale now. Too many games to play, no need to play things day 1 at full price.
100$ would be 15% of the minimum wage where I live, and we don't get adjusted pricing. It will put day-one buys out of reach for many
I think you wrote that wrong. If 100$ is 15% then your minimum wage is 1,500$? Maybe you mean minimum wage is 15% of 100? Which is 15.00$?
If they don’t have a spare $100, they can kick rocks
@@sweatyzeusgaming 1500 is 225% of their minimum wage. Their minimum wage is around 660 USD which to be frank is the minimum wage in half of the european countries as well.
@@Dutchbrother07 Or wait until it is for free on Epic store as I did with GTA V.
If someones making minimum wage, video game purchases should take a backseat to growing income regardless. There are free and cheap games everywhere. If you want "premium" expect to pay it. Reviews tell us the quality so there isn't an excuse to be shocked by a 70 dollar game that sucks. We have the information to make better decisions and we choose not to
Day 1 $70, bugs and crashes.
Day 30 $50 patched to run decent
Actually
Day 1 $100, bugs and crashes
Day 30 $80, patched to run decent
Literally zero games have ever had a 50 dollar patch lmao
@@PassTheSnailsyou misread this
@@PassTheSnailsspakka
@@infinitescraps6786 holy crap you’re right lmaoooo
If games go to $100 then im done. These studios need to get away from these inflated budgets
But 80€ is fine? Lol
It depends.
If it's groundbreaking, I'll pay more.
@@jacksheldon8566 are you telling me that YOU don't game anymore or are you assuming something about me? $70 is a reach for me so I don't buy games like I used to anymore unless it's something I'm loyal to. Pretty much only GT and Borderlands. I'm doing my part.
I'm not even that mad at $70 cause it's been $60 for a few generations. $30 added on to an additional $10 is a lot more of a difference than $10
@@coreyaldridge1753 I was done long ago when going full digital didn't lowered the price.
Now, I m willing to pay 60, and not a penny more, for very special games such as Baldur's gate 3. But this was an exception.
Yeah, I did assume that 90 is fine for you since you said 100 was your limit.
Personally, I am already boycotting alot of AAA games because of price, abusing microtransaction and annoying stores.
With a very few exception like BG3, I will only buy games at lower price. Even wait for years for prices to get low enough while bugs get fixed and content full enough.
And if I need to buy a new one to play with friends, I will seek grey market price first.
I will literally wait for a sale if they charge 100 bucks for GTA 6. The only case I'm paying 100 is if they show some truly groundbreaking stuff, the gap would have to be so much larger than what happened between GTA 5 and RDR2. 100 bucks sets a very bad precedent
You are part of the problem
they're going to use gta online as an excuse while selling it separately, I guarantee it
@@StefantiusYou might be right. Honestly the problem for me isn't that I don't think GTA 6 will be incredibly in depth, it's that if we accept a company as large as rockstar/take two charging 100 bucks, every other game company will copycat it. It will just make games much more expensive, much faster
@@irecordwithaphone1856not every company has adopted the $70 pricetag tbf.
I think we'll be fine
@@Simp_SupremeTrue, but a lot of AAA have. Usually we see AA around the 30-40 price point and Indie around 5-30. In the past year or two AAA companies have started doing 70, which is a small creep up but still there nonetheless
What other industry people that want gta 6 to be $100 are failing to realize is that although some are willing to buy gta 6 for $100, that comes at an opportunity cost of not buying other games. Especially if they also are charging $100.
GTA 6 can get away with $100 price tag if we are being honest, but that will not trickle down to EA and Ubisoft games.
But there is only one GTA every 10 years. They want to sell us 100$ games from now on. Big companies will sell hundreds of AAA at 100$ compared to ONE GTA.
1 AAA game does not equal in value to another AAA. GTA may get away with it with its perception of gaming value, but it also potentially harms GTA at launch as not all gamers earn the same income. GTA online made billions so its interesting to see whether they would risk the launch of their next title by increasing its price tag to a new industry standard.
@ I doubt they will actually make the game $100, just saying that they probably could get away with it. And they'll most likely make GTA online free to play and charge for the single player no matter if the price is $60 or $100.
this comment exactly
GTA6 may not even be that good. The plot there is already sanitised not to be "offensive". And for sure won't run great on current gen consoles.
When the standard practice is to release an unfinished, bug-filled game at release, it's only common sense to wait a few months once it's on sale. Especially since too often games are crap and not worth buying to begin with (and you can't trust critics' ratings), so all the more reason to never pay full price.
Ya when was the last time we had a non buggy game at release?
I haven't bought a single game for $70. Good luck persuading me to shell out $80-$100. 😂👍
I've bought like one game, that being stellar blade, and I'd have gotten it for cheaper if I could.
Stellar blade is the only $70 game I've purchased.
When games were "more expensive", they sold far less of them.
To quote a very old podcast, "Game pricing has always been a racket". They never needed to cost as much as they did and they still don't.
Ever since games raised to 70$ I notice I am picky what games I buy anymore and look for sales when I can. If they go to 100$ base for all games I’ll probably quit gaming as a hobby not even kidding.
I dont think ill give up gaming. Ill probably just stick to indie games at that point but ya man, these AAA studios are digging themselves a deeper hole. A crash is coming soon, i feel it
I am quitting after this generation.
$100 for a digital game is insane.
$40 for a digital only indie game is ridiculous.
It’s reaaaal weird how so many games lately are “underperforming”…but i’m sure that’s irrelevant
Based@@MylesDalí
@@DylanJo123 I’m hanging in by a tread as it is wouldn’t take much more for me to give it up completely.
What’s wild is that gaming “journalists” are actually encouraging games rising to $100.
I remember when game journalists used to fight for and be the mouthpiece of the gamers.
Now they’re simply just shills and the mouthpiece for these huge corporations.
How times change.
No wonder they’re all going out of business, while gamers rush over to content creators on UA-cam.
Gaming journalists are just bottom of the barrel college grads who graduated with barely enough GPA to squeeze by and no reputable source of journalism will take them.
Everyone: Complaining about a possible $100 GTA6
Also Everyone: Would still pay $100 for a GTA6
That’s because it’s the ONE game most people probably find worth that price. If others follow suit they will fail HARD. I say let them learn the hard way if they want to be that sure of themselves.
0:33 those are dishonest bogus arguments made by corporates.
It lacks all context. Yes games were 50-60$ back then.
But back then you know what else what else was cheap?
Everything!
Housing, food, household expenses everything was lesser back then. People had money to spare.
And now when one can barely keep up their your household expenses. You expect people to pay 100$ for a game?
Ikr ? You can't compare video games today with the past in a void, there were so many different factors that allowed people to spend more money back then, the biggest one being things were cheaper.
I barely have $60 on me after two months of saving so why would I ever spend a $100 on a AAA game that I know won't be worth it ?
@@danialyousaf6456 I feel you dude,
I've been trying to save to fix my laptop, the only place where I game and work. The Acer guys told me it needs around $180 to get fixed.
So now my situation is to get money I need my laptop, to get my laptop I need money. It's a circle. And now I'm just barely scraping by.
Living like this, 100$ is too much to waste on a game.
@@danialyousaf6456
I would also add that gaming as a hobby is much more popular.
So your random AAA game is selling more copies than back then, so even with the same price they make a shitton more money.
I genuienly don't want any game bad enough that I will normalize paying this much, the $70 price tag is already too high as is. I will not pay more and will just wait even longer for deep sales.
If every single building isn't interactive, and I can't romance every single NPC I see, eat, workout, etc, then they bugging tf out
$100? For that price, it better be perfect. No bugs, no crashes, 50+ single player experience, amazing fun online play. Now will it have all that? I highly doubt it. I will not pay $100, I’ll wait for a sale
Just think about how big the price cut would need to be for it to really be a deal. At $100 a 25% discount still has you at $75.
@@RoKe-lu4fr
Very true. That’s ok, I love GTA but I’ll wait for reviews. Not from IGN either. The sad part is, just like the people who spend money on COD, this game is gonna sell big. Hopefully more people start pushing back
@@bustercoutee8778 it would take massive backlash to this game at $80+ to stop what is coming in gaming. I know the thought of charging $100 for a base game of Madden, NBA 2K or COD has these companies’ CEOs excited. We have waited over 10 years for this game while they tried to milk us dry with 5. I love rockstar games but If I have to wait another year or 2 for the price to make sense then I will.
We dont speak about kotor, unless we have some news! :D
The video game industry is in a bubble that’s about to pop, and increasing the prices of games would just expedite that process.
i don't care how large the game is and how poular $100 for a game is wild
In most sectors unemployment is low, however inflation is still going up and wages are not. I'm not paying $100 for GTA6 and I am not paying even $70 for the uninspired crap that the AAA publishers are putting out these days. I will play the indies, Marvel Rivals, POE2, the Chinese and South Korean studios are showing strong promise and the Japanese studios unshackled from a poisonous modern Sony are still doing good stuff.
Game devs can't even optimize games for PC, they just rely on dlss and fsr... Why would I pay them more when they don't work any harder?
Even if GTA6 turns out to be the most epic and Legendary game in History... I can't find an excuse or reason to spend 100 bucks on it.
I'd rather feed my family for two weeks
Where do you live that you can feed a family for 2 weeks on 100 dollars? Wtf
@Spartansareawesome11 oh shit.. good call. I got my currencies mixed up. In Denmark this is more like one week at most😬
@@Spartansareawesome11You can buy a month's worth of groceries in most third world countries.
Nice analysis although one thing i can pick from last decade on music and video, is that music and video has become "cheaper" sort to speak, with probably a big chunk of it its being consumed either on Spotify, UA-cam and apple music, which is way cheaper than buying full albums, same with movies, its easier to wait for Netflix or Disney+ which now are huge, and gaming didn't had that. I could be wrong though.
If people buy micro transactions people will buy a hypothetical gta 6 price game. Look how many people buy shark cards in gta 5. People will buy anything and everything.
Tbh I’m almost certain rockstar will pull the same thing Ubisoft’s been doing with $100 - $140 day editions that include bonuses and early access
What doesn't help is that they make the games expensive by focusing on better graphics, higher polygon counts, high quality visuals in realism, and being longer in hours. Taking more longer to develop games and resources, with the reason of having games as online service only, having microtransactions, or having a higher price tag with multiple editions and missing content in the regular version. Which ends up being expensive. While indie games are the opposite of that.
I think you hit it. GTA6 is the ONLY game that I would consider paying the $100 price tag. Every other game I could wait for a sale.
Between their single player and GTA online experience, it’s basically two separate games each worth $50 at launch.
Logic suggests they should just make AAA games smaller.
(Of course that would require managers who're able to understand and implement such a concept,
while also satisfying the finance aspects of its implementation.
When lately, unfortunately, AAA gaming publishers' managers showed the opposite of competence, in general.)
AAA games have been already costing too much for years,
in terms of the time needed for players to enjoy them to the end.
That's in the numbers, and it cannot be denied.
Virtually nobody plays those big games to the end,
let alone playing them multiple times,
as it would be mandatory in order to explore a satisfactory chunk
of the total content put into of those games by the developers.
Smaller AAA games would take less time and people to be made,
so they would be less costly to produce.
No need to increase the price-tag, and the revenue would go up none the less.
Thanks for your videos!
They won't make smaller games. They'll just do what they did with Space Marine 2 and hire some cheap help to make their games instead.
FYI I looked up when the first sale for RDR2 was on Xbox. The game launched on October 26, 2018, and the first big sale on the regular edition was 33% off on February 19, 2019. So I'll be waiting 4ish months if Rockstar does this.
It’s a bunch of industry vets either:
1) Simping for a raise
2) Scared of the coming collapse
I’m ready for a hard reset… I don’t care is half the industry looses their jobs
Too many games, budgets are too high, games take too long
At premium prices, people expect a premium product. If a game fails to deliver at a high price point, the backlash is worse
There isn't a game I would pay 100$ base addition for. All we have to do is wait, and many already do that to not pay 70$. It's not as if there's a shortage of games anymore, that doesn't happen. Publishers can't bank on open release windows cause people will play older titles. It wouldn't be a feasible thing to try.
I’m not buying a game for 100$ I know gaming is not a need but for me it’s like milk at what point can they charge before people say no ?
I could see GTA6 separate the singleplayer and the multiplayer and sell them for $70 bucks each and have a multipack for $100.
Interesting idea, although not sure they would want to risk losing multiplayer income by giving players the option to opt-out and just buy the single player only. Say if a quarter of SP players happen to spend $1 on the MP, that would be an extra $50m in revenue (in GTAV terms). You could be right though.
We must stand firm brethren!! If games become $100 I will be sailing the high seas! 😂
The Western game industry is losing the plot. Eastern studios have been carrying gaming.
Nah you're full of it
Nope, just look at a majority of the successful games that have been released. Games from China, Korea, Japan, ect. It's easy to see. @@vitaminwater9662
Stalker and kcd for the win
Did they finally fix Stalker 2? They had about two years, and multiple delays for polish and still couldn't release a functioning game. I get they're originally based in Ukraine, but they relocated to another country not too long after the war. @@Fred-rv2tu
@@Fred-rv2tusame with CD Project Red and RGG
In my mind the video game spiral downward is very similar to fast food. As inflation increases they need to make more money but they start by getting cheaper poorer quality ingredients which damages the brand which causes them to lose more money which means more cuts somewhere and so on and so on until they are bankrupt.
I'm going to be THAT guy and say as long as I remember, games have been $60 (12+years). $60 today does not go as far and thus, I think it's reasonable to pay $80-$100 for a game.
The unfortunate thing is we have a chicken vs egg situation of poor quality games vs lack of finances for these studios. Did a lack of money cause poor quality? Or did their poor quality cause us to spend less? Either way, the cycle has to break somewhere or there we won't see many good games in the future.
"...the cycle has to break somewhere or there we won't see many good games in the future." LOL, where've you been? Good games is already a thing of hte past in the AAA space.
I remember when a brand new game used to cost $50 and you got the whole game and didn’t have to spend extra on DLC’s or micro transactions. When games jumped to $70 I thought that was crazy and now people are spending $100 for deluxe editions and spending money on cosmetics in the game which adds and you’re ending up spending $100’s of dollars just to play a game. I’m pretty sure kids or parents can’t afford to buy multiple games and all the extra micro transactions smh
I cannot think of another game outside of GTA 6 that is capable of charging $80-$100 for a base release and getting away with it. Any other game tries that it will flop and flop HARD. A massive mistake if someone else tries to follow that trend.
Most the games I play anyway are older, I either own them physically on older consoles or buy them when for sale. I don't mind spending $100 for a game I've been waiting on for 12+ years but I'm not trying out many games otherwise for that pricetag.
matty homeboy we didnt get a aaa sci fi rpg w aliens in like forever are these devs publishers crayzey
It doesn’t even make sense to keep making games bigger and longer. It has been researched and found that nearly 90% of gamers never even play a game halfway through and as little as 10% of gamers ever complete games
If the price is 100 then the story should at least be minimum 70 hours long. Not 70 hours of boring side quests and fetch quests, actual good content.
lol, it's R* dude, we all know the campaign in GTAs exist just to carousel players around the open world sand box so people can mess around within the virtual world of GTA.
For under $50, I've snagged Halo MCC, Gears of War Ultimate Edition, Skyrim Special Edition, Metro Exodus, Witcher 3, State of Decay 2, Forza Horizon 4, Battlefield 1, and Batman Arkham Knight for my Xbox Series X. With this incredible haul, I'll be set for months as a casual gamer! Given my financial constraints, spending $70 or even $50 on a single game is out of the question. Earning just $350 a month and being from India, dropping $100 on one game would break the bank. 😂 That's why I stick to Game Pass and only buy games when they're heavily discounted.
The problem with the possible price increase is that prices already went up fairly recently. And coming from a market that already pays $90-$100 via that recent increase for the base version of most games, it ends up only making me more choosy and I often wait for the prices to go down. I'm not going to pay $150 for a game if the price increases again. But if the price does increase again, then I think publishers need to seriously rethink how they're packaging their games. Give them a bit more for their money, and maybe rethink the microtransactions, because when you pay $100 or more for a game, it doesn't feel great to be asked to spend more.
This is a pretty American discussion cause just up here in Canada games already cost $90 after tax. If games go up to $100 American I’ll just never buy a new game again
What these kinda comments never understand stand. Y’all say things like “ but in Canada and Australia we pay more” no you don’t. You are paying what the USA dollar is worth in YOUR country. Just because you spend $90 of your dollar, in reality it’s $70 USA dollar or whatever the conversion is. That like saying in India you are paying more (1,000,000 rupees for a burger) when in reality it only equals $7 USA dollars. So you aren’t paying more for anything
It's insane to me how this industry generates so much money but at the same time certain companies waste all of it on failed products that nobody wanted in the first place. Imagine if they actually listened more often to consumers.
I will never buy gta 6 at $60+
Gta6 will sell so much it won't matter the price
It really won't. They are also planning on using facial recognition so kids can't get it.
@@jvazacas lmao talking out your ass
@jvazacas how? Very unlikely it's gonna work
@@jvazacas They would never handicap their sales like that.
@@jvazacasKids are the only ones who play GTA online. That would never happen.
If it’s the standard version of the game, I’m not paying $100 for it like if it comes with DLC or something. Yes I’ll pay $100 for it, but it will be a cold day in hell before I pay $100 for a standard version of a game. But overall, I’m still super excited about this game. Love that GTA V background music you’re playing in the video too definitely one of my favorites. That the pause menu music which is definitely the best I wonder what GTA 6 pause music’s gonna be like or if it’s gonna be good or not and I don’t mind waiting for games to go on sale but if this game is gonna be $100 that’s what I would normally do is I normally get games that are on sale most of the time and on one rare occasion, I will spend a lot of money on, just like one big game but I rarely do that though yeah I could definitely see the game going for $79.99 and probably like the premium edition or something is probably gonna be $99.99 the mad edition is probably just gonna come with like shark cards or something for GTA online I played it a little bit of GTI online. It’s fun for a little bit. I’m not really into the online aspect of the game. I like the single player. Story mode, It’s really fun. I really hope they add director mode. Director mode was like the best part of GTA 5 just really sucks that I dead redemption two to have a director mode I think on PC you can mod it and make it a director mode or something because I know on PC you can play as different characters i’ve seen someone play as Jack Marston, which is pretty crazy play as a kid going around killing people with a gun that’s just funny
I'm so sick of getting pushed out my hobbies because of greedy companies. First Lego,now video games.
I know for a fact everyone in this comment section will say one thing and do the total opposite in a few months. The industry knows that!
yeah, happens all the time, just look at instant 250k overwhelmingly negative reviews for overwatch on steam, yet for the first few months of its release it was constantly in the top 10 most played games on steam. Or the consistent hate for the new Call of Duty games yet they are always massive financial success and tons of people play them
People crying in the comments is nothing compared to a global market
Exactly most people don't have 100$ to spend on a video game@@4LiveRastaJoy
That would include you since you are a part of "everyone" in the comment section, and you said it is a fact.
I know for a fact that the only game I have bought full price on release in the last 15 years is Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, and that was only $40 on release. I have not paid any more than that for any game in 15 years.
Sorry, your "fact" is hyperbolic nonsense.
@@JacobPaul-ix7oc I pay full price for every game I play because I'm not poor and $70-100 for a game is not a big deal. Too many people in this comment section that need to get a real job that's not taking orders at a fast food drive though.
One of the problems with these publishers and developers getting so big is the red tape. Having to schedule a meeting to get approval for every tiny change is a big reason game development time has grown so out of control. When a development studio was just 30 people in a little office, communication was so much faster and easier. Publishers weren't investing hundreds of millions of dollars into projects so you didn't need to get approval for every little detail. But as games got more complex, more people were needed. More people = higher budget and the higher the budget, the more involved the publisher wants to be. It's now grown into this broken industry we have today.
$100 for a game is acceptable. But ONLY if the FULL game is included, and ONLY there are NO in-game purchases of ANY kind. Like games used to be 20 years ago.
Which will never happen, so no
You live in fantasy land if you think that'll ever happen.
I think the problem with the $70 retail price isn't just that games are more expensive now, because we had $60 games for 15 years, it couldn't last forever.
The problem is $70 games will still release purposefully incomplete. Games can have plenty of content and be released with all that content ready, but publishers don't wanna do that. Most of the time anyway. We will still see content immediately advertized as DLC the moment the game comes out at $70 and that DLC will still run you upwards of the price of the game itself on top. When we first got $60, we usually got a complete game. We won't always have that with $70 games, or even commonly have it.
And games going beyond $70 soon is asinine. We just got the price increase to $70, sales will plummet if the highest price keeps going
Idc what anybody says if Rockstar sold GTA6 for $200 ppl would buy it 💯
As someone who worked at eBay in the collectible space... Price gouging always happens and it never works. They're a PS5 listings that are astronomical that have been on the site for years at this point. Same with vinyl.
Don't look at eBay listing prices. Look at eBay Sold at prices. That's what actually matters.
This makes sense. If a game takes over a billion dollars to produce, why wouldnt they raise the price
My backlog is looking fairly good right now.
Rockstar games is probably the only Company i‘d pay this price to because they do deliver on their games
And Valve. The only two Western studios who actually release good games.
If game companies want to up the prices on games they need to make it worth the price bump. You spent the better part of a decade and an exorbitant amount of money making it? That sounds like a you problem. If you want my money for that game it needs to offer a proportional return. It's why there's a few games out there that people play the crap out of and rarely switch off: it's worth their time and money. $80? If I'm gonna beat it in a week, the gameplay is meh, it's a buggy mess, cheaters are running rampant ect you've wasted your time and money not mine no thanks.
I just love matty’s “wtf is this” or “wtf was that?” Thumbnails
I could care less about any GTA.
Is the $70 price the physical copy or digital? Cause it makes sense for digital to be far cheaper. Makes sense for it to be nearly $100 if theres bonus content and extras or costumes etc.
They never said they are going to charge 100$ they are saying the value and and demand for the product we all know always delivers a full product
If it was to charge 100$ people won’t care being we kno what we get and how long the content last for the money spent
It’s not a bad thing people are just acting dumb to make things headlines or seem negative
If Matty waste 20 mins of my time to explain that I’m not coming back 😂
The basic edition of the latest COD was already 80€ here in the EU and it was among steam's best sellers...
I feel like there's just no reason to play anything but the games that I already own and enjoy. The future of gaming is something I'm not willing to jump into.
Great video Matty. The world economy is in sambles. People in NA are having problems with housing and food. In Europe food prices have sky rocketed. I highly doubt people will pay over $60 for a video game. Also, technically, Rockstars last release was Red Dead Redemption on PC and if you read the reviews people say an over-priced 15-20 year old game, buy it at 50% off and I agree with every single one of those people. It's just greed at that point selling an old game that wasn't even remastered properly.
8:30 this chart is such a huge part of the story
I know people don’t like games getting more expensive, but just look at that.
I would gladly pay more upfront if it meant a better experience, and so the developer wouldn’t feel pressured to monetize game features after release
"Dad can i have a hundred to buy a video game?"
Hell no boy!
Back in PS1 days, remember new releases costing £40 here in the UK and thinking that was a lot. Crazy to think that consumers are being charged almost double that price tag now!
There are just SOOOO many gaming options today. It’s not just multiple platforms anymore with some exclusive games. There are literally hundreds of mobile games every year, there are things like GamePass easily making smaller games available, and of course you’ve got older games that are still available now at steep discounts. I have only a limited amount of time to play video games each week, so I’m generally only playing one or two at a time. I have great games released 5 years ago I still haven’t touched yet. A new game has to be amazing (or at least highly anticipated to me) for me to pick it up day one at full price.
Rockstar could pull off a $100.00 game, but as you pointed out, the bigger issue is that we will buy less games overall and be more choosey if that’s where the industry goes.
Ubisoft, EA, etc would take successful sales of GTA at $100.00 as a green light, but the issue is a lot of us aren’t going to buy their games for $100.00, right now a lot of us might buy a mediocre Ubisoft game or EA game at $70.00, but we won’t for $100.00, so they’ll just be shooting themselves in the foot.
They’re going to do what they’re already doing with their other 2 recent games… sell story mode and online as one package for full price, and also sell just online mode separately at a discounted price so people are incentivized to spend more on in-game purchases
😂😂😂😂😂
Thankfully, I've given up on modern-day gaming.
Ubisoft retailed an edition of Outlaws for $130. So, $100 for GTA VI is not asking too much for how big that game is and the amount of gameplay hours it contains.
The fact that remakes & remasters of ps2 and xbox 360 era games are thing atm tells me that modern games have really dropped the ball when it comes to quality and innovation. The reason most people would be willing to pay 80,90,100 bugs on GTA6 is that (despite all of Rockstars faults), when it comes to mainline entries of the series the studio has not disappointed so far. Each new game is a big step up to the previous. I feel like they are literally one of the only studios doing this.
Personally don’t have an issue with Rockstar charging $100 for GTA. They release nothing but bangers. But I’d advice caution for other studios. You are playing with fire and may lose your behind on some mid game that you try to sell for $100
Never expected to hear "GTA 6 is this generation's Piglet's Big Game", but now it is how I'm going to refer to it till the end of time
$100 usd means $200 here in Australia. That's a tough pill to swallow. But I only have a console for GTA 6 so I guess it's sunk cost fallacy now
Success is simple - know your audience, produce a product that's high quality, is fun to spend your limited time with, tells a compelling story, and transports you to place outside of your daily existence. Selling the sizzle only gets you so far, and gamers ultimately speak with their money if the product is worthy of a $70/80 price tag. Recent examples of losing the plot includes companies like BioWare (and Bethesda to some degree) believing they know better than gamers, and that's when they really lose not just the plot, but the real lessons learned around why their recent products didn't meet their unfounded expectations.
I think this will be one of those times where things grow to silly scale (asking 80,90+) for a game and then (hopefully) it pulls back.
Honestly, this may sound crazy but I don’t mind studios committing to the remake model. If you can put your whole heart and soul into a true and faithful remake (of OLD games, not remakes from 2010/2015) I think you can do a lot of good. A remake from the 90s or 00s can be really refreshing. FF7 for example. I love it so far even tho I know it’s not as faithful to the original story as some would like. Imagine a KOTOR remake. An Oblivion remake. etc. just the great games of yesteryear that have a foundation of greatness but were made so long ago the industry couldn’t really do them justice
In a world where we can have a life changing experience with a game for dozens or hundreds of hours in exchange for the price of a 6 pack of beer, and basically never run out of these experiences if you're an adult with a job who can only play for a few hours a week. The price of games is almost irrelevant, it's the time spend, quality, and sentiment towards the developer that matters.
Your Larians, your Obsidians, maybe your CDPRs, are trading on their properties, their names, not just whether their games are free or $10, or $60. Or how many hundreds of hours their games are.
When I was I kid, I got a coupon from Nintendo that they had to send around because they got caught breaking price-fixing laws.
Jack Sparrow still exists and you can always join his crew. The more the prices go up, the more people will become his fans. Not to mention the massive free-to-play games that bribe the player by letting him decide when and how much to pay.