General Gaming Game prices likely to raise by $10 next gen (Update: CoD)

[SoberChef]

I buy maybe, MAYBE a half dozen titles a year typically. Those that I do spend my hard earned coin on, I typically go for the all out "ultimate" or whatever edition that will include the inevitable DLC/packs/et al. So realistically, I've been spending $100/title for easily the last 5+ years when it's a AAA game I purchase at launch.

[DarkStar189]

7 hours ago, johnny said:

Nba 2k does not need to up prices. They make a shit ton of money on micro transactions. And frankly they don’t work hard enough year to year for any justification. If you told me the last of us part 2 was 70 dollars I’d say ok. But Fuck something like 2k raising their prices when they do the bare minimum. 

These are my thoughts as well. A yearly sports game that has a virtual casino in game is the last game series I'd be willing to pay more money for. 

[Guest]

This will suck for the handful of times I ever buy a game full price each generation

[Chris-]

I usually don't buy enough games in any given year to really care about the price, and even then I'm willing to pay full price given the ROI in terms of entertainment. Over the course of the pandemic I've purchased multiple full priced games (10 in all, plus some cheaper indies) and I haven't regretted a single dime, because I've gotten my money's worth (and then some).

[crispy4000]

1 hour ago, XxEvil AshxX said:

The fact that there's practically no manufacturing overhead nowadays (even the physical copies cost pennies to produce) throws off the whole "inflation" argument.

 

N64 games were $60 back in the day, and they were made of expensive plastic and silicon, had full-color printed booklets, came in full-color boxes, and had the "nintendo tax" on top of them. Not only that, but if it wasn't a Nintendo first-party title, it was lucky to sell a million copies back then.

 

Sure, the cost of game development has gone up.. but other costs have gone down. Hell, nowadays they don't even need to finish the game before they sell it to us. They literally have us pay to play test their games and they use those sales to determine whether or not they'll actually bother. If they decide to release a broken game and it sells like shit, they'll cut their losses and sweep it under the rug and move on to the next project.

 

There are too many medium sized, very successful developers out there for the "it costs too much" argument to hold any water. They release great games that sell a ton and they don't break the bank in order to do it.

 

The only ones complaining about this are the EA's and the 2K's that have to buy their CEO's another yacht.

A $60 game 10 years ago:

 

 

Manufacturing and distribution costs were already low back then.  Publishers could actually lose more money on returns of unsold inventory.  This idea that discs are so much cheaper now misses the larger picture of retail entirely.

 

So digital must be better right?  Well, yes.  Platform holders take a bigger cut with digital sales than physical, 30% being the norm.  So that’s $42 gain for the publisher, instead of $27.

 

But in 2010 that $27 physical cut would have felt like $32 of our dollars today.  $35 if we compare it when games first went up to $60. (2005)  That’s only a $7 gain per sale for publishers if all sales went digital.
 

So, the question should be if AAA development costs have risen enough in the past 15 years to negate that $7 difference.  Or realistically speaking, much less than that $7, because retail isn’t dead.

 

Inflation matters.  The math counts.  I think the reason a price hike hasn’t happened yet is because of DLC and microtransaction grabs.

 

Right now, publishers probably just want to set themselves up for the next 15 years.

[Xbob42]

6 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

But again, it’s much easier to do a price hike than to figure out how to make battle passes, loot boxes, etc more profitable.

This has never been an either/or. They're going to raise the price of games *and* microtransactions, loot boxes and everything else. Inflation applies to everything. Except the average wages of most U.S. citizens, I guess.

[crispy4000]

7 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

This has never been an either/or. They're going to raise the price of games *and* microtransactions, loot boxes and everything else. Inflation applies to everything. Except the average wages of most U.S. citizens, I guess.

Of course they will.  No doubt.  
 

The more surprising thing has been that $59.99 stuck for so long.  

[Xbob42]

7 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

Of course they will.  No doubt.  
 

The more surprising thing has been that $59.99 stuck for so long.  

Absolutely. Shame you're typically getting less game for it than we did for $49.99. Maybe not less content, but often less complete content and more buggy titles. Not always, but often enough to make the idea of raising the price sound really iffy. Especially since the extra money will 100% not result in anything changing at all in terms of the games we get. I would be sorta-kinda-down for it if it meant less DLC and microtransactions and no battle passes, but of course it won't mean any of that. Fuckin' games could be selling for $200 a pop and they'd still be shoveling new monetization schemes in on the daily.

[crispy4000]

1 minute ago, Xbob42 said:

Absolutely. Shame you're typically getting less game for it. Maybe not less content, but often less complete content and more buggy titles. Not always, but often enough to make the idea of raising the price sound really iffy. Especially since the extra money will 100% not result in anything changing at all in terms of the games we get. I would be sorta-kinda-down for it if it meant less DLC and microtransactions and no battle passes, but of course it won't mean any of that. Fuckin' games could be selling for $200 a pop and they'd still be shoveling new monetization schemes in on the daily.

I usually just wait a year or two to buy any game I think will have significant DLC, with a package deal.

 

I don’t trust DLC ever getting big discounts.

[Bacon]

Games haven't gotten better enough for there to be a price increase. I think most modern triple games have gotten worse since '00-'10. 

[Xbob42]

23 minutes ago, Bacon said:

Games haven't gotten better enough for there to be a price increase. I think most modern triple games have gotten worse since '00-'10. 

And taken significantly longer to come out, to boot.

[crispy4000]

Games would be closer to $80 today if priced by inflation.

 

You all shouldn’t be asking if they’re ‘better’ enough to justify $70, lol.  Rather, if they’re worse enough to stay at $60.

 

I haven’t really noticed a quality dive, tbh, though there is a tendency to go open world and put skill trees in everything.  The 5-10 hour AAA (or AA) game has largely disappeared.

[crispy4000]

Another article suggesting $69.99 is very likely for ‘flagship’ franchises:

 

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-07-02-idg-other-publishers-are-considering-raising-game-prices-for-ps5-and-xbox-series-x

 

Quote

"Even with the increase to $69.99 for next-gen, that price increase from 2005 to 2020 next-gen is only up 17%, far lower than the other comparisons. While the cost of development and publishing have gone up, and pricing in other entertainment verticals has also gone up substantially, next-gen software pricing has not reflected these increases. $59.99 to $69.99 does not even cover these other cost increases completely, but does move it more in the proper direction."

 

[Xbob42]

On 7/3/2020 at 7:06 AM, crispy4000 said:

You all shouldn’t be asking if they’re ‘better’ enough to justify $70, lol.  Rather, if they’re worse enough to stay at $60.

Except they don't cost $60. These days $60 is the barebones entry ticket. No one was sitting around buying Resident Evil 4's Mercenary Mode and a battle pass that unlocked hats for Leon.

 

Again, if $60 got you all the content the game had on offer sans big expansions, and there were no other monetization efforts, sure, inflation makes sense. But that's not the reality of it.  Every other big game has unlimited earning potential from each individual consumer now.

[crispy4000]

46 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

Except they don't cost $60. These days $60 is the barebones entry ticket. No one was sitting around buying Resident Evil 4's Mercenary Mode and a battle pass that unlocked hats for Leon.

 

Again, if $60 got you all the content the game had on offer sans big expansions, and there were no other monetization efforts, sure, inflation makes sense. But that's not the reality of it.  Every other big game has unlimited earning potential from each individual consumer now.

 

I wouldn’t call most $60 games barebones today.  Many are bigger games that RE4 was, and that was already a very long game for the time.  The practice of chopping out game modes has also seen a sharp decline.  It’s been much more about cosmetics now, especially post BFII.  And/Or selling season passes, which are often more content on top of a 20-30+ hour game.
 

We have seen development time and costs increase however.  It’s due.  Even with mtx delaying the inevitable.

[Xbob42]

1 minute ago, crispy4000 said:

 

I wouldn’t call most $60 games barebones today.  Many are bigger games that RE4 was, and that was already a very long game for the time.

That isn't what I meant by barebones. I meant you get the barebones version. There's already $70, $80, $90, $100 versions of games. And even those don't come with everything. Stop defending this farce as even vaguely logical or truthful.

[crispy4000]

13 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

That isn't what I meant by barebones. I meant you get the barebones version. There's already $70, $80, $90, $100 versions of games. And even those don't come with everything. Stop defending this farce as even vaguely logical or truthful.

But it applies directly to what you’re trying to call me out for here.

 

If games + season passes at those prices are supposed to be absurd, we have to figure out where the value proposition is poor.

 

I think it’s much more common for the season pass portion to underwhelm than the base product.  And that’s its own issue.

[Xbob42]

1 hour ago, crispy4000 said:

If games + season passes at those prices are supposed to be absurd, we have to figure out where the value proposition is poor.

The value proposition is poor not because of any one issue, but because of myriad issues.

And it's not just "game + season pass." It's "game + season pass + battle pass + cosmetic purchases + loot boxes (less common now) + DLC packs (many not included with season passes) + expansion packs + boosters + every game using its own currency so you can only buy the currencies in set chunks that never really line up with actual purchases so you always have just enough left over that it "seems like a waste" to leave that much left over"

 

There is no value anymore, not when you look at the grand scheme of things. Why even charge me $60 for the game when I can buy literally unlimited amounts of "content" in so many games? When adding up all your DLCs and coming up to several hundred dollars, what's even the point of charging for the base game? They're devaluing their own games with their digital goods that cost almost nothing to produce and literally cost nothing to provide infinite amounts of, but cost more than the game by several orders of magnitude in many cases.

So I say again: I would be pretty okay (but not delighted) with a $10 price hike if all the excessive disgusting, exploitative and worthless bullshit I listed above was guaranteed to be removed. But not only will it still be there, we can also expect a price hike on that stuff as well. $10 for a Battle Pass? Pfft, that's chump change. It's 2022, it's $25 for a Battle Pass now baby! $10 was way too cheap anyway, you guys were basically ripping us off. But because we're benevolent corporate abusers, we've increased them from 100 to 200 tiers. Oh, no, of course you don't get more progress per tier, but our tier skips are on sale for just 50% more than their baseline price a year ago!

Never give them a fucking inch. They've been taking an inch every day for over a decade. Let them defend their own practices, we don't need to do it for them. 

[Duderino]

As much as I can’t stand micro-transactions and wish they would disappear, I can’t remember the last time I felt cheated by a lack of content in a AAA game due to a paid content wall.  (I do avoid games though that are known for it)

 

$70 in 2020+ is more than fair.  Games that abuse the value proposition at $60 will no doubt continue to do so at $70, but these tittles alone should not dictate the base AAA game price.  Actually, keeping the $60 price would encourage developers that don’t engage in these kind of practices to start dabbling in more invasive micro-transactions to offset dev costs.

 

Personally I’m more worried about the impact subscription models may have on micro-transactions prevalence in games moving forward than a $10 price hike.

[Xbob42]

3 minutes ago, Duderino said:

Games that abuse the value proposition at $60 will no doubt continue to do so at $70, but these tittles alone should not dictate the base AAA game price.

Outside of Sony first-party titles and I guess CDPR, just about every AAA title "abuses" the $60 value proposition. I dunno what list of AAA titles you guys are playing that aren't absolutely littered with this garbage, but they are the vast majority, not some little abuser's corner.l

[Duderino]

22 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

Outside of Sony first-party titles and I guess CDPR, just about every AAA title "abuses" the $60 value proposition. I dunno what list of AAA titles you guys are playing that aren't absolutely littered with this garbage, but they are the vast majority, not some little abuser's corner.l

Last two games I completed, FFVII:R and Jedi Fallen Order, don’t fall under this generalized umbrella.  Both provided a lot of value for $60.

 

At a $70 price tag, there will be less pressure for their inevitable sequels to insert micro-transactions.  Same goes for many Sony first party tittles.

 

The price hike is necessary for tittles that try to retain a good value proposition without all the BS.

[crispy4000]

1 hour ago, Xbob42 said:

The value proposition is poor not because of any one issue, but because of myriad issues.

And it's not just "game + season pass." It's "game + season pass + battle pass + cosmetic purchases + loot boxes (less common now) + DLC packs (many not included with season passes) + expansion packs + boosters + every game using its own currency so you can only buy the currencies in set chunks that never really line up with actual purchases so you always have just enough left over that it "seems like a waste" to leave that much left over"

 

There is no value anymore, not when you look at the grand scheme of things. Why even charge me $60 for the game when I can buy literally unlimited amounts of "content" in so many games? When adding up all your DLCs and coming up to several hundred dollars, what's even the point of charging for the base game? They're devaluing their own games with their digital goods that cost almost nothing to produce and literally cost nothing to provide infinite amounts of, but cost more than the game by several orders of magnitude in many cases.

So I say again: I would be pretty okay (but not delighted) with a $10 price hike if all the excessive disgusting, exploitative and worthless bullshit I listed above was guaranteed to be removed. But not only will it still be there, we can also expect a price hike on that stuff as well. $10 for a Battle Pass? Pfft, that's chump change. It's 2022, it's $25 for a Battle Pass now baby! $10 was way too cheap anyway, you guys were basically ripping us off. But because we're benevolent corporate abusers, we've increased them from 100 to 200 tiers. Oh, no, of course you don't get more progress per tier, but our tier skips are on sale for just 50% more than their baseline price a year ago!

Never give them a fucking inch. They've been taking an inch every day for over a decade. Let them defend their own practices, we don't need to do it for them. 

You don’t get to for ask more value for your money vs 15 years ago, when your money lost 15 years worth of value.

 

In fact, you’d have to add $15 worth of DLC just to be charged what a new game price was worth when the 360 launched.

 

I hate bad DLC practices as much as you.  Truly.  But I have to admit, a $60 game plus a $20 season pass is almost equivalent to getting the latter for free when inflation adjusted.  It’s no wonder publishers are trying to upsell us.

 

It doesn’t take an analyst to see that something’s got to give.  Even with the bullshit we both hate still in play.

[PaladinSolo]

I will probably just continue to wait till the game goes to sub $30 before i buy them.

[legend]

I think I bought a Fortnite battle pass once or twice when I played it for a bit since it was otherwise free.

 

Otherwise I don't pay for "micro" transactions. Nevertheless, I'll take the game industry as it is today over what it was.  

[Xbob42]

4 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

You don’t get to for ask more value for your money vs 15 years ago, when your money lost 15 years worth of value.

Sure I do. Or rather, we do. Individually our $60s are definitely worth less, but simultaneously there are multitudes more of us buying games, so there's far more money to be made.

 

In any case, I think it's good consumer practice in general to make a stink whenever someone asks you for more without offering more, or offering anything that you actually want. The absolute worst outcome is that you still pay whatever dumbass extra money they're asking for, or if enough people make a stink, you save $10+tax on each full price purchase for another few years. There's no losing.

[crispy4000]

1 hour ago, Xbob42 said:

Sure I do. Or rather, we do. Individually our $60s are definitely worth less, but simultaneously there are multitudes more of us buying games, so there's far more money to be made.
 

The games industry has grown gradually and steadily since 2005, but so have game production costs, team sizes, and development times generally.  These are just a few of the variables that affect the cost of business in the AAA space.

 

It’s not like the Wii or Switch, where Nintendo could mostly keep their costs static while their reach ballooned.

 

1 hour ago, Xbob42 said:

In any case, I think it's good consumer practice in general to make a stink whenever someone asks you for more without offering more, or offering anything that you actually want. The absolute worst outcome is that you still pay whatever dumbass extra money they're asking for, or if enough people make a stink, you save $10+tax on each full price purchase for another few years. There's no losing.

The industry chose to keep prices level going into this gen.  I think they did it to expand the audience while getting us more used to paying for season passes, premium editions, and mtx.  

 

I don’t think our voices had anything to with that decision.  Either way, we’re a generation overdue.  It’s already been put off once.

[Chairslinger]

On 7/2/2020 at 1:03 PM, skillzdadirecta said:

I haven't payed full price for a physical game I bought Day One in forever. That said, this sucks if true.

 

 

Yeah, my reaction to this was...

 

"Huh, that sucks."

 

*Goes back to playing my copy of Minecraft I bought for $20 back in 2013*

 

[skillzdadirecta]

10 minutes ago, Chairslinger said:

 

 

Yeah, my reaction to this was...

 

"Huh, that sucks."

 

*Goes back to playing my copy of Minecraft I bought for $20 back in 2013*

 

Oh i buy plenty of games day one... I just don't pay full price for them.

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

I rarely buy the standard edition of games as is. If I want a game I tend to get the version with the digital goodies included. If I’m really hyped I’ll even spring for the version with the “season pass” included. usually this peaks at $100. I don’t get the versions that cost more than that normally. Though for digital only I’m interested in they’re pretty rare outside of a couple Ubisoft games. 
 

if the Digital Deluxe versions still stop out at $99, I probably will not notice. But if they start peaking into $110, I will notice. Don’t know if it will change anything though. I don’t buy so many games day one that it would be that big of deal. 

[Dre801]

I buy games way after they've been released and have had a price drop or two, but still sucks.

[Brian]

Big news: Ubisoft said on today's earnings call that their next-gen games this fall will be the same price as current-gen games ($60). Take-Two had announced that NBA 2K21 will be $70 on PS5 and Xbox Series X.

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) July 22, 2020

[crispy4000]

3 hours ago, ManUtdRedDevils said:

This Fall.  Surprising news nonetheless.

[Remarkableriots]

On 7/4/2020 at 2:55 PM, Xbob42 said:

And it's not just "game + season pass." It's "game + season pass + battle pass + cosmetic purchases + loot boxes (less common now) + DLC packs (many not included with season passes) + expansion packs + boosters + every game using its own currency so you can only buy the currencies in set chunks that never really line up with actual purchases so you always have just enough left over that it "seems like a waste" to leave that much left over"

 

List the games that actually do all of that.

[Xbob42]

28 minutes ago, Remarkableriots said:

List the games that actually do all of that.

I don't even know where to begin with a response this idiotic. Yeah, bro, let me go compile a complete list of every game that does 100% of what's up there, that's a real good gotcha. If any of the games leave out one or two of those things then it's all good, right?

 

Come back with something substantial.

[crispy4000]

Activision going up to $69.99 as standard for next gen, starting with Call of Duty.  You can purchase a current gen-only SKU for $10 cheaper.

 

Quote

Standard Edition (PS4, Xbox One, and PC): $59.99

Standard Edition includes:

• Call of Duty®: Black Ops Cold War game
• Confrontation Weapons Pack

Pre-order any digital edition and receive:

• Early access to the Open Beta
• Iconic Operator Frank Woods and an assault rifle Weapon Blueprint for immediate use in Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® and Call of Duty®: Warzone™

 

Cross-Gen Bundle (PS4/PS5 and Xbox One/Xbox Series X): $69.99

Includes Call of Duty®: Black Ops Cold War game (current-gen version and next-gen version when it launches) and Confrontation Weapons Pack. Pre-order and receive early access to the Open Beta and additional MW and WZ content. 

• Call of Duty®: Black Ops Cold War game (current-gen and next-gen versions) 
• Confrontation Weapons Pack

Pre-order any digital edition and receive:

• Early access to the Open Beta
• Iconic Operator Frank Woods and an assault rifle Weapon Blueprint for immediate use in Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® and Call of Duty®: Warzone™

 

Ultimate Edition (PS4/PS5, Xbox One/Xbox Series X, and PC): $89.99

• Call of Duty®: Black Ops Cold War game
• Console versions include current-gen version and next-gen version when it launches
• Land, Sea and Air Pack
  • 3 Operator Skins
  • 3 Vehicle Skins
  • 3 Weapon Blueprints
• Battle Pass Bundle (1 Season Battle Pass + 20 Tier Skips)
• Confrontation Weapons Pack

Pre-order Ultimate Edition and receive:

• Early access to the Open Beta
• Iconic Operator Frank Woods and an assault rifle Weapon Blueprint for immediate use in Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® and Call of Duty®: Warzone™
• 10 Tier Skips for immediate use in Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® and Call of Duty®: Warzone™

The Battle Pass Bundle will be available when Season 1 Battle Pass for Black Ops Cold War is made available.