$70 Games Are Just a Phase, Believes Saber Interactive CEO

I can only see prices going up. GTA 6 could very well be a 80+ title and would not hurt sales.

I'll believe it when I see it, but he's right in that something will eventually have to change.

No way prices are ever coming back down, I think they'll just keep going up and up as publishers and devs get more and more greedy.

""I think that as games become more expensive to make, the $70 title is going to go the way of the dodo."

I agree Mr Karch next gen they will be $80 for the reason you stated of games becoming more expensive (but mainly corporate greed!). To suggest they will come down is frankly fairytale nonsense 🙄

Saber will probably eventually price their AA games better. People buying a game at $70 and finding out it is not worth that much money is way worse than people thinking a $50 price tag means it is a subpar game. He even points to helldivers 2 which did fantastic at a lower price.

Not sure what he was getting at here except admitting that they are over charging for space marine 2. He says we are somewhere between indie and AAA but defends charging AAA prices. Sounds like the issue is with Saber and not the industry.

@Americansamurai1
"I can only see prices going up. GTA 6 could very well be a 80+ title and would not hurt sales."

I have to agree. I think PS5 game prices will go up very soon. Just because of the inherent greed of most companies to squeeze more profit out of every single title.

I get what he is saying and wish it to be true. But unfortunately I only see the prices going up unless something else drastically changes.

I doubt they raise the $70 price tag so soon after the increase from $60. If anything there will probably be more aggressive "deluxe editions" above the base $70.

Proces don't just go down. Ever.
They easily go up though.
Why would they go back when 70 is the new norm?

No way it's going down if you people pay it.

I would assume that means Gamepass and PS+ tiers will go up in a few more years also to support the AAA game investment going into those services. Gaming used to be my cheaper hobby but these days it might catch up to my more expensive hobby. Oh well I’ll still support it.

What annoys me is how $70 games suddenly equals £70 games in the UK. Even with the current weakness of the pound that is BS.

£80+ poorly developed unfinished games on their way soon!

To me, NO game is worth $70/£70. All I see is that Graphics are improving - as you'd expect with newer hardware, but the Stories, the Characters, the game-play loops etc are no better than we had on the PS3 gen.

That $70/£70 is the price at launch when the game is often at its worst - requiring post release patches and/or additional content/features promised. Wait a few months and the game is cheaper and often in a better state too. So you are paying more for the 'privilege' of being one of the 'first' to play a rushed out mess of a game that will be improved and cheaper over time.

Its not as if modern hardware doesn't have a LOT of games competing for our time and money. A 'new' $70 release isn't just competing with all the other 'new' games that week, but all the games in sales, sub services etc inc all those 'last gen' games you may have missed thanks to BC. Why spend £70 on one game when you could buy many games in a sale or even save your money and play whatever 'free' games you have from Sub Service like PS+.

As I said, no game is worth £70 to ME - not when I can wait months until its 50% (or less) in sales and have 100's of games in my backlog to play as well as free games due to Sub services so I don't 'need' to spend £70 just to play a game at/near launch...

@Kanji-Tatsumi Considering they’re putting security tags on blocks of cheddar, it’s not even close to being the most egregious price hike in the UK!

Games might be $70 but you'll often find more value and enjoyment out of games half that price!

I bet they will redefine what "base game" means. There are so many ways for sneaky business here: cut the story, restrict coop, nerf rewards and so on. If you want "full game", you'd pay $100 or more.
And they will shame everyone who won't agree to that, because "you're the reason why devs don't get paid well".

Correct. It’ll increase

A phase on the way to $80

Never wanted to pay DVD prices changing from VHS (yes old) but did. Never liked to buy Blu Ray from DVD but did. Never wanted to change to 4K but after having a PS5 and a 4K TV it’s going the same way.

I know it’s slightly different but it’s a matter of going with technology and yes it’s expensive but if you can’t afford it, you will be able to buy it eventually.

Never payed more than 40 squid for a full game.

I highly doubt $70 games are a ‘temporary’ thing. As long as there’s inflation (which there always will be) and people keep paying that price for games ‘they have to have!!’, that price is not going away.

Myself, I RARELY ever pay full price for a game. I simply put games I’m interested in on a wishlist and wait until they hit a threshold I’m comfortable paying for.

Strange as I've yet to pay £70 for a physical game, Dragons Dogma 2 was £53, FF7 ReBirth was £55, Granblue Fantasy Relink was £44 and Unicorn Overlord was £48.

Those paying £70 for physical games aren't looking around very well. And even those buying digital you can buy playstation credit from places that are cheaper, in the UK you can get a £100 wallet top up for £88.

Increase in prices will eventually happen but what we consumers receive better be polished and not full of bugs like almost every single game that releases nowadays... Also, if you're charging more, stop the massive layoffs!

It’s already ridiculous that Nintendo sells games like Princess Peach Shwotime for $60. The price should really be $30, since it’s a game that takes 15 hours to completion and no online. Some games are deserving of their high price though-like Zelda totk and others. I think they’ll only increase tho. ☹️

I wouldn’t mind paying £70 if it included everything but there is constant season passes and dlc and content behind paywalls. If you’re charging a premium price, include all the parts.

@Kanji-Tatsumi $70 is £55, but then you need to add VAT: £66. So maybe they should be £65, but it's not as far off as a straight currency exchange suggests.

Just thinking, if prices were reduced by eliminating expensive dialogues/cut scenes it wouldn't be a bad thing because most people skip them to speed through the game anyways, it is a video game after all not a movie.

Saving money from not using high-end graphics isn't bad either because most people get the wow factor for a short period when starting the game for the first time until they put the controller down, have something to eat and just randomly look at the TV again.

Elden Ring is a good example in context.

@UltimateOtaku91 Yep I haven't paid £70 either. I pre-ordered physical copies of Rebirth for £56 Ronin for £59.99 and Spiderman 2 and Stellar Blade for £62.99

@UltimateOtaku91 agree, I only buy digital but I always use ps cards with between 5 and 20% discount

Prices should go up to 200$. Half year after release most of the standard edition games go down to 20-30$ so patience is a virtue.

@MrMagic Yeah I've been looking to see where Stellar Blade is cheapest, I think Shopto and Hit have it for £62.85.

As with any big operation, theres always alot of unneeded expenses going on. We are seeing massive layoffs right now as a part of this. Less focus on hypergraphics could reduce development time as well as certain platforms that require an extra year or so to make it playable.
Also maybe cut down on external cost like DEI consulting firms which hurts the product in the end?

There is no way prices for AAA games are going to drop, surely no one in their right mind believes that? What we might see, and I think this might be what he's getting at, is more AA games getting made in favour of AAA games, which typically sell at a lower price point.

But even that is a very optimistic scenario. In truth, I fear we might start seeing AA games masquerading as AAA games and selling at the higher price point. And I don't say this as a slight to AA games, I enjoy many games in that category, but they need to be priced adequately.

@Czar_Khastik true, full price in games is like a early access tax.You can pay extra to play the game before and find out the bugs or you can pay the normal price for the complete game 6 months after xD

@UltimateOtaku91 I got it from HMV it is £62.99 free delivery of course.

"Saber Interactive itself is planning on launching Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 at $70, but Karch says this is being done to avoid concerns of a lower price point indicating it's a worse game"

Do as I say, not as I do. 😐
Credibility instantly lost sir.

If you account for inflation, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time would have cost ~£112 in today's money. So we as gamers are objectively being very well served by the £60-70 range for AAA games today, which are far more advanced and complex than TLoZ:OoT was. Prices of AAA games have have failed to keep pace with inflation due to advances in technology which have smoothed production pipeline, e.g. middleware, engines, semi-automated localisation, etc.

That's great for us as consumers. The games we get today are just night-and-day more complicated and beautiful than they used to be, and keep getting better.

That being said, many aspects of being 'nickel-and-dimed' by AAA games today are very grating. I choose not to engage in any of those games, doing my part to send the message to the market that I like my games to be complete at launch and microtransaction free.

As ever, we pay for the games industry we get. Stop pre-ordering, read/watch reviews from people you trust, pay the price that seems right for you based on that information, stop falling for hype and marketing, and don't support/pay for things that you don't like.

Looking at how many pre-orders are usually for deluxe editions I think 80USD is the maximum limit they can go for a long time for base editions. I do think the future is in re-finding that balance of 2 70USD games and 3-4 50USD a year for console manufacturers and big publishers.

Super Nintendo games were 70 bucks 30 years ago. It's really not that bad

@Kanji-Tatsumi $70 does not include tax. USA stores display pre-tax prices because the tax-rate varies by state. So $70 (pre-tax) is roughly the same as £70 (post-tax)

I expect a price hike. As the reasons the CEO mentioned. Video Games are cheap If one includes the inflation rates over the years. Everything got more expensive but video games. Aside the 10 bucks increase with the current Gen launch.

Problem is many many games are already above £70 especiall For early access/deluxe edition/special edition and so forth.

Sure games can keep rising, but most gamers will just cut back on what they buy.

It’s ok saying but it cost X amount to make or inflation means it should be X amount. That just simply isn’t how pricing works. Consumers have a limit of what they believe is tolerable. And for many £70 has reached that limit. ( for non casuals sure they may pay a little more)

Plus regarding inflation, there is a huge difference between shipping digital and making a cartridge and fitting the entire game on it, with box art, manuals and so on. The inflation arguement is nonsense.

Wait a gosh darn minute. Are you telling me game companies are going to have to start being responsible with their money and budgets?? Nooooooooo. Could never happen!

Sarcasm aside, $70 wouldn't need to be the norm if companies making games were REMOTELY good at managing the money spent to make their games. They're (generally) horrendously managed companies who lucked into the successes they've had in the past and rarely learn how to become efficient businesses. THAT'S a big reason why game budgets have ballooned.

As if publishers would ever reduce price. Reminds me of people thinking they would stop micro transactions in full priced games if they became $70.

PS6 games to be £100 by 2030 for the base version!

It won't change because most people are irresponsible with money and will always fall for the instant gratification that comes with spending.

Im not or never worried about 70$ games.video games are getting cheaper.it really started on ps3 to ps4.now ps5 games goes on sales really fast.on ebay or psn.word up son

Come down in price? Not a chance at least for your big budget AAA games. Heck I expected games to be priced at at least $80 coming into the generation so if anything I was shocked to see it only go up $10 from $60 considering inflation and whatnot.

The best case scenario is that PS6 games stay at $70 but that would be more of a pleasant surprise than an expectation.

Games are not expensive at all though. 20 years ago they were cheaper, but not as much as you’d expect after two decades of inflation.

So a lower price point possibly indicates a “worse game”?!? I don’t believe Helldivers 2 price tag of £35 did it any harm.

I think it’ll come down to what the future of physical gaming is. Physical keeps prices in check because if retailers are unhappy with the RRP, they’ll just sell games for cheaper anyway. Like I remember Spider-Man 2 being around £60 physical at some retailers at launch (RRP being £70).

If Microsoft gets their wish of digital only future and Sony follows however, I think prices will skyrocket. 1 month of PS+ Premium/Game Pass Ultimate for £30, £100 to buy Spider-Man 3/Halo 7, etc.

I do think games will go up in price from the current £70/$70, but I also think they're probably too cheap. I rarely buy anything at full price (mainly because of backlog) but video games give you the potential for many, many hours of entertainment. If you're buying cyberpunk for example, and playing for over 100 hours, it seems like quite a good deal to me really (as long as the game is in a polished state of course!)

I remember buying Mortal Kombat 3 for the MegaDrive for 70 Irish pounds back in the day, prices have come down if anything. Especially with various sales every week.

I’m sure people said that when prices went to 60. With inflation companies have to roll out the price increase slowly because people will choose groceries over games but 70 is the new 60. Either pay up or wait for sales. I suspect once Nintendo puts out the newer system that people have been screaming about in the corners of the internet, they will raise their prices. Once they go up I feel the industry is going to go up across the board more quickly. That being said gaming is still cheaper than the 90’s and most people have a backlog that lasts into several decades. People can wait for sales if they really want to.

I would expect many more devs going for the $40 price after Helldivers 2 success. So much so, actually, that I'm slightly afraid that sweet spot between indie and AAAA is going to get over-saturated. It was typically reserved for fun but not great gems, as if devs knew their gameplay is fire but they don't have production values to warrant $70 pricing. I don't want that to disappear

Yea, they'll eventually fade...in favor of going up to $80 or more.

@BAMozzy I have to disagree i have had several games that i gladly payed €70 and had my moneys worth. Baldurs gate 3 is worth easily, Demon Souls is something i played for more the 150 hours, Horizon a 100+ hours for me.

Final Fantasy 7/8/9 the original on PS1, Legend of Dragoon i imported that game for that price was good enough to warrant that price for me. I don't even luke Skyrim but i know lora of people played thar game so much to make it worrh thar price.

Its such nonsense that a game has to be €60 or it's to expensive. We want bigger, longer and better looking and more honest pay how do you think that should be priced.

You rather have cut up games, a lot of DLC or MT or maybe less polish maybe early cyberpunk quality releases.

@tangyzesty I have my hobbies and you may have yours. I almost dont do MT only with Monster Hunter World that had so much free content and a free to play game that im playing for ages to support it a little and im even cutting down om that.

I mean in 4 years, I have bought 2 games at $70. I just refuse to do it becusee they go on sale so quickly. You really don’t need a game day one when it’s reduced 2 weeks after launch. Just wait.

@OctolingKing13 the counter argument there is at $60 - 15 hour game is $4 an hour of entertainment. $4 an hour for enjoyment is a pretty outstanding value proposition. Can’t get that anywhere else.

Can’t go to dinner for $60. Going to see a 90 min movie is $30 these days.

Inflation is a thing. McDonald's doesn't have a real dollar menu any more - those cheesburgers aren't ever going to be less than they are now, which is more than they were a couple years ago.

Even if they manage to make games with fewer employees, wages aren't going down. Even if they manage to save some costs by using AI instead of paying voice actors or artists or programmers, you still need real people to craft a real game - and "AI Prompt Engineer" is a growing field that didn't exist one or two years ago.

If prices are going to stay around $70, then games are going to need to be smaller or poorer quality - or they're going to be riddled with DLC to raise revenue. I think he's right, but not in the way people will like - I think prices are on their way to $80 and $100. They're already there - and beyond - if you factor in season passes and such.

We want games that aren't too short, that have "good" graphics, that have an engaging story, that have good character acting, that aren't riddled with bugs, and that are different than the last thing we played. ALL those things cost money.

EDIT: That said, I'll be buying Stellar Blade on sale some time this summer or fall, because I'm too cheap to pay $70-80 for a game, even though I'm eager to play it. Each of us has some agency here.

Go get a streaming abo, there you can have countless more hours of entertainment for less money. We should not even go there and compare different forms of entertainment.

Games back then were at least 99.9% bug free, plus modules had higher production costs than discs. Today there are way more customers. Look at the sales numbers for Genesis and SNES.

I bought 2 games full price on release in the last 10 plus years, Eldenring and Death Stranding.

There is barely any progress in games, besides graphics. If Sony is crying about rising production costs, why even make a PS6?

@redd214 It is when most of these clown publishers are also selling you a broken, unfinished mess of a game, equipped with battlepasses, $30 skins, season passes, dlc characters, expansions, etc., on top of the $70 you just spent.

I mean, I think he's right that there might be some course correction on certain developers, realizing the cannot risk making AAA games anymore. However, I don't see these AA costing a whole lot less. Don't Nod considers themselves AA and Banishers is $60 - not commenting on whether that is a good price for it or not.

But there is no way $70, or whatever the premium price point is is going away. I can't see $80 until the next generation, but it's certainly possible. Development costs more and the same audience buys the game.

@Ajbr8687 I might be inclined to agree with you if you didn't have to wait for months of fixes, updates and promised content, AFTER you paid for a game, to actually see that "value". I don't have that problem at a restaurant or a theatre.

"Funnily enough, Saber Interactive itself is planning on launching Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 at $70, but Karch says this is being done to avoid concerns of a lower price point indicating it's a worse game."

Uh-huh. Riiiiigggghhhttt. Heard it all now. Of course, you could price it at $50 and - if it's any good - it might sell twice as many, giving you more profit. But no, take the short-sighted view and charge as much as you feel you can get away with.

@IslandLogic most of what you listed are totally optional and can be easily avoided. There is so much access to information about games at this ppint that's it's equally optional to buy a game at launch at $70 if you're aware it's broken/"unplayable".

In addition games go on sale shockingly quickly especially on the physical side nowadays, sometimes selling for less than retail before launch.

It’s very rare prices drop. They may stay the same for the next couple of decades while inflation eats away at the profit, but only if such profit is increased first through the use of AI greatly speeding up game creation (which is very possible).

@Flaming_Kaiser You can disagree you want - that's your opinion and doesn't change the fact that those games are no 'better' for being that price and certainly the length/hours worth is irrelevant. I can buy those games when they are much lower in price and get as much, if not more from them.

I can go back to PS3 era games that I played - I had hundreds of hours in games like Mass Effect, CoD4, GTA3/4, RDR or Fallout for example back in the 360/PS3 era when games cost much less. How much is Mass Effect Legendary Edition today in a Sale - maybe even free on EA Play with more hours potential than BG3 or DD2.

I'd rather buy ME:Legendary, maybe even 2 or 3 other games for my '£70' than spend it on just 1 game that will be much cheaper in 6-12months regardless. I can 'wait' a few months until its less than £40 for example so who gets the 'better' value - you or paid £60+ to play it 'sooner' but maybe had more technical issues and/or 'less' content than someone who buys the game at £30 when its patched and updated with new content?

As I said, you can disagree as much as you want but I'd rather have the Cash in my bank account and wait for sales until those 'same' games are significantly cheaper that still offer the same Story etc.

Prices are only gonna go up

@Americansamurai1 I bet GTA 6 will be the first $100 game and people will gladly pay then more for DLC

@BAMozzy Maybe its getting cheaper where you live but here live is more expensive then ever. The studios are getting bigger, they have more workers and production costs, are going up.

A budget of a triple A game is going up the world around is more expensive then ever. Electricity, living, travel, food everything is getting more expensive and so are games.

I dont really care how feel about it and that you rather have cash in the bank it does not change the fact that everything is getting more expensive and that you want to wait for a sale is right still doesn't change anything.

If you look at things like that better not go to the movies then the value is even lower. What do pay to go to the cinema and the amount of time you get from that.

@redd214 I totally agree with you do yoye research.

@StrickenBiged Agree with you.

Yeah, they're not dropping anytime soon.

Not saying I like it, but $70 seems reasonable considering games back in the 90s were also $50-60. 30-ish years ago. And prices haven't really gone up at all since then, even though development costs have grown significantly?

Could go down a rabbit hole of "yeah but there's more players" etc., which is true, but a $10 increase, although I don't like it either, doesn't seem all that unreasonable.

Oh boy, $74.99 Games inbound!

Higher priced games is fine with me IF the quality is there. The problem is we've seen prices jump up but the games haven't improved. Studios are just using it to cover existing costs to maintain profits.

I don't agree with that and that is not sustainable. PS5 is by far the most underwhelming console generation there has ever been. Thank god we had Switch and Steam Deck to distract us from the shortcomings of the home consoles.

(And don't think I'm just hitting on Sony. Xbox are just so far behind it's not worth mentioning them.)

GTA 6 is pretty much it now. I don't think they'll charge higher for the game though. They'll milk the online again. Joy.

Game Development & Production Costs could easily go down on AAA Games in the Future, especially with New Technologies like "Fully Developed A.I", along side other Developmental tools that don't currently exist, that will help to Develop Games Easier and Faster and Cheaper than today.

And If you couple that New Tech with the complete absence of Physical Media in the future, it will also drive Production costs down even Further.

But the real issue is, when all of that cost reduction becomes a reality, will it actually change the Current Corporate Climate, that tends to Aggressively Over Price it's products at the expense of their Customer Base, or will they actually pass on those savings to their customers and start charging less money for Games?

I Personally think that they'll charge more until the Pricing Bubble POP's, and only then will they start dropping Prices.

Happy Gaming ✌!

@Kanji-Tatsumi In not sure how this fact is not more widely known in video game circles, but American 70$ is without tax. WE have no VAT added . It costs me 78$ after tax.78$=61£=71€

@redd214 Thats what i was thinking too, i think people forget how expensive 16 bit games were in the 90s.

I was a huge Sonic fan and had a mega drive as a kid, I remember my big birthday present in 1994 was Sonic 3 and that was £50.....Sonic and Knuckles released later in the year for an RRP of......£50. This was in 1994 for less than 8 hours of content more or less. I know thats a bit of a cheat, but my point is made.

This was 1994. The value you get today trumps back then i'd say,. Even with some games at 70. I've yet topay 70 myself. Closest i got was FF7 Rebirth, £56 at Currys

The industry is pricing itself to obsolescence. There's no way it's sustainable as it is, and there's no way that "just raise the price" is going to be sustainable. A mass market entertainment media not expressly billed as a status symbol for the wealthy (like hifi audio etc) only has so much wiggle room to push on prices not based on its own input costs but based on everything else its consumer market could buy instead, or must buy for real life.

Non-mobile gaming has a problem in that it has a fixed market size that isn't really growing, it has insisted on a graphical arms race increasing it's own costs exponentially, and insists on simply raising prices on its consumers to make up the difference. But as consumers have higher and higher costs of living and less and less discretionary spending available, and alternative forms of entertainment are considerably cheaper, including mobile gaming, and playing a single service game online forever and ever and ever and ever, all they do is sandbox the limited market they have into buying less product. Sure, the biggest games will sell well at $70. Or $80. Or $100. But those big games selling at those prices come at the cost of selling myriad other games for less, more frequently, and in higher volume. Something has to give, and just because you can point and say GTA or Spiderman sells just fine at 70, and would sell just fine at twice that, you have to look at all the other games those same consumers didn't buy that they might have if the games were $40. The industry has sort of slid into a model where they sell everyone a $500 console and a single $200 game or two (when you're done with mtx) and that's all that customer will ever buy for the next 8 years, vs the time when the customer bought a $300 console and $300-400 worth of games every year.

Take a look at the top 10 games lists and most of them sell for pennies or are free with mtx, and look at the big phenomenon right now which is HD2, the $30 game.

Eventually business prices itself out of it's own market. Even in a near gaming monopoly, things other than games exist. And cheaper forms of gaming exist. If they keep going with the assumption of raising prices, eventually someone will undercut them with a business model that crushes them (or they'll do it themself with, say, Plus), or they'll find customers either leaving in large numbers, new customers not arriving in large numbers, or customers just shifting a similar spending pattern to fewer products, hollowing out the industry, which is a large part of what I think we've been seeing already.

You can raise your prices whatever you want, at some point you will see a diminishing return. This is fundamental in economy and it seems that people in the gaming industry are not really aware of such principles. Or maybe that's why we see most of the games -50% off just a couple of weeks after release...

@__Seraph precisely. The first game I remember buying with my own money was Street Fighter 2 on the SNES for 70 bucks in the early/mid 90s. Compare that to Tekken 8 which I also bought for 70 a couple months ago and the value for dollar is astronomically different.

It's always slightly comical to me when this topic rolls around every year so.

In the long term, tell me, what was the thing which price dropped? None.

I'm sure everyone would love that to be true but have you ever seen triple A game prices collectively go down? Less of them will come out and that's fine, the market is bloated right now anyway.

@Sergo Prices tend to drop when competition occurs. We just tend to forget what that looks like because so much of modern business is just two global duopolies with the money of large governments at their disposal that collude on business and ensure competition doesn't exist.

Gaming still has plenty of players for competition though so there's lots of room for competitive forces and price pressure. It's the only industry where we can hear the words "the cost of AAA games" and "wait for Steam sale, everything's cheap" in the same paragraph.

And other products just vanish from relevance, and either disappear entirely due to a cheaper, trendier product, or become super expensive because they're no longer mainstream relevant and become only a niche product.

Would you rather be Arrowhead selling a $30 game or Ubisoft selling a $70 AAAA game right now? Plenty of room for price pressure.

@NEStalgia I would disagree. Lets see things in the same area with many players - TV, sound systems, phones...you pick. Where do you see drop mate? I wish you were right but everything always goes up. Even if we go kind and off topic - the econony is like that. Each company must always grow. It may make 1 bil per day, but if it stops growing stock will fall. Is 1 bil per day bad? No. But if no growth, all goes bad. So, companies make a nice product - it is being bought and growth is here. All well. But when the market is full where the growth is? Increase pricing. The game is rigged.

@Flaming_Kaiser I stopped going to the cinema 20yrs ago+. It became a LOT more cost effective to wait for the VHS/DVD even Bluray to come out and watch it 'forever'. Now I can watch new releases from the comfort of my own home if I'm willing to pay a fee - a LOT less than it costs to take the family to the cinema!

No game is worth that much to me - I couldn't care less if they are spending so much more money on 'graphics' and making them run on Hardware - but the underlying Game is still not that different from last gen or the gen before - wrapped in increasingly more impressive graphics!

It may well be worth every bit the 'cost' to you, but no game can justify paying over £50 for - especially within months, those games are often less than that. Those games aren't offering something so 'new' that I must experience it at that price when I could play many other 'similar' games for a Lot less cost - even if they aren't quite so 'pretty'!

Wait for the devs to actually deliver the 'full' game and full content they promise, fully realised and polished, bugs all fixed etc - the game is maybe then 'worth' paying for in the first place - then maybe its also at the right 'price point' too to actually buy...

@Sergo Actually all of those things are excellent examples of my latter point. Partially the prices of those things have increased due to the raw costs of materials (plastic housings increased in price (crude oil), fuel for factories, more sophisticated electronic components.

But most of the price increase in the 3 electronics categories you mentioned is actually because of a significant drop in demand, causing prices to rise due to a smaller scale of economy and reduced demand.

Younger people aren't prone to buy TVs as much these days, preferring watching media on laptops and phones and sales never really recoverd. So the prices went up to make up for lower volume sales. Audio systems were largely replaced by personal audio (headphones, portable speakers, etc) and there's plenty of products across the price range from cheap to astronomically expensive status symbols for the wealthy. Again prices in audio went up because it's kind a niche, luxury-goods market now and less mainstream. Personal audio is the mainstream. They're both good examples of a category becoming expensive because it became niche and dropped out of the mainstream. TVs aren't exactly niche, but they have less robust sales than they once enjoyed, and now usually have onboard computers (streaming/smarttv/etc) so they sort of morphed into being gigantic low powered laptops and changed categories.

Phones are similar but a lot more complicated, in that there are more phones now that are cheaper than they've ever been that are aren't that much less powerful than the expensive ones and are better than the expensive ones were mere years ago. You can get an iPhone for $150 bucks. It's not the fanciest one but it's a decent iPhone, let alone the $100 or less Android phones. Then we get to the premium phones and their ridiculous ever rising pricetags up to $1200+ now. But the reason for that price is based largely on 2 things. First, sales of phones slowed down MASSIVELY, where everyone had to buy phones and the rate of change meant replacing it every year or two, subsidized by phone carriers to spur adoption, often for "free", they were selling phones at obscene volume. Then that changed, the market saturated, the rate of change slowed considerably, and phone carriers stopped paying for them (and started charging a lot less for the contract and the prices on phone service, or the features you got went way up, going from "100 minutes! w/ 40 texts" to unlimited/unlimited for the same price.) Once the volume of phone sales cratered, then they jacked prices up to make up for the drop in sales revenue. And it creates a "premium" market for the luxury buyer to feel privileged paying $1300 for a phone that's "somewhat better" than the $600 one.

IE. Mass market commodity phone prices dropped significantly. High end phone prices surged both to make up for the sharp drop in sales volume, and to create a luxury market for those so inclined to look for one because otherwise "luxury status phones" don't really exist.

Obviously SOME price increase just due to cost of materials and applies. Cost of labor didnt' apply so much due to China market conditions. But those are very good examples of rising prices because of a shrinking market, or "just because" to create a status/fashion/lifestyle product.

Which takes us back to games, they spend too much making them, but the price is otherwise artificial, and the more decisions they make, like raising prices, including on hardware, that shrinks the market, the more they end up raising prices to make up for the shortfall in lost volume sales. Which leads to a further shrinking market, and higher prices. It's a difficult cycle to break, and is the same kind of price-driven cycles the economists deal with with interest rates and the like you hear about with the US economy and the Fed.

But the TL;DR; is with competition, prices tend to decrease both to a willingness to take less margin to compete, innovation in finding ways to cut input costs to increase margin at lower prices spurred by competition, and increased market growth meaning increased sales volume due to the competition and increased interest in the market. Barring outside factors like skyrocketing commodity prices in crude affecting plastics and transportation ,etc, grain prices for food products etc.

Some of y'all don't remember when N64 games were $70, and it shows.

Also, couldn't find a pic with more than one $70 game in it?

@BAMozzy @Flaming_Kaiser You two touched on another facet of the conversation above: The Cinema. Numbers have been down for years and they don't expect them to rise at a meaningful rate for years to come. And the numbers nosedived for years before that, many theaters closed, most that still ran thrive on being a restaurant more than being a theater and that's what's saved their profits. Another industry gone niche. 30 years ago "I went to the movies" was pretty much a monthly weekend thing for everyone. Now? Can't remember the last time I actually heard someone say they went to the movies. People do. But not most people most of the time. They used to.

Last movie I saw in theaters was Return of the King. I still think of it as a "new film." Since then 2 of the theaters I used to go to, one of them had just been built within the 4 years of that closed. One's a car dealership, the other's a medical park now. Nearest theater's like 35+ minutes away now. Used to have 2 in 10 minutes. And I don't care. And neither did anyone else, which is why they're gone. It priced itself out of the market. Not as much need for many of them anymore. Netflix exists. Vudu exists if I want to buy cheap and digital. Fandango just bought Vudu. The company that sells the theater tickets....

@mrraditch I remember - but you are not factoring the cost of cartridge which was around $30-$35 before you factor in software, printing, booklets, etc and of course dispatch and retailer profit margin on top - often a third party in between as a 'warehouse' for retailers to buy 'stock' from and they didn't work for free...

Discs cost 'pence' to make by comparison and now digital cuts out so many costs so don't play the N64 card! That's why Console games 'cost' more than PC because 'Console' Tax and Legacy of Cartridge days...

Cost of living will keep going up that 70/80 will be seen as a normal price

@IslandLogic I’m sorry but I call bs…

You’ve never gone out to eat and had terrible service? A waiter that won’t come take your order? Then had terrible food?

You’ve never dropped $30 on a movie night and the movie sucked?

The difference is if a game launches broken (which most don’t) you still have the $60 15 hour game…the other two examples your money and time are gone. Forever.

Even if you drop $60 on a game you don’t like you can sell it back and recoup something.

This is coming from someone that doesn’t buy games day one typically - but complaining about the prices of games is kinda nuts. In terms of value for time it’s still one of the best deals out there.

In this economy? I doubt it.

It is hard to say... sell 1 million copies per 70bucks each or 5 milions per 40bucks...

I rarely buy games day one anyway mostly sales since I'm still playing catch up last two final fantasy games were it

I'll never pay over £40 for a game, absolutely not, I want to try the new Dragons Dogma game but there's no chance I'm paying £60 for it, dream on, I'll wait
I have found using eBay gets me some huge savings, £60+ for a game is insanity

I think 70 will go up in the next few years.
Honestly, I wouldnt mind, as long as microtransactions disappear, and games release in a complete, optimised state.
At least then you can choose if the game is worth it or not, and dont feel like you have purchased on release at full price just to be a beta tester, or just to have them try to scrape more money off you by adding MTX down the line.

(To be clear I am not against proper dlc expansions)

I do not expect game prices to go down personally, and I expect game delivery services such as PS Plus and GamePass to increase in price.

The developers will need to look at more sustainable ways to build games, which is why so many drop their own engines and use Unreal or unity. Sustainability also seems to be a focus for those companies producing engines.

That said, I don’t think more sustainable development, if it even is achievable, will lead to lower prices games.

He is right.

Pc games have been half the price of console games since they switched to all digital.

Once discs are forgotten about, then prices will fall in line.

All I know is 70 isn't really that hugh considering game prices haven't really got up all that much since the super Nintendo.

I wonder how much the actual developers get after all the cuts along the way.

@NEStalgia Most if it true, but I think most of the price increase in games comes from the increasing paychecks of devs. Not that they deliver ready game at launch though
But still, the whole market is cyclical and all those PCs , laptops bought during covid and noone changes will come soon to an end and upgrades will be needed. Especially with the AI hype. So, we will see again people buyin more, but I do not think that this will start lowering the price due to competition.
One more thing - in the finanacil results of Sony it was visible how thin their margin is from games, hence the hit the stock got. So , they might increase something on their end. I belive that for AAA games and some AA (if I can call them that and example here to state Banishers) the 70 price tag will be here to stay and just be common price. As for some more expensive versions - first we need to know and actually see the quality and quantity of DLCs they will include in orde to say was it worth it or not. Because if I say "Hey, buy a red car for 70 000" and it turns out to be KIA you will not be happy but if it is a Ferrari

@Bez87 The devs themselves got what they manged to bargain for the salary. The company at the end ... well if you have the nerves you can check CD project red or other companies that are on the stock market. They are oblidged to report earnings.

@BAMozzy well said. I prefer to wait until the price is $20-$30 and includes all the DLC as well. Why pay $70 and then again for add ons?

“Gamers” (people who buy games) have no backbone they are able to equip since there are seemingly no protections for them as a consumer group, certainly none nuanced and complex enough.

You have developers, distributors, et al running around like robber barons, trying to get every blood soaked cent out of this industry before meaningful regulations are brought to bear.

“Early access” is usually borderline criminal. A lack of refund policies on copy/paste/compile software but you can return a power drill to Home Depot you’ve used 1000 times cuz you don’t like the way it smells anymore? The layoffs? The games that aren’t even games without the DLC? Everything WildCard/Snail/Nitrado is doing LOL

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is how investors in big studios want higher returns. The developers need to find ways to pay the "money men" that put up the cash for a 5 year, 500 employee cycle game. They don't care if the story is great or if MTX is hurting the game. All they care about us higher returns.

Sorry prices like this done go down. $70 is here to stay.

Only a phase because they will go up, the economy sucks, money has been devalued so prices for everything increase. When you pay fast food workers $20/hour of course inflation will occur everyone needs more to equal the worth of what they once had.

@Tecinthebrain I don’t think the costs of games and consoles have kept up with inflation. As employees demand more compensation and games require more effort to make. And not all games are equal. For example traditional 2D range fighting games don’t require the same effort to make like an RPG. Yet costs the same and don’t provide the same amount of content. Developers have kept costs low to keep growing the industry.

Games will get more expensive since the industry hasn’t kept up with inflation. Many forgot that console gaming is a luxury hobby for families. These developers and console makers have keep the costs low despite providing a lot of value. Games provide a lot of value per hour versus dollar spent if compared to other forms of entertainment. Especially RPGs with a lot of content. So perhaps not every game has to increase in price just those that provide a lot of value. Like a GTA, Witcher, JRPG etc as they take the longest to make well.

If game developers want more money, just release a game that will be successful. It's like the movie industry. You cannot charge thousands of dollars a seat ticket in the hopes of recovering money lost on producing a bad movie. Also game developers enter in the category of artists, they should get royalties from sales. It will force everybody to produce the best product as possible. Right now developers just want a lot of money while still producing mediocre quality product. It's like these big corporate industries where people get high pay check at doing nothing, and the whole system is so out of control that nobody notice...

People are working more, getting paid less. Nobody has time or resources to play these games, and the generations that are growing up are all borderline ADD with all the tiktoks and whatever. These gaming studios will collapse.

@Sergo I'm not even sure it's "increased paychecks to devs", I don't think anyone's ever said "I want to work in game development for the money!" As an industry it's always been kind of trash tier pay with low benefits because they know so many kids dream of working in video games, there's always cheap spares around the corner. And then, like factory work, they outsource much of it to cheap labor countries. Their budgets are ballooning and I can't quite figure out where all that money actually goes. Sure the top level people make big bucks, but even Druckman & company making top dollar aren't taking most of those $200M+ budgets. Maybe it's fancy offices with living roofs and scooter parking. AKA, using "game budgets" to "acquire real estate assets in prime locations" is part of the "budgets." Also, being located in California. I mean the national median income is something like $43,000. In California you can make $150,000 and be homeless. That certainly balloons the budgets. Sooo....don't locate in California? Make your game in Des Moines. You can sell it for a tenner and retire to Tahiti.

Prices on goods, right now, are in a weird place where a lot of mfrs of a lot of goods willingly pushed prices "as far as the market would bear" to see what they could get away with, and boast that they learned they could get away with a lot. But they also admit they lost customers in the process. They're seeing, like with movie theaters above, that they are happier having less customers paying higher margin on things and yielding higher profits as a result. But that doesn't seem sustainable. An economy where most goods and services cater only to an upper-class, becoming ever more exclusive, and the masses are not included in most economic activity beyond food and shelter seems ripe for substantial volatility. Eventually that lack of economic activity will yield recession as the low-sales, high-margin model will end up selecting pockets of winners and large amounts of losers in business, as the consumer well dries up, thus industry contraction, thus even smaller consumer pools. They keep saying they're trying to avoid recession, and then you look at the data from the banks that shows that the economy is basically artificially propped up by the masses depleting all their savings reserves and borrowing on high interest in credit...they're going to run out of savings and credit limits. Soon. $70 video games doesn't help. I'm still not sure how they're planning to "avoid" recession. Once the masses run out of the ability to basically issue unsecured loans to bail out industry, the floor drops out. Fast. My cynical view is they know this and are avoiding it until after the US election because the "everything is fine, what, me worry?" motif prevents a panic change to leadership they'd rather not have. Then come Dec/January the "sky is falling" reports begin.

As far as Sony's reports, yeah. The media has glossed over that a lot. I think the short term "Sony's fine, they're winning the console war!" is blinding a lot of pundits to the implications of those numbers. I'm on all platforms (but PC, lapsed PC gamer, here) and the chatter on team green after the xbox podcast about sending games to PS was basically "xbox getting out of consoles!" and I couldn't disagree, that looked dire. Then a week later that sony financial report came out and I was stunned. There went the other shoe. I think people underestimate how dire for the whole industry that sony financial situation really is. They're the market leader. And they're not making much money. And then they started cancelling things and looking for new leadership 5 years too late, but hey at least Jim's gone.) In Sony's case a lot of the problem was Jimflicted. Out of control unrealistic budgets and a lack of focus or direction. But they're also the ringleader of the "just charge more money and everything will work out!" mindset (Activision started it but Sony sold it as standard.) Since then Activision was bought out by MS and Sony's not making much profit. Clearly the plan didn't work.

I'm not sure subscription is it, either, though. Maybe the mobile model of "everything is free, then pump your life savings into it" is really the only way to really make it work. Back to the arcades at last.

@NEStalgia Lets hope you are wrong
But as you wondering where all those money went, well, never underestimate people's greed.

@BAMozzy Again how do you measure true value of things? I dont life in the NES era anymore so talking about the cost of cartridge doesn't change the reality.

That games are way bigger now, more complex and cost so much more to make. And for me €70 for a high quality game is worth it.

Its the same thing with the Jimquisition i agree with him a lot of the times on this point i dont. There are games that are worth €70 if i look at the amount of pleasure and time i can spend with certain games i could not disagree more with this point.

@Flaming_Kaiser Again from 'your' perspective which is completely different to mine and others here. No game is Worth over £50 to me and I can justify that by knowing that ALL these games WILL be sold for less than £50 soon enough and in the meantime, there are 'equally' as good, if not better games available to play from 'free' (thanks to Sub services) up to '£50'

You can argue all you want about how much time or 'value' you got out of Hogwarts Legacy or Elden Ring, maybe games like God of War: Ragnarok at/around launch, but I can play them today for less than £30 each. If you bought at £70, and I buy at £30 or less - who gets better 'Value'?

In my opinion, instead of putting prices up to struggle to 1m sales, half that price and sell 2m instead- after all most of these companies will come out and say their game was a Success with 1m sales...

Most the costs are in mis-management and massive paychecks for Publisher CEO's. Some games have had a bigger Marketing budget than it cost developing - some real-live TV Ad for the Superbowl show, Massive billboards or on Public transport. They had all that time and money yet still put out an 'old' game essentially wrapped in some pretty graphics.

They are not 'bigger' than last gen games - certainly not more 'Complex' as they are often sequels built on the underlying framework of their predecessor. What about all those 'remasters' - ports of OLD games, old stories, old characters etc that were written and developed years ago cutting huge chunks of workload yet still expect £70...

As I said, no game is worth it to me - just to be in that 'first' group of people to play something, I didn't buy 'Hogwarts' for example at launch, but I can buy it now for less than £30 and STILL get the entire experience, maybe better now its been patched etc than those that spent £70. I can buy GoW:R or whatever game you 'deemed' worth it at £60+ when its £25 or less and get much better 'value' that I deem worthy of the Cost.

I just wish there was more focus on shipping out complete games, instead of the constant focus on what they can charge. Fed up with games coming out in broken/half finished messes with content held back to be sold back to you as dlc etc.

I never buy games around release anymore because of this, so the price has usually dropped a lot by then. Just a bit of patience is needed.