From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action


I've said it before, and I'll say it again: we're all probably
underpaying for video games. It's not that I _want_ to pay more than
$70USD for a game, but if you compare past prices to what we pay today
(and take inflation into account), we're getting a tremendous bargain.
The average cost of a game in 1980 was something around $100-150 USD
in today's dollars (depending on the platform). Even 20 years later,
with PS2/N64/XBox games, the 'today' price for a game was in the
$75-80 range. And let's face it; a lot of those games were simplistic
in comparison to some of the monsters we get nowadays.

But we're in an era where the $50 price-point long overstayed its
welcome, and attempts to increase it --to $60, 70 or 80 USD-- are met
with fierce resistance. In fact, PC gamers are becoming increasingly
stingy, and the median price of best-selling games on Steam is
actually going down.*

As a consumer, I'm not complaining... even if I do understand this
isn't really sustainable. The alternative is worse pay for the
developers, which I don't support, or publishers finding 'alternative'
methods of revenue (DLC, MTX, subscriptions), which I like even less.

Still, it's hard for me to pull out the credit card if a game costs
more than $30 these days... and usually even if it is going for a lot
less.

And sure, we can point to the rise of quality titles from Indies (who
generally charge less), and the decrease in quality from a lot of the
triple-A games (who charge more and often offer less than previous
years), but I think a big part of the problem is also the incredible
rise in FREE games. I mean, we haven't even gotten to the
holiday-give-away season yet but --if you've been following this
newsgroup-- you could have added more than 100 games to your library
this year alone. Sure, a lot of them were Indie filler, but are also
some hidden gems to be found too. Either way, you'd have enough to
occupy yourself for the whole year without paying a single cent.

And how can a developer compete against free?

So it doesn't surprise me that, increasingly, developers are finding
it hard to price their games past the $25 mark. Why should I pay more
when I not only have hundreds of games already in my library, but can
literally add hundreds more in a year or two without shelling out any
money? If you want me to buy, your game has to be /really/ good, or
really cheap... and if you spent $80 million USD on developing the
damn game, that's gotta be a problem.

Well, fortunately I'm not the one who has to solve that conundrum.
Certainly my frugal tendencies aren't helping. But even as publishers
try to wedge prices ever higher, I can be happy that the market is
resisting.

What I /can't/ do is complain about game prices, because these days we
have it better than ever.






----
* story here https://www.gamesradar.com/games/the-median-price-of-best-selling-new-games-on-steam-has-dropped-in-the-past-2-years-research-finds-charging-usd25-is-getting-trickier-as-players-compare-value-to-the-usd10-usd15-indie-titles/



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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

Sniff my ass, tosser!
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: we're all probably
underpaying for video games. It's not that I _want_ to pay more than
$70USD for a game, but if you compare past prices to what we pay today
(and take inflation into account), we're getting a tremendous bargain.
The average cost of a game in 1980 was something around $100-150 USD
in today's dollars (depending on the platform). Even 20 years later,
with PS2/N64/XBox games, the 'today' price for a game was in the
$75-80 range. And let's face it; a lot of those games were simplistic
in comparison to some of the monsters we get nowadays.

I consider the market flooded. There must be tremendous competition and everybody is spending a cool mill to develop each one. Nothing stands
out to me. I want WoW and Halo and other top name brands, not another
Icewind Dale clone.

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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

On Wed, 26 Nov 2025 13:07:33 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: we're all probably
underpaying for video games. It's not that I _want_ to pay more than
$70USD for a game, but if you compare past prices to what we pay today
(and take inflation into account), we're getting a tremendous bargain.
The average cost of a game in 1980 was something around $100-150 USD
in today's dollars (depending on the platform). Even 20 years later,
with PS2/N64/XBox games, the 'today' price for a game was in the
$75-80 range. And let's face it; a lot of those games were simplistic
in comparison to some of the monsters we get nowadays.

That ignores the fact that the potential audience has vastly expanded.
With a much larger potential audience the potential income has vastly
increased as can be seen with the games selling as much as a billion
dollars worth of units. Something that would have been seen as
impossible in the 90s.

But we're in an era where the $50 price-point long overstayed its
welcome, and attempts to increase it --to $60, 70 or 80 USD-- are met
with fierce resistance. In fact, PC gamers are becoming increasingly
stingy, and the median price of best-selling games on Steam is
actually going down.*

It doesn't help that it seems more common for games to be released
full of bugs. Sometimes they are just annoying but other times they
can be game breaking. This hits low budget games but also AAA games.
It's hard to justify a higher price if the games are still going to
depend upon gamers to do the bug testing for studios. (Though often I
blame the publishers and not the devs, but does it really matter if
the game you just bought has a number of bugs?)

As a consumer, I'm not complaining... even if I do understand this
isn't really sustainable. The alternative is worse pay for the
developers, which I don't support, or publishers finding 'alternative' >methods of revenue (DLC, MTX, subscriptions), which I like even less.

Still, it's hard for me to pull out the credit card if a game costs
more than $30 these days... and usually even if it is going for a lot
less.

And sure, we can point to the rise of quality titles from Indies (who >generally charge less), and the decrease in quality from a lot of the >triple-A games (who charge more and often offer less than previous
years), but I think a big part of the problem is also the incredible
rise in FREE games. I mean, we haven't even gotten to the
holiday-give-away season yet but --if you've been following this
newsgroup-- you could have added more than 100 games to your library
this year alone. Sure, a lot of them were Indie filler, but are also
some hidden gems to be found too. Either way, you'd have enough to
occupy yourself for the whole year without paying a single cent.

There's so many games, often with a long play time, and not a vast
increase in the amount of time people have to play them. Whether we
are talking about free games (like those provided by Epic Games or
Twitch Prime subscribers) or cheap games like those provided by the
various bundles from Humble Bundle or Fanatical there's just too many
good games (let alone all the lesser games) to play them all.

So it makes sense for people to be picky and dislike any push to
increase prices.

And how can a developer compete against free?

So it doesn't surprise me that, increasingly, developers are finding
it hard to price their games past the $25 mark. Why should I pay more
when I not only have hundreds of games already in my library, but can >literally add hundreds more in a year or two without shelling out any
money? If you want me to buy, your game has to be /really/ good, or
really cheap... and if you spent $80 million USD on developing the
damn game, that's gotta be a problem.

Agreed.

Well, fortunately I'm not the one who has to solve that conundrum.
Certainly my frugal tendencies aren't helping. But even as publishers
try to wedge prices ever higher, I can be happy that the market is
resisting.

What I /can't/ do is complain about game prices, because these days we
have it better than ever.

----
* story here >https://www.gamesradar.com/games/the-median-price-of-best-selling-new-games-on-steam-has-dropped-in-the-past-2-years-research-finds-charging-usd25-is-getting-trickier-as-players-compare-value-to-the-usd10-usd15-indie-titles/

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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> looked up from reading the entrails of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs
say:

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: we're all probably
underpaying for video games. It's not that I _want_ to pay more than
$70USD for a game, but if you compare past prices to what we pay today
(and take inflation into account), we're getting a tremendous bargain.
The average cost of a game in 1980 was something around $100-150 USD
in today's dollars (depending on the platform). Even 20 years later,
with PS2/N64/XBox games, the 'today' price for a game was in the
$75-80 range. And let's face it; a lot of those games were simplistic
in comparison to some of the monsters we get nowadays.

But we're in an era where the $50 price-point long overstayed its
welcome, and attempts to increase it --to $60, 70 or 80 USD-- are met
with fierce resistance. In fact, PC gamers are becoming increasingly
stingy, and the median price of best-selling games on Steam is
actually going down.*

Yes but...

Back in the day, we got _complete_ games, not half a game for full price
and then a series of DLCs to finish the game.

Looked at that way, that $100-150 price point back then, is still less
than what they want now.

$79.99+taxes = over 90 dollars, and then another couple to four or so
$40-$60 DLCs to actually finish the game that we would have gotten as a
single unit back then

And some games are $90 basic price, + tax, plus a bunch of DLCs, and oh
look, they're MORE EXPENSIVE than they were, even correcting for
purchasing power.

And all of that is still not including all the fucking MTX and
advertising.

Can you imaging City of Heroes coming out today?

It would worse than Champions Online was, a set of base costumes and a
whole lot more costume bits available for separate purchase, and
lockboxes as loot, and a subscription price on top of that if you wanted
to play more than 2 classes.
Now add in even more MTX and half the gameplay removed and only
available as DLCs.

The game would have died near instantly, since it would be a naked money
grab at every turn.


So yeah, with the game industry being like that, I'm only going to buy a
few of the games and I'm going to wait until the price after taxes is
under $60CDN, because what I get for that money is a hollow shell of a
game stuffed full of advertising and outstretched hands trying to grab
my wallet compared to what we used to get for our money.


And the biggest quibble from so many of the AAA titles, in addition to
all the money grubbing, the usual lack of replay value.

I played Diablo2 off and on for a _DECADE_, I played DIablo3 for about 6
weeks, uninstalled it and never thought about it again cause it had zero replayability and forced you into the real money auction house in order
to even get through Nightmare difficulty, much less progress to the top
one. All with forced online connection to play single player so you
got waiting lines to log in and random disconnects.

Have not bought a Blizzard product since, doubt I ever will, since they
have not reversed direction to go back to quality.

WoW's success ruined them, they turned into money grubbing asshats.


SO $60 back in the day bought me a complete game with lots of
replayability.

Now $90 gets me a third to half the game that has no replayability and
asks me for money every 10 minutes or less.

Yeah, I want a minimum of 50% off before I even think of buying that.

Blizzard if you are reading, I'd have bought the diablo2 remake, except
you made it online only for a game I played 99.999999999% single player.

Fuck your god damned battle.net, I want no part of it.
As long as that's a requirement (so you can advertise at me,) I will buy NOTHING from you ever at any price!

Discount the remake down to $1 and it's still too expensive with the
battle.net umbilical attached, maybe if it's at a -$100 price I'd take
it, but nothing less than that.

Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action


yeah they are cheap (although not as much as before), but if I am being constantly bled by hardware price hikes, it does not matter. First the
GPUs, now the ram. I have to postpone buying a new PC until things go
back to the normal and it's gotten to the point where I had to play on
the bloody PS5. And I hate it, with its overpriced games and online tax.
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

On 11/27/2025 8:59 AM, H1M3M wrote:

yeah they are cheap (although not as much as before), but if I am being constantly bled by hardware price hikes, it does not matter. First the
GPUs, now the ram. I have to postpone buying a new PC until things go
back to the normal and it's gotten to the point where I had to play on
the bloody PS5. And I hate it, with its overpriced games and online tax.

Re: "back to the normal". Normal is only available if one pays an extra service charge.
--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

On Thu, 27 Nov 2025 17:59:23 +0100, H1M3M <dontaltktome@nomail.com>
wrote:

yeah they are cheap (although not as much as before), but if I am being >constantly bled by hardware price hikes, it does not matter. First the
GPUs, now the ram. I have to postpone buying a new PC until things go
back to the normal and it's gotten to the point where I had to play on
the bloody PS5. And I hate it, with its overpriced games and online tax.

Hard-drives and SSDs too... and for the same reason. AI sucks worse
than NFTs.

[Its probably worse in the USAmerica, too. Tarriffs suck,
moreso if they are self-inflicted]


Anyway, I'm not saying that I want to pay more for games. I'm the
person who (almost) never pays full price for a game, generally never
looks at games that go for > $30USD, and regularly scans the <$5USD
bin, after all. It's just that, historically, the price remains
substantively low.

Nor was I trying to defend the triple-A's push towards making games
more expensive. As was pointed out (something I myself have noted in
other threads), the $70USD+ games we get today tend to be lesser
products to the games of yesteryear (at least in some ways). Content
has been ripped out to be re-sold as DLC, or sold as subscription, and
the constant drip-feed of MTX cosmetics cheapens the brands.*

Mostly, I wanted to point out that as much as the industry WANTS
prices to go up, the market is doing its best to reject that premise
(again, partly because of the reasons listed above). But also because
the industry itself is self-sabotaging itself with all these free
games.

So as much as the industry wants to make $70 and $80 the new norm and
--under normal circumstances**, probably should-- I don't think
they'll be that successful. Or rather, I think they'll keep LAUNCHING
games at these prices, but rapidly have to drive the price down to the
$50-60 mark soon after launch.

I mean, the smarter move is something gamers and analysts have been
telling publishers for years: stop making games that cost upwards of
$300 million that demands these high prices and extraneous
post-purchase transactions. Smaller games, and more of them, is how
you get yourself out of this cul-de-sac of impossible finaces, not
cranking up game prices to a point where nobody can afford them.






* Of course, to some degree, all these are a response to game prices
being too low to recoup development costs.
** you know, if they actually sold games worth that cost without nickle-and-diming players after the fact
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