games

I’ve got mixed feelings about companies charging $70 for “AAA” games. On one hand, they’re clearly not having issues making profits on the $60 water mark, so it feels like money for money’s sake. On the other hand, games are relatively really cheap now compared to ye olde days, and a ten dollar difference isn’t really that much, so I think the protest at a baseline increase from $60 to $70 is more a psychological complaint than reflective of an economic bridge too far.

The psychology of game pricing is generally weird. The $70 barrier is seen as an affront to a lot of gamers, yet $60 games with, functionally, a good chunk of the game hidden behind microtransactions is routine at this point. No one would accept $120 as a baseline price, but people buying a $60 game and then spend another $60 on skins and season passes all the time. Yes, I know a lot of people who complain about $70 games also complain about microtransactions. But on a more relative level, a $60 game having a robust DLC later on for $10 gets almost no flack, but include the DLC and $10 into the baseline and suddenly that’s a bridge too far. Drip-fed costs just get processed differently in people’s minds than up front costs.

Really though, if there’s any part of the industry where price increases would be justified, it’s not the “AAA” games, it’s indie games. A lot of indie games rival or surpass “AAA” games in terms of length, gameplay depth, writing, and/or voice acting. Yet there’s this mentality that of course indies have a ceiling of ~$40 they can charge, they’re not the big boys. But if the big difference is just cinematic cutscenes, well, would you pay $60 for a blu-ray of a CG-filled action movie?