The Price of Games [Grab Bag]

It's Grab Bag time again!
As someone who has worked on plenty of large-scale game projects over the years, I often wonder...
Why do games today cost nearly the same as they did decades ago?

[gachatookthekids]

I appreciate Sakurai prefacing his opinions by saying that it depends on the country you live in. I live in a country where $60 is considered a lot of money for a single purchase for a middle income household, so you really have to make it count. I'm extremely picky with games for that reason.

[jacobmonks]

I'm at this point in my life where I stop asking if a game is worth the money, and started asking if a game is worth my *time*. I can always get money back if I really need it. But time is a precious and scarce resource that is impossible to get back. It's why I tend to prefer shorter games, since they give me a full experience without as big of a time commitment. There are exceptions of course like Xenoblade, but most of my favorite games can be beaten in 3 or fewer sittings.

[al_e]

Sakurai is very brave to talk about this, not only is he saying it to very big fanbase, he's also saying this as a *game developer* himself.

[a-ramenartist]

One thing to also note: unlike with other products where manufacturing costs per unit is a major factor, most of a game's cost is in development. This means that the profits gained from sales scale so much more with a larger audience than for other products. Marketing is your best friend in every field, but especially in games.

[BluishGreenPro]

Consider your time and the value you get from premium vs "free to play" games. I have massive respect for Reggie Fils-Aimé when he had the gumption to call out mobile games as being "over-priced", even if they only cost a dollar. Make sure the games you play respect your time!

[rodrigodefreitasproducoes]

This reminds me of something my father tells me: expensive is what you don't use

[LARAUJO_]

There are multiple sides to this. Firstly, Sakurai makes a good point about how games are a very "cost-effective" form of entertainment. However, I often want to get a game but then see the price tag and start having second thoughts. It certainly doesn't help that games aren't exactly the most "fairly-priced" things either. You can sometimes find large-scope games for less than smaller-scope games depending on company and console, and some games run better or are simply cheaper on specific platforms. On the other hand, I do think devs deserve to reap the rewards of their hard work

[thecheesemeister]

I’m so glad Sakurai is having the ability to really talk about the depth of the gaming industry! Not just the how but the why and what and everything. Hopefully videos like these give other people an even higher appreciation for video came creators and supporters.

[defaultuser]

The joy of being to see Sakurai share informational videos as well as just being able to see him again makes me happy

[ExploDjinn]

For base games, that's certainly true. When I think of video games as an expensive hobby, though, I think of stuff like DLC, microtransactions, controllers, subscriptions and the like. While I don't regret any of the money I've spent on stuff to use with them, Smash 4 and Smash Ultimate are the most I've ever paid for any game. And most times free mobile games don't have an upper limit to how much you can spend on them.

[fishrechaun]

I think a lot of the "games are expensive" sentiment comes from games at the same price point varying wildly in length and quality. When thinking of games in terms of "hours of entertainment per dollar spent" one $60 game could come out to $30/hour or more while another could have so much replay value for you as to reach the point of mere cents per hour you've enjoyed playing it. With how much the industry has expanded, I think games are also more specific in design than they used to be to try to more strongly resonate with their target players, which also has led to some games seemingly falling flat when said target player base turns out smaller than expected. That, and shipping unfinished games with weak post-launch support has become common enough to be of concern whenever purchasing new titles.

[DUHRIZEO]

There's so much back and forth with this topic. $60 then is $150 today! AAA is justified! But also, tiny teams making killer content for $20? A massive balancing act for sure when trying to find a standard. I love the way he wraps up the video because it's really the only true answer. Find something YOU ENJOY, and support it. If you don't like something about a game, fuckin, don't. GG EZ boys. This man is giving us the insider's treasure.

[DrKat]

Seeing one of these videos in my notifications is always a treat. As a learning game and level designer, it's a joy to sit through these and pick up on a few little things rather than wasting time scrolling through Twitter. Thank you, Sakurai!

[tailgrowth]

I remember when I was a kid getting a new video game felt like an annual event. Whether I got one as a birthday or Christmas gift, or saved up my money bit by bit to buy one myself, I would only get new games months apart from the last one. Thank goodness I would get games that had tons of replayability! It was important that they last!

If only my child self could see me now; buying so many incredibly fun and fulfilling new games for 10-30 dollars, getting AAA games for dirt cheap because the price value falls after only a short amount of time, getting tons of new games monthly from subscriptions and bundle deals, and all the free to play games that are right at my fingertips... We truly live in a very bountiful era of gaming.

[thesquadron]

I’ve got the same mindset about the prices of games. Spend wisely, and you’ll have a game that you can come back to for years to come, all for the same price an expensive meal. Add in frequent sales to great titles, and it’s not hard to get your money’s worth in the world of gaming. Love this hobby

[Ozzy_x]

One thing to consider is that size of the audience today is MUCH larger than it was in 2000.

Also, Ocarina of Time at $60 in 1998 would be $150 today!

[Amins]

The fact that so many of us have backlogs of games so large that we'll never be able to play all of them, it kind of proves how cheap games can be (Keyword: Can be)

[low-resghul]

I actually thought about that recently. A DLC for a game I love, Rimworld, just released a few days ago.
I was a bit taken aback by the pricetag, being the same price as the base game. However, I’ve spent almost a thousand hours into the game already, and for sure was going to spend much more.
For that reason, I didn’t even wait for a discount and grabbed the DLC right away. Can’t wait to sink a thousand hours more! 😅

[SwedenTheHedgehog]

He makes a good point; when it comes to dollar/hour of (original) entertainment, video games are not comparatively expensive.

But choose what you play wisely! Paying $70 for a game that is not your cup of tea, or that you don’t have time to play is a really bad use of your money!

[zibbitybibbitybop]

My primary gripes with game prices these days aren't the basic price tag itself, but the fact that a) games are too often released in an unfinished, buggy state, and b) too much of the content ends up getting released later as DLC that costs even more. If devs would just finish the damn game first and release it all at once in a polished state, I will happily pay full price for it if the game is good, especially since I don't like replaying games when there are so many new titles I haven't touched yet. By the time the DLC comes out, I'll have long since moved on to something else.