CEO and C-suite bonuses are the biggest budgetary fat that never gets cut and is fundamentally what the excessive costs are paying for. If you want better sales, cut the wage and bonuses to said roles who do the least work and reap the most reward.
Piracy is free. If you’re charging 70usd for a game, then I’d rather just spend the time and pirate it. If it’s 10 bucks, Im just lazy to do a Google search and pay you for it.
Oh fuuuuuck the DRM. I purchased CIV5 for my phone and it requires an active internet connection or it boots you out. I only play on an airplane. So I ended up downloading the pirated version so I can play the game I purchased.
Almost all of the “Top 10 most replayable games” I have are Indie games, especially in the last 10 years.
They’re games like Factorio or Project Zomboid which I keep getting back to a year or two after I last played so much of it that I got fed up.
Glitzy AAA open-world-ish games have beautiful visuals but their replayability is near zero, worse so for games which seem open-world but are in fact linear.
Mind you, some older AAA jewels in that style (such as Oblivion) do get me to come back eventually, but it takes something like 5+ or more as I basically have to forget most of the story before it’s interesting to play such a game again.
If Price matched “Hours of Fun”, almost all of the AAA stuff would be way cheaper whilst many Indie games would be far more expensive.
I’ve got to be honest, the price of a game is probably the least important factor on whether I make a full price purchase.
I’m not going to rush out and buy something I’ve no real interest in. I can count on one hand the number I’ve made this generation. On PS2 I’d be grabbing something every week or two, but now I just can’t get excited for the latest and greatest updates on old formulas. Half the time I buy just to encourage them to make more games like that, like I did with Talos Principle 2, Astro Bot and Split Fiction.
I might pick it up later if I feel inclined, or see it on a decent discount. Like Clair Obscur, that I picked up for £29 in a sale just because I remembered it existed and fancied something to play over the winter holiday.
I’m still holding to it, but I agree, it’s getting harder and harder to find stuff on sale for less than $5. Especially if you’ve been on Steam for a long time and have a large library already.
Not only that, but charging full price for a game and then charging $15-20 for cosmetic DLC is fucking wild. If I’ve paid you $60+ for a title, I expect the full experience. If you want to add some shit a year down the line to lengthen the life, I’m on board, but day one DLC that costs more than the base game was played out the moment Bethesda graced us with horse armor. I’ve gotten more joy out of Vampire Survivors than I have out of any Ubisoft and EA games in the last 20 years combined.
For what it’s worth, only one player needs the DLC for everybody in the session to use it, which is pretty cool of the devs to allow that in this day and age.
Unless something changed, players who don’t own DLC can’t play as the DLC characters. I believe they can interact with all the rest of the content normally, just locked to the vanilla character selection (which is still broad and fun enough, and further expandable with mods).
Yeah I’m a very patient gamer, I’m perfectly happy to just play games on my Steam Deck years after they come out. If there’s something I want, I’ll usually just wishlist it and let it sit there until it goes down to a price that seems reasonable. Much better to get it for $15-20 with all the DLC and bug fixes than paying $80+ for an unfinished buggy mess IMO.
I am anxious about nothing and feel the whole range of human emotions, hope for the future, enjoyment of other things. I feel quite happy most of the time actually.
i’v heard some people say this sort of thing is likely that your subconscious or whatever just isnt being “fulfilled” by that level of activity, that you got to try something a little “higher” like creating your own game/telling your own story
Yeah, especially since I know I likely wouldn’t play it much.
On the other hand, if it was free (also as in money) and open-source, and I liked it, I could donate. Although I don’t have much money, so probably just smaller amounts, better than the 0 I do right now by not gaming instead.
For example, I absolutely wouldn’t pay $9.60 for Binary Eye (barcode/2D code scanner app) if it cost that much, but as a donation that was fine.
Well, I could make an exception for games on physical media. I like it, and it has resale value.
Let’s see, 70-100+(!) bucks for the (yawn) twentyseventh COD with a 4 hour campaign, or 20 for a game that is complete and lasts for dozens if not hundreds of hours?
The most expensive game I own is Baldurs Gate 3 (@ $70 CAD) and it’s the only game that was worth full price in my 12 years of activity on steam and over 250 games purchased. My next most expensive game was $30 CAD and I only bought a few games that high.
The price has crept up with the paid expansions, but holy shit do NOT sleep on the Castlevania one. It doubles the base game content, and fits in great.
That’s another problem, even if we disregard optimizations, AAA games from 2015. look better than modern upscaled stuff, Unreal Engine seems to be easy enough to use nowadays that big vertically-integrated slop publishers replaced seasoned developers with the cheapest of zoomers.
My rule is I’m only willing to pay a dollar for every expected hour of play, so you can imagine I buy few things at full price.
The last two games I paid full price for were Elden Ring and Mandragora. I am far more likely to pay full price for an indie title that I’m excited about than anything else, because as an artist myself, I fully understand the impact of a pre-purchase on an indie studio.
It all depends on what you’re looking for. I’ve put hundreds of hours into games and gotten way less than $1/hr, and I’ve also had a great experience paying significantly more.
So I don’t see games in terms of $/hr, especially these days when I’m more limited by time than money. Instead, I look for unique experiences with cost being a much lower factor. Generally speaking, I spend much less than $1/hr since I buy a lot of older games, but I’ve spent far more ($5-10/hr) on particularly interesting games.
But yeah, generally speaking, I’m willing to pay more for indies than AAA titles because indie games are more likely to offer that unique experience.
If you only look at $/hr, there are some 70 hr games which milk your time and should have been shorter, like Assassin’s Creed, and then there are short, story rich games, like Outer Wilds, which are absolutely worth it even at more than a dollar an hour.
I like some of the early access development styles used in things like Enshrouded and Satisfactory, so mostly ive been spending on games like that. I like the idea of collaborating with a player base to create a game together I think.
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CEO and C-suite bonuses are the biggest budgetary fat that never gets cut and is fundamentally what the excessive costs are paying for. If you want better sales, cut the wage and bonuses to said roles who do the least work and reap the most reward.
Piracy is free. If you’re charging 70usd for a game, then I’d rather just spend the time and pirate it. If it’s 10 bucks, Im just lazy to do a Google search and pay you for it.
That plus so many games that are genuinely good and I have lots of hours into are in the $5-20 range.
Plus those 70$ games invest so much of that $ in fucking you with DRM.
Oh fuuuuuck the DRM. I purchased CIV5 for my phone and it requires an active internet connection or it boots you out. I only play on an airplane. So I ended up downloading the pirated version so I can play the game I purchased.
Almost all of the “Top 10 most replayable games” I have are Indie games, especially in the last 10 years.
They’re games like Factorio or Project Zomboid which I keep getting back to a year or two after I last played so much of it that I got fed up.
Glitzy AAA open-world-ish games have beautiful visuals but their replayability is near zero, worse so for games which seem open-world but are in fact linear.
Mind you, some older AAA jewels in that style (such as Oblivion) do get me to come back eventually, but it takes something like 5+ or more as I basically have to forget most of the story before it’s interesting to play such a game again.
If Price matched “Hours of Fun”, almost all of the AAA stuff would be way cheaper whilst many Indie games would be far more expensive.
Fallout New Vegas still hooks me in.
Always compare value and price.
More often than not, AA games seem to come with a AAA price tag.
I’ve got to be honest, the price of a game is probably the least important factor on whether I make a full price purchase.
I’m not going to rush out and buy something I’ve no real interest in. I can count on one hand the number I’ve made this generation. On PS2 I’d be grabbing something every week or two, but now I just can’t get excited for the latest and greatest updates on old formulas. Half the time I buy just to encourage them to make more games like that, like I did with Talos Principle 2, Astro Bot and Split Fiction.
I might pick it up later if I feel inclined, or see it on a decent discount. Like Clair Obscur, that I picked up for £29 in a sale just because I remembered it existed and fancied something to play over the winter holiday.
I had to drop my “under 5 bucks” rule because games don’t drop that low anymore. 10-15 is where it’s at now, for better and for worse
Yeah the subtext of the article is the more interesting point, that good quality indy games are perhaps a bit more expensive.
I’m still holding to it, but I agree, it’s getting harder and harder to find stuff on sale for less than $5. Especially if you’ve been on Steam for a long time and have a large library already.
SUICIDE SQUAD FOR $3.50 GAMERS REJOICE
~/s, obviously~
Not only that, but charging full price for a game and then charging $15-20 for cosmetic DLC is fucking wild. If I’ve paid you $60+ for a title, I expect the full experience. If you want to add some shit a year down the line to lengthen the life, I’m on board, but day one DLC that costs more than the base game was played out the moment Bethesda graced us with horse armor. I’ve gotten more joy out of Vampire Survivors than I have out of any Ubisoft and EA games in the last 20 years combined.
I was considering buying Risk of Rain 2 on sale yesterday for 9€ but buying all the DLCs costs 45€.
For what it’s worth, only one player needs the DLC for everybody in the session to use it, which is pretty cool of the devs to allow that in this day and age.
That is very interesting 🤔
Thanks!
Unless something changed, players who don’t own DLC can’t play as the DLC characters. I believe they can interact with all the rest of the content normally, just locked to the vanilla character selection (which is still broad and fun enough, and further expandable with mods).
Yeah thats about what i expected.
This is one of my favorite games and I haven’t bought any DLC, my friend has and I mooch off of them when we play :)
Thing is, I can also NOT play games and spend my money on other hobbies.
Yeah I’m a very patient gamer, I’m perfectly happy to just play games on my Steam Deck years after they come out. If there’s something I want, I’ll usually just wishlist it and let it sit there until it goes down to a price that seems reasonable. Much better to get it for $15-20 with all the DLC and bug fixes than paying $80+ for an unfinished buggy mess IMO.
i will continue buying the games and not playing them, tyvm
A person of culture, I see.
I have the time to play games. I own many games. Yet I am not playing them. Why? I used to love games. Why can I not get sucked in anymore?
Depression and anxiety, probably.
I am anxious about nothing and feel the whole range of human emotions, hope for the future, enjoyment of other things. I feel quite happy most of the time actually.
i’v heard some people say this sort of thing is likely that your subconscious or whatever just isnt being “fulfilled” by that level of activity, that you got to try something a little “higher” like creating your own game/telling your own story
Not a bad idea. I’m 90% done my erotic Star Trek the next generation fan fiction. One more graphic sex scene and it’s done. I could finish that.
I used to be like that. Had a huge backlog of games and didn’t play any of them. The the steam deck happened …
Yeah, especially since I know I likely wouldn’t play it much.
On the other hand, if it was free (also as in money) and open-source, and I liked it, I could donate. Although I don’t have much money, so probably just smaller amounts, better than the 0 I do right now by not gaming instead.
For example, I absolutely wouldn’t pay $9.60 for Binary Eye (barcode/2D code scanner app) if it cost that much, but as a donation that was fine.
Well, I could make an exception for games on physical media. I like it, and it has resale value.
That’s why they add gambling mechanics in games. That way many can not stop playing.
Let’s see, 70-100+(!) bucks for the (yawn) twentyseventh COD with a 4 hour campaign, or 20 for a game that is complete and lasts for dozens if not hundreds of hours?
Yeah, my choice is easily made.
it kinda feels like the more expensive a game is, the less value it seem to have.
The most expensive game I own is Baldurs Gate 3 (@ $70 CAD) and it’s the only game that was worth full price in my 12 years of activity on steam and over 250 games purchased. My next most expensive game was $30 CAD and I only bought a few games that high.
That’s exactly it, was looking for this comment.
factorio has mods that last thousands of hours. they’re free additions, and the full game with its dlc is only like 60USD. is ridiculous.
THE FACTORY MUST GROW THE FACTORY MUST GROW THE FACTORY MUST GROW THE FACTORY MUST GROW THE FACTORY MUST GROW
I’ve got something like 200 hours in Vampire Survivors, and it cost me less than a fiver
The price has crept up with the paid expansions, but holy shit do NOT sleep on the Castlevania one. It doubles the base game content, and fits in great.
I’m burnt out on it at this point. In the whole bullet haven gameplay loop.
Better to say, they are compared to good games priced at 10 to 15.
And compared to the 10 year old titles on sale that actually work well and look great on 5 year old mid-range HW…
That’s another problem, even if we disregard optimizations, AAA games from 2015. look better than modern upscaled stuff, Unreal Engine seems to be easy enough to use nowadays that big vertically-integrated slop publishers replaced seasoned developers with the cheapest of zoomers.
My rule is I’m only willing to pay a dollar for every expected hour of play, so you can imagine I buy few things at full price.
The last two games I paid full price for were Elden Ring and Mandragora. I am far more likely to pay full price for an indie title that I’m excited about than anything else, because as an artist myself, I fully understand the impact of a pre-purchase on an indie studio.
It all depends on what you’re looking for. I’ve put hundreds of hours into games and gotten way less than $1/hr, and I’ve also had a great experience paying significantly more.
So I don’t see games in terms of $/hr, especially these days when I’m more limited by time than money. Instead, I look for unique experiences with cost being a much lower factor. Generally speaking, I spend much less than $1/hr since I buy a lot of older games, but I’ve spent far more ($5-10/hr) on particularly interesting games.
But yeah, generally speaking, I’m willing to pay more for indies than AAA titles because indie games are more likely to offer that unique experience.
I would also generally consider £1/hour of gameplay to be pretty terrible value tbh. Truly good games are more like £0.10/hour or less
People spend like $20 to watch a 2 hour movie, $1/hr isn’t that unreasonable
Not to mention that not all gaming hours are equally fungible.
There can be shorter narrative games where a given hour is worth more (to me), so the higher per hour cost is justified.
Agree 100%. Played Dispatch last week and had a blast. Very short, but worth the money imo
If you only look at $/hr, there are some 70 hr games which milk your time and should have been shorter, like Assassin’s Creed, and then there are short, story rich games, like Outer Wilds, which are absolutely worth it even at more than a dollar an hour.
Prefer games like Factorio or Rimworld that you can get many 100s of hours from.
That’s fine. I don’t agree with you.
I like some of the early access development styles used in things like Enshrouded and Satisfactory, so mostly ive been spending on games like that. I like the idea of collaborating with a player base to create a game together I think.
Oh definitely. I’ve enjoyed the experience of helping devs mold a title into something better in exchange for a lower price.
I like your dollar an hour rule though, I might use that in the future. Its funny though, my most played game was free and I have 2000+ hours in it!
Edit: I forgot rocket league was 30$ originally! Still a good deal!
Yeah, the games I’ve spent very little on I’ve put a ton of time into, like Vampire Survivors, Noita, and Dungeon Defenders.
Megabonk, my beloved…
Thing is, anything under 20 gets purchased, anything above that will be pirated (quite easily)