"AAA" gaming and your wallet

[Bowsette Plus-Ultra]

So, the $50 to $60 price point is pretty typical in gaming.

For as long as I can remember (so about 1999 or so) video games have trotted leisurely between $50 and $60, increasing across the board alongside the seventh generation of consoles. Unless you're purchasing some collector's edition full of plastic tat then chances are good that you're shelling out $60 plus tax. That price point tends to be associated with one particular three letter term: AAA. Since the rise of video gaming as an art medium, and especially since big companies started pouring money into it, "AAA" has developed a certain connotation. The term evokes a certain degree of quality. You aren't just buying a game, but a big, beefy, AAA game coated in layers of quality.

Except that isn't the case. Heck, I dunno if it's ever been the case. For every Baldur's Gate 3 there's a Cyberpunk 2077 selling a lie through deceptive marketing, crunch, and unfinished titles.

But when people think about video game pricing they tend to think of it in two categories: "AAA" or indie. The indie game, no matter how grand, well made, or ambitious, is always seen as a ripoff if it's priced the same as a something produced by a studio full of crunchy developers. The world loves Shovel Knight, but what if Shovel Knight cost $60? It's a thick game full of quality content surpassing most "AAA" games, but to price it at $60 would cause plenty of insufferable internet dwellers to push up their glasses and say, "Why are they charging this much. It's not a AAA game."

Is current video game pricing acceptable to you guys? Is fine when a Hollow Knight costs $15, but a Metroid Dread costs $60 despite Hollow Knight being a much better game? If so, what makes the lower quality "AAA" game worth a higher asking price than something indie?

Do video games just cost too dang much?

 

[mαrkαsscoρ]

the value of a game is up to each person, I personally very rarely buy games brand new, I always wait on a sale or getting it used, I've even used the nintendo switch vouchers a few times for newer releases

companies can price their games however, but it's up to us if we actually want to pay them or not, and complaining about it means nothing if you're gonna buy it brand new regardless and allow their sales data to go up

 

[Mikey the Gengar]

AA developer is a thing, that fromsoft was for a long while

I think it's very impressive that games are still roughly as expensive as they were 20 years ago despite gas, food, and housing being 3x as expensive as they used to be. I don't know why it's the case, but I'm glad, because video games are some of the most cost efficient forms of entertainment out there

 

[mαrkαsscoρ]

by the way I just came across this by coincidence and adding it to say 6th gen was $50

 

[Turo602]

When you're buying a game, you are never paying for quality or length. You're paying for a product that was merely projected to move a specific number of units by a certain time at a set price. These things are determined by budget, marketing, and overall brand recognition.

As long as Call of Duty is culturally relevant with a specific demographic of gamers, who cares what shape the games release in every year when they can move millions of copies in one week at full retail price? Meanwhile, a better game will struggle to sell as much at the same price if it doesn't have automatic mass appeal and can even end up shutting down a studio or changing the trajectory of a franchise based on early sales numbers.

It's why we waited 13 years for a sequel to Alan Wake and why we'll likely never get a Days Gone 2. Once an idea fails, you have to fall back on something safe and it's why so many games look and feel the same. Nobody wants to spend 70 dollars on a game they'll finish in a week or less or can't bother to learn, so the remedy is to make everything open-world or a "souls-like" with similar mechanics to other popular games.

It's also why remakes and outside properties are so popular right now. Nostalgia is a guaranteed money maker and if you're not remaking a classic game for a modern audience, then you're slapping Star Wars, superheroes, or some other movie IP onto a template to take advantage of a pre-existing pool of consumers. Licensed games used to be cheap cash grabs people would buy after walking out of a theater, but now they're Fortnite skins and full blown AAA experiences crafted for mass consumption.

This is why I rarely buy anything at full retail price. I'm not buying games to support devs, I'm buying them for my own enjoyment and therefore I'll pay what I deem is reasonable for my expectations, money, and time. Most of the suckers they target with these games will get them their money back within 2 weeks and complain for the hundredth time about bugs and glitches. Meanwhile, I still have tons of unopened games to play that I got at discount that by the time I get to a specific game, all that early discourse about broken promises and bugs would have long been remedied anyway. Looking at you Cyberpunk and Starfield.

 

[Daku Rinku]

by the way I just came across this by coincidence and adding it to say 6th gen was $50
View attachment 77051

Miss those days. Halo 2 at release was 49.99. Hmmm.. prices were lower and quality was higher. Sigh.

 

[MW7]

I think it's all a matter of brand reputation. Nintendo can charge $60 for Metroid Dread because Nintendo and Metroid are known commodities. Team Cherry started from virtually no reputation, and Hollow Knight was priced so that people might give an unknown game a chance. I bought both Hollow Knight and Metroid Dread actually on the same day, and I don't regret either purchase. Hollow Knight is much better though, and I've played through it five times to Metroid Dread's once. For Silksong, they could charge $60 if they want because the expectations are sky high and the reputation of the developer is very well known now.

 

[mαrkαsscoρ]

I gotta say though, nothing quite warps your perception of the price of triple A games like a good deal, these games come out the gate at $60 [now $70] and some time later you can get them for anywhere b/w $10 - $20 or even less than that

 

[Dizzi]

Games were 30quid when i was younger now its 50...

 

[spookyheart]

i buy pretty much older games ironically more cheaper than aaa games these days

 

[Daku Rinku]

Part of what delays me to get a Switch is the cost of games these days. But by the time I get it, maybe the prices will be down.

 

[A Link In Time]

I almost always buy games on discount except for the few franchises that I'm truly invested in so I rarely feel the sting of paying 60 or 70 bucks for a AAA game.

I think a massive and polished game like Elden Ring justifies its price tag, but those games are few and far between. I would never recommend anyone buy a glitchy or bug filled game at full price. Quality control has seemingly gone way down in recent years. I saw a clip of awful AI in Star Wars Outlaws, and it seems such subpar quality is normal now for more and more AAA games.

 

[Mikey the Gengar]

I think a massive and polished game like Elden Ring justifies its price tag

Game was released unfinished and didn't get finished for half a year, more if you count arena pvp as part of the game

 

[mαrkαsscoρ]

I came across this and want show one last bit of evidence of 6th gen games being $50

 

[Riven]

I always buy on sale if it's Xbox or PlayStation since they have sales very often. If I want to play a Nintendo first party game, I pretty much always have to pay full price. The quality of the games makes it worth it, unlike most western AAA games that launch broken or are just poorly designed to begin with.