Answering GDC’s 2023 survey, 78% of respondents said they considered the harassment and toxicity developers receive from the public to be a serious issue. A simple sentiment is often the most effective, and the title of Dragon Age veteran Mark Darrah’s latest video cuts right to the heart of it: “Your $70 doesn’t buy you cruelty.”
You don’t have to like a game, and you don’t have stay quiet if you have complaints, says Darrah. You’re entitled to be angry, and you’re entitled to express that anger. “If you are mad at that Ubisoft game, be mad at Ubisoft,” he says. “Express your anger to Ubisoft or the studio that made the game. But you cross a line when you start being cruel about it.” (Thanks, PC Gamer and GamesRadar)
NES games cost $60-$70 nearly 40 years ago. That would be like $150 if adjusted for inflation.
And if anything, the scale and cost of developing video games has skyrocketed since then…
Just something to consider…
if we accept 70€ then they increase the price to 80€. when we accept that they increase it to 90€ and so on. Though i guess this becomes kind of moot point when high price on game has started to correlate with lower quality on every aspect except graphics.
Back when you also got a physical product with an instruction manual and possibly a poster or something else. Now we get a digital license that can be revoked and six months to a year of patching for it to be in a stable state. Yay!
Just something to consider…
And 40 years ago the federal minimum wage was $3.35, which adjusts to $9.89 today. Inflation for businesses isn’t an excuse when the inflation for consumers isn’t keeping up.
I’ve purchased many games at $40 or less over the past year that have given me hundred of hours of joy and entertainment.
If I spend almost twice that price on a game, and it’s unfinished, buggy, and heavily monetized; you can bet your ass I’m going to be upset.
It’s not about the cost of development. It’s about quality of the experience. For indie devs, the game has to be good to do well. For a lot of AAA studios, the game is merely a product that only has to be as entertaining as it needs to be for them to make enough profit.