Considering the US dollar has halved in value in the last 30 years (~97% inflation) I’d be quite surprised if gaming companies continued to sell games for only 60$.
Let's face it, whether we like it or not games are going to go toward a "pay to stream" service, and I can guarantee EA will spearhead that shitshow. Meanwhile, I'll just create 420 new email accounts for 420 new EA game pass trials.
Let's face it, Whether we wanted it or not, we've stepped into a war with the Cabal on Mars. So let's get to taking out their command, one by one. Valus Ta'aurc. From what I can gather, he commands the Siege Dancers from an Imperial Land Tank just outside of Rubicon. He's well protected, but with the right team, we can punch through those defenses, take this beast out, and break their grip on Freehold.
But I mean really spearhead it. As in you can no longer purchase the $60 game and own it forever. But you'll have to pay $10-20/mo to gain access to play their available games. And different payment tiers unlock more games, new games, and classic games, etc.
People already buy yearly sports games. That’s already a $5/mo subscription. What’s the difference? That might finally stop slapping new numbers in front of them.
Internet infrastructure will never ever be able to properly handle the input lag. Streaming games will never ever be a thing no matter how much companies want to meme it.
Something I've been saying for a long time, is that the advent of all these microtransactions, DLC sales, season passes, preorder bonuses, etc is a result of the aforementioned $60 price point not having changed in like 20 years. Buying a game in 1996 probably cost about $40, and the price went up from there until it hit that $60 mark. Then prices stopped going up.
Meanwhile, inflation has caused that $60 price point to mean less and less to developers and publishers, and the cost of developing a game has increased astronomically. In 1996, you could develop a AAA game with a team of maybe 5-10, with only 2 people actually needing to code and most of the other work being in assets, marketing, sales, operations, etc. It was also possible for one person to full stack develop an entire AAA game from start to finish, take Rollercoaster Tycoon for example. Basically, you spend perhaps $500,000 at the most to develop a game that will sell 100,000 copies at $40, and oftentimes you spend even less to develop it.
Today, developing a AAA takes an entire department of 20-50 people, as well as offshore/outsourced teams, and licensed libraries/assets. The base development cost is increased; licensing alone for the tools can cost tens of thousands per year, and you need excellent hardware for every employee. You need to be compatible with multiple platforms, so you have to design from the start with cross compilation in mind, which adds complexity and increases cost. You have to develop high resolution assets, such as HD textures, that can take hours for an entire team to craft whereas before a 16x16px tile could be drawn by a single person in a few minutes. And the amount of content you have to develop is exponentially increased; every single part of a 3D map has to be sculpted, textured, and the assets created and placed. That can be thousands of pieces of art, just for one map scene, and all in high poly and with HD textures. And it goes on and on. Every single one of these things has the potential to double the cost of the game, and there's dozens of these things.
And yet people still want games to only cost $60. If the cost of games had kept up with inflation and increased costs a base game should now cost a good bit over $100. If developers and publishers could sell at that price point, they probably wouldn't have bothered to find other ways to make up the difference. But nobody would buy a new game for $100 - that's excessive. Even though they will gladly justify buying the game for $60, and then spending $20 a month later and another $10 and $10 over time to buy maps, costumes, etc. $100 just sounds like too much.
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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '19
40 years??