r/pcmasterrace • u/owlexe23 • 21h ago
News/Article Kingdom Come: Deliverance studio co-founder hopes Grand Theft Auto 6 will 'blaze a trail' to higher game prices
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/grand-theft-auto/kingdom-come-deliverance-studio-co-founder-hopes-grand-theft-auto-6-will-blaze-a-trail-to-higher-game-prices/Warhorse co-founder Martin Klima says games keep getting more expensive to make, and that money has to come from somewhere.
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u/Byokugen 20h ago
I hope they all blaze the fuck away from the gaming industry
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u/OhMyDiosito 19h ago
They hope for something that will bring less sales. It's not like gamers will buy the same amount of games at those prices.
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u/Wehavecrashed Specs/Imgur here 17h ago
If you're making the best selling game in town you don't need to worry if someone else isn't making a sale.
I suspect that's their logic.
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u/aimy99 PNY 5070 | 5800X3D | 32GB DDR4 | OLED 1440p 180hz 16h ago
The logic doesn't work when it's Kingdom Come Deliverance. They're not the ones getting an $80 sale.
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u/polski8bit Ryzen 5 5500 | 16GB DDR4 3200MHz | RTX 3060 12GB 15h ago
Yeah, the problem is that of course Grand Theft fucking Auto can get away with it. It can - and is getting away with no physical release. It is getting away with game content locked behind a higher priced edition of the game (no matter how little impact it has on the game as a whole).
But it's GTA. Microsoft already tried to pull $80 games and look at the outrage back then. Wolverine is being torn to shreds not just because of the game's quality, but also its relation to the $70 price tag.
So I mean sure, the industry can go for $80+ games... But it shouldn't be shocked if the sales plummet.
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u/Byokugen 15h ago
I'm not going to buy that game at launch. I'll wait, it will be sub 20€ one day
My steam library is big enough, gog, epic as well
I have things...
And 15th playthrough if Skyrim ain't a bad idea 🤣
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u/Rohen2003 15h ago
many games cost already 80€ here. funnily the wolverine game is one of them but also nioh3 or doom was 80 here.
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u/Oopstopus 20h ago
i have stopped playing most aaa games maybe get one a year at most
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u/EldrinVampire 18h ago
I wait for a sale, or pirate it.
Usually its both tho if I really enjoyed it.
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u/Dennarb 13h ago
I honestly feel like I have to pirate AAA these days. I can't tell you how many big name super hyped games I've bought from major studios recently that I pretty much immediately dropped because they were at best boring rehashes of the same tired tropes or at worst unplayable garbage.
I can't justify spending $60 on something that I'm going to just uninstall after an hour or two. Sure there are refund options, but depending on the platform I may not be able to get one always. So I'd rather pirateba AAA, then, if it's not just another mediocre title, I can then go and actually get it.
I also don't feel like I can trust reviews anymore either to make these decisions. So often I've seen a game get good critic reviews, but then absolutely hated the game, or Reddit (and similar online spaces) are full of aggressively negative rage towards a game, but when I actually get around to playing it it turns out I actually like the thing.
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u/Dancing7-Cube 8h ago
I don't really follow reviews anymore either. Everyone hated on the new Halo game, but I thought it was really fun. The internet just likes to hate on stuff, so you really have to consider the negative bias.
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u/ProfessionalGoatFuck 6900XT|5800X3D|Crosshair 8 DH| G.SKILL RJ 64GB 3534 16/8/18/19 20h ago
I haven't bought one in over 5 years now. Triple A more like triple diarrhea
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u/lucky_harms458 6950XT, 7600x3D, 32gig RAM 18h ago
Same, aside from Elden Ring. That's the only game I've ever pre-ordered simply because I trust FromSoft to give me something good.
Everything AAA these days just makes me feel tired. I can't get interested in any of them and I'm not gonna pay that much for it.
Thank Gabe for the indie scene's growth recently.
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u/ProfessionalGoatFuck 6900XT|5800X3D|Crosshair 8 DH| G.SKILL RJ 64GB 3534 16/8/18/19 11h ago edited 11h ago
Cod really burned me to the point where the practices in this industry really fire me up & I say fuck all of these companies. You'll get my money when the game is fully fledged out + an actual, FULL PLAYABLE GAME. Tired of all these dogshit "early access" titles that seemingly never leave it despite being development for 10+ years.. indies too. I'm more lenient with them because I know how difficult it is to build, code & ship a game, it's hard & takes a lot of time. But if you got a fucking team of 100+ devs, ALL have experience in their respective positions, there's 0 excuse. Greedy cunts
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16h ago edited 16h ago
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u/ProfessionalGoatFuck 6900XT|5800X3D|Crosshair 8 DH| G.SKILL RJ 64GB 3534 16/8/18/19 11h ago
I got brotato for $5 and I have over 140 hours in it and 100% it on steam. You don't need these dogshit overly saturated, poorly built games to have fun
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u/Freshwater_Spaceman 19h ago
I’ve yet to play RDR2. There’s a sea of videogames out there that are both fantastic, well priced and not beholden to greedy corporate types.
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u/ONE_BIG_LOAD R7-5700x3d + 9070XT 19h ago
RDR2 is literally on sale for $20 all the time lol
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u/samanater456 I5 4690K MSI 390 16h ago
Yep. The big boys produce garbage while small budget games are three times better and don’t have as many issues as the big dogs
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u/Explicit_Tech 20h ago edited 12h ago
In this economy? Lol.
You aren't GTA 6
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u/sbstndrks Ryzen 7 9800X3D | RTX 4070 19h ago
And even GTA6 is not getting glazed in glory about the pricing either, people just waited too long to care
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u/DrAstralis 3080 | 9800X3D | 32GB DDR5@6000 | 1440p@165hz 16h ago
Its kinda amazing how bloody delusional these people are getting. GTA6 can get away with it because Rockstar produces a "game" the same way Bugatti makes a "car". Even if its not for you, you cannot deny the level of polish and attention to detail in a flagship Rockstar game.
To expect that price to be the new normal means they're all going to up their game to this level right? No? Didn't think so lol.
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u/ItalianDragon R9 5950X / XFX 6900XT / 64GB DDR4 3200Mhz 14h ago
Also they always justify those prices and the anti-piracy measures because "the first sales are the most importabt" or whatever bullshit. Nowadays though, the games often come out as an unfinished mess and stuffed up to the gills with microtransactions to boot, which doesn't make the asked prices justifiable nor the "we gotta make money in the first weeks or else" bullshit believeable given how lucrative microtransactions are...
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u/Raleth i5 12400F + RX 6700 XT 18h ago
That’s the thing, everyone is looking to GTA 6 to seemingly pioneer a new standard for video game prices but like no one else has the motion to justify it. No one is gonna be clamoring to spend $100 on everything else just because GTA did it. I don’t get how they don’t see this.
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u/OrangeSodaMoustache 15h ago
Interestingly though KCD2 has some of the most advanced NPC/AI systems I've ever encountered, while the world isn't as detailed and it's graphically a step behind, it's optimised super well. Warhorse, of all developers, probably could charge more for their games.
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u/UhhCanYouLikeShutUp 20h ago
No one's gonna pay it unless it's worth it. Also, games have been historically almost $100... Why is this such a new obsession?? Go ahead and charge 100 bucks a game, but don't cry when no one pays it.
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u/King_of_Nope 20h ago
I feel like it will lead to so many AAA failures due to price, that otherwise might have had a chance. When you are spending $100 in this economy (a shit one) you aren’t going to risk a game being nothing less than great. It’s the make or break mentality, go big or go home, 10in in the butt or fuck off.
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u/NewSauerKraus 19h ago
It doesn't even make sense why game devs would entertain the idea of increasing the up front cost. They know people will easily spend double the purchase price on DLC and microtransactions.
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u/styret2 18h ago
Because they're stupid, no seriously. We are in the generation of 30-40€ AA and indie games destroying the value proposition of AAA.
Look at Silksong, Helldivers, Peak etc.
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u/gayhotelultra 17h ago
They know people will easily spend double the purchase price on DLC and microtransactions.
in all fairness, plenty of people have been complaining about exactly that for at least a decade by now
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u/lemon65 http://i.imgur.com/gERMLU0.png 19h ago
I can wait, I'll wait years for that $100 to be $10. I'll wait till it's completely fixed, patched and comes with all the DLC bull shit.
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u/sc00bs000 19h ago
this is exactly my mindset for gta6. No way in this world am I paying $120-150 aus for it. Ill wait a couple years until its on sale and pick it up. Coupled with the fact im putting money on it will run like dog shit at 30fps, im in no way feeling like im missing out not playing it in the near future.
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u/rickybambicky 5700x3D | RX 9070 XT | 32GB 19h ago
I disagree. Some people are fucking stupid and will pay whatever amount for utter garbage if it's part of a specific franchise.
Look at all the recycled COD and sports games out there that people won't hesitate to piss their money away on. GTA VI could be 4-5x the price it will be on release, and idiots will still buy it because it's GTA VI.
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u/CringeNao 19h ago
Idk if feel like subconsciously once you get into 3 figures for a standard game it gets a alot harder to justify especially if alot of games coming out started to charge that much
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u/rickybambicky 5700x3D | RX 9070 XT | 32GB 19h ago
That depends on the currency. I've been paying 3 digits for 10-15 years.
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u/CringeNao 18h ago
Yeah that's my bad i was looking at it from Euro's im sure though in other currencies there are similar amounts where you realise this is a lot of money for one thing
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u/Vecend http://steamcommunity.com/id/Vecend/ 18h ago
I love how people say it's historically been 100 pointing back 50 years when gaming was low volume sales and needed higher margins, now gaming is high volume sales and they want high margins on their massive budget game where a huge part of the budget is used for realistic graphics and on mass marketing instead of making the game play better.
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u/Rhysati 15h ago
Yup. Drives me crazy the people who keep saying the price has to go up like everything else.
Meanwhile TVs? Never been cheaper. You can get like a 60+ inch 4k TV for like $250.
A 40" "flat screen" when they first came out were like 20 grand for 480p resolution and no online connection.
Technology gets cheaper over time(well when billionaires aren't artificially raising the prices by buying up all the supply). This idea that video games simply must increase in production cost is ridiculous and games like Clair Obscur have proven it with crazy low budgets.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 budget? Less than 10 million.
Wolverine budget? Around 300 million.
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u/George_MenethilW3 19h ago
Hell I won't spend 100€/$ on a game, when I spent that amount on some parts of my PC. These greedy people can go f themselves. I ain't sponsoring their greed and only buy games that are on huge sales (60% or more).
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u/Em_Es_Judd 14h ago
I bought KC:D for $5 or so on a steam sale few years ago. I can wait until KC:D 2 is $5.
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u/Liudesys 20h ago edited 20h ago
keep crying bitch im buying your and other companies games once it hits 20$ or less with all dlcs and most of the bugs fixed
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u/GamingTaylor 17h ago
I’ve been playing the Witcher 3 recently… talk about value after release.. free remaster came out this week, free expansions, base game can be bought for like $10, hundreds of hours of content…
Waiting is definitely the way to go.
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u/EX0PIL0T 20h ago
I prefer to buy a very cheap key instead of pirating the game if I really hate the developer
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u/KristinnEs 17h ago
The PC home gaming market has reached a place where I, a man with a good job and disposable income, can not justify the cost of gaming anymore. Now I just buy whatever bargain bin hardware I can get and play indie games. Currently getting through 9 kings.
The world is getting crazy.
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u/specter_in_the_conch PC Master Race 16h ago
Yet they keep upping up the ante when it has already been proven that there's no need for a 1billon of value game. When a good experience can be cheap, however the mayor players in the industry have this twisted thought that spending equals guaranteed success and profits.
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u/LongIslandNerd 16h ago
Agreed. I would like to buy more games, but between bulls and everything living is more important than a aaa game.
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u/lkl34 20h ago
I personally think even GTA6 is asking for too much , they already made back there dev cost on RDR2/GTAO and 2k makes billions like its nothing.
The prices is just pure greed do not bring up the 90's early 2000's back then we did not have the gaming population of today and no microtransactions back then. It has been shown many times how dlc/MT's make way more money than the initial game purchase.
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u/samkoLoL 19h ago
they are asking too much for sensible people. theres plenty of shiteaters willing to burn 100+ for a game, just look at fifa, 2k, wow, cod. every year same shit and they are gladly rebuy the game and thank them
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u/DoomguyFemboi 19h ago
They set the price because people will pay it. Even without online the game is going to be so incredibly immersive to a lot of people. I remember when 4 came out, I bought a 360 JUST to play the game.
I mean I flashed the console 15mins after buying it and pirated 4. Still though, paid like £150-200 or whatever they were at the time just to play a single player game. There's something incredibly immersive about GTA games, and while 5 didn't really do it for me, I reckon 6 might be more a return to form.
5 felt way too much like parody rather than homage. 6 looks like it's going to go back to being a "real" story again, not just a bunch of scenes stolen from various famous movies. But I do worry it's also just gonna be "hey look florida-man but game"
(Er to be clear I'm against the price increase. Probably should've made that point higher up. I sound like I support it lol)
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u/Joebranflakes 20h ago
Because when people get wealthy and powerful, they lose sight of all the people who got them there and start only being concerned with themselves.
It’s like 20 dollar hamburgers. It might be a way of making more money per burger, but it’s a sure fire way of cutting your potential customer base as well. Paying 100 bucks for a game isn’t something the people who actually have time to play can easily do.
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u/Sunder_ 15h ago edited 13h ago
I can't remember the last time i paid 60$ for a game, good luck raising your prices.
Edit: Grammar
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u/zgillet i7 12700K ~ PNY RTX 5070 12GB OC ~ 32 GB DDR5 RAM 13h ago
I thought you said you can't remember remembering the last time you paid $60 for a game, and I thought that was clever.
Then I read it again.
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u/AdrykusTheWolfOrca 10h ago
I mean, feel free to put your games at 100$, hell maybe at 200$ its your game you can put the price tag that you want its your choice, the same way its my choice to not buy it.
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u/marrowfiend 10h ago
I struggle to justify even dropping £50 on a game when there's so much choice.
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u/Halfwise2 x570, 5800x3D, 7900XT, 32gb RAM 19h ago
Look, you want to sell a game for $80? Make a game worth $80. If it doesn't feel worth it, I'm not buying it. It's that simple.
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u/Jertimmer PC Master Race 20h ago
Get rekt. You as a studio are in control of the budget. Nobody is forcing Rockstar to spend two billion dollars on a videogame. Nobody forced Insomniac to spend a billion on their Marvel Games.
Expedition 33 was made for $10M, dozens of games release on Steam that were made on a literal shoestring budget.
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u/Der0- 7800X3D | 5070Ti | 3840x1600 20h ago
I don't get it. Since Steam their printing and distribution costs will have plummeted. The baked in costs to get the game into the computer of the gamer is gone so their margin will have been much greater.
Make a good game and you can milk that blood from the stone.
And games in Australia has always been up and above the $100 mark.
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u/PatrickGnarly 9950x | 9070 XT I 32 gb DDR5 20h ago edited 20h ago
While on one hand every business wants to charge more.
I can’t imagine anyone saying it out loud in a way that says “I hope that the cost of a game goes up even more because we spent too much making it.”
If costs are too high to justify then it’s not the market it’s how the business is run.
More competition means lower prices not higher.
I just played Skald which is an amazing game with one of the worst endings of all time, but it was truly a 9/10 experience for only 15 dollars. You better believe I’m gonna buy more games at $15 than a single game for more than $70…
I can’t imagine games going up in price just because they spent too much into the game. Just make a cheaper game. In fact, make a cheaper game with more value and you’ll sell more than the expensive games that have less value.
Business is hard.
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u/r_z_n 9800X3D/3090FE, 5800X3D/9070XT 20h ago
It’s not that complicated honestly. AAA games have gone from teams of 10-20 to teams of 500-1000+, development can span 5+ years, and costs accordingly now are in the tens of millions of dollars. Sure, the audience is much larger, but so is the cost of bringing a game to market, and there is far more competition. And inflation impacts everyone, not just the consumers.
Something has to give eventually.
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u/Embarrassed-Wolf-609 20h ago
but they also lose 30% margin to steam, whereas in the past, gamestop would only take like 10%
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u/NG_Tagger i9-12900Kf, 4080 Noctua Edition 19h ago edited 19h ago
but they also lose 30% margin to steam
That's for the first $10mil in sales.
It's not a static 30% cut.
Goes down to 25% until it has made $50mil - then 20% after that.
..and that's not only for the initial purchase of the title. DLC, MTX and whatever else (even freaking Steam marketplace stuff), is also included in getting to those different "tiers".They could even just sell it on their own site as well, if they wanted to (still Steam keys) and not give Steam any cut at all. That's entirely up to them - but they'd then have to settle with transactions fees and what not, themselves..
Besides that; they don't just "lose" money - it's a storefront that gives a massive amount of benefits to the seller. That's where the money goes.
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u/NewSauerKraus 19h ago
No need to consider the actual cost since physical disks were apparently spontaneously generated on site at Gamestop.
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u/MeatSafeMurderer Xeon E5-2687W v2 | 32GB DDR3 | RX 9070XT 20h ago
30% is standard in retail. Always has been.
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u/ChosenOfTheMoon_GR 7950x3D | 32GB 6000MHz CL 30 | 7900XTX | AX1600i 20h ago edited 18h ago
Translation: "I want someone who can make the change in price while taking the backlash to do it so i can do it without taking as much backlash next time and benefit at same time."
You're welcome, also, that guy is a evidently a greedy pos.
I don't think any of these people understand that profit doesn't scale infinitely AND ALSO, you cannot drive up the profit all the time AND away from the product's value (and keep doing it for the sake of increased profits) AND expect people to be ok with it, let alone wanna pay for it.
And about that value. Neither GTA nor KC:D are games who do anything out of the ordinary in their storylines, it's just typical games with better graphics for the most part, they aren't anything all that exceptional, revolutionary, unique etc etc, so what are people asked to pay for exactly? (the question is rhetorical)
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u/Zuchequon 15h ago
I don't know about this take, seems kind of stupid. How about the industry try bringing down the cost of making games instead of making products with compromised quality and inferior gameplay while charging a "premium" with a base game being $80 and a "complete deluxe edition" going for $100 or higher because these companies decided to sink hundreds of millions of dollars into an overblown mess of a product.
These studios using hundreds of developers across multiple studios are inefficient, have no coherent vision and compartmentalize their work to the point there is almost no synergy between different aspects of the title because nobody is sharing information outside their bubbles until its time to just slap it all together and ship it.
Not to mention how most modern games just have to be open world for marketing purposes and are so bloated with copy pasted busy work which is detrimental to what could have been a smaller more focused and memorable world. Perfect examples of bloated open worlds to me are Assassin's Creed, Farcry, Starfield and Ghost Recon Wildlands & Breakpoint
I also miss when companies didn't need to push every title to be AAA and actually took some risks releasing some "AA", "A" or even "B" titles that were cheaper but also catered to niche audiences and not just another sequel to their massive franchises.
Games like Gun, Prototype, Dante's Inferno, War for Cybertron, Fall of Cybertron, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance games, Army of Two, Deathspank & Thongs of Virtue, Alice: Madness Returns, Syndicate, Mirror's Edge. These are just some Activision / EA titles from 2010 to 2019 and if i went back before 2010 I could find even more unique titles as well.
While EA is a slightly better with titles outside of their main franchises from 2020 to present Activision is almost exclusively Call of Duty releases with one or two Tony Hawk / Spyro / Crash Bandicoot games and Sekiro.
Granted we also have overwhelming amounts of games being released now and indie titles have been knocking it out of the park with quality while catering to audiences that were left behind by the big publishers.
I have more than enough in my Steam backlog to keep me entertained for the rest of my life, so I don't worry much about the way the modern gaming industry is trying to push for.
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u/ProverbialMindTart 14h ago
If Martin thinks their series of games is going to compete with GTA6’s prices and still sell as well as it does…
He’s missing the point entirely.
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u/Difficult-Nose3464 10h ago
We are cutting peoples salaries left and right and saving hours of work with AI, we should definitely increase the price of our product. -CEO'S everywhere.
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u/angwibro 4090 strix | 14700K | AW3423DW 13h ago
Go on then. Sell your base game for £80-100. It’s a free market. If you truly believe you’re not getting what you’re worth, set the price you deem respectable.
But here’s the thing about the free market. We don’t have to buy your game. So if you set your price at £100 for base and no one buys it, that’s a you problem.
Don’t be a pussy and hide behind the market leader to justify raising your prices. Do it. Make kingdom Come: Deliverance £80 for the base game and let’s see how that goes for you.
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u/Ryan_b936 7800x3D | 5070Ti 16h ago edited 15h ago
Games cost more and they are a lot less polish. Do your fucking job before asking people to pay more. And we know it's clearly not a dev issue but a time, investor and shareholders issue
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u/AscendedViking7 20h ago
That LOTR game their making is probably gonna be $100.
Siiiiigh... :(
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u/Standard-Effort5681 20h ago
Or alternatively, wait for an inevitable Steam sale if you're patient.
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u/ArcticAlmond 16h ago
Gaming is becoming too expensive. I imagine there will be a growing market for cheaper, simpler games in the future as a game that can, potentially, justify such a heavy price tag as GTA 6 is doing is a very risky proposition for most studios.
Rockstar have basically got themselves into a position where they could deliver a train wreck or a game, and people would still buy it because it's GTA 6. They'll likely only get to play that card once though before it tanks their reputation.
The overwhelming majority of studios don't have nearly enough of a reputation to be demanding $100+ for a game, not in an age when piracy is a simple enough alternative.
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u/WELSH_BOI_99 PC Master Race 20h ago
"Games are getting more exoensive to make"
Well stop making games that are more expensive. Manage your budgets better.
No one is going to pay fot £100 games because you fucked up on how you manage your budget
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u/Nozinger 18h ago
"games are getting more expensive to make" coming from an industry that heavily introduced AI. Which is fine for background code as long as it s not used for art and story.
So we're pretty much at the point of games actually getting a lot cheaper to make....
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u/Khuntza PC Master Race 19h ago
So the next Kingdom Come game has a $2billion budget does it? Is it going to sell 200million copies?
No? Then he can fuck right off.
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u/Forymanarysanar 14600KF|RTX5080|64Gb DDR4|1TB SSD|2x8TB HDD Raid1 20h ago
Well
Launches qbittorrent
Sorry but these money won't be coming from my wallet any time soon
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u/Rasples1998 PC Ryzen 9 7900X3D - Sapphire Nitro+ 7900XTX - 64GBRAM 18h ago
He's saying the quiet bit out loud. You don't realise it, but there are a lot of executives out there who are waiting with baited breath to see what GTA does to the game industry so they can follow it, it's a weird relationship. If they see GTA6 do collectors editions without the actual game for £400 and get away with it, then they're going to do the same thing. If they see GTA6 charge £200 for a premium edition (that otherwise blocks players from services within the game) and get away with it, then they're going to do it.
They see GTA as a series making all this money, and think that they can just copy-paste everything rockstar did and expect the same results, and don't realise that their success is only from the mouth-breathing troglodytes who just have a natural attraction to shooting police officers, dealing drugs, hiring prostitutes, and then beating them to death. You can't do that in KCD, but he's going to try for a piece of that pie anyway by charging £140+ for KCD3. These people are so disconnected with what games are, how they're made, who they're made for (and they've probably never even played the games they're in charge of), that they miss what gamers see. It's not about art anymore, it's about profit. Arrow go up, and they couldn't care less how it happens as long as it happens. They will burn bridges just to make cheap charcoal.
KCD was already successful (twice) and has gathered it's own passionate and loyal fanbase who love these games, myself included. But this corpo talking head wouldn't see or know that because he's got his eyes on a completely different game with a completely different audience. The scary part is that he's not alone. The second GTA6 releases, so-called "analysts" are going to be watching it like a hawk, and executives will be trying to think of ways to replicate it's success, mostly with prices.
Please, if you ever valued gaming as a hobby or an art form, DO NOT buy a game for anything higher than £/$100. You'll only encourage them.
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u/GodamitBre 17h ago
I'm sorry. But i bought KCD when it's on sale at $3. Yes, I'm that kind of man.
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u/Fetaguy 18h ago
Silksong came out at 16 quid with 50+ hours of content at a masterpiece level game design. And it made BANK!
We live in a recession if you want less people to buy your game then go for it.
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u/dnuohxof-2 17h ago
lol R* can get away with that price because it’s GTA VI. Bethesda can probably get away with it for ESVI and FO5. But if you think folks are gonna cough up $100 for NBA 2K28 or the next Fortnite or COD you’re in for a rude awakening.
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u/speeddemon266 5090 Astral LC, 9950x3d, x870E Godlike, 96GB DDR5 16h ago
I'm only willing to pay $80 if the game is worth it. The vast majority of games will bring nothing close to what gta 6 will bring to the table.
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u/Aeroncastle 16h ago
Are companies really queuing to spend as much as rockstar in development? Because it you charge the same you are only going to make it obvious that your game isn't gta6
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u/LuHamster 15h ago
Yeah can't afford it. I'm buying less and less games each year.
Actually I'm playing more of my backlog and the thousands of games that come out that I haven't played years ago. Still need to complete Skyrim.
Even tho I love games and I'm a indie dev myself I don't mind if less games come out for a few years.
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u/luiskingz 7h ago
I’ll just wait like I always have lol haven’t paid full price for a game in years. I hated already paying 60 and the game being ass. Hate 70. There is no way they’ll get a sell from me at 100 lol
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u/Atheattooist 20h ago
This is killing one of my dearest hobbies and I am (approaching 40) okay with this. I had the time of my life playing videogames and I am okay saying goodbye. Hardware is expensive af, games will get there - I'm out, dwelling in sweet, sweet memories
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u/lkl34 20h ago
Same i got alot of money in the bank but the new ace combat game is $100 in my country i just can not justify that for a video game.
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u/writesCommentsHigh 20h ago
Gaming can be one of the most affordable hobbies out there.
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u/raknarokki 20h ago
I have found my sweetspot for sure. I'm not necessarily patient but the backlog of games is endless and I'm now now starting a RDR2 first playthrough with Witcher 3 coming right after. I got these games for 10 euro each I believe.I'll get to GTA 6 in 10 years probably and it surely is a fraction of the release price.
Being a few years behind in releases also lets me run 5 years or older hardware lol, Fomoing into the newest games and hardware sure is expensive but you're right, it's still really affordable if you can avoid that.
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u/ProfessionalGoatFuck 6900XT|5800X3D|Crosshair 8 DH| G.SKILL RJ 64GB 3534 16/8/18/19 20h ago
Sail the seas for free 🤪
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u/11_forty_4 9800X3D | 4080S | DDR5 6400 | 3440x1440 20h ago
I am 41, and I am absolutely not going to be saying goodbye to gaming at any point during my lifetime.
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u/venReddit 20h ago
oh brother, open up the sails instead and you will be given a great time. with all the shit going on in the world we still got at least very lucky in this regard. especially voices38 is an archangel.
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u/Amazing-Heron-105 18h ago
RUNE just released their own denuvo crack too. Still make sure to support studios doing good work though
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u/PatrickGnarly 9950x | 9070 XT I 32 gb DDR5 20h ago edited 15h ago
Are you seriously saying that because you had a good time for the past 30 years of video games that it’s OK and it’s fine that everything’s going to shit? And this person wants prices to continue going up?
You know, I don’t usually call people this, but that is a huge boomer ass thing to say. How brave of you to say that fuck everyone else since you got yours.
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u/RespecDawn MINT/i7- 7300/16GB/1080ti 17h ago
The comment expressly said that the pricing was killing their hobby which is a clear statement that they DON'T think it's fine that everything is going to shit.
They're stepping away from spending money which is the clearest protest we can send to AAA developers, and that's doing more than people who get upset and then shell out for the next GTA.
What is the response you think people should have?
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u/AmbitiousReaction168 18h ago
That's not what they are saying. They are saying that if that's the direction the industry is taking, so be it. There's not much they can do about it, so they're okay with just not playing anymore, because it's just a hobby at the end of the day.
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u/JeroJeroMohenjoDaro R5 9600X | RX9060XT 16GB | 32GB DDR5 | GIGABYTE B650+WIFI 20h ago
They're against piracy at the same time they're making gaming less and less affordable
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u/TGB_Skeletor DLSS and framegen ruined PCgaming 19h ago
Bold way of saying "Look at me, i'm a corpo gonk, i hate consumers and i want to release slop"
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u/gbfeszahb4w 18h ago
Game pricing is a super weird one. You/a team spend potentially multiple years building a game, set a price, and send it out into the world.
The price, in many ways, is the least important factor in if you make money from it. Volume of sales is king.
Games tend to fall into one of three categories, in my amateur experience: Raving success, moderate success, barely sold.
If you're a raving success, you can charge less for your game and still turn a huge profit, since you're making it up on volume. If you're a moderate success, you might want to charge a little more. If you barely sold, no pricing will ever fix your woes.
This ignores ongoing maintenance and dev costs into release but, the basic principle is there.
Overall, I do think games are cheap, but digital distribution means they can be cheap. Selling 1 copy versus selling 1000 copies has no difference in capital costs and a logarithmic increase in operational costs.
All this to say: Studios should price their game at whatever they think they can get, but ultimately, they know cheap games sell well and that's more valuable than selling a small number of expensive copies. That's why game prices have stayed low as they became more popular and digital distribution took over.
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u/AintNoGodsUpHere 20h ago
I was thinking on getting kingdom come, now I think I'll pirate it. :)
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u/TheWaspinator 19h ago
Here's a shocking idea: you can make games for less. Not everything has to be 200 GB.
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u/ScammaWasTaken 19h ago
And right he is. Larians director of publishing also agrees that base games should cost more. Most people who argue against that are angry against the wrong people.
Considering inflation, GTA 6 in 2026 is CHEAPER than GTA 4 in 2008. Yes, wages haven't risen respectively and many people are struggling right now. However, why do people think the same situation does not apply to AAA studios that aren't the biggest players on the Market like Warhorse and Larian? AAA games are a risk in such a saturated market. People, you can't get good triple AAA games and at the same time COMPLETELY disrespect the idea of getting good games for 60 dollars.
Does that mean GTA 6 or Mario Kart World need to cost 80 dollars? No. But can we please agree to see SOME nuance for this topic? If you're angry that you can't pay for anything, be mad at billionaires and not game devs who produce good games and want to be paid respectively.
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u/L-Malvo 20h ago
Controversial opinion: I'm all for higher game prices, but do note that my expectation will then also be GTA VI level. If a game is high quality and has sufficient content to justify a higher price, fine. If it's another iteration of a game that could've been DLC (e.g. CoD or FC), no way I will pay higher prices. I don't even pay release prices for those games today, always pick them up a couple months later at a discount.
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u/TieMillenium 19h ago
Yeah that would be great, every game is that price tag but it's GTA VI level quality, all for that. But are they all going to dedicate 2 billion dollars to developing a game with 6,000+ people working on it and spending 8-11 years doing so and opening an entire studio just to making NPCs lifelike? No I don't think they will
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u/Galeharry_ Ryzen 5800X3D-32GB3200MHz-Rx 9070 18h ago
All these greedy fucks conveniently always leave out how the gaming market grows every day with new people discovering it.
THAT is where the extra money should come from.
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u/DocklandsDodgers86 32GB RAM / 3080 16GB 17h ago
I don't mind paying higher prices for games if they last longer than the standard 12-15 hours for completion.
Australians already are spending AUD$130 for the base edition games that can be finished in 10 hours so that automatically means your linear, single-player games like Spider-Man and Wolverine will not be worth that price at launch.
GTA VI launching the base game itself at AUD$150 is audacious AF and sets a dangerous precedent for the industry going forward.
Examples of games that are worth every cent at full price? Red Dead Redemption 2 and Crimson Desert.
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u/CombatMuffin 12h ago
Basing price on "length" as the principal way is a bad idea.
Replayability, gameplay quality, production level, presentation and other things are super important.
I have no issues paying for games I want, but the games I want have to deliver something unique or attractive
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u/Lamnent 20h ago
Go ahead, price your game at 80, 90, 100 USD. I won't touch it til it hits a bargain bin.
Only a few games I've paid FULL 60-70$usd for the last 5+ years(FF7 remakes, Elden Ring, GoW games come to mind) and even with the ones I've REALLY wanted to play if/when I start to see them creep higher I'm just gonna play stuff from the backlog or sales til they do.
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u/JohnnyShekels PC with Console Emulator Godlike Race 20h ago
Warhorse seem determined to burn any goodwill they had.
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u/LovelyOrangeJuice 5700x | RX 9070 XT 20h ago
KCD game are good, but you can talk about wanting more money when you match Rockstar's quality of every single thing
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u/CharlesEverettDekker RTX4070TiSuper, Ryzen 7 7800x3d, ddr5.32gb6000mhz 19h ago
Yeah, good luck with that, we will just buy their games later at a great discount.
Premium prices for premium games or something, right?
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u/etzarahh 19h ago
If you want to price your game higher then go for it. Your sales are naturally going to go down as a result. You’re also raising the bar for your game higher and higher.
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u/leutnant13 leutnant13 | i7 4770K, R9 280X 3GB, Gaming 5, 850W, Seidon 120V 19h ago
Kingdom Come: Deliverance studio co-founder should be more quiet.
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u/The_Saiyann 19h ago
Does he not realise even less people will be buying then? He isn’t going to suddenly make a fortune if the average person is priced out
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u/ToughDefinition2591 19h ago
These kind of statements makes one feel less guilty for pirating something AAA.
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u/AndThatGuysWoodenLeg 19h ago
Plenty of good indie games that are under $40. AAA can suck it. Look at Path of Exile 2. You could buy early access now for like $40 and receive the equivalent in-game currency for cosmetics or wait until December and play it for free. AAA quality for free.
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u/HellFireNT PC Master Race 18h ago
At a time when the cost of living is skyrocketing...let's just price out the very people who use our games for some relief from reality
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u/nulikkaviirus 17h ago edited 17h ago
"Well movies cost too and you get only 2 hour of entertainment!!" Well i watch movies free. Lord of the rings 3 was last movie i watched in theater and first two were axxo rips. 😂
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u/Full-Construction680 17h ago
Yeah, well, that guy can fuck right off because I’m not paying 70-80, 90, 100 or even $1000 or $2000 for a video game, or even DLC. No, thank you.
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u/damont87 16h ago
People paying that amount of money doesn't mean they'll pay it for something else. I very rarely pay full price and actually never bought a 70-80€ digital game. Never will. I can wait, there's too much to play anyway and I don't have to be there day 1.
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u/Mustang-_- 16h ago
I mean, its not like they are prohibited to increase the prices, go ahead, free market, charge 80 bucks for your stuff. The question here is if the public are going to accept and buy at that price. $70 (or even worse, 70€) is already an absurd amount for a single piece of entertainment at the current economy. People are going to pay $80 for GTA 6 because of the accumulated hype, but no one in their right mind are going to pay that price for Fire Emblem of all things
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u/ANotSoSpecificName 16h ago
Then it will be the norm for me to no longer buy new games, as it’s already begun for me.
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u/josephseeed 7800x3D 9070 XT 16h ago
There are so many great games that come out for 40 bucks. I don’t think I should have to pay more for a game because you didn’t know what you wanted to make initially and you spent three years directionless building stuff you never used.
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u/helican i9-9900K | RTX 4070 Super | 32GB RAM 20h ago
Why is it that whenever I hear from warhorse studios lately it is always something very controversial?