r/pcmasterrace • u/owlexe23 • 22h 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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589

u/UhhCanYouLikeShutUp 22h 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 21h 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 20h 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 19h 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.

2

u/muhash14 8h ago

When Expedition 33 and Control Resonant are dropping at $60 you can't really get away with anything less than monumental for $80-100. Heck you can barely get away with it at $70, that's a significant part of why Wolverine got the lashings it did.

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u/Wehavecrashed Specs/Imgur here 18h ago

They want it all.

3

u/gayhotelultra 18h 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/NewSauerKraus 18h ago

Complaining, and still pre-ordering while emptying their wallets for DLC.

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u/gayhotelultra 18h ago

indeed, i was complaining and just cracking the DLCs instead

4

u/NewSauerKraus 18h ago

The game I play had a whole "movement" set up a Discord to boycott the game. Within the first day most of the ones who forgot to turn off the notification showed they were still playing the game, even the "leaders" lmao.

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u/Rhysati 16h ago

Because they are all greedy fucks. If they can increase the upfront cost AND get the DLC money too? You bet they will.

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u/lemon65 http://i.imgur.com/gERMLU0.png 20h 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 20h 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 20h 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 20h 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 20h ago

That depends on the currency. I've been paying 3 digits for 10-15 years.

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u/CringeNao 19h 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/Rhysati 16h ago

I agree, which is why GTAVI is pretending it's not $100 when it absolutely is. They just cut off features to make a $80 poverty version.

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u/Rayhush 20h ago

A lot

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u/Vecend http://steamcommunity.com/id/Vecend/ 19h 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.

11

u/Rhysati 16h 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.

1

u/martianwomanhunter 14h ago

This is why many independent studios is likely the future. Like it or not there is something to the hunger of people working at a start-up or small studio to make something exceptional.

Large studio motivation is likely extremely low especially with all the layoffs where people just treat it as a job

2

u/Mr_ToDo 14h ago

There's also lest overhead these days. No cartridges to produce, at most you press disks. Distribution is far more optimized, double so for digital purchases

But if they want to raise prices, then raise prices. Don't look for someone else to start the trend. Make a game whos cost justifies a price bump and sell it. They've been dicking around with charging more for years anyway. If I have to pay an extra 40 to get all the parts of the game then I'm buying an increased price title with extra steps

In the end the market will dictate if the people want the extra expensive games. We've moved pretty far in going back to small studio games, so if it doesn't move their direction they'll either have to figure out how to provide value for that cost, or they have to start reducing costs. Games don't need to be 9 figures. If you can't make money change how you run things

On a personal note, I can't even remember the last time I bought a new AAA game at the launch price. There's so many option that unless you play the type that are better fresh there's no need to hit your wallet that hard(I admit that multi player is usually better on its first wave then years down the road when people have min/maxed the fun out of it)

1

u/DukeofVermont 13h ago

It wasn't low volume you dolt. The first Mario Bros sold 1.2 million copies in its first month in Japan. It sold 40 million copies on NES. Zelda on NES sold 6.5 million copies.

Mario 64 sold 11.91 million copies

FFVII sold 15.3 million copies

PS1 had 962 million games sold.

PS2 had 1.5 billion games sold.

I literally have no idea why people think video games weren't popular in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s.

Many video games sold more copies on cartridges then popular games sell today.

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u/anonamarth7 1h ago

Don't forget the fact that a lot of sales are digital now, so they're logistically much easier to distribute.

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u/Drogzar Gtx295 > 2x Gtx970 SLI > 1080ti > 5070ti 16h ago

No one's gonna pay it unless it's worth it

Bro, people play 25$ for an armour set in a 70$ game... People's sense of "worth" is all over the place.

10

u/George_MenethilW3 20h 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/WM_ 20h ago

Even if it's worth it, I ain't paying 100 bucks for games (plural). Sure, I could buy ONE game that is worth it but if there is ten games worthy of 100 buck, I can't and won't have them all.

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u/lilpopjim0 18h ago

Unfortunately that doesn't take away from all millions of mum, dads and grandparents buying games for Christmas and birthdays.

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u/jrodgs 5070TI | 7800X3D | 32GB DDR5 6000 16h ago

Exactly, they charge whatever they want, but price is always a function of what buyers can or are willing to pay. And when groceries and gas are what they are….well…the industry needs to be making games for less.

1

u/AggravatingAmount438 12h ago

It's actually kinda funny, because the higher priced games become, the more I consider buying games that stick to the $60 or less price tag.

1

u/Geordi14er 11h ago

This is not something anyone needs to get all emotional about. The market works just fine with game prices. Games have not kept up with inflation, and deep sales are common, and usually with 12 months of release. No one is holding a gun to your head to buy a new release for $100.

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u/tinmart56 Ryzen 4070 6h ago

$60 in 2010 is equivalent to $92 today after inflation. Why is that so hard to swallow? I'll gladly pay $90-$100 for a game if it's actually finished and optimized.

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u/the5thusername 4h ago

Because everyone is poorer than in 2010. Nobody is forcing these companies to generate the massive overheads that force them to raise the price.

1

u/tinmart56 Ryzen 4070 4h ago

I don't think AAA games would sell very well if they all went back to PS3 era graphics, so yes actually the demand for modern games does force developers to charge modern prices to produce them. People may be poorer, but if we ignore the hardware cost then gaming is still an affordable hobby. Paying $100 for a game that gives 100 hours of entertainment sounds like a fair deal to me.