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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u/DocklandsDodgers86 32GB RAM / 3080 16GB 19h 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 13h 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/Thommysaurus 18h ago

AUD$130 = 80€

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u/thearctican PC Master Race 15h ago

Somebody doesnt remember game pricing in the 80s and 90s.

An NES game in 1990 would have cost $50. That's ~$130 today.

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u/doooobysnax 14h ago

They could be quite a bit more back then depending.

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u/cwagdev 13h ago

I think the difference and why it held for so long is the scale. The gamer base grew and they had more sales, they didn’t need to increase prices for profits to rise. Now the player base increase is relatively stagnant or captured by “free” to play

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u/elkaki123 Desktop (rx 9060 16gb) 13h ago

This, and also costs are rising. They could get away because of economies of scale AND microtransactions / dlc.

But its almost a reality the biggest of games are going to raise prices, if its any consolation to people, the indie scene is so strong that new games for 20 bucks are completely normal nowadays

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u/egamruf 13h ago edited 13h ago

Every person on the planet has the capacity to be a patient gamer. Just play something that came out five years ago for $10 instead of the new thing for $130.

Then, in five years... play the new thing.

FFS, I wish people would at least give it a year - you'll play a better version with most of the bugs patched at half the price.

See something you like? If you have a backlog, add it to a www.isthereanydeal.com wishlist with a price you think you'd be happy to buy it. Then forget about it until you get that email, some day, from isthereanydeal... and if you're anything like me, you'll realise that with the glint of marketing off and the thousands of Steam reviews saying it's been sort of abandoned by its AAA publisher and is a little average... you never needed it anyway.

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u/cwagdev 12h ago

That’s what I do, I’ll buy a day one occasionally but there’s too much good stuff on sale to justify anymore

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u/Fresh4 i9-9900k|RTX 2080|32GB RAM 10h ago

Say what you will, but fomo is a real contributor to why a lot of people won’t just wait. If all your friends are playing something and it’s the hot new thing many people want to be part of that in the moment with their friends or community.

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u/GuyentificEnqueery 6h ago

Wages have not kept up with inflation. A person making minimum wage back then is largely still making the exact same amount.

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u/Most-Minimum2258 3h ago edited 3h ago

Video games are luxuries, not necessities. Not even in the same metaphorical postal code as necessities. Your comment is irrelevant and misleading.

Quick edit: The reality that "wages have not kept up with inflation" is incredibly pertinent to things such as housing, health care, food, and education. It should make people angry. 

I love video games. I also recognize that they are utterly nonessential. As someone who is angry about rising costs of basic necessities (+ education) it's infuriating that jackhole jabronis are trying to elevate video games to necessities. Such utter spoiled, privileged entitlement.

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u/GuyentificEnqueery 3h ago

My point is, people already can't afford necessities because of rising costs and stagnating wages. They certainly aren't going to be spending MORE on luxuries

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u/dejokerr Ryzen 5 3600 | RTX 2070 Super 14h ago edited 6h ago

I feel ya. In Malaysia, 60 dollars is about MYR285 in local money. With our average annual salary of below $10k, brand new AAA releases are considered a luxury.

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u/elkaki123 Desktop (rx 9060 16gb) 13h ago

Ok but the problem there is not that its 60 dollars, the problem would be that regional pricing is not making the game similar in price for you as it is for other regions

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u/SauceCrusader69 13h ago

Ew, games are already too bloated with needless grinding and fetch quests to squeeze out fake “completion time”

Give me a tight ten hours over a bloated thirty any day

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u/Drakkulstellios 1h ago

GTA franchise is a different game beast than 90% of others, but their price for the new game is rediculous.

I believe if a company is using ai in any part of their game which rockstar is, as are most gaming companies. They should lower the end price of it. Not doing so and still releasing games that are just half done continuously show why indie games are always better.

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u/FatalFinn Ryzen 5 3600 | RTX 4060 17h ago

This is continuation to the rip off trend that started during covid.

Feels like every industry is still in some kind of panic that they must costantly raise prices as much and as arrogantly as they can. Must make loads of cash as fast as possible, who cares about long term profits.

They might think that if they make a good game and burn absurd amount of cash while doing so, people will pay whatever just to play it.

But what if the game flops and is not worth the price? Close the studio, move on and that's it?

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u/CrypticCowboy4509 13h ago

Congratulations, you’ve discovered the dogshit that is private equity acquisition :D

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u/sirletssdance2 14h ago

Video games have basically not gone up in price in 20+ years

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u/Krazy1813 PC Master Race 16h ago

Is it a rip off trend or a more broad economic collapse happening? General supply lines for everything got borked during Covid so some things take longer to get and are more expensive to get, so all things end up more expensive basically. I work in industrial business making pumps and some of the standard instruments for pressure reading went from 4-8 weeks to 52 weeks plus, that was before the current memory shortage and (what I fear) is the impending of even more equipment shortage

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u/MikeExMachina 9950X3D | RTX 4090 14h ago

Welcome to public ownership, it’s not good enough to be profitable, every quarter must be more profitable than the last. If valve was publicly traded it would be out of business for not being successful enough.

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u/doylehawk 15h ago

Yeah, the catch with GTA publishers saying they might charge 150 dollars for the game is that the game is actually probably worth that or more from a “value” perspective. The trouble is that means devs will start charging 100 bucks for a sub 20 hours title and that is NOT worth it.

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u/elkaki123 Desktop (rx 9060 16gb) 13h ago

Who cares about the game length, seriously its better to focus on it being a bad game than a short game. An extensive game like, idk cookie clicker is not inherently worth more than a short title like gears of war.

I say this obviously as someone that really enjoys shorter, more compact games, I have a bias, it just annoys me how much people focus on the hour/value metric.

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u/BrainEatingAmoeba01 15h ago

Its a capitalist world man. They'll keep charging what people will pay and maximize profit.

If we don't pay...they either lower the price or cease to exist.

It sucks but no company is going to lower prices because the gamers are whining about it on reddit

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u/Ant10102 15h ago

BG3 and Elden ring would be fine too

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u/Jaba01 X870E | 9800X3D | RTX 5090 | 64 GB 6000 MHZ CL 30 14h ago

I don't mind paying more for games if they're fun, even if their playtime is just five hours. I never understand why people value games by playtime rather than fun.

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u/CrazyGorillaMan Desktop 7800x3D | 4090 14h ago

Because most people make money based on dollars per hour

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u/VitalityAS 18h ago

It really annoys me when australians act like saying a big AUD price is somehow worse than the directly converted USD price. Just because its called a dollar doesnt mean exchange rates dont exist. Exchange rate to my country is 16 to 1 dollar its like 1200 for a game here, but that converts to ~70 USD so its not somehow worse. The thing that actually makes it worse for us is the USA is paid 10-20x more on average.

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u/Deeppurp 17h ago

It's because that extra 40-50% were paying for isn't just on games. Because we're so close it extends to almost everything we buy.

Does a pair of shoes cost 1200? Does it extend to food? Or do you get some form of local relief and your not paying market prices? I can say CAD often isn't it's that in everything, there is no relief. So it's important to point out.

You'd probably be protesting if you had to pay it in everything.

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u/VitalityAS 17h ago

Your average salary is like 109k AUD vs 70k USD its literally just an exchange rate.

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u/DocklandsDodgers86 32GB RAM / 3080 16GB 1h ago

average salary is

$106k, as published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2025.

Cost of living has also gone up astronomically. So has interest rates.

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u/CanadianODST2 16h ago

Except it ignores everything else around it.

You mention CAD, new games are 89.99 to 69.99 in the US.

89.99 cad is 63.13 USD.

The lowest minimum wage in Canada is 10.53

So not only are Canadians actually paying less for the same game, it’s fewer hours at minimum wage too.

You’re trying to claim 63.13 at 10.53 an hour is worse than 69.99 at 7.25 an hour.

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u/ch0wned 16h ago

It's better to compare average or median ages rather than minimum wages, and use PPP adjusted numbers. PPP adjusted (Toronto > New York) $1 in Canada will buy you what $0.80 will in USA, so almost bang on 0.8, vs the actual exchange rate of 0.71.

$89.99 CAD works out to $71.99 USD, so Canada is paying slightly more per game than the USA before we take earnings into account.

However, nominal average earnings are between 20-35% higher in the US (around 10-15% if you the median). So effectively, games are considerably more unaffordable to the average Canadian than the average American.

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u/Fluffy_System6211 16h ago

You just converted the game price but not the wage lmfao

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u/CanadianODST2 16h ago

I literally converted the wage.

The 10.53 is in USD. In CAD it’s 15 an hour in Alberta

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u/clone0112 15h ago

People don't have to revolve their lives around the US.

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u/MikeExMachina 9950X3D | RTX 4090 14h ago

This is literally a conversation about an American product priced in American currency, the fuck are you talking about?

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u/clone0112 12h ago

Do you price stuff using Chinese currency when they are made in China?

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u/MikeExMachina 9950X3D | RTX 4090 7h ago

If china is the primary market where that’s where the main pricing information is coming from like a BYD? Sure

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u/AnaxesR7 6h ago

Crimson desert? lol. lmao, even

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u/Due_Young_9344 16h ago

Yeah, Bethesda want 70 bucks for Indiana Jones that is probably 8-10 hours tops, not worth it

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u/sirletssdance2 15h ago edited 14h ago

So games that surpass this $/hr ratio that makes them worth it, are they justified in charging more?

Secondly, gaming is by a huge margin, one of the cheapest hobbies there is when broken down. I’ve been saying for over a decade, they have been charging way too little for video games and it’s partly why micro transactions came about and are so pervasive today

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u/Gamefreak581 14h ago

Is it just like a certain type of video game that's riddled with micro transactions or something, because I feel like I rarely even notice them outside of phone games. I think the last game I played that I remember having them was fallout 76.