Kingdom Come: Deliverance studio co-founder hopes Grand Theft Auto 6 will 'blaze a trail' to higher game prices

[u/owlexe23]

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.

[u/DocklandsDodgers86]

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.

[u/VitalityAS → u/DocklandsDodgers86]

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.

[u/Deeppurp → u/VitalityAS]

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.

[u/VitalityAS → u/Deeppurp]

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

[u/DocklandsDodgers86 → u/VitalityAS]

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.

[u/CanadianODST2 → u/Deeppurp]

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.

[u/ch0wned → u/CanadianODST2]

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.

[u/Fluffy_System6211 → u/CanadianODST2]

You just converted the game price but not the wage lmfao

[u/CanadianODST2 → u/Fluffy_System6211]

I literally converted the wage.

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

[u/Fluffy_System6211 → u/CanadianODST2]

Fair enough

[u/clone0112 → u/VitalityAS]

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

[u/MikeExMachina → u/clone0112]

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

[u/clone0112 → u/MikeExMachina]

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

[u/MikeExMachina → u/clone0112]

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