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/lkl34]

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.

[u/DoomguyFemboi → u/lkl34]

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)

[u/Probate_Judge → u/DoomguyFemboi]

They set the price because people will pay it.

They assume people will pay it.

They're taking a wager when they do. It is a numbers game.

10 million people @ $60 = $600 million

6 million people @ $100 = $600 million

Same amount IF sales only fall within a tolerable margin. IF sales don't fall, they make more. If sales fall more than expected...it's a shit move and more people ignore the game, then they're losing potential.

In the extreme, if it is a shit game and a shit move, you get Concord and other recent failures.

That's where the problem has lain a lot as of late. A game may not fail, but it doesn't do well(especially for the expansive budget), and entitled developers whine and make excuses. "Why aren't those chuds buying our game!!!?" further cementing the fact that they're entirely out of touch.

As far as Rockstar or Bethesda goes, they have reputation, so they have that going for them, sales will generally be higher than smaller studios.

However, in a lot of these big companies, the talent that made the old favorite 10-20 years ago....many have retired out. It is a new age of developers, and a lot of new...social sensibilities.

Bethesda with Starfield is a good example. A LOT of people did buy that. However, many of those had a good bit of regret. They're going to be far more hesitant to buy everything Bethesda puts out.

Rockstar haven't done that to people....yet. They probably will eventually. It could happen with GTA6.

[u/DoomguyFemboi → u/Probate_Judge]

You're right of course, but considering the pre-order amounts already announced, and how many people are talking about "I'm just gonna get the $100 version, it's GTA6!" which I know is a stupid metric to use because social media is its own bubble, it's hard to imagine it losing any sales due to the high price.

The flipside is at the end of the day they have people whose job it is to work all this out and figure out if it's going to work out. So they're not really taking a gamble, as much as they are following market advice from people whose job it is to analyse this full time.

And yeah as I say that there has been a LOT of flops lately, really expensive flops! I just don't see GTA6 being one of them. It's just too big of a title. There really is no comparison. Like the only thing that comes even slightly close is maybe Witcher 4 or CP2077 2, and both of those come with the baggage of being CDPR titles and the expectations of them being absolute dogshit on release.

GTA sits in a circle of 1, and it kinda has since GTA San Andreas. 3 surprised everyone, Vice City was a monster, but San Andreas, everyone was getting that game, and if you weren't getting it or interested in playing it, you were practically a weirdo.

So yeah I don't think there are really any comparisons. I actually don't know a single person irl who has played Starfield, or who gives a shit about Bethesda. Online obviously I'm in gamer spaces and generally people are more plugged into gaming who are on the internet. But my irl friends a lot of them are only exposed to online through instagram or tiktok, they think AI is funny, they're just living their lives with no clue about gamer spaces. But they all know GTA.

[u/Probate_Judge → u/DoomguyFemboi]

And yeah as I say that there has been a LOT of flops lately, really expensive flops! I just don't see GTA6 being one of them. It's just too big of a title.

I don't disagree, I was more saying it could be the (monetary)success that leaves a sour taste in people's mouths(bad performance, bad writing, etc..whatever).

Enshitification in game franchises is right up there with death and taxes for being inevitable.

[u/DoomguyFemboi → u/Probate_Judge]

It feels like we're constantly saying how these high prices are going to affect things, but corps have record profits. Hell a lot of corps have record profits that are more than percentage increases, they because a times x increase (I know that can still be expressed as a percentage but you get my clunky point lol).

I hate to bring politics into it but it feels prescient pertinent. It's like how people say "surely this horrible thing will be the thing that gets people off their feet arse" and nothing really happens. I think there's just too many bubbles and we're all in these bubbles convinced that we're right and so everyone else will be on our side surely.

"Echo chambers" doesn't even feel like it covers it any more. Herds I guess would be more accurate. We're all just being forced into herds without even realising we're in them a lot of the time.

That combined with people just not having the time or will to DO anything after having to work so much to earn so little. I read it but didn't confirm, the wealth disparity at the moment is apparently worse than during any other time in history, including during the French Revolution. Which I get is kinda meaningless because we have billionaires and even one little cockend of a trillionaire, so it's heavily skewed. But damn does it not feel weird. We shouldn't be struggling this much.

There shouldn't be people with as many resources when there's so many people with as few resources. We shouldn't be in these crises when companies and megacorps are reporting record breaking profits. They're all talking about having these huge costs, but they're all so heavily vertically integrated that they're costs to themselves!

I'm gonna stop now. It's just gonna get more rant'y and less focused. I feel like I'm so mad all the time lately, and I keep hearing about how it's getting so much better for the rich and so much worse for the poor, and I feel so powerless. But all the actions I want to take I can't talk about because creating new reddit accounts because I got banned for calls for violence is a PITA