While I’ve not watched the video and think I agree with many points op has made, I do want to point out that video games have basically ignored inflation for something like 20 years. N64 games...
Exemplary
While I’ve not watched the video and think I agree with many points op has made, I do want to point out that video games have basically ignored inflation for something like 20 years.
N64 games were 40-60 and the Wii generation was where the 60 price point became standard (and arguably because of other players in the industry not just Nintendo).
So adjusting for inflation the average game has gotten cheaper (40 in the 2000s is about 70 today).
In fact much cheaper when you consider you can get amazing indie titles for 5-20.
The AAA games production cost has only gone up and that’s forced horrible practices. Everything MUST have mass appeal and micro transactions galore to cover ballooning costs with a customer base that doesn’t want to spend more.
In short while there are many things to be upset with Nintendo about, an 80 price point for Mario or Zelda or whatever other main stream title is arguably quite fair if it means they continue to avoid the nickel and dime bullshit just about every other AAA company shoves into their games.
And as @heraplem mentioned: However, there are several factors in play. After all, by the same logic, HBO "should" cost $40 a month now. How many of you would pay $40 a month for HBO today? Or...
Exemplary
So adjusting for inflation the average game has gotten cheaper (40 in the 2000s is about 70 today).
However, there are several factors in play. After all, by the same logic, HBO "should" cost $40 a month now. How many of you would pay $40 a month for HBO today? Or Netflix? Or Disney+?
It's almost like these luxury entertainment goods are a perfect example of market forces at work. Nowadays, there's more potential entertainment options than ever. And games no longer require shipping physical media, particularly the lack of cartridges which drove down the cost from $60 in the 80's down to $40 in the 2000's.
And the flip side to that is that the physical games also developed a healthy used and rental market. By 1992, my local library was renting out a sizable collection of SNES games. How many games are getting loaned out by libraries these days? This was the real reason for the heavy push away from physical media as soon as it was technically feasible. Those $5 weeklong game rentals from Blockbuster were really putting a cramp in the style of game publishers.
And to put to bed the notion that games need all of that AAA production cost: Look at the bestselling games of all time list. Half of the top 10 are indie titles, with Minecraft topping GTA 5, ARK: Survial Evolved topping Mario Kart 8, PUBG trumping any of the Call of Duty or Battlefield titles.
It's almost like the demand for AAA production values is mostly an illusion when faced up against demand for good games. Go ahead and raise the prices on AAA games to $180. I'll keep buying the indie titles in that $10-$35 space, because that's where most of the innovation is happening. Maybe I'll buy your AAA game in a decade when it's bargain basement and nobody else cares about it.
That's why it's going to start going up. The flat price of games was buoyed by the fact that the market itself was growing very fast for the last decade, and that competition was fierce. However,...
That's why it's going to start going up. The flat price of games was buoyed by the fact that the market itself was growing very fast for the last decade, and that competition was fierce. However, while the gaming industry is still growing in developed markets, it's hit the part of the S-curve where there's diminishing returns.
Additionally, many developers have gone out of business, as the market no longer sustains all of their business.
I'll keep buying the indie titles in that $10-$35 space, because that's where most of the innovation is happening. Maybe I'll buy your AAA game in a decade when it's bargain basement and nobody else cares about it.
This is the attitude you should take as a consumer. The price is what it is. Do an internal calculation - do I gain enough enjoyment, weighed against the cost, of this product? Everyone's calculation will be different. It's absolutely fine to say that Mario Kart at $80 is too much personally.
Where it goes off the rails is when people start implying that, if $80 is not too much for Mario Kart, that you are like "betraying" consumers by buying it. It's inherently subjective. There's no such thing as a price something "SHOULD" be.
And if $80 for new releases is too much for the market to bear, developers will lower the price. Not because they're nice, but because they like making money.
It's not just because the market grew, it's also because costs fell - Steam takes 30%, sure, but 1) AIUI that includes tax plus a bunch of ancillary services that Steam provides, and 2) physical...
It's not just because the market grew, it's also because costs fell - Steam takes 30%, sure, but 1) AIUI that includes tax plus a bunch of ancillary services that Steam provides, and 2) physical retail cost roughly 40% all up, so in practice it's a 10% reduction in cost.
Where it goes off the rails is when people start implying that, if $80 is not too much for Mario Kart, that you are like "betraying" consumers by buying it. It's inherently subjective. There's no such thing as a price something "SHOULD" be.
The price "SHOULD" be slightly above what it costs to make the game, plus a risk premium and a small profit margin. This would normally be enforced by marketplace competition. Of course, videogames are weird because they're 1) not fungible, and 2) zero marginal cost. Nonetheless, I would point out that normally there is quite an objective criteria of what prices "SHOULD" be (assuming risk is able to be objectively determined).
While the market size might be plateauing, I think there's a far bigger problem: studio sizes are ballooning like crazy. There are real games whose studio size numbers over 500. That's insane. In contrast, the team for Doom was 5 people (possibly 6 or 8).
But, why are studio sizes ballooning? Mostly for the graphics. Games need to look good for marketing, and 1) the hardware isn't doubling in speed every year anymore, and 2) when we can push 10 000x the polys, then placing the polys is a whole lot more work, and you can throw more people at it.
And specifically, the games need to look good for people who aren't playing the game because that's what determines if someone buys the game. So it's not even necessarily about making the game better.
The problem here is that "throw more artists in for marketing" is an arms race. It's only limited by what your identical competitor can afford. It encourages making big game projects (one $80 game instead of four $20 games) with insane graphics, and because the project is big that means it can't be risky (innovation is risky BTW). Which makes it lean all the more on its graphics.
I disagree, there's nothing about that setup that "should" be the case. Prices raising is an important part of that market - it's what drives competition. It's a price signal, a sign that demand...
The price "SHOULD" be slightly above what it costs to make the game, plus a risk premium and a small profit margin.
I disagree, there's nothing about that setup that "should" be the case. Prices raising is an important part of that market - it's what drives competition. It's a price signal, a sign that demand exceeds supply, and that there's opportunity for more suppliers to enter the market.
While the market size might be plateauing, I think there's a far bigger problem: studio sizes are ballooning like crazy. There are real games whose studio size numbers over 500. That's insane. In contrast, the team for Doom was 5 people (possibly 6 or 8).
I don't think this is the way this is trending. For one, we're talking about Nintendo here. No one else in the AAA market is as lean as Nintendo is, or puts as little importance on graphics. Nintendo games are relatively cheap (on the development cost side), have limited scopes, and aim for gameplay and graphical style over fidelity. They practically release no games which aim for photo-realism.
The big shops which are the ones aiming for photo-realistic games are also the ones with layoffs and bankruptcies. There's a lot of AA releases.
I mean, just look at the 2024 GOTY nominees.
Metaphor - AA title
Astro Bot - somewhere between AA and AAA but certainly not photo-realistic
Balatro - one man game
Black Myth Wukong - AA
The only title you could argue was that large, AAA-sized budget was FF7: Rebirth.
With the obvious exception of Balatro, I would consider all of those games AAA. The amount of time and money these companies have spent on developing their aesthetics and visual performance is...
With the obvious exception of Balatro, I would consider all of those games AAA. The amount of time and money these companies have spent on developing their aesthetics and visual performance is self-evident. They may not be trying to look like a real-world photograph, but they are certainly AAA games. According to MobyGames, Wukong has 1,356 credits, Astro Bot has 725, and Metaphor has 1,411. These aren't made by small businesses anymore; that's full on enterprise level.
(That being said, number of credits isn't a great barometer for this either since modern games will practically give them out to the people who operate the trash truck. FF7 Rebirth actually has 3,784, largely because it credits every country's marketing and localization staff, accountants, and even some of their contractors' management.)
(Actually looking a bit further into these credits has me realizing that most of these games aren't really a one-studio thing anymore. They contract out for just about everything now. It's kind of like Anime; it may be produced at a company, but the people actually putting the work in are all over the country and even overseas.)
It seems kind of inherent that the top selling games have the highest budgets for the most part. Like, yeah, those games only have massive budgets because they know there's a market to support...
It seems kind of inherent that the top selling games have the highest budgets for the most part. Like, yeah, those games only have massive budgets because they know there's a market to support them, because having a huge budget lets them produce impressive looking graphics, afford massive marketing campaigns and so on. If the highest selling games were all indies that were made by one person, why would studios ever invest hundreds of millions of dollars into developing a AAA game?
That doesn't mean there's not an absolutely thriving AA and indie game scene. There is. Indie games continue to sell like absolute madness on steam, and every so often you get a balatro, a vampire survivors, or a stardew valley. It's not like movies made by one person or tiny teams ever top the box office. I think literally the only example I can even think of is the Blair Witch Project. The Indie game industry is comparitively far healthier than the indie movie scene has ever been.
Because publishers don't care about getting the #1 topseller, as long as it's consistently profitable - publishers primarily care about reducing risk. And the more you spend on a single game, the...
If the highest selling games were all indies that were made by one person, why would studios ever invest hundreds of millions of dollars into developing a AAA game?
Because publishers don't care about getting the #1 topseller, as long as it's consistently profitable - publishers primarily care about reducing risk. And the more you spend on a single game, the less risky you'll permit that game to be. The problem is that innovation is inherently risky, and blowout bestsellers are inherently(?) innovative.
For instance: the #1 bestseller of all time is, IIRC, Minecraft. Minecraft was a tiny-budget indie game. Minecraft was never going to be published by a Publisher, take one look at it and you'll see why.
So, to wrap back to your question:
If the highest selling games were all indies that were made by one person
This is an 'all dogs are mammals'/'all mammals are dogs' situation. Publishers care about whether all Indies make high selling games, not whether all high selling games are made by Indies.
Speaking to just the "dev studios go bust", that's just a natural part of the games industry since its inception. Small indie studios who don't make it disappear. Really true of most healthy...
Speaking to just the "dev studios go bust", that's just a natural part of the games industry since its inception. Small indie studios who don't make it disappear. Really true of most healthy market economies. The bigger problem is giant companies gobbling up the successful studios (and the IP that accompanies it), then firing most of the staff. Which is also true of most unhealthy market economies.
You know what? This is a really great point that I’ve heard no one else make so far (backed up by the comparison of how much $40 would be in today’s money), and it’s changed my mind on the price...
In short while there are many things to be upset with Nintendo about, an 80 price point for Mario or Zelda or whatever other main stream title is arguably quite fair if it means they continue to avoid the nickel and dime bullshit just about every other AAA company shoves into their games.
You know what? This is a really great point that I’ve heard no one else make so far (backed up by the comparison of how much $40 would be in today’s money), and it’s changed my mind on the price of the game. If Nintendo doesn’t jump on the mass appeal/micro transactions bandwagon, then I think that paying a little extra for a finished game is a fair price to pay in exchange.
Amiibos are just figurines that can unlock extra content, no crucial features are locked behind them. They're also physical objects, which arguably gives them more value since even after you stop...
Amiibos are just figurines that can unlock extra content, no crucial features are locked behind them. They're also physical objects, which arguably gives them more value since even after you stop playing a game, you can display them or resell them. They're not a one-time use, you can use them across multiple copies of compatible games.
Aside from that, I'd say Nintendo has the most consistent quality for games when it comes to their first-party titles. They take their time and make sure that the game is "complete" upon release rather than plan for massive update patches or use DLC to flesh it out. The DLC usually adds genuinely meaningful new content. Even if a game is a dud for whatever reason, they make sure the games are polished and work well. I don't think I've heard of any disastrous release of a first-party release from Nintendo in the vein of Assassin's Creed Unity or Cyberpunk 2077.
It's one of the reasons I think Nintendo has so much brand loyalty. It feels like AAA games are becoming more of a gamble these days since executives care more about making quick, immediate profits more than a quality (or even functional) game. For all the complaints about their practices and hardware and such, their games are usually solid.
By my definition, not really. Specifically amibos: no. They're an extra thing and quite high quality. I'm aware of no mainline nintendo game that just straight up gates you or hobbles you if you...
By my definition, not really.
Specifically amibos: no. They're an extra thing and quite high quality. I'm aware of no mainline nintendo game that just straight up gates you or hobbles you if you don't purchase amiibos. I see them somewhat like cosmetics in Dota(which yes is its own unique case) where it's a perfectly fair thing for people who want to spend extra money, and doesn't punish those who choose not to.
As for other nickel and dime stuff:
I think their store and nintendo gold and other stuff is where this gets more iffy. And of course nintendo can't stop 3rd party publishers from charging $80 and throwing in battle passes and loot boxes (at least up to a point). That said I don't think any "Made by nintendo" style game has done that?
Mario kart, to my limited knowledge, has lots of DLC, and maybe that's getting into EA sims territory where the value just isn't there, but I don't play enough to comment. Every major nintendo game I have played has been a complete experience that I felt was a fair price point.
I do recognize also that when I was younger and had fewer funds, or if I was a parent buying games for my children, that $20 is FAR from insignificant in the scheme of things, but then that's a market issue as stu2b50 has gone into.
Mario Kart Tour on mobile has lots of DLC. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on Switch had one DLC, which was $25 and doubled the number of tracks and added like 8 new drivers. Most of those tracks were pulled...
Mario Kart Tour on mobile has lots of DLC. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on Switch had one DLC, which was $25 and doubled the number of tracks and added like 8 new drivers. Most of those tracks were pulled from other games (like Mario Kart Tour), but it was a massive addition to a complete game.
The DLC on the Wii U version of Mario Kart 8 added more drivers and tracks, but again, to a complete game. That DLC was part of the base game when it moved to Switch. Do I expect DLC in Mario Kart World Tour? Yeah, probably. But it won't be micro transactions - it will be new content at some point down the line to an already complete game.
What was the last (not online focused/GaaS) AAA game that was full of nickel-and-diming? The era of stuffing nickel-and-dime microtransactions into AAA games started dying out well before COVID....
What was the last (not online focused/GaaS) AAA game that was full of nickel-and-diming? The era of stuffing nickel-and-dime microtransactions into AAA games started dying out well before COVID. It stagnated a long time ago, and we're back to games having a single entry fee for the most part and then some reasonable, sizeable DLC at reasonable prices.
Helldivers 2 was a huge success last year, and with a budget price to boot. In recent years, many of the biggest games have not been stuffed full of microtransactions either: Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate 3, Starfield, Hogwarts Legacy, Assassin's Creed Valhalla and Shadows, Ghosts of Tsushima, Horizon series, TLOU series, Halo Infinite, Spider-Man, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Resident Evil, Deathloop, and on and on and on.
Some of these games have microtransactions but they're cosmetic, insignificant bonus content or time skips. None are necessary to truly experience the game. I wouldn't call any of them nickel-and-diming. Helldivers 2 is probably the closest but everything is attainable in-game with (reasonable!) enough time put in, and it was sold for a budget price anyway. And it's not like Nintendo usually offers much of these to account for their high base prices either. Except for Smash Brothers Ultimate, none of their games offered a bounty of cosmetic skins and items, or had significant updates to add new content over time. And even when they did, their prices were still quite high, like the Mario Kart 8 DLC.
The last major full-price AAA game I can think of that felt like the nickel-and-diming was necessary to get the most out of the game was Destiny 2 and that game has a bad reputation for many different reasons.
I think (almost?) every single one of these has launched with tiered pricing where multiple digital "editions" of the game are offered at price points that vary from more normal prices to far...
In recent years, many of the biggest games have not been stuffed full of microtransactions either: Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate 3, Starfield, Hogwarts Legacy, Assassin's Creed Valhalla and Shadows, Ghosts of Tsushima, Horizon series, TLOU series, Halo Infinite, Spider-Man, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Resident Evil, Deathloop, and on and on and on.
I think (almost?) every single one of these has launched with tiered pricing where multiple digital "editions" of the game are offered at price points that vary from more normal prices to far above that (for example, the "complete" edition of Assassin's Creed Valhalla launched at 120GBP, double the price of the standard edition at 60GBP, and well above the 75GBP price point Mario Kart World is launching at).
It might not be fair to call that nickel-and-diming, but I'd also suggest it's also not quite the same approach to pricing as the average first party Nintendo game, which tends to have a single edition without any DLC. As you say, the extra content in a lot of these "editions" is pretty insignificant to playing the game, but I think that just makes me feel far worse about the grossly elevated prices.
Note: At the time of this writing, this video was released about 15 hours ago, even though it was recorded on April 2nd. I wonder why it took them so long to upload it. He didn’t say much that was...
Note: At the time of this writing, this video was released about 15 hours ago, even though it was recorded on April 2nd. I wonder why it took them so long to upload it.
He didn’t say much that was interesting or new (or clarified any of my questions), which is to be expected, but I still find it shameful. I find it shameful how few interviews he has given since he became the CEO. If Iwata and Reggie were still leading the charge, I think that they would be out there talking to everyone, getting people excited, and answering hard questions. Since they left, Nintendo has became disgustingly corporatized, and worse, they have just stopped communicating with the public altogether. Almost all that we get these days are these “Nintendo Direct” videos. And I’m not making this up: I have heard from ex-NOA employees that the company has, indeed, been hiding in a cave in the last few years as far as PR goes.
One thing that he said is that they are not trying to “set a benchmark” for games pricing. lol As if he doesn’t know that pricing Mario Kart at $80 is going to encourage other publishers to do the same (or worse, looking at GTA VI). He also claimed that Nintendo doesn’t have any “standard” pricing, but in the last generation, their games were almost all very firmly priced at $60. They completely gave up on giving popular titles the “Player’s Choice” and “Nintendo Selects” treatment too. I think that he was lying through his teeth there. Their new standard is going to be $70 at least, across most of their major titles. That’s my prediction. And the largest publishers will definitely reinforce that trend. Thanks, Nintendo.
I like what they’re trying to do with the anti-scalping measures. I hope that it works. He also mentioned that console units have already made landfall in the US. Let’s see if there won’t be any shortages at brick and mortar stores.
One thing that he brought up, which I like, is that Game Chat really only connects you with people who you have added as friends. Call me crazy, but I don’t think that Nintendo multiplayer games would be enhanced by allowing people to chat with random strangers. They don’t develop any MMOs for example (where it would make more sense). I just hope that they revamp the way that people can befriend each other to make it a bit simpler.
He answered to a question about “going after Disney” that “Nintendo is an entertainment” company. That was a non-answer, but I think that it isn’t completely meaningless. Nintendo is definitely expanding and diversifying, which is a good thing (I think), but gaming may end up become secondary to their other ventures in a few years or decades, just as it did for the Pokémon franchise. Let’s hope they don’t lose their touch.
To a question about AI, he didn’t outright reject the idea of making use of it, even internally to enhance productivity (outside of game production that is), but insisted that what the company values is the work of their developers. Good. Hope he actually means it.
I will never understand this mindset. Prices of video games are not a civil rights issue. God did not inscribe "Video games shall cost $60" on a stone tablet. People have arbitrarily expected that...
One thing that he said is that they are not trying to “set a benchmark” for games pricing. lol As if he doesn’t know that pricing Mario Kart at $80 is going to encourage other publishers to do the same (or worse, looking at GTA VI). He also claimed that Nintendo doesn’t have any “standard” pricing, but in the last generation, their games were almost all very firmly priced at $60. They completely gave up on giving popular titles the “Player’s Choice” and “Nintendo Selects” treatment too. I think that he was lying through his teeth there. Their new standard is going to be $70 at least, across most of their major titles. That’s my prediction. And the largest publishers will definitely reinforce that trend. Thanks, Nintendo.
I will never understand this mindset. Prices of video games are not a civil rights issue. God did not inscribe "Video games shall cost $60" on a stone tablet. People have arbitrarily expected that games will be $60 for something like 40 years now. But $60 in 1985 is something like $180 today! Do people not want developers to get paid for their labor?
That's why I want to see higher game prices. The current situation, after decades of inflation is untenable, and pay has been terrible in games for a long time. I'd make half my salary working on...
Do people not want developers to get paid for their labor?
That's why I want to see higher game prices. The current situation, after decades of inflation is untenable, and pay has been terrible in games for a long time. I'd make half my salary working on games, and people still take that hit because they want to work on games. And modern teams for games are massive compared to years ago, with mile long credits lists of 3D artists, texture artists, voice actors, animators, motion capture actors and technicians, etc..
If the prices stay stagnant, it's just going to keep squeezing those workers and things will get worse. For what is, ultimately, the production of a luxury product.
I happily pay my FFXIV subscription and throw occasional money at Genshin Impact, which are easily the majority of my gaming these days, but when I buy an anticipated single player game, I'm not averse to the cost, because it's only an occasional thing. I got well more than $80 worth of enjoyment out of a solid year of Baldur's Gate 3.
And who's driving that, exactly? Why does it need to be this way? If Balatro, Vampire Survivors, Helldivers and the like can make money hand over fist without having teams of hundreds of people,...
And modern teams for games are massive compared to years ago, with mile long credits lists of 3D artists, texture artists, voice actors, animators, motion capture actors and technicians, etc..
And who's driving that, exactly? Why does it need to be this way?
If Balatro, Vampire Survivors, Helldivers and the like can make money hand over fist without having teams of hundreds of people, why is it a requirement?
Huge corporations are driving those costs up by insisting things need to be bigger, more expansive, more realistic, all while churning out subpar products that are riddled with bugs and issues while they kill small studios so they can funnel more money to their executives and shareholders.
I don't think it's necessarily on me to care about that. If I'm priced out of the (admittedly luxury goods) market, I don't particularly care why that's happened. This is theoretical for me. I...
I don't think it's necessarily on me to care about that. If I'm priced out of the (admittedly luxury goods) market, I don't particularly care why that's happened.
This is theoretical for me. I almost exclusively play older (and pirated) games these days. But if a whole class of people, hit hard by inflation and price gauging, are going to be squeezed even harder, those people are going to be angry.
And I can't speak for Nintendo specific, but of a company (e.g. Pokemon) is posting records profits for shoddy products, they obviously don't need the extra money to pay the devs. They just want it, and are not going to use it to pay the devs more.
If you think all that extra money from MTX (which will still happen once we've normalized $80-$100) and higher game prices are going into the pockets of the devs, I've got a bridge to sell you....
Do people not want developers to get paid for their labor?
If you think all that extra money from MTX (which will still happen once we've normalized $80-$100) and higher game prices are going into the pockets of the devs, I've got a bridge to sell you.
What was Bobby Koticks salary when Activision decided to start asking $70 for Call of Duty? Didn't Activision just layoff a whole bunch of people?
Oh if only they'd charged $100 for games, surely Developers wouldn't be losing their jobs. Won't someone please think of the poor corporations that pay zero dollars in taxes and rake in massive profits year over year?
Sorry if I'm being glib, but this seems like a hella naive take. 40 years ago, people could afford a house on a single income, as well as afford plenty of luxeries. Where are we at today with cost of living? Where are we at with companies constantly gunning for our wallets? Raising prices, shrinkflation, enshittification, etc, etc.
I don't have to buy Nintendo games, that's true and I won't and haven't for at least a decade, but let's not pretend this anything less than a cash grab by a massive company that isn't your friend.
Exactly. You'd think Nintendo is the second coming of Pol-Pot with the way some people talk about it. In the end, games are not only inherently a luxury good - it's not insulin, no one needs Mario...
Exactly. You'd think Nintendo is the second coming of Pol-Pot with the way some people talk about it. In the end, games are not only inherently a luxury good - it's not insulin, no one needs Mario Kart World.
There's no lack of things to entertain you in this world, arguably most of which are healthier than video games, including three decades of games you can buy for pennies on the dollar.
If the market cannot bear the increased price, it will go down, because Nintendo likes making money rather than not making money. If it does bear it, then it is what it is.
I kinda can't believe they included Deltarune in their big announcement. Like... Here's this wildly anticipated game, which is coming out the same day, and which had a big frayed string to unravel...
There's no lack of things to entertain you in this world, arguably most of which are healthier than video games, including three decades of games you can buy for pennies on the dollar.
I kinda can't believe they included Deltarune in their big announcement. Like... Here's this wildly anticipated game, which is coming out the same day, and which had a big frayed string to unravel on the end, linked to the save you already have on your PC. Sooo, buy our new console?
I am taking June 5th off, and I am indeed gonna play Deltarune! ... On PC.
I'm gonna hope that this will include an end to the game. I've been holding out on playing it because I didn't want to go in on an episodic storyline that never has an end. Half Life already...
I'm gonna hope that this will include an end to the game. I've been holding out on playing it because I didn't want to go in on an episodic storyline that never has an end. Half Life already ruined that for me.
It's not the end, but the plan is for 7 total episodes. I sometimes wonder if one's going to be drastically different, or cut short a la Super Paper Mario.
It's not the end, but the plan is for 7 total episodes. I sometimes wonder if one's going to be drastically different, or cut short a la Super Paper Mario.
I can walk and chew gum at the same time. Developers should get paid, and I would love it if they were paid more because they obviously deserve it. At the same time, I would also like to be able...
Do people not want developers to get paid for their labor?
I can walk and chew gum at the same time. Developers should get paid, and I would love it if they were paid more because they obviously deserve it. At the same time, I would also like to be able to play the games that they develop.
There is a whole class of consumers who have been priced out of Nintendo’s future products, which includes me (in fact, I have not been able to afford anything Nintendo since the 3DS/WiiU). Remember that that American middle-class is a (vanishing) minority on the globe. Most people, like me, are firmly sitting in the lower class. What this does is that I have two options:
Settle down for games that are good but don’t scratch the “Nintendo itch”.
Pirate Nintendo’s classics until, in two decades or so, emulators will have become powerful enough that I can easily do that with their current generation of games.
I’ve done both. I’ve invested in some great indie titles on Steam when they went on discount. They were fantastic experiences, but none of them scratched the Nintendo itch. So, I resorted to emulation, and had more great experiences with some classics that I missed out when I was younger. In the end, that’s a loss of revenue for big N.
Obviously, Nintendo doesn’t have to care about me, but the cost of living is only going to rise, the class divide is only going to grow deeper, and the lower class is going to forego luxuries like entertainment more and more. If that doesn’t hurt Nintendo’s bottom line, good for them, but it might.
Your main point was fine, but everything after was ridiculous. No one has claimed prices need to stay frozen forever and no one claimed developers shouldn't get paid. Also, games were not $60 in...
Your main point was fine, but everything after was ridiculous. No one has claimed prices need to stay frozen forever and no one claimed developers shouldn't get paid.
Also, games were not $60 in 1985, they didn't hit that price commonly until the 2000s in the late Playstation 2 era and became the actual standard for the PS3. The highest price I had ever seen on a game by 1987 was $52 (Zelda 2), and it was a standout at that price with only specific games that needed copious extra amounts of memory chips going higher (Very late NES game Dragon Quest 4 for example was nearly $60). Games of that time also saw much lower selling quantities and had to pay for the carts themselves which were not cheap and generally were tightly controlled by the console maker. Nintendo was infamous for how much they charged companies for them and sued anyone that tried to circumvent them. Then the retailers has to add their cut on top which is totally fair.
The standard price for games for the Playstation 1, which launched in 1995, was $49.99. Disc based games were cheaper to make, but it once again disproves what you had said.
Today, the vast majority of games are sold digitally which is nearly free for the companies since there is no media cost at all, no instruction booklet printing, no shipping and logistics costs. The digital stores still charge an arguably too high amount, but it is still less than retail.
If the argument was simply that physical games come with a surcharge to cover the difference, that would be completely understandable.
The $70 price point only came a couple of years ago, but was probably overdue, raising again and then also charging extra for the physical games is just Nintendo being greedy. I would not be surprised if this was also to help kill off physical games completely so they no longer have to tolerate the evils of sharing games you own and reselling game you no longer want.
I want videogame dev teams to be smaller. There are plenty of 10 year old AAA games that look great even when put next to today's AAA games (although I'm sure todays' games will look a bit...
Do people not want developers to get paid for their labor?
I want videogame dev teams to be smaller. There are plenty of 10 year old AAA games that look great even when put next to today's AAA games (although I'm sure todays' games will look a bit better), and I absolutely do not think that the extra fidelity warrants the extra $20 - or to rephrase, I'd rather they target the fidelity of Mad Max (2015) in exchange for keeping retail prices the same instead of raising them by $20, if they gave me the choice.
I think the main reason prices go up is due to larger studio sizes due to studios targeting higher fidelity, and that the higher fidelity is for marketing purposes as much as improving the game experience. In other words, the fidelity isn't driven by customer demand but instead driven by an arms race between developers, and if all studios somehow simultaneously eased off on the graphics and kept it that way then everyone would be better off - including customers.
But $60 in 1985 is something like $180 today! Do people not want developers to get paid for their labor?
In 1985 everyone had to write their own engine and code in assembly. The dev team was mostly programmers, not artists. Nowadays everyone (ish) uses Unreal Engine and nobody writes games in assembly.
Also, the bestselling videogame in 1985 was Super Mario Bros, which sold 3 million copies (including re-releases). In fact, it's the #10 best-selling game of all time at 58 million sales ever. #9 is Terraria, which sold 60 million since its release in 2013. Point is, inflation might have gone up, but so has the target audience size (which has at least tripled*), rendering the 1985 comparison irrelevant unless the actual inflation-adjusted costs have gone up.
You cite mad max 2015 as your desired target. $60 from 2015 adjusted for inflation is … $80. Money is just less valuable now. It seems to me you have exactly what you are asking for. If the asking...
You cite mad max 2015 as your desired target. $60 from 2015 adjusted for inflation is … $80. Money is just less valuable now. It seems to me you have exactly what you are asking for. If the asking price was $100, your argument may make sense.
I already specifically addressed the subject of inflation in my comment. The pandemic may have caused a ton of inflation, but it also boosted the customer base of videogames - again, calculating...
I already specifically addressed the subject of inflation in my comment. The pandemic may have caused a ton of inflation, but it also boosted the customer base of videogames - again, calculating inflation in a vacuum is pointless.
My issue with the Switch 2 right now is mostly that the value proposition at launch just isn't especially appealing to me. Mario Kart is fine, I guess, but I only really play it occasionally with...
My issue with the Switch 2 right now is mostly that the value proposition at launch just isn't especially appealing to me. Mario Kart is fine, I guess, but I only really play it occasionally with friends or family. It's not enough to make me want to buy a whole new console, especially at these prices. The other first-party games announced at the Direct aren't even launch titles, and didn't stand out to me too much. I feel it might have been a good idea to hold back some of the last couple rounds of Switch titles to be launch titles for the Switch 2, especially considering many of those hardly ran at all on the original Switch anyway...
While I’ve not watched the video and think I agree with many points op has made, I do want to point out that video games have basically ignored inflation for something like 20 years.
N64 games were 40-60 and the Wii generation was where the 60 price point became standard (and arguably because of other players in the industry not just Nintendo).
So adjusting for inflation the average game has gotten cheaper (40 in the 2000s is about 70 today).
In fact much cheaper when you consider you can get amazing indie titles for 5-20.
The AAA games production cost has only gone up and that’s forced horrible practices. Everything MUST have mass appeal and micro transactions galore to cover ballooning costs with a customer base that doesn’t want to spend more.
In short while there are many things to be upset with Nintendo about, an 80 price point for Mario or Zelda or whatever other main stream title is arguably quite fair if it means they continue to avoid the nickel and dime bullshit just about every other AAA company shoves into their games.
And as @heraplem mentioned:
However, there are several factors in play. After all, by the same logic, HBO "should" cost $40 a month now. How many of you would pay $40 a month for HBO today? Or Netflix? Or Disney+?
It's almost like these luxury entertainment goods are a perfect example of market forces at work. Nowadays, there's more potential entertainment options than ever. And games no longer require shipping physical media, particularly the lack of cartridges which drove down the cost from $60 in the 80's down to $40 in the 2000's.
And the flip side to that is that the physical games also developed a healthy used and rental market. By 1992, my local library was renting out a sizable collection of SNES games. How many games are getting loaned out by libraries these days? This was the real reason for the heavy push away from physical media as soon as it was technically feasible. Those $5 weeklong game rentals from Blockbuster were really putting a cramp in the style of game publishers.
And to put to bed the notion that games need all of that AAA production cost: Look at the bestselling games of all time list. Half of the top 10 are indie titles, with Minecraft topping GTA 5, ARK: Survial Evolved topping Mario Kart 8, PUBG trumping any of the Call of Duty or Battlefield titles.
It's almost like the demand for AAA production values is mostly an illusion when faced up against demand for good games. Go ahead and raise the prices on AAA games to $180. I'll keep buying the indie titles in that $10-$35 space, because that's where most of the innovation is happening. Maybe I'll buy your AAA game in a decade when it's bargain basement and nobody else cares about it.
That's why it's going to start going up. The flat price of games was buoyed by the fact that the market itself was growing very fast for the last decade, and that competition was fierce. However, while the gaming industry is still growing in developed markets, it's hit the part of the S-curve where there's diminishing returns.
Additionally, many developers have gone out of business, as the market no longer sustains all of their business.
This is the attitude you should take as a consumer. The price is what it is. Do an internal calculation - do I gain enough enjoyment, weighed against the cost, of this product? Everyone's calculation will be different. It's absolutely fine to say that Mario Kart at $80 is too much personally.
Where it goes off the rails is when people start implying that, if $80 is not too much for Mario Kart, that you are like "betraying" consumers by buying it. It's inherently subjective. There's no such thing as a price something "SHOULD" be.
And if $80 for new releases is too much for the market to bear, developers will lower the price. Not because they're nice, but because they like making money.
It'll sort itself out.
It's not just because the market grew, it's also because costs fell - Steam takes 30%, sure, but 1) AIUI that includes tax plus a bunch of ancillary services that Steam provides, and 2) physical retail cost roughly 40% all up, so in practice it's a 10% reduction in cost.
The price "SHOULD" be slightly above what it costs to make the game, plus a risk premium and a small profit margin. This would normally be enforced by marketplace competition. Of course, videogames are weird because they're 1) not fungible, and 2) zero marginal cost. Nonetheless, I would point out that normally there is quite an objective criteria of what prices "SHOULD" be (assuming risk is able to be objectively determined).
While the market size might be plateauing, I think there's a far bigger problem: studio sizes are ballooning like crazy. There are real games whose studio size numbers over 500. That's insane. In contrast, the team for Doom was 5 people (possibly 6 or 8).
But, why are studio sizes ballooning? Mostly for the graphics. Games need to look good for marketing, and 1) the hardware isn't doubling in speed every year anymore, and 2) when we can push 10 000x the polys, then placing the polys is a whole lot more work, and you can throw more people at it.
And specifically, the games need to look good for people who aren't playing the game because that's what determines if someone buys the game. So it's not even necessarily about making the game better.
The problem here is that "throw more artists in for marketing" is an arms race. It's only limited by what your identical competitor can afford. It encourages making big game projects (one $80 game instead of four $20 games) with insane graphics, and because the project is big that means it can't be risky (innovation is risky BTW). Which makes it lean all the more on its graphics.
I disagree, there's nothing about that setup that "should" be the case. Prices raising is an important part of that market - it's what drives competition. It's a price signal, a sign that demand exceeds supply, and that there's opportunity for more suppliers to enter the market.
I don't think this is the way this is trending. For one, we're talking about Nintendo here. No one else in the AAA market is as lean as Nintendo is, or puts as little importance on graphics. Nintendo games are relatively cheap (on the development cost side), have limited scopes, and aim for gameplay and graphical style over fidelity. They practically release no games which aim for photo-realism.
The big shops which are the ones aiming for photo-realistic games are also the ones with layoffs and bankruptcies. There's a lot of AA releases.
I mean, just look at the 2024 GOTY nominees.
Metaphor - AA title
Astro Bot - somewhere between AA and AAA but certainly not photo-realistic
Balatro - one man game
Black Myth Wukong - AA
The only title you could argue was that large, AAA-sized budget was FF7: Rebirth.
With the obvious exception of Balatro, I would consider all of those games AAA. The amount of time and money these companies have spent on developing their aesthetics and visual performance is self-evident. They may not be trying to look like a real-world photograph, but they are certainly AAA games. According to MobyGames, Wukong has 1,356 credits, Astro Bot has 725, and Metaphor has 1,411. These aren't made by small businesses anymore; that's full on enterprise level.
(That being said, number of credits isn't a great barometer for this either since modern games will practically give them out to the people who operate the trash truck. FF7 Rebirth actually has 3,784, largely because it credits every country's marketing and localization staff, accountants, and even some of their contractors' management.)
(Actually looking a bit further into these credits has me realizing that most of these games aren't really a one-studio thing anymore. They contract out for just about everything now. It's kind of like Anime; it may be produced at a company, but the people actually putting the work in are all over the country and even overseas.)
It seems kind of inherent that the top selling games have the highest budgets for the most part. Like, yeah, those games only have massive budgets because they know there's a market to support them, because having a huge budget lets them produce impressive looking graphics, afford massive marketing campaigns and so on. If the highest selling games were all indies that were made by one person, why would studios ever invest hundreds of millions of dollars into developing a AAA game?
That doesn't mean there's not an absolutely thriving AA and indie game scene. There is. Indie games continue to sell like absolute madness on steam, and every so often you get a balatro, a vampire survivors, or a stardew valley. It's not like movies made by one person or tiny teams ever top the box office. I think literally the only example I can even think of is the Blair Witch Project. The Indie game industry is comparitively far healthier than the indie movie scene has ever been.
Because publishers don't care about getting the #1 topseller, as long as it's consistently profitable - publishers primarily care about reducing risk. And the more you spend on a single game, the less risky you'll permit that game to be. The problem is that innovation is inherently risky, and blowout bestsellers are inherently(?) innovative.
For instance: the #1 bestseller of all time is, IIRC, Minecraft. Minecraft was a tiny-budget indie game. Minecraft was never going to be published by a Publisher, take one look at it and you'll see why.
So, to wrap back to your question:
This is an 'all dogs are mammals'/'all mammals are dogs' situation. Publishers care about whether all Indies make high selling games, not whether all high selling games are made by Indies.
Speaking to just the "dev studios go bust", that's just a natural part of the games industry since its inception. Small indie studios who don't make it disappear. Really true of most healthy market economies. The bigger problem is giant companies gobbling up the successful studios (and the IP that accompanies it), then firing most of the staff. Which is also true of most unhealthy market economies.
You know what? This is a really great point that I’ve heard no one else make so far (backed up by the comparison of how much $40 would be in today’s money), and it’s changed my mind on the price of the game. If Nintendo doesn’t jump on the mass appeal/micro transactions bandwagon, then I think that paying a little extra for a finished game is a fair price to pay in exchange.
(Not a Nintendo player): Doesn't Nintendo already do the nickel-and-dime bullshit? Isn't that what the Amibos are?
Not really? The quality of the amiibo figurines is solid for the price.
Amiibos are just figurines that can unlock extra content, no crucial features are locked behind them. They're also physical objects, which arguably gives them more value since even after you stop playing a game, you can display them or resell them. They're not a one-time use, you can use them across multiple copies of compatible games.
Aside from that, I'd say Nintendo has the most consistent quality for games when it comes to their first-party titles. They take their time and make sure that the game is "complete" upon release rather than plan for massive update patches or use DLC to flesh it out. The DLC usually adds genuinely meaningful new content. Even if a game is a dud for whatever reason, they make sure the games are polished and work well. I don't think I've heard of any disastrous release of a first-party release from Nintendo in the vein of Assassin's Creed Unity or Cyberpunk 2077.
It's one of the reasons I think Nintendo has so much brand loyalty. It feels like AAA games are becoming more of a gamble these days since executives care more about making quick, immediate profits more than a quality (or even functional) game. For all the complaints about their practices and hardware and such, their games are usually solid.
By my definition, not really.
Specifically amibos: no. They're an extra thing and quite high quality. I'm aware of no mainline nintendo game that just straight up gates you or hobbles you if you don't purchase amiibos. I see them somewhat like cosmetics in Dota(which yes is its own unique case) where it's a perfectly fair thing for people who want to spend extra money, and doesn't punish those who choose not to.
As for other nickel and dime stuff:
I think their store and nintendo gold and other stuff is where this gets more iffy. And of course nintendo can't stop 3rd party publishers from charging $80 and throwing in battle passes and loot boxes (at least up to a point). That said I don't think any "Made by nintendo" style game has done that?
Mario kart, to my limited knowledge, has lots of DLC, and maybe that's getting into EA sims territory where the value just isn't there, but I don't play enough to comment. Every major nintendo game I have played has been a complete experience that I felt was a fair price point.
I do recognize also that when I was younger and had fewer funds, or if I was a parent buying games for my children, that $20 is FAR from insignificant in the scheme of things, but then that's a market issue as stu2b50 has gone into.
Mario Kart Tour on mobile has lots of DLC. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on Switch had one DLC, which was $25 and doubled the number of tracks and added like 8 new drivers. Most of those tracks were pulled from other games (like Mario Kart Tour), but it was a massive addition to a complete game.
The DLC on the Wii U version of Mario Kart 8 added more drivers and tracks, but again, to a complete game. That DLC was part of the base game when it moved to Switch. Do I expect DLC in Mario Kart World Tour? Yeah, probably. But it won't be micro transactions - it will be new content at some point down the line to an already complete game.
What was the last (not online focused/GaaS) AAA game that was full of nickel-and-diming? The era of stuffing nickel-and-dime microtransactions into AAA games started dying out well before COVID. It stagnated a long time ago, and we're back to games having a single entry fee for the most part and then some reasonable, sizeable DLC at reasonable prices.
Helldivers 2 was a huge success last year, and with a budget price to boot. In recent years, many of the biggest games have not been stuffed full of microtransactions either: Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate 3, Starfield, Hogwarts Legacy, Assassin's Creed Valhalla and Shadows, Ghosts of Tsushima, Horizon series, TLOU series, Halo Infinite, Spider-Man, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Resident Evil, Deathloop, and on and on and on.
Some of these games have microtransactions but they're cosmetic, insignificant bonus content or time skips. None are necessary to truly experience the game. I wouldn't call any of them nickel-and-diming. Helldivers 2 is probably the closest but everything is attainable in-game with (reasonable!) enough time put in, and it was sold for a budget price anyway. And it's not like Nintendo usually offers much of these to account for their high base prices either. Except for Smash Brothers Ultimate, none of their games offered a bounty of cosmetic skins and items, or had significant updates to add new content over time. And even when they did, their prices were still quite high, like the Mario Kart 8 DLC.
The last major full-price AAA game I can think of that felt like the nickel-and-diming was necessary to get the most out of the game was Destiny 2 and that game has a bad reputation for many different reasons.
I think (almost?) every single one of these has launched with tiered pricing where multiple digital "editions" of the game are offered at price points that vary from more normal prices to far above that (for example, the "complete" edition of Assassin's Creed Valhalla launched at 120GBP, double the price of the standard edition at 60GBP, and well above the 75GBP price point Mario Kart World is launching at).
It might not be fair to call that nickel-and-diming, but I'd also suggest it's also not quite the same approach to pricing as the average first party Nintendo game, which tends to have a single edition without any DLC. As you say, the extra content in a lot of these "editions" is pretty insignificant to playing the game, but I think that just makes me feel far worse about the grossly elevated prices.
Note: At the time of this writing, this video was released about 15 hours ago, even though it was recorded on April 2nd. I wonder why it took them so long to upload it.
He didn’t say much that was interesting or new (or clarified any of my questions), which is to be expected, but I still find it shameful. I find it shameful how few interviews he has given since he became the CEO. If Iwata and Reggie were still leading the charge, I think that they would be out there talking to everyone, getting people excited, and answering hard questions. Since they left, Nintendo has became disgustingly corporatized, and worse, they have just stopped communicating with the public altogether. Almost all that we get these days are these “Nintendo Direct” videos. And I’m not making this up: I have heard from ex-NOA employees that the company has, indeed, been hiding in a cave in the last few years as far as PR goes.
One thing that he said is that they are not trying to “set a benchmark” for games pricing. lol As if he doesn’t know that pricing Mario Kart at $80 is going to encourage other publishers to do the same (or worse, looking at GTA VI). He also claimed that Nintendo doesn’t have any “standard” pricing, but in the last generation, their games were almost all very firmly priced at $60. They completely gave up on giving popular titles the “Player’s Choice” and “Nintendo Selects” treatment too. I think that he was lying through his teeth there. Their new standard is going to be $70 at least, across most of their major titles. That’s my prediction. And the largest publishers will definitely reinforce that trend. Thanks, Nintendo.
I like what they’re trying to do with the anti-scalping measures. I hope that it works. He also mentioned that console units have already made landfall in the US. Let’s see if there won’t be any shortages at brick and mortar stores.
One thing that he brought up, which I like, is that Game Chat really only connects you with people who you have added as friends. Call me crazy, but I don’t think that Nintendo multiplayer games would be enhanced by allowing people to chat with random strangers. They don’t develop any MMOs for example (where it would make more sense). I just hope that they revamp the way that people can befriend each other to make it a bit simpler.
He answered to a question about “going after Disney” that “Nintendo is an entertainment” company. That was a non-answer, but I think that it isn’t completely meaningless. Nintendo is definitely expanding and diversifying, which is a good thing (I think), but gaming may end up become secondary to their other ventures in a few years or decades, just as it did for the Pokémon franchise. Let’s hope they don’t lose their touch.
To a question about AI, he didn’t outright reject the idea of making use of it, even internally to enhance productivity (outside of game production that is), but insisted that what the company values is the work of their developers. Good. Hope he actually means it.
I will never understand this mindset. Prices of video games are not a civil rights issue. God did not inscribe "Video games shall cost $60" on a stone tablet. People have arbitrarily expected that games will be $60 for something like 40 years now. But $60 in 1985 is something like $180 today! Do people not want developers to get paid for their labor?
That's why I want to see higher game prices. The current situation, after decades of inflation is untenable, and pay has been terrible in games for a long time. I'd make half my salary working on games, and people still take that hit because they want to work on games. And modern teams for games are massive compared to years ago, with mile long credits lists of 3D artists, texture artists, voice actors, animators, motion capture actors and technicians, etc..
If the prices stay stagnant, it's just going to keep squeezing those workers and things will get worse. For what is, ultimately, the production of a luxury product.
I happily pay my FFXIV subscription and throw occasional money at Genshin Impact, which are easily the majority of my gaming these days, but when I buy an anticipated single player game, I'm not averse to the cost, because it's only an occasional thing. I got well more than $80 worth of enjoyment out of a solid year of Baldur's Gate 3.
And who's driving that, exactly? Why does it need to be this way?
If Balatro, Vampire Survivors, Helldivers and the like can make money hand over fist without having teams of hundreds of people, why is it a requirement?
Huge corporations are driving those costs up by insisting things need to be bigger, more expansive, more realistic, all while churning out subpar products that are riddled with bugs and issues while they kill small studios so they can funnel more money to their executives and shareholders.
I don't think it's necessarily on me to care about that. If I'm priced out of the (admittedly luxury goods) market, I don't particularly care why that's happened.
This is theoretical for me. I almost exclusively play older (and pirated) games these days. But if a whole class of people, hit hard by inflation and price gauging, are going to be squeezed even harder, those people are going to be angry.
And I can't speak for Nintendo specific, but of a company (e.g. Pokemon) is posting records profits for shoddy products, they obviously don't need the extra money to pay the devs. They just want it, and are not going to use it to pay the devs more.
If you think all that extra money from MTX (which will still happen once we've normalized $80-$100) and higher game prices are going into the pockets of the devs, I've got a bridge to sell you.
What was Bobby Koticks salary when Activision decided to start asking $70 for Call of Duty? Didn't Activision just layoff a whole bunch of people?
Oh if only they'd charged $100 for games, surely Developers wouldn't be losing their jobs. Won't someone please think of the poor corporations that pay zero dollars in taxes and rake in massive profits year over year?
Sorry if I'm being glib, but this seems like a hella naive take. 40 years ago, people could afford a house on a single income, as well as afford plenty of luxeries. Where are we at today with cost of living? Where are we at with companies constantly gunning for our wallets? Raising prices, shrinkflation, enshittification, etc, etc.
I don't have to buy Nintendo games, that's true and I won't and haven't for at least a decade, but let's not pretend this anything less than a cash grab by a massive company that isn't your friend.
Exactly. You'd think Nintendo is the second coming of Pol-Pot with the way some people talk about it. In the end, games are not only inherently a luxury good - it's not insulin, no one needs Mario Kart World.
There's no lack of things to entertain you in this world, arguably most of which are healthier than video games, including three decades of games you can buy for pennies on the dollar.
If the market cannot bear the increased price, it will go down, because Nintendo likes making money rather than not making money. If it does bear it, then it is what it is.
I kinda can't believe they included Deltarune in their big announcement. Like... Here's this wildly anticipated game, which is coming out the same day, and which had a big frayed string to unravel on the end, linked to the save you already have on your PC. Sooo, buy our new console?
I am taking June 5th off, and I am indeed gonna play Deltarune! ... On PC.
I'm gonna hope that this will include an end to the game. I've been holding out on playing it because I didn't want to go in on an episodic storyline that never has an end. Half Life already ruined that for me.
It's not the end, but the plan is for 7 total episodes. I sometimes wonder if one's going to be drastically different, or cut short a la Super Paper Mario.
I can walk and chew gum at the same time. Developers should get paid, and I would love it if they were paid more because they obviously deserve it. At the same time, I would also like to be able to play the games that they develop.
There is a whole class of consumers who have been priced out of Nintendo’s future products, which includes me (in fact, I have not been able to afford anything Nintendo since the 3DS/WiiU). Remember that that American middle-class is a (vanishing) minority on the globe. Most people, like me, are firmly sitting in the lower class. What this does is that I have two options:
I’ve done both. I’ve invested in some great indie titles on Steam when they went on discount. They were fantastic experiences, but none of them scratched the Nintendo itch. So, I resorted to emulation, and had more great experiences with some classics that I missed out when I was younger. In the end, that’s a loss of revenue for big N.
Obviously, Nintendo doesn’t have to care about me, but the cost of living is only going to rise, the class divide is only going to grow deeper, and the lower class is going to forego luxuries like entertainment more and more. If that doesn’t hurt Nintendo’s bottom line, good for them, but it might.
Your main point was fine, but everything after was ridiculous. No one has claimed prices need to stay frozen forever and no one claimed developers shouldn't get paid.
Also, games were not $60 in 1985, they didn't hit that price commonly until the 2000s in the late Playstation 2 era and became the actual standard for the PS3. The highest price I had ever seen on a game by 1987 was $52 (Zelda 2), and it was a standout at that price with only specific games that needed copious extra amounts of memory chips going higher (Very late NES game Dragon Quest 4 for example was nearly $60). Games of that time also saw much lower selling quantities and had to pay for the carts themselves which were not cheap and generally were tightly controlled by the console maker. Nintendo was infamous for how much they charged companies for them and sued anyone that tried to circumvent them. Then the retailers has to add their cut on top which is totally fair.
The standard price for games for the Playstation 1, which launched in 1995, was $49.99. Disc based games were cheaper to make, but it once again disproves what you had said.
Today, the vast majority of games are sold digitally which is nearly free for the companies since there is no media cost at all, no instruction booklet printing, no shipping and logistics costs. The digital stores still charge an arguably too high amount, but it is still less than retail.
If the argument was simply that physical games come with a surcharge to cover the difference, that would be completely understandable.
The $70 price point only came a couple of years ago, but was probably overdue, raising again and then also charging extra for the physical games is just Nintendo being greedy. I would not be surprised if this was also to help kill off physical games completely so they no longer have to tolerate the evils of sharing games you own and reselling game you no longer want.
I want videogame dev teams to be smaller. There are plenty of 10 year old AAA games that look great even when put next to today's AAA games (although I'm sure todays' games will look a bit better), and I absolutely do not think that the extra fidelity warrants the extra $20 - or to rephrase, I'd rather they target the fidelity of Mad Max (2015) in exchange for keeping retail prices the same instead of raising them by $20, if they gave me the choice.
I think the main reason prices go up is due to larger studio sizes due to studios targeting higher fidelity, and that the higher fidelity is for marketing purposes as much as improving the game experience. In other words, the fidelity isn't driven by customer demand but instead driven by an arms race between developers, and if all studios somehow simultaneously eased off on the graphics and kept it that way then everyone would be better off - including customers.
In 1985 everyone had to write their own engine and code in assembly. The dev team was mostly programmers, not artists. Nowadays everyone (ish) uses Unreal Engine and nobody writes games in assembly.
Also, the bestselling videogame in 1985 was Super Mario Bros, which sold 3 million copies (including re-releases). In fact, it's the #10 best-selling game of all time at 58 million sales ever. #9 is Terraria, which sold 60 million since its release in 2013. Point is, inflation might have gone up, but so has the target audience size (which has at least tripled*), rendering the 1985 comparison irrelevant unless the actual inflation-adjusted costs have gone up.
You cite mad max 2015 as your desired target. $60 from 2015 adjusted for inflation is … $80. Money is just less valuable now. It seems to me you have exactly what you are asking for. If the asking price was $100, your argument may make sense.
I already specifically addressed the subject of inflation in my comment. The pandemic may have caused a ton of inflation, but it also boosted the customer base of videogames - again, calculating inflation in a vacuum is pointless.
My issue with the Switch 2 right now is mostly that the value proposition at launch just isn't especially appealing to me. Mario Kart is fine, I guess, but I only really play it occasionally with friends or family. It's not enough to make me want to buy a whole new console, especially at these prices. The other first-party games announced at the Direct aren't even launch titles, and didn't stand out to me too much. I feel it might have been a good idea to hold back some of the last couple rounds of Switch titles to be launch titles for the Switch 2, especially considering many of those hardly ran at all on the original Switch anyway...