The All Purpose Video Game Thread Part Iv

[KirkAlbuquerque]

The quickness in which games went from $60 USD to $70 USD to $80 USD to potentially more is insane and absurd. I hate it. No reason for it.

As someone already said, games from 30 years ago on NES that were terrible and you could beat in 3 hours were going for 80$ ,

 

[haohmaru]

As someone already said, games from 30 years ago on NES that were terrible and you could beat in 3 hours were going for 80$ ,

Final Fantasy III was $89.99. Can't beat it in three hours but in today's $ that's got to be $200+

 

[Irishguy42]

I don't agree with the increase in game pricing beyond $60/$70. It's an incredibly stable revenue stream for publishers, despite increased production costs. As physical costs were reduced, it makes sense that it remains roughly the same. But like 80+ is insane is wilding out. There is no need for games to jump to 80+ especially since physical copies are not needed as much. I think the physical requirements for prices increasing don't outweigh the other implications for prices increasing.

Sure, the makeup needs to be made somewhere, I guess, but the amount it's been marked up is INSANE. It is not in line, tbh. The reduction in physical necessity is an immense downgrade in price.

But we all know capitalism causes the price to go up, and only up. No other way to go about it. I think prices, for no reason, increased with the semi-current gen of consoles. One could say they increase with the Xbox 360, and since then the quality of games has stayed the same/decreased but the price has increased.

Yes, the technology has increased since then, but nah the price shouldn't increase. It's silly to think that price of gaming should have increased as much as it has in the past year or so. It's basically increased by like $15-20 and that's wild/bad considering the quality of games we've gotten.

Especially when you have better quality games out there like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, etc, that cost less than $60 list price. Whoops (and it's not a one off successful game at that price).

It's just capitalism driving the higher ups to bring the game price over $60/$70, and for no good reason. The increase in game dev/etc. isn't an actual reason. I also think the increase form $60/70 to $80/90 is insane. The internal cost does not demand the list price increase, from my understanding (multiple industry leads on this).

 

[mas0764]

But we all know capitalism causes the price to go up, and only up. No other way to go about it.

Come on, bro.

 

[Takeahnase]

Come on, bro.

Dudes would be playing Pong 3 under communism with a garden rake for a controller.

 

[Takeahnase]

The Precinct came out today and I just downloaded it. About to clean up the streets.

 

[Cmox]

The Precinct came out today and I just downloaded it. About to clean up the streets.

Reminds me of GTA3. I like the style a lot


I'm listening to a streamer during a boss battle in Clair Obscure while watching the hockey game. It's absolute cinema. The music works so hard.

 

[Gardner McKay]

Dudes would be playing Pong 3 under communism with a garden rake for a controller.

Not gonna lie... I laughed harder at this than I should have.

I think as it relates to the price of video games we are at a point of diminishing returns.

When video games were still in their infancy or toddler years so to speak, the technology was relatively new and expensive to make games. As technology increased at a rapid rate, companies were likely able to produce games with the scale and speed previously unavailable. This allows for a price reduction in the product in order to reach a larger audience base and that price point was able to be maintained for many years as there was continuous, rapid improvement in game development process that led to minimal impacts in profitability.

But we are at a point of diminishing returns and the only way to combat rising costs (significantly increased development timelines for AAA+ games) while finding growth in a segmented market, is to raise prices.

Frankly, it is amazing that it has taken this long. When you look at the wild price fluctuations we have seen across nearly all areas of life over the last 20 years, the fact that we are just now at a point of significant price increases for games... Not really sure how anyone could complain.

Not to mention, look at Concord ( ), Skull and Bones, Dragon Age: Veilguard, etc. When these products flop in such significant and spectacular fashion while having a massive investment from a development standpoint, it is going to have an impact on the industry.

 

[haohmaru]

To add to the above - Adventure for Atari 2600 is widely considered to be one of the most influential video games of all time - considered to be among the first, if not the first, action-adventure/open ended/fantasy games ever on a console. Adventure likely retailed around $39.99

Let's jump forward to a game like Hogwart's Legacy, for example, and it's $69.99 price tag. Nothing groundbreaking but a popular title etc...

Things to consider:

$1 in 1980 is worth $3.79 today so Adventure, today, would cost about $150.00+
Adventure was programmed by ONE PERSON over the course of ONE year.
Hogwart's Legacy was designed/programmed by hundreds of people and took nearly FIVE years.

So, you are effectively getting a game at half price of what it would've cost 45 years ago that took one guy a year in his office to make as opposed to a game that took hundreds of people five years to make.

I think we're doing okay.

 

[Bob Richards]

Will start Doom: The Dark Ages sometime this week.

I played and beat Doom and Doom Eternal for the first time in the past month and those games were f***ing awesome lmfao.

 

[nyr2k2]

Will start Doom: The Dark Ages sometime this week.

I played and beat Doom and Doom Eternal for the first time in the past month and those games were f***ing awesome lmfao.

Let me know what you think. I've seen mixed things about both in terms of some reviews but also the chatter online and what seems like a lackluster start with the sales.

 

[Overcast]

Let me know what you think. I've seen mixed things about both in terms of some reviews but also the chatter online and what seems like a lackluster start with the sales.

Eternal was insanely good. Eternal was Doom 2016 (which was also insanely good) on steroids. There's something about The Dark Ages that just..doesn't look good. And yea sales/player count are abysmal for this installment.

I don't know if anyone has ever followed the pro Counter-Strike scene, but one of the old legendary players (s1mple) made his return to major events with FaZe yesterday and has been tearing it up so far (well not in today's first game).

 

[JESSEWENEEDTOCOOK]

To add to the above - Adventure for Atari 2600 is widely considered to be one of the most influential video games of all time - considered to be among the first, if not the first, action-adventure/open ended/fantasy games ever on a console. Adventure likely retailed around $39.99

Let's jump forward to a game like Hogwart's Legacy, for example, and it's $69.99 price tag. Nothing groundbreaking but a popular title etc...

Things to consider:

$1 in 1980 is worth $3.79 today so Adventure, today, would cost about $150.00+
Adventure was programmed by ONE PERSON over the course of ONE year.
Hogwart's Legacy was designed/programmed by hundreds of people and took nearly FIVE years.

So, you are effectively getting a game at half price of what it would've cost 45 years ago that took one guy a year in his office to make as opposed to a game that took hundreds of people five years to make.

I think we're doing okay.

games on atari werent printing money with season passes and micro transactions

 

[haohmaru]

games on atari werent printing money with season passes and micro transactions

And? They were still double, in today's money, of what we're paying today.

 

[MrAlmost]

Games used to require a large investment to make physically. The boards, chips, batteries, etc. made making a game a serious undertaking. Some games even came on special cartridges that were nearly systems themselves. Today a disc, even a blu ray disc, is pennies and the plastic case and slip cover are pennies as well. The development cost went up, but the physical thing you get either doesn't exist at all anymore or is nearly free to produce. Its tough to gauge the game market and it's pricing over the years, especially in a then vs now scenario. Things are radically different now.

 

[haohmaru]

Games used to require a large investment to make physically. The boards, chips, batteries, etc. made making a game a serious undertaking. Some games even came on special cartridges that were nearly systems themselves. Today a disc, even a blu ray disc, is pennies and the plastic case and slip cover are pennies as well. The development cost went up, but the physical thing you get either doesn't exist at all anymore or is nearly free to produce. Its tough to gauge the game market and it's pricing over the years, especially in a then vs now scenario. Things are radically different now.

I dunno - I mean, those things were produced in the MILLIONS and that cost can't compete with the cost of 100's of salaried employees for years to produce the games of today.

I sell 1000's of games/year and I'd much rather they have kept making them that way lol

I mean, yes, Neo Geo cartridges were $200+ and some SNES carts with battery saves were also up there in price but, like I said above, in today's dollars that's double what they're going for today. I think that covers the cost of the carts/circuit boards/batteries etc...

 

[Overcast]

Games wouldn't cost as much as the Burj Khalifa if AAA studios stopped worrying about spending half a million to make grass have hyper-realistic swaying, or so that you can see into character's pores. I would like for my imagination to do some of the lifting again when playing games.

 

[Gardner McKay]

Games wouldn't cost as much as the Burj Khalifa if AAA studios stopped worrying about spending half a million to make grass have hyper-realistic swaying, or so that you can see into character's pores. I would like for my imagination to do some of the lifting again when playing games.

This is actually a really good point.

Most of these open world, hyper realistic games are void of any and all depth at all. Most might as well just be named "sucky adventure simulator". Rather than focusing on a great story, good/fun combat and depth, these studios focus on everything else and wonder why their games fail to meet expectations.

 

[Overcast]

This is actually a really good point.

Most of these open world, hyper realistic games are void of any and all depth at all. Most might as well just be named "sucky adventure simulator". Rather than focusing on a great story, good/fun combat and depth, these studios focus on everything else and wonder why their games fail to meet expectations.

I had 7-page essay written up about how the big companies have to stop making open-world games, but decided against posting it No one actually wants 250 hour casual playthrough massive open-world games. No one wants every single game to be a live service model that's supposed to have 10 years of additional content. But for the average/casual gamer, their options are: COD, Mario, or one of these open world games.

There were a few successful big world games (Red Dead, GTA, Witcher) and then every single company on earth including the ones that made those said "Welp, that's what sold extremely well so we're only focusing on that game design forever now." Except it's almost always 70 hours of traversing a completely empty and lifeless world that you never actually explore or closely inspect (because there's almost never a reason to; it's all just filler to get you from one checkpoint to the next), no wildlife aside from a flock of birds or some distant ambient roar of animals you'll never actually be able to see or interact with because it's just a disembodied sound byte, no NPCs aside from the strategically placed post-apocalyptic outposts. And then whoop dee doo, you're goaded into buying 4 DLCs at $40 each so you can "finish" the story and get the neon acid green clown costume and chainsaw on a stick with 1 new lifeless zone.

Games these days are just laden with more particle effects or bright flashing lights because that tricks people's lizard brains into thinking the game itself is an enjoyable experience because "Oh my gawd I punched that guy and he got hit by lightning and his head exploded, this game is great!!!" But that is all locked behind the 5th DLC, and is a time-limited reward from grinding 10,000 kills over double XP weekend while only using your lizard wizard character and fire spells. Yawn.

Give me more Hollow Knight. Give me more Hyper Light Drifter. Give me more Square games from the 90s. Tell a story without verbally telling a story. Let me find and piece some of the story together and feel like I'm playing an active role in discovering that story. Let characters visibly show emotion. Make characters jump for joy or hang their heads in sorrow. They don't need to say "I'm so happy/sad right in this moment because a/b/c happened!" Give me games where there doesn't have to be some 10-minute cut scene where the main characters out-loud identify that the bad guy is, in fact, the bad guy and that he NEEDS to be stopped. Yes, I saw them destroy half of the world and kill off a main party member.

Just give me a game that, on release, is a complete game. I've heard Baldur's Gate 3 was basically that, but I couldn't be less interested in D&D and that fanbase was a step below furries. It basically sounds like a romance simulator.

 

[Gardner McKay]

I had 7-page essay written up about how the big companies have to stop making open-world games, but decided against posting it No one actually wants 250 hour casual playthrough massive open-world games. No one wants every single game to be a live service model that's supposed to have 10 years of additional content. But for the average/casual gamer, their options are: COD, Mario, or one of these open world games.

There were a few successful big world games (Red Dead, GTA, Witcher) and then every single company on earth including the ones that made those said "Welp, that's what sold extremely well so we're only focusing on that game design forever now." Except it's almost always 70 hours of traversing a completely empty and lifeless world that you never actually explore or closely inspect (because there's almost never a reason to; it's all just filler to get you from one checkpoint to the next), no wildlife aside from a flock of birds or some distant ambient roar of animals you'll never actually be able to see or interact with because it's just a disembodied sound byte, no NPCs aside from the strategically placed post-apocalyptic outposts. And then whoop dee doo, you're goaded into buying 4 DLCs at $40 each so you can "finish" the story and get the neon acid green clown costume and chainsaw on a stick with 1 new lifeless zone.

Games these days are just laden with more particle effects or bright flashing lights because that tricks people's lizard brains into thinking the game itself is an enjoyable experience because "Oh my gawd I punched that guy and he got hit by lightning and his head exploded, this game is great!!!" But that is all locked behind the 5th DLC, and is a time-limited reward from grinding 10,000 kills over double XP weekend while only using your lizard wizard character and fire spells. Yawn.

Give me more Hollow Knight. Give me more Hyper Light Drifter. Give me more Square games from the 90s. Tell a story without verbally telling a story. Let me find and piece some of the story together and feel like I'm playing an active role in discovering that story. Let characters visibly show emotion. Make characters jump for joy or hang their heads in sorrow. They don't need to say "I'm so happy/sad right in this moment because a/b/c happened!" Give me games where there doesn't have to be some 10-minute cut scene where the main characters out-loud identify that the bad guy is, in fact, the bad guy and that he NEEDS to be stopped. Yes, I saw them destroy half of the world and kill off a main party member.

Just give me a game that, on release, is a complete game. I've heard Baldur's Gate 3 was basically that, but I couldn't be less interested in D&D and that fanbase was a step below furries. It basically sounds like a romance simulator.

If I could like this post 1 million times, I would.

Perfect. Completely agree.

 

[haohmaru]

You guys must be playing the wrong games lol.

Admittedly, I'm gearing towards games that look like 16/32 bit era but there's stuff out there if you look.

 

[Overcast]

You guys must be playing the wrong games lol.

Admittedly, I'm gearing towards games that look like 16/32 bit era but there's stuff out there if you look.

The newest games I play are probably Binding of Isaac or Rocket League. I know where to look for games/what games I like, but I'd reckon most people don't care enough to look at what is out there and just get the prettiest looking, newest game with the most marketing.

 

[Kupo]

If I could like this post 1 million times, I would.

Perfect. Completely agree.

Do it. Like it 1 million times.

 

[Kupo]

I don’t care about the cost of games. It’s not cause I’m rich — I’m not. But I don’t play a ton of games. I’m selective.

NHL is 1 thing I get every year because of my CHEL crew I’ve been playing with for a decade. FFXIV is my go to mmo. Red dead. Ghost of Tsushima. FF7 remake. Elden ring. God of war. Witcher. Assassins creed. Destiny 2. Division 2. Borderlands. I don’t play COD, Madden or FIFA anymore.

I’m finally playing last of us. I’ve avoided it because I saw my friend years ago playing it, and at that point I was kind of bored of zombie games. Started watching the show and it was free with the PlayStation pass so why not.

If I was younger, poorer, or played a bunch of games? Yeah then the price point would be a thing. Gaming is one of my few hobbies so if I want something and it’s $60 or $80 or $100, idgaf.

 

[romba]

I had 7-page essay written up about how the big companies have to stop making open-world games, but decided against posting it No one actually wants 250 hour casual playthrough massive open-world games. No one wants every single game to be a live service model that's supposed to have 10 years of additional content. But for the average/casual gamer, their options are: COD, Mario, or one of these open world games.

There were a few successful big world games (Red Dead, GTA, Witcher) and then every single company on earth including the ones that made those said "Welp, that's what sold extremely well so we're only focusing on that game design forever now." Except it's almost always 70 hours of traversing a completely empty and lifeless world that you never actually explore or closely inspect (because there's almost never a reason to; it's all just filler to get you from one checkpoint to the next), no wildlife aside from a flock of birds or some distant ambient roar of animals you'll never actually be able to see or interact with because it's just a disembodied sound byte, no NPCs aside from the strategically placed post-apocalyptic outposts. And then whoop dee doo, you're goaded into buying 4 DLCs at $40 each so you can "finish" the story and get the neon acid green clown costume and chainsaw on a stick with 1 new lifeless zone.

Games these days are just laden with more particle effects or bright flashing lights because that tricks people's lizard brains into thinking the game itself is an enjoyable experience because "Oh my gawd I punched that guy and he got hit by lightning and his head exploded, this game is great!!!" But that is all locked behind the 5th DLC, and is a time-limited reward from grinding 10,000 kills over double XP weekend while only using your lizard wizard character and fire spells. Yawn.

Give me more Hollow Knight. Give me more Hyper Light Drifter. Give me more Square games from the 90s. Tell a story without verbally telling a story. Let me find and piece some of the story together and feel like I'm playing an active role in discovering that story. Let characters visibly show emotion. Make characters jump for joy or hang their heads in sorrow. They don't need to say "I'm so happy/sad right in this moment because a/b/c happened!" Give me games where there doesn't have to be some 10-minute cut scene where the main characters out-loud identify that the bad guy is, in fact, the bad guy and that he NEEDS to be stopped. Yes, I saw them destroy half of the world and kill off a main party member.

Just give me a game that, on release, is a complete game. I've heard Baldur's Gate 3 was basically that, but I couldn't be less interested in D&D and that fanbase was a step below furries. It basically sounds like a romance simulator.

Great post.

Have you heard of Claire Obscur? It’s a modern love letter to 90’s square JRPG games, it’s full of emotion, where characters expressions speak louder than words spoken, graphics are beautiful and the story is top notch as you try to piece it together. It’s a minuscule development team (under 40 total ppl involved I believe) and the most impressive thing is how they’ve managed to make their characters facial expressions so human and real (a pet peeve of mine as nearly all modern games have elite graphics with each strand of hair and photon of light having their own dedicated CPU, but still have the stiffest most robotic and awkward faces). Even more amazingly, they have somehow captured the human soul and essence in the eyes of their models making them feel so real and vulnerable. Absolutely stunning work.