Let me start off by saying that neither 343 or Microsoft have said that Halo infinite will cost £69.99. However there is a debate happening right now on Twitter about the price tag of next gen games, specifically Halo Infinite, being around that price range. I can’t stress enough that as of writing this the price for Halo Infinite HAS NOT been announced or confirmed by Microsoft or 343, I would just like to hear your opinions on the HYPOTHETICAL scenario that Halo infinite will cost £69.99 which as far as I am aware is currently only founded on rumours and speculation.
I have no problem with a price hike if it meant we never had to deal with shady, exploitative microtransactions ever again but who am I kidding? It would be entirely unsurprising for the industry to continue stuffing MTXs into full price games while raising the price of said games. I wouldn’t be surprised if the industry tried to justify it by claiming that the price increase is necessary so they don’t have to put in gambling mechanics and pretend like they are doing us a favor.
As far as Infinite specifically goes I think a price hike is unlikely even on next gen platforms just because it is going to be a cross gen game, but the next game after it very well could be.
The issue is game development costs have gone up somewhere between 200% to 300% since 2005 which was the last price increase for games ($49.99 to $59.99). Honestly, I wont be surprised if big AAA games do this price increase because its way long overdue even though people may not like it. Video games are are one of the only entertainment media left that hasn’t been increasing the prices over the years. It is what it is. I don’t think $10 more is that bad but that’s just one man’s opinion.
Games used to be only $40 back in the day for triple A game companies. When they spiked it to $60 I thought I was the only one thrown into left field.
However as I’ve grown older I realized why they do it and its all because of the ever so supply in demand for the ever changing economy. Its change thats bound to happen and will keep happening for as long as we grind down earths materials with out greedy little hands.
In shorter terms I do NOT mind that the price tag for games to go up as everything else in the world does. However given the pandemic and the soon recession of the world as we know it, now might not be the best time in terms of sales demand for popular games that people will soon come to realize – cannot afford.
If you expect the quality of game that requires a $500m budget to make… you can’t baulk at a premium price.
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> The issue is game development costs have gone up somewhere between 200% to 300% since 2005 which was the last price increase for games ($49.99 to $59.99). Honestly, I wont be surprised if big AAA games do this price increase because its way long overdue even though people may not like it. Video games are are one of the only entertainment media left that hasn’t been increasing the prices over the years. It is what it is. I don’t think $10 more is that bad but that’s just one man’s opinion.
And we’ve moved more and more towards digital distribution, as well as a more massive player pool / potential customers.
Not to mention special editions with a higher price wasn’t that common back then, I mean, Halo 2 collectors came out 2004, and that was basically it.
Now almost every game have three or four different tiers of the same game with different goodies, additional merc to buy on the side, promotions like Mountain Dew, Doritos and Pringles and we’ve seen quite a few different version of hardware items.
The Cyberpunk controller is 15 dollars more expensive than the basic one.
As if that wasn’t enough, as WerepyreND pointed out, it will most likely not be the end of shady attempts to bleed our bank accounts dry.
Now, as for development costs, some games are probably not listed due to budgets never being released, if that’s possible, but looking at this list, the actual development costs are all over the place despite which year they were released.
Consider that Halo 5 made 400 million in initial sales. including everything from game sales to hardware sales, and that the game probably continued to generate some sales afterwards, like around christmas, not counting REQ sales, I’d say it’s safe to assume Halo 5 made back development costs and the marketing costs, and then some.
Heck, anecdotal but whatever, the 60 dollar price tag I’ve come to understand is some sort of standard set by console developers, as I think I’ve read something along the lines of many developers wanting to sell their games lower than 60 dollars, but not allowed to due to some sort of “competition” thing with the standard price tag.
Then again, I’ve come to understand that consoles are sold at a loss, then that loss is made back through game sales. So, if that’s the case, it could very well be not because of game development budget increases ( and overblown marketing budgets… ) but because consoles got more expensive, and that money has to be made back somehow.
Edit: Oh lookie.
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> If you expect the quality of game that requires a $500m budget to make… you can’t baulk at a premium price.
- we don’t know about the actual quality of HI, not to mention content etc. - They probably added the production costs for the new engine to that number, which will be used for years
> 2533274827321356;3:
> Video games are are one of the only entertainment media left that hasn’t been increasing the prices over the years.
No but they have been cutting content, selling it as DLC, MTX or hiding it behind gambling mechanics that would have been part of the regular release up until 10 years ago…
I wouldn’t even mind higher prices if the content and quality would match said prices which I don’t see happening tbh…
I’m fine with games costing a bit more. The production costs now are insane for AAA games. Thing is though, if games are more expensive, devs/publishers have to realize that people will most likely be more picky. Meaning they better make their games worth it because they’ll be even harder to sell, and they have to realize that excessive, even any mtx at all will turn people away.
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> Thing is though, if games are more expensive, devs/publishers have to realize that people will most likely be more picky. Meaning they better make their games worth it because they’ll be even harder to sell, and they have to realize that excessive, even any mtx at all will turn people away.
Yet retail games have gone down in content compared to previous games, and free to play games practically dominate, even with MTXs and gambling.
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> > 2533275031939856;8:
> > Thing is though, if games are more expensive, devs/publishers have to realize that people will most likely be more picky. Meaning they better make their games worth it because they’ll be even harder to sell, and they have to realize that excessive, even any mtx at all will turn people away.
>
> Yet retail games have gone down in content compared to previous games, and free to play games practically dominate, even with MTXs and gambling.
Like I said, devs better realize that if they increase price, people will be pickier so better make sure your game is better.
Here in Aus games already (unreasonably) cost $100. That’s a good $20 more than it should be if we compared to US exchange rates pre-pandemic. If developers start asking me to pay $110 or more for standard issue games, I’m going to stick to game pass. That’s just ridiculous to expect customers to pay that much money for a game; so it better be a dang good game.
> 2533275031939856;10:
> > 2533274795123910;9:
> > > 2533275031939856;8:
> > > Thing is though, if games are more expensive, devs/publishers have to realize that people will most likely be more picky. Meaning they better make their games worth it because they’ll be even harder to sell, and they have to realize that excessive, even any mtx at all will turn people away.
> >
> > Yet retail games have gone down in content compared to previous games, and free to play games practically dominate, even with MTXs and gambling.
>
> Like I said, devs better realize that if they increase price, people will be pickier so better make sure your game is better.
I seriously doubt games will be made better over a 10 dollar price increase. Also doubting people will be “pickier”, seeing how much money is spent on everything around the game itself.
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> > 2533275031939856;10:
> > > 2533274795123910;9:
> > > > 2533275031939856;8:
> > > > Thing is though, if games are more expensive, devs/publishers have to realize that people will most likely be more picky. Meaning they better make their games worth it because they’ll be even harder to sell, and they have to realize that excessive, even any mtx at all will turn people away.
> > >
> > > Yet retail games have gone down in content compared to previous games, and free to play games practically dominate, even with MTXs and gambling.
> >
> > Like I said, devs better realize that if they increase price, people will be pickier so better make sure your game is better.
>
> I seriously doubt games will be made better over a 10 dollar price increase. Also doubting people will be “pickier”, seeing how much money is spent on everything around the game itself.
Well sure the whales who sink money into mtx anyway are still gonna buy day 1 because they have the money to, $10 isn’t gonna mean anything to them. There’s a lot of people out there though that are already very hesitant with $60 so $70 is just gonna be an even harder sell for them. Just saying the devs have to realize that.
A price increase was long overdue. Based on inflation alone games should cost about $80us now. On top of that budgets on big games hove increased massively.
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> Here in Aus games already (unreasonably) cost $100. That’s a good $20 more than it should be if we compared to US exchange rates pre-pandemic. If developers start asking me to pay $110 or more for standard issue games, I’m going to stick to game pass. That’s just ridiculous to expect customers to pay that much money for a game; so it better be a dang good game.
Especially since gamepass is oddly fairly priced in Aus.
Where I live, New England, most products have nearly doubled in price in the last decade. A marginal price increase for games is fine by me.
That being said, games will actually have to deliver a decent story and content to justify a price increase.
My rent goes up about 3% per year ($30-40)…the fact that game prices haven’t budged is astonishing. I’ll happily part ways with an extra ten or twenty.
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> Let me start off by saying that neither 343 or Microsoft have said that Halo infinite will cost £69.99. However there is a debate happening right now on Twitter about the price tag of next gen games, specifically Halo Infinite, being around that price range. I can’t stress enough that as of writing this the price for Halo Infinite HAS NOT been announced or confirmed by Microsoft or 343, I would just like to hear your opinions on the HYPOTHETICAL scenario that Halo infinite will cost £69.99 which as far as I am aware is currently only founded on rumours and speculation.
first of all Nice secondly if you get the gamepass im pretty sure you can get it for free and the game pass i only 1 quid for the first month so if the game is trash you dont have to get it and is its good you can.
I don’t know man. On one hand… Every new generation you see a couple of publishers trying to pull off a higher price to see if they get away with it. So I doubt the 70€/$/£ thing will actually be the standard.
In the other hand, if games are getting so expensive to create a higher price also seems logical.
I’m just hoping we’ll see a bigger price difference between digital and physical copies. Because I certainly won’t pay 70€ for a digital game.
As long as we keep getting broken launches, lack of content at launch, microtransactions/loot boxes, and so on, the $80.00 (CAD) they’re already asking for is laughable. To raise that even higher (while more likely than not keeping the problems of modern gaming) would hopefully be the push we’ve been needing for another video game crash.