This doesnt fly with me. Saying it costs more to get great graphics with 60FPS, or likely 120fps next gen. Doesnt say how that translates to costing more money. Sure maybe if it takes to produce. They just gonna try to see how far fget can rinse gamers like when they introduced microtransactions.
I know some people might think tye games have changed price for 20 years, but have you considered we were just being ripped off 20 years ago? 70 pounds for virtual F1 on megadrive in the 90s for example. I wont be paying over 40 for any game. Which is a fair price imo for a non finished product, as always.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/amp/2...ve-to-think-costs-remain-the-same-on-next-gen
This is a complete miss-think. First of all, the video games industry is a business. The whole point is to make a profit with a product. You aren’t owed any part of it, and that means you aren't owed a product for less than the company wants to sell it for. Thats like saying to ferrari “your cars are rip offs because you're selling Them for more than the sum of its parts are actually worth”. Thats just not how it works. The value of a product is entirely set by the demand for the product. If a company can make more of a profit by selling their games for 20 dollars more, then they are absolutely going to. If, however, they think they can make more money by selling it for cheaper, and therefore selling more copies, then they will do that too.
In the current generation, however, the highest single value of a standard video game has been $60 US. So, they have looked to gain more revenue through other schemes, such as micro transactions and insane limited edition bundles. If these schemes didn't exist, then the video game market simply would not be as big as it is today. There simply wouldn’t be anywhere near as much money in the industry, which would lower production values.
You might argue that most games don’t need insanely high production values anyway, and yes, perhaps not. Thats why we have
indie games. You don’t have to buy the biggest and baddest branded video games, but they exist because there is a huge market for them, and they keep getting bigger and bigger because people are willing to fund them.
Despite all that, it is obvious to anyone that the micro transaction thing has gotten completely out of hand, and in a lot of cases is predatory in nature and exploitative. However, gamers have caught on to this, and we have started slamming the crap out of everything that includes them, for better or for worse.
So, because you can only go so far with micro transactions before people start railing you on the internet for it (and rightfully so), companies must look for other methods of increasing revenue. So, they increase the price.
It is comedically unfair to say that these companies should just give you a nice $60 game with no MTX and just leave you alone from there. That is just not how business works. Again, it would be like knocking on Ferrari's door and Demanding that they give you an 812 superfast for the same price they used to sell the 550 because “that would just be fair man”.
Another common miss-think that people tend to make is to think that all these video game companies are just raking in the dough at your expense, and every time they sell a game theyre going to the bank, printing out your 60 bucks and shoving it their pockets. Sure, the biggest games companies have some rediculously rich CEOs, but have you not noticed how many video game companies that made great games even 10 years ago have been brutally torn apart by the last few generations? Thats because this industry is as cutthroat as it gets. You simply can’t make a profit off selling a giant big budget AAA game for 60 bucks. Pretty much the only developers left are either the ones doing the predatory MTX crap or they're directly funded by the ones who are. It simply is not just free money.
Lets take, for example, Bungie. You may hate Destiny 2, but it has been no secret that that game has been enormously successful for bungie. They have sold heaps of “overpriced” expansions, and MTX, and store merch, and more. But despite all that, ever since they split from Activision, they have been quite open with the community that they do not have quite the same capacity to pump out content at the same scale they once could. They might genuinely see financial disaster if any of their products fails to sell as many units or MTX as they'd hope, and it could cause the death of the company now that they have no safety net. All of this in spite of them using just about every “dirty money printing trick” in the book to “steal all your hard earned cash”
Anyways, rant over. I genuinely believe that a price hike on games is nothing but a good thing. Sure, it is not going to stop companies from shoving MTX and trying to make more money, but it could definitely give developers the option to not include them and still make money.