I’m an avid gamer, been gaming since birth. In fact, I think my first words was something in the lines of “GG Scrub”. Joking aside, I’m very invested in gaming scene as it’s one of my favorite past times/hobbies. Anyone with any type of observation skills would know or be able to tell that games are constantly improving (both visually and gameplay-wise) and with that, the cost of making these games rises with it. With that been said, naturally these costs needs to be covered somehow and while businesses have tried micro-transaction to compensate for these expenses, its inevitable that the price of gaming will go up.
Growing up, games for me used to be $40-50. At that time, that was the norm. However, has development for these games began to advance, so too did the cost to fund these developments. Soon enough, I found that the $60 price tag was the norm and has been thus far.
Of course, I wasn’t too particular pleased with the increased price tag but I didn’t have much of a choice. I wanted to play games. That’s all I cared about, so I dealt with it and continued to pay these prices. That was before social media was such a wide spread phenomenon. Now things are different. The internet has given us a platform to collectively voice our frustration if something changes, and trust me, the gaming community are one of the most vocal communities out there. Take Star Wars Battlefront 2 for example.
It has also become apparent that, thanks to social media and the internet, we’ve put these businesses in a tight corner. Now it’s not as easy as it was back then to increase the price of a game without some backlash. If a game company were to dare charge the customers $70 or $80, it will be met with some fierce resistance. But I feel like that time is surely approaching.
We can’t not expect the quality of games to continue to improve while expecting the price tag to remain the same. It’s simply not feasible. Someone will suffer! It might be the business, the actors, the coders, or the consumers. Corners will be cut to met the demands and cost of making these games and I feel like the game companies can no longer keep this up.
They’ve tried with micro-transaction but as anyone can tell you, only elephants/whale (people with huge disposable incomes) tend to take advantage of it. The majority of gamers will look at these micro-transactions and if it doesn’t align with their interest, moral or value, they’ll simply not buy it. Personally, I play on PC. I do have a PS4, but that’s only for exclusive games that I can’t pick up on PC. Majority of the time, I game on PC. Ever since I switched to playing on PC, I’ve saved a lot of money. So when I picked up my PS4 and bought my first game, I won’t lie, I found $60 despite having a job, still too expensive for me. PC culture has truly spoiled me.
So it’ll definitely be very interesting to see how the community will handle such a change. If developers like CD Projekt and Naughty Dogs were to start charging $70 or $80, they might get away with it as they’ve proven themselves to be great at making games but if others start doing it and they don’t create games that match those price points, they will most certainly be met with some resistance and possible backlash.
Anyways, that’s my thoughts on the subject, let me know your thoughts on the matter? Would you pay $80 for a game?
