cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/55364693
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- Zephyr@sh.itjust.worksEnglish3 hours
What type of gaming? Me over here retro gaming for free for the most part.
- 13 hours
Gee I wonder who made things so expensive MICROSOFT? Who could have possibly been responsible for this MICROSOFT?
- daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish15 hours
Last game I bought were 10€ and could be run on a potato.
If a person in their home can do a cheap fun game in their spare time so can you.
- ThrowawayOnLemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish1 day
Well that’s your fault too. Your company decided AI was more important.
- tidderuuf@lemmy.worldEnglish1 day
They also fired thousands of workers who could have helped make shit more affordable or even improved Xbox. Now it’s going to be sold off, drawn and quartered.
- arcine@jlai.luEnglish1 day
Their solution is probably gonna be game pass. Everyone is distracted by the anti-AI crusade but we should not forget the anti-Subscription crusade too !
- 1 day
Presumably they must think this is a good thing, given they run a cloud gaming platform.
- sys110x@aussie.zoneEnglish1 day
Absolutely. As more manufacturers leave the consumer market for the lucrative DC market, cloud gaming will become the norm as most of us won’t be able to afford hardware at home… and that makes me really sad. We’ll start to see the end of homelabs and self-hosted software, as well as our gaming rigs. Nvidia and Microsoft both offer cloud gaming platforms and are both neck-deep in AI & AI hardware.
We may also see DIY chips and new innovation to bypass the hardware availability problem, but as we become more reliant on AI/LLMs I worry that we’ll lose that innovation. The bubble pop cannot come soon enough.
1 dayDestroy entire industries through their corruption and greed; only to wonder over the debris why they are not making any more money. The capitalist brain is amazing.
- Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.worldEnglish1 day
Gaming is unaffordable? Yeah. GTA 6 is going to be $80, digital only, with single player locked behind a $100 price tag.
Yeah. Gaming IS unaffordable.
GTA 6 is going to be $80, digital only, with single player locked behind a $100 price tag
Single player is $80. A bunch of extra in-game trinkets are locked behind the $20 upsell.
- Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.worldEnglish1 day
Yeah, I’m hearing they’re selling an “Ultimate” version. Which is $100, and thats the only way to play single player.
- Goodeye8@piefed.socialEnglish17 hours
You know, you could take 5 minutes to verify hearsay. From the official source
Launching November 19, 2026, for the PlayStation® 5 computer entertainment systems and Xbox Series X|S games and entertainment systems for $79.99, Grand Theft Auto VI features a single-player experience set in the biggest, most immersive evolution of the series yet.
The Grand Theft Auto VI: Ultimate Edition amplifies this experience with an exclusive collection of premium vehicles, weapons, apparel, and action threaded across all aspects of Jason and Lucia’s story, and will be available for $99.99.
It took me longer to put this comment together than it took me to find that information.
- Jax@sh.itjust.worksEnglish2 hours
That would require me to do something other than being smug, who do you think I am?
- Return_of_Chippy@lemmy.worldEnglish1 day
A new game was 60 dollars when I was 8. Im 31 now. Inflation puts the pricetag around 100 bucks if they stayed roughly the same cost. If gaming is unaffordable now its been that way since at least 2005… There also wasn’t a robust indie/cheap game scene to the tune of 10s of thousands easily accessible back then. Be annoyed about a price increase I guess but it’s not like it’s unfair or unaffordable comparatively.
- Return_of_Chippy@lemmy.worldEnglish29 minutes
I mean technically median income has gone up about 80% in the US since 2005. While inflations CPI over that same time span is around 70%. You can look at
https://www.officialdata.org/us/inflation/2005?amount=100
to calculate rate of inflation and the BLS to cover median income 2005 vs 2025.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/wkyeng_07202005.pdf
https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2025/median-weekly-earnings-were-1196-in-second-quarter-2025.htm
That obviously doesn’t take all factors in cost of living into account (particulary housing). But what you said is basically incorrect and more importantly, completely irrelevant to a moderate increase in price to a consumer good for the first time in over two decades.
- Goodeye8@piefed.socialEnglish16 hours
In the last 22 years the per game production cost has gone down. Back then games were largely physical and had a huge distribution network. You had the cost of putting the game on a disk or a cartridge or whatever physical medium, then you had the logistics cost to distribute it and finally the store selling you the game put their own marginal to justify keeping it on shelf. That was also what kept the indie scene from springing into existence because getting your game released was a massive undertaking. And you had to test test test because patching games post-launch was a pain in the ass. Now physical media is largely streamlined and the focus is shifting more on digital (because it gives better margins). Development tools have also improved and day 1 patches are the norm, all of which bring down development costs. So you can’t really compare the cost of a game from 20-25 years ago to the cost of a game from today because the industry has matured massively in that period.
And the industry has been complaining about game development being on the verge of collapse for around 15 years. I made the argument back then and that argument has largely stayed true for most of that period. The argument is that if making games is so unsustainable we should see a reduction of scope. Instead of throwing every bog-standard AAA feature into a bloated AAA game we should see games with a more focused vision and minimal bloat. It’s only in the last few years that we’ve seen studios try to cut the bloat. So I believe gaming right now has reached a point where it’s unsustainable for AAA but in previous years I’d argue it was just fearmongering to justify squeezing out more money. But it doesn’t mean the price increase is justified. Indie games and games made by private companies prove that the price increase isn’t necessary. The best game of 2025, Clair Obscur, was $50. One of the best games of 2024, Balatro, was $15. The best game of 2023, Baldurs Gate 3, was $60. None of those games were made by a publicly traded company. It’s the publicly traded company mindset that necessitates the price increase because you need to spend every penny you get and your returns need to grow with every release so you could get more money to spend which then means you need to make even more profits.
I’m not saying the price should stay at $60 for forever, but so far I haven’t seen a good reason why it should increase when we can get quality games at that price point or even at a lower price point.
- Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.worldEnglish1 day
NES games were $80. Thats why most households usually only had 1-2 games.
It wasn’t until resell shops came around that everyone sold their games, and bought 2-3 used games with that money.
Video gaming was unaffordable in the 80s too. I think if you compare lifetime sales of most NES games to most modern games, you’ll find the trend was that if your game wasn’t mario, it didn’t sell all that well on the NES. Even Zelda in the early days had a rough start.
Whereas these days, the industry has grown so much due to keeping prices relatively stable for 40 years. So now consoles sell more, games in general sell 10x more.
Prop that price up and watch the sales fall.
- Return_of_Chippy@lemmy.worldEnglish1 day
80 dollars in 1980 is the equivalent of 330 dollars today~ish. You’re not grasping the inflation aspect I’m pointing to. When looking through that particular lense, video games are cheaper now relative to historical context than they’ve ever been. Not to mention literally every consumer good increases in price consistantly to match/overcome inflation. Video games are WAY behind every other consumer product I can think of in that regard. This is especially true when talking entertainment products.
- Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.worldEnglish1 day
I grasp what you’re saying. You’re not grasping what I’m saying.
I’m saying as the price point came down through the 90s to $60, the amount of gamers went up.
And as $60 in the 2000s was worth less, gaming exploded in popularity again.
As it cost less, more people bought in. As costs rise, less people will buy.
A combination of high price tags, and low quality games caused the entire market to crash in 1983. To the point where video games was considered dead as disco.
We’re nowhere close to that point right now, but this is the first time in 40 years they’ve reversed direction. Games have gotten cheaper over time, and the industry grew. Now they’re making games more expensive. What is the logical outcome of that decision? If low prices make line go up, then high prices make line go…where?
- Return_of_Chippy@lemmy.worldEnglish3 hours
You’re just so incorrect with logic so flawed in so many aspects there’s just nowhere this conversation can go. What you’re saying will be upvoted, that doesn’t make it even remotely accurate, just ideal/popular.Good luck out there.
You really shouldn’t be downvoted for stating facts. Inflation is a real thing and prices of games have lagged significantly behind it for decades - that is an observable fact. The $60 price point was held static for almost two decades but inflation marches on, so in real terms most games are cheaper than ever.
The one thing that kind of does make gaming unaffordable currently is hardware prices, but you can still do the indie gaming you mentioned on a cheaper PC so it’s mostly just the AAA market that is getting pricier.
- rafoix@lemmy.zipEnglish1 day
The $60 price point was helped by the market expanding but that is going to be difficult with the hardware costs.
Devs need to bring down production costs. They should be making games at PS2 quality instead of maxing out PS5 Pros.
- Return_of_Chippy@lemmy.worldEnglish1 day
Yeah when I have an opinion like this I don’t care about the downvotes.
- ms.lane@lemmy.worldEnglish17 hours
Until it’s actually announced for PC, it’s not coming.
Rockstar haven’t announced it’s even coming to PC yet, everything so far is people just assuming and dreaming up dates.
True. Probably the best option. If they go for Denuvo it’ll be a longer wait, but I’m sure it will be priority one for hackers.
- 1 day
It wouldn’t actually be so bad if everything else wasn’t fast becoming unaffordable as well. If bills, rent, shopping and other expenses were not already sky high, then we might be able to afford the higher game prices.
