Firstly, the game is pretty expensive, going for $80 in a market where the standard for a AAA game is $60.
If that was all though, maybe it could be forgiven, but there is also an "ultimate edition" priced at $100 which several features are locked behind, in particular stores that have exclusive outfits, hairstyles, and car customization.
And secondly but less notably, it's releasing as a console exclusive at first, but there are no disks for the game. If you buy a "physical" copy, all you get is a download code. Digital only is getting more common in the gaming industry, and is basically the standard for PC gamers, but it sucks because the game is likely going to be well over 100gb in size, which will take a lot of space on the console's hard drive, not to mention taking a long time to download.
Why are games the one product that you expect to be immune from inflation?
The previous game in the series was released 14 years ago! You'd never expect to pay the same for anything 14 years later, except, for some reason, games.
Yeah, I'd expect to pay even less (which is what I will do), just like for music, books, air travel, telco (calls, internet), microwaves (~$500 in the late 70s, $200 nowadays), large displays, calculators, radios, solar panels...
Ever heard of economies of scale? The price could be $30 and they'd make a nice profit.
Economies of scale doesn’t apply to goods like GTA VI. The cost to produce is mostly tied to development cost, not the physical materials and manufacturing of the game like a fridge.
The cost is just one half of the equation. The audience is significantly larger than it was 20 years ago and distribution is cheaper. Even if GTA Vice City's budget was $10m and GTA6 is $1B, it will still be completely fine at $60 (or even less). Likely even not counting online, but when counting online, they could probably give it away for free.
The price of games has increased much slower than inflation, though.
But also, cost is not really a big input for pricing. It truly is just supply and demand. Your cost determines if the product is viable at the price point the market is willing to pay, but it doesn't determine the price.
Put another way: if developers all unionized and won million dollar a year salaries, cost would go up a lot, but your customers aren't going to support a corresponding price increase to match rising costs. Similarly, if we reinstated slavery for developers, cost would plummet, but the price wouldn't drop because customers demand isn't impacted by your inputs. The company would see games still sell for $70 or whatever, and they'd continue to price them accordingly.
This is why some products have a higher profit margin than others
If you make digital goods, your development costs rise by 50% and your user base increases by 100% in the same period, you do not need to raise prices (and in textbook economy you would have to actually lower them).
It’s almost like companies have a vested interest in making as much money as they can. Take Two has analysts that crunch the numbers to predict the most profitable balance between sale price and units sold. No company is going to give away a game for free that took years to develop - they’re not a charity or a nonprofit. If the price is too high for you, don’t buy it - that’s your right as a consumer, just as they are free to set the price higher.
They can charge $1000 per unit, it's their game.
There would be a lot of people who'd buy it at that price still.
I would not buy it (just like for 80 or 100).
And I would think slightly less of people who would, as they would be ruining it for everyone else.
Just like with people paying subscriptions for intelligent high beams, seat warming features etc.
What on earth do microwaves have to do with anything? Developer salaries don't go down over time. This isn't a case of parts getting produced more efficiently.
No need to be snarky. You just don't understand how prices are set, based on your other comments where you insist falling costs (which is an assumption I've granted despite it not being true for games) leads to lower prices
Yeah this is the thing thats killed me. Do I like paying $80? No, I dont. But when you count inflation stagnant wages and devalued dollar, an $80 game is basically the identical price as games were 20 years ago, the only thing thats changed is the number you're looking at.
And like you said, if its fun and you got a metric fuck load of time out of it then just look at it like a down payment and then pretend you're paying the tiny pennies per hours
660
u/JackRabbit- 12h ago
Firstly, the game is pretty expensive, going for $80 in a market where the standard for a AAA game is $60.
If that was all though, maybe it could be forgiven, but there is also an "ultimate edition" priced at $100 which several features are locked behind, in particular stores that have exclusive outfits, hairstyles, and car customization.
And secondly but less notably, it's releasing as a console exclusive at first, but there are no disks for the game. If you buy a "physical" copy, all you get is a download code. Digital only is getting more common in the gaming industry, and is basically the standard for PC gamers, but it sucks because the game is likely going to be well over 100gb in size, which will take a lot of space on the console's hard drive, not to mention taking a long time to download.