By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Barozi on 04 July 2020
Edit Thread
javi741 said:
vonny said:

PS2 games were $50 in 2000 which is $73 with inflation, Video game development is significantly more expensive now than 20 years ago. The flat line increase for video games is a large part of why crunch culture exist in the industry.  

Games this gen are also selling far better now then they were in the year 2000. Many franchises at the time like GTA were extremely young and didn't have an established brand or foothold in the market yet as it takes years for games to become extremely popular. The gaming industry has also grown exponentially since the PS2 era and will only keep growing.

GTA sales this gen obviously are killing the sales of the older GTA games right now, the COD franchise is more popular than ever, even Nintendo games are selling the best in their respective franchises on the Switch. Many other franchises like Uncharted, Witcher 3, NBA 2K and more are selling better than ever this gen, so that kinda makes up for the higher development cost of games over time, also there's DLC, Microt-transactions, digital distribution that cuts out the middle man, making more money for these developers.

"Games this gen are also selling far better now then they were in the year 2000."

Nowadays games are also far more expensive to develop than games in the 2000s. PS2 games only had a budget of a few millions. You'd need at least a million or two in extra sales to break even on 7th and 8th gen games. For EVERY SINGLE game.

"COD franchise is more popular than ever"

Where did you get that from? The best selling CoD games were from the PS3/360 era.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/321374/global-all-time-unit-sales-call-of-duty-games/
NPD source: https://www.shacknews.com/article/115860/call-of-duty-games-were-10-of-the-top-15-best-selling-titles-of-the-decade

"Many other franchises like Uncharted, Witcher 3, NBA 2K and more are selling better than ever this gen"

I can list several franchises that are in decline: Just Dance, Gran Turismo, Battlefield etc. What's your point again?

"The gaming industry has also grown exponentially since the PS2 era and will only keep growing."

The gaming industry as a whole - yes, but the console market has NOT grown exponentially.

50% of the revenue comes from smartphone-, tablet- and casual browser games. How does that help the devs and publishers of console and PC games again?

"also there's DLC, Microt-transactions, digital distribution that cuts out the middle man, making more money for these developers."

Which was exactly the reason why the $10 raise didn't come earlier.

Last edited by Barozi - on 04 July 2020