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curl-6 on 20 June 2021
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Slownenberg said:
Dulfite said:

For those complaining about prices, it's important to look at inflation

Source: https://techraptor.net/gaming/features/cost-of-gaming-since-1970s

In 1990 average game cost was $60. If you adjust for inflation that would be $121.60.

Super Metroid sold roughly 1.42 million copies at a value of $121.60 a piece, by today's standards. That would be a total of $172,672,000 revenue adjusting for inflation. We can't know profit as Nintendo isn't that specific with reporting data, so all we are left with to look at is revenue. To generate that same level of revenue now, at $60 each, they would need to sell 2,877,866 copies. They would basically have to sell twice as much as they did in 1994 with Super Metroid to generate the same level of revenue at $60 each, which is absurd by itself. Now, for those of you wanting the game to be priced at $40 each (a whopping $81.60 less in value than they sold Super Metroid for in 1994), they would have to sell 4,316,800 games just to have the same revenue generated as Super Metroid did. Now, what about development? Some estimates are that cost of development has gone up 200-300% since the early days of gaming, all while the price hasn't gone up hardly any. More digital sales offset costs that would have otherwise been spent on boxing/shipping/manufacturing, but that doesn't put much of a dent in the loss in revenue companies are making now by selling the same amounts as they did decades ago.

Comparing it to prices 30 years go doesn't really make sense. Nobody is trying to decide between buying Dread at $60 or buying a game at $120.

A far better comparison would be to compare it to the price of similar games today. Metroidvania games typically run $15-$25. Most of them are lower production value than Dread will be, but not all of them. When you put Dread up to today's competition it is pretty clear Dread should't cost more than $40, and that's including giving a Nintendo premium to Dread's pricing.

This isn't some indie Metroidvania though, this is the grandfather of the genre, made by a studio of 160 people over 4 years with the backing and collaboration of Nintendo themselves, and an eagerly desired game people have been waiting 19 years for, finally come to fruition. I'd say $60 is well justified.

Last edited by curl-6 - on 20 June 2021