DonFerrari on 12 September 2022
SvennoJ said:
Mar1217 said:
Welp, most of my critics towards the inflation argument has been done way before when the topic was brought on before.
Game development certainly costs nowadays hella lot more than it used to, especially when producing "high tier" game so expecting a rise in cost on the consumers end is understandable.
Now the problem I have comes in from the fact that the real price increase already happened a long way back when these companies opted to diversify their means of income through the adoption of aggressive DLC and monetization practices and higher return in dollar to a nowadays higher digital share, which should have actually meant back then that digital pricing be lower than a physical since there's logistical 3rd parties involved in it's distribution.
This diversification brought these companies astronomically more cash which easily facilitates the higher budgets these games receive in turn.
Which is why the increase to the base pricing is in reality such a petty move from them.
Greed for greed's sake isn't something I'd want to encourage with the "oh, it doesn't affect me so it's fine" or " just wait for the sales, they're cheaper that way" crowd. |
The console games market is stagnating, not growing. The growth is in the mobile sector. The console pie isn't growing much anymore.
Companies diversified their means of income because they wanted to avoid increasing the base price. Those margins from DLC, MTX and digital are fading now as well. If you hadn't noticed, game companies are getting bought up left and right. That's not because they are making record profits...
The growth in console video game sales is gone. There was an uptick from the pandemic, but that didn't last and now inflation has gone from 3% a year to 10% in some places. Look at an inflation calculator and $60 in 2005 is $90 in 2022. MTX, DLC and better margins on digital don't cover that.
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What a fantastic graphic that should drive home the point.
