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KLXVER said:
shikamaru317 said:

I'm pretty budget conscious on movies too. Movie tickets are now up to $12 a ticket at my local theater, about double what they cost around 20 years ago. I think I only watched 2 movies in theater last year, everything else I waited for home rental or streaming service to watch. Some years I will watch more movies in theater than last year, but I don't think I have seen more than maybe 5 movies in theater any year since ticket prices passed the $10 mark. 

I mean its all fair enough. Its your money. I just think GP kinda makes people value the work that goes into creating a video game less. I think thats why MS is struggeling a bit right now.

I can only speak for myself, but I definitely value their work. I almost went into game design myself, I know they are being overworked and get underpaid all just to line the pockets of executives. Most game design studios are in some of highest cost of living cities in the world, and yet the devs who make these games are only getting paid like $80-90k a year in some cases, far less than many other 4 year college degree jobs pay in those same cities.

But while I'm conscious of the above, I also have to look out for my own finances. The fact is gaming is becoming more and more expensive of a hobby, and that sucks. 

I really think that these publishers need to reign AAA budgets back in. We shouldn't be so regularly seeing games that cost $150m+ to make. Alan Wake 2 last year was made for a combined development + marketing budget of just 70m euros, and it's not only 3rd place in Game of the Year 2023 rankings behind Baldur's Gate 3 and Zelda, but also had the best graphics of any game released last year. If they can pull that off for 80m euros, it seems like much of the rest of the AAA industry is doing something wrong. Time to stop the ballooning budgets and the ballooning development cycles before that bubble pops.