By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Gaming Discussion - We're Being Screwed - Decline of AAA Value

d21lewis on 10 October 2015
Shadow1980 said:

Here's the history of game prices in the U.S.:

Games are cheaper than ever.

But what about content? Well, has that guy ever played old 8-bit & 16-bit games? They weren't exactly bursting at the seams with content. Except for JRPGs, most games back then could be reasonably beaten in one to three hours. Action games with massive open-worlds offering 40+ hours of content in a single playthrough was something that just didn't exist 20+ years ago.

By any objective standard, on average we are probably getting the best value for our money from mainstream AAA experiences.


I actually made a thread about this years ago. The first game I ever bought with my own money was WWF Wrestlemania for the NES for $50.  It took about ten minutes to see the credits!  People nowadays don't know how good they had it.  Hell, some N64 games were $79 back in '97.



Around the Network
Kelzus on 10 October 2015

* Clicks link. Sees THE RED DRAGON *
No thank you.



MikeRox on 10 October 2015
d21lewis said:
Shadow1980 said:

Here's the history of game prices in the U.S.:

Games are cheaper than ever.

But what about content? Well, has that guy ever played old 8-bit & 16-bit games? They weren't exactly bursting at the seams with content. Except for JRPGs, most games back then could be reasonably beaten in one to three hours. Action games with massive open-worlds offering 40+ hours of content in a single playthrough was something that just didn't exist 20+ years ago.

By any objective standard, on average we are probably getting the best value for our money from mainstream AAA experiences.


I actually made a thread about this years ago. The first game I ever bought with my own money was WWF Wrestlemania for the NES for $50.  It took about ten minutes to see the credits!  People nowadays don't know how good they had it.  Hell, some N64 games were $79 back in '97.


Indeed! I remember Turok being £69.99 on the N64 at launch in the UK. That worked out something ridiculous like $120-130 on the exchange rate at the time.

I think rather than AAA games declining in value, it's now become more a case of consumers expecting too much. I preferred it when arcade games were the big games. Yeah they were generally shorter, but there just seemed to be so much more quality pumped into a lot of them. The peak being when you bought an arcade game, then had mini games etc added for more value. That was the most fun time in gaming for me.



RIP Dad 25/11/51 - 13/12/13. You will be missed but never forgotten.

Ali_16x on 10 October 2015

Lol TheRedDragon, this guy is such a Xbox fanboy, meh. The dude is a complete hypocrite. His bias is so cringeworthy I can't even watch 5 seconds of any of his videos.



"There is only one race, the pathetic begging race"

finalrpgfantasy on 10 October 2015

I was watching some of the videos of that channel and it reeks of Xbox fanboyism..



Around the Network
Trunkin on 10 October 2015
Shadow1980 said:

Here's the history of game prices in the U.S.:

Games are cheaper than ever.

But what about content? Well, has that guy ever played old 8-bit & 16-bit games? They weren't exactly bursting at the seams with content. Except for JRPGs, most games back then could be reasonably beaten in one to three hours. Action games with massive open-worlds offering 40+ hours of content in a single playthrough was something that just didn't exist 20+ years ago.

By any objective standard, on average we are probably getting the best value for our money from mainstream AAA experiences.

How the hell do you make a graph like that and (almost)totally ignore the 6th gen, which is what everyone is actually talking about when they say we're not getting value for our money today? Also, I cant make any sense out of why the specific games on the graph were included over others. Why not, say, look at the price of Madden games from SNES to current gen? Or Mario.



LemonSlice on 10 October 2015

There are games a couple hours long and linear as hell I've gone through several times and had a blast each time, and there are games with 50+ hours of content where I was bored within minutes. If length per price ratio determined value we'd be reading phonebooks and watching security footage.



nanorazor on 10 October 2015

Meh, Xbox faboyism as source of reference.



sabvre42 on 10 October 2015

Snoppy posting a xbox fanboy link? No way... couldn't be possible...

Moderated - Miguel_Zorro



Trunkin on 10 October 2015
Shadow1980 said:
Trunkin said:

How the hell do you make a graph like that and (almost)totally ignore the 6th gen, which is what everyone is actually talking about when they say we're not getting value for our money today?

The games I played 10-15 years ago didn't seem any longer or more content-rich than current-gen games. Also, starting with the sixth generation seems awfully arbitrary. Why not the fifth generation, or the seventh? Or we could be honest and go back to the second generation when consoles as we know them first started off, which is why my graph goes back to 1980.

Also, I cant make any sense out of why the specific games on the graph were included over others. Why not, say, look at the price of Madden games from SNES to current gen? Or Mario.

They were meant to be representative examples of popular games from the era that also reflected the standard price ranges of the day. Typically, new games in the 16-bit era ran for about $50-70. PS1 games usually ran for about $50-60 in its first year or so before declining to about $40-50, while N64 games typically ran from $60-70. $50 was the standard for sixth-gen games (Soul Calibur and Halo 1 & 2 being the examples I picked for the graph) and Wii games. $60 is the standard for PS3, 360, PS4, XBO, & Wii U games, with occasional $50 titles. Adjust for inflation, and you still get a chart that looks like what I have above.




I see. Looking at the graph after reading your post, it makes more sense to my eyes.

 

I'd say sixth gen is the best place to start because that's when gaming was really mainstream, and also when multiplats became a really big thing. Iirc potential revenues for game publishers jumped way up that gen.

As far as "value" goes, most games I remember from back then were around 15 hours.i Don't really recall any blockbuster titles that were in the realm of 7 hours.