i want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less and i'm not kidding

This infinite growth is annoying as both a developer and a player.

wait until you find out what the world economy is built on...

I still play Dishonored every year. Those are not realistic graphics in the slightest, but it still holds up pretty well. Why? Style. I would 100% take a "lower" graphics game with style than a 100GB game with exquisitely modeled sandwiches.

Stylistic games also age better than realistic games in my opinion. Look at other 2012 games like Mass Effect, Far Cry 3, and Borderlands. Mass Effect and Far Cry went more realistic, and I think they suffered a bit for it in the long run.

Not saying Dishonored didn't age tho. It does have that 2012 feel, lol.

I'm sorry, we don't acknowledge that query. It sounded like you said: "what's wrong with the world". Would you like lifelong, wistful depression or the psychopathy required for C-suite?

He knows that. Which is why he's talking about it and not actually doing it.

He's basically just whining about it to us.

They largely are. $70 is becoming the new price point for a new game.

Inflation is a fact of life. Is a price that raises ever all it takes for you to decide to pirate? Did you do so when games increased from $50 to $60?

Unfortunately people's wages haven't kept up with inflation either, so that would just be a double whammy of making people who already struggling to pay for essentials pay more for entertainment as well, and at that point I'd think some people would just decide they can keep playing their old games.

Now do 1985.

Never mind, I'll do it myself: NES games were $50, which today is about $185.

Yeah. Every time someone comes up with "games are too cheap" I always point to the fact that the vast majority of AAA games have insane amount of bloat. If AAA devs were struggling to make a profit then a clear way to cut costs would be to streamline the product. If leveling is not vital, cut it. If randomized loot is not necessary, cut it. If horse balls shrinking/expanding with the weather is not necessary, cut it.

There are always ways to cut corners in a AAA games and if the cost was an issue they'd do it. But the fact that they don't shows how little the actually struggle. So far Bethesda is the only company that is clearly cutting the corners of their AAA products.

For real, I think it's rather telling that there are people who exclusively play some triple a games for the mini games.

It's also interesting seeing indie take larger and larger chunks from the triple a market. Remember when harvest moon and simcity were big corporate endeavors, now it's indie titles like city skylines and stardew Valley.

I would like to see some smaller projects from triple a studios targeting genres other than open world action-rpg.

I'd gladly agree to pay more in exchange for a legally binding agreement that higher prices mean video games free of predatory monetization and reasonable pay and job security for the people making the games. But we both know that they have no intention of doing the right thing, no matter how high the box price. They're already raking in record profits while laying off huge chunks of their workforce and giving the c-suite ever-increasing annual bonuses.

They've perpetuated the lie that microtransactions were a necessity and the $60 price was unsustainable for such a long time that people actually believe it. Now they want to increase the box price while keeping the predatory monetization, having their cake and eating it too.

Games have actually gotten cheaper over time adjusted for inflation even as production costs have risen, it's crazy. A NES game in today's money would be around $160.

Yes, but the market has grown significantly and the cost of production and distribution is very low, lower than the age of cartridges. The development is the only cost.

Lots of industries have had relative price drops over that time. Mainly electronics. An mp3 player used to be $200 minimum.

Prices definitely increased, over the last 20 years new AAA games price increased from 45-50 EUR to 70 EUR.

With inflation taken into account that would probably mean flat prices.

With the increase in the numbers of players, the spread of DLCs and micro transactions, I suspect revenue increased even with inflation taken into account.

Could it be the cost of creating game is rising faster than inflation? Or game studio just got more greedy?

Honestly this is it.

AAA gaming does not equal good gaming, just bolted, expensive gaming.

Yeah, it is interesting that with the exception of GPUs, PC parts like SSDs, hard drives, CPUs, and so on actually have felt like they haven't increased in price in comparison to phones. If anything prices have dropped and capacities increased and speeds gotten faster for SSDs for example. Same with televisions and monitors where stuff like resolution and hz has seen improvements while being cheaper than in the past.

At this point every game company would have to produce super solid, super polished games for like 4 years before they'd get my trust back.