What's your thoughts? I couldn't tell either way.
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No, the norm in the 6th generation and a bit before was 50$. It became 60$ shortly after the release of the 360. During which the argument was that "games have come so much further and deserve the money!" because of the big push for hyper graphics and realism at the time. As well as the same argument about inflation too.
Does that change the overall point? 50 bucks in 1994 is the equivalent of $103.80 right now. Games haven't been keeping pace with inflation, thus they have actually been getting cheaper.
It does, because it demonstrates that they have been willing to increase their price over time and that you didn't know that, which is important when trying to bring up other people's lack of knowledge.
Wages also haven't been increasing with inflation much either nor has cost of living been decreasing, so the amount out of our available budget it costs hasn't been getting cheaper. It only looks that way from the mindless spreadsheets of business men who think we owe them our money. As well as, games in 1994 and the 2000s when the price increased were mostly sold as finished products. One and done with all the expected content, with rare exceptions for major expansions that often were big as the main game.
So they haven't been getting cheaper, they've kept pace in more indirect ways which is how these companies are still able to put up record profits. The same way companies sell consoles at a loss and F2P games are made daily, they reconized the value of install bases being high and then making the money from there off MTX and loot boxes and DLC. Which most of that content ("timesavers" aka cheat codes, costumes, unlockables, etc.) used to be packaged into the game for free which are now deliberately stripped to sell back to us.
That's simply not true. You can't even say that they're getting more expensive outside of microtransactions, which is another can of worms entirely, and wages have absolutely kept pace with video games, just not, you know, houses that have jumped up by 300% or more.
Game companies aren't greedy because they need to increase a one-time charge for a game, they're greedy because the instituted micro transactions and have predatory lootboxes. Getting mad over a $10 change in price just isn't going to convince anyone about anything, because everything else is increasing in price more rapidly than 10 bucks over a decade.
EA isn't bad because 2k is 70 bucks this year, EA is bad because half the game is locked behind lootboxes and microtransactions. The one time charge of buying the actual game increasing at a snails pace is a shit argument when the monster of microtransactions and lootboxes is just standing there, menacingly.
Yes that's why I mentioned cost of living. The thing that determines what disposable income you might have at the end of the day to spend on things like games. Which means if the wages haven't kept up super well with inflation and the cost of living, then your relative budget hasn't changed. Throwing away 60$ now is the same hit as it was back then because its still X% of what you can spend for the month.
Given that, it doesn't matter what they should cost because of economic philosophizing. In practical terms, they cost what people will begrudgingly accept paying for them. Which is the only pricepoint that exists, and everything else is retarded.
So it hasn't gotten cheaper, its just changed how they charge you. Thanks, that's exactly what I said at the end there. Repeating what I said back to me doesn't somehow make you right.
Which circles right back to my original point. If they increased the install price to equal that of inflation, to let's say 100$, would they cease to also have these predatory practices in their games? We both know the answer, which also means I don't concede giving an inch towards paying someone who doesn't give a shit about me more money. We should oppose it, because history and common sense proves they will just increase the cost more without increasing the value.
And, since this seems to be the crux of your argument, you should know that you can in fact oppose two things at once. Sometimes they are even a major problem and a smaller problem!