While it’s certainly not the first discussion the general public has had on the topic, the Nintendo Switch 2 presentation took the discussion on video game pricing and dialed it “up to eleven,” if you are old enough to get the reference. While Rockstar didn’t even bring the subject up, and they have, as of yet, not even entertained the topic, the Epyllion CEO who suggested they charge $100 for Grand Theft Auto VI has seen his idea develop into flat out assumptions by most people that Rockstar will charge these prices for their games. I mean, it makes sense when you look at their $2.2 billion invested in its creation. Had I spent $2.2 billion on a game, I wouldn’t be keen to sell it for $70.
This raises the all-important question: How is a consumer supposed to know if a game is juice worth the squeeze? In other words, how many games truly warrant a price tag of $80 or more, and how many are just slightly better variations of current-gen models? Circling back to the Switch 2 presentation, Nintendo is asking for $80 for Mario Kart World in a digital form, and $90 for the physical cart. Given what most people have seen from their Switch 2 output thus far, Nintendo hasn’t put forth one game that belongs in that price range for what they’re giving you in return. Maybe this new Mario Kart has a story mode with boss fights, and you get any additional DLC for the first year free, it still wouldn’t be worth $80.
Mario Kart World aside, the production value of many AA and AAA games is often as much as a Hollywood film these days. Game developers are spending more than they ever have to make games and promote them, never mind the upkeep that modern games require if there’s any sort of online component. Grand Theft Auto VI is an outlier, as most games aren’t going to come anywhere near that type of development cost. That said, just because you’re not spending a couple of billion dollars doesn’t mean you’re making a cheap game. God of War Ragnarok was $200 million, compared to God of War 3 and its $44 million budget.
It doesn’t seem helpful to offer up some kind of buying guideline for when to buy expensive games and when to leave them on the shelf. We all have different sensibilities. What an object is worth is dictated by what someone will pay for an object, not what I will pay for something. The smart suggestion here would be to pen out a list of what a game would need to offer you for you to spend a certain amount of money. If you create a boundary list and enforce it, you’re going to end up feeling a lot better than if you ignore it and get burned.
Games like Call of Duty will never be worth that type of money because they already demand all sorts of money just to be able to play the current events to their maximum potential. If the game wants $20-$30 every couple of months from me a few months after launch, there’s no world where the base game could possibly be worth $100, and I love the CoD series. I just don’t see live service titles as being any kind of value for the consumer if a $100 version of the game doesn’t offer everything you could need and more.
If I am being honest, it would be the open-world action-adventure games that I would be willing to spend more money on because they have more story and bang for your buck. An extremely well-done Marvel story can generate a lot of residual income via DLC so long as the initial offering out of the gate provides the fans with what they want from the title. Rather than focus on making something last forever, build a solid base project with the option to carry on going forward with plenty of DLC storylines and features.
I don’t think games should be $80-$90 as a whole right now. We simply aren’t there, and game developers aren’t consistent enough with their offerings for me to feel comfortable with that being the norm. Once the studios can release an entire game without needing a massive day one patch, we can talk about them asking for $10-$20 more than games go for now. Trust must be built before I can entertain constant buffoonery.
Whatever we think and whatever we feel about more expensive games ultimately doesn’t matter. They’re going to increase the prices soon, and there won’t be much more we can do without simply not buying them. If you think that is the best course of action, then I urge you to move forward with that plan. The only way Nintendo is going to learn is if it affects their wallet. Refusing to overpay for costly and underwhelming titles ought to be a best practice within the industry, anyhow. Maybe this is the kickstart for getting it back on track.
