Game prices for the past 30 years haven’t kept pace with inflation.
I recognise the argument that publishers are shifting larger volumes of units now, which has been a factor that has allowed the industry to keep price increases below inflation for the last 30 years.
Wages not being even close to keeping up with inflation (especially housing inflation) is the real issue here, not the $70/$80 video game.
You should be angry at your reduced purchasing power in all of society, not just with the price of Nintendo games.
(Secondary less unpopular opinion, the best games out these days are multiplatform and released at least 5 years ago, buy them for << $80 and wait for sale the new releases, when they too are 5 years old)
Sure, nothing wrong with single player games in general. But I wouldn’t pay $80 for a game that can be “finished” in a couple of days. If people want to do that, that’s fine of course. But don’t complain about game prices if you’re specifically selecting the games with the worst playtime/price ratio.
If you’re “finished” with an $80 single player game in a couple of days either the game was shit or the way you play without doing any side stuff or more difficult achievements means single player isn’t for you. A good single player game is worth replaying or trying new things in. Personally a game that gives at least an hour of play per dollar is worth it to me.
No, I was actually considering multiple playthroughs as well as clearing it to 100%. (Though some games also put in some ridicilous grinds that make reaching 100% extremly time-consuming, those I consider asshole design and are not included).
I’m talking a couple of days playtime, not a couple of days real time.
That’s only 3.333 days of playtime for an $80 game … I don’t think that is very good.
Do you play 24h a day? An 80h game will take me months. If it is enjoyable for those 80h that is well worth for me. I don’t want to spend hours struggling and getting griefed or playing smurfs just to get to a point where I know the “meta” or whatever. I’m not in the position to grind and compete in those games anymore. I’m done with them except for special occasions. Overwatch, DRG, helldivers etc not fun for me. Yeah, I’ll still play l4d2 or rocket league occasionally. I put my time in tf2 and guild wars, but I’m still in act I of Baldurs Gate III and it’s fun and interesting. Hades is great (though runs are a little long). I’ll get horizon zero dawn and hades 2 at some point. I’m not getting overwatch 2 or whatever the modern multi-player is.
No … but you only add up the hours you actually play. What matters are the hours you are playing the game, not how much you spread them out.
I feel you either have unrealistic expectations or are deliberately moving the goalpost of the conversation. A 80 hours completion time is considered pretty long, normal people take months to finish it (without counting replay times)
I don’t think I’m doing either. Just pointing out that the value you get form a pure single player game is very much limited compared to multiplayer.
As an anecdotal example from myself, let’s look at Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which I consider to be one of the greatest single player games ever made.
When I first got the game, I played through it in a little under 2 weeks. I was limited to 2h playtime per day (but I sometimes cheated a bit), so I’d say it was around 30h of playtime for the inital run.
Then I did a 2nd playthrough, deathless. Even with having to be more careful, the 2nd run will always be considerable faster, just because you know where everything is and how to solve the puzzles. Took me another week, let’s say 15 hours.
A while later, I did the 100% run. But that one was even faster, even if you factor in a couple of hours of routing to prepare. But let’s say another 12h.
After that I probably did another playthrough, mixing up clearing order, trying to get my favourite items sooner, etc … let’s say you add another 2 12h runs to be generous. But at that point you kind of have to be deliberately slow to take that long.
But that would give you 81h, at my allowed pace at the time that would take around 2.5 months. Maybe 3-4 if you play less. But after that, the game is finished. It goes on the shelf. Yes, you can get a few more hours out of it every other year, or play self-impossed challanges, pick up speedrunning, etc. But for most people the game will be done.
On the other hand, a game like Smash Brothers or Mario Cart provided me with multiple hundreds of hours of playtime and has potential for even more.
Counter example: if you pick an Elder Scrolls game you can easily get 100 hours for a single playthrough. Then start again with a different class / race / playstyle for dozens of combinations. Not satisfied? They have one of the largest modding communities, for hundreds of hours of more gameplay.
You don’t need online / multiplayer to have an immense amount of replayability.
Also, the argument was about what is considered a good hours/price ratio. If you are telling me that your standards are dozens of hours / $, then yo do have a bit of unrealistic expectations.
That is an excellent point and games that support this and have an active community gain a lot of value for it.
Not really. I probably got hundreds of hours per $ from StarCraft II and a decent two-digit number per $ from StarCraft: Broodwar and Age of Empires II. But yeah, maybe unrealistic for the average person.