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)

  • djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    11·
    1 day ago

    Maybe development in the sense that it is easier for programmers to put together the logic of the game, but game budgets are in the hundreds of millions now they have not gotten cheaper. You’re forgetting that artists are needed to create all the high quality textures and objects needed to populate the gameworld. As gamers have called for more and more unrealistic standards of graphical fidelity, more and more budgets have gone to the legions of graphical artists necessary.

    They’re still underpaying them, but indies can get away with having maybe one guy as their whole art team. Check the credits for how many studios helped the art for the next AAA game you play.

    • tiddy@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      61·
      23 hours ago

      Honestly looking at the most popular games, I dont think graphics matter to even 1% of gamers. Minecraft, Terraria, lethal company, baltro, among us, all have the graphical quality of a 2 year old drawing.

      Publishers are just spending a million to underpay artists solely because ‘graphics’ worked back in the ps2-ps3 era, so theyre still hitting that slot machine hoping for the same returns.

      Edit to add: tunic, factorio (technically) Tetris, temple run, hill climb racing, Wii sports (arguably nindendos entire style until recently), human fall flat all have incredibly cheap graphics

      • missingno@fedia.io
        5·
        22 hours ago

        Stylized graphics can look great for cheap, but they aren’t a shortcut to instant success. For every successful indie, there are a thousand more that never sell more than a handful of copies.

        • Nikelui@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          21 hours ago

          Yes, the point was that having real-time raytracing and realistic ultra-resolution rendering is not worth the cost either, when games with cheaper graphics are doing better (and also require less expensive hardware)

        • tiddy@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          1·
          21 hours ago

          So?

          Doesnt mean expensive ones are an instant success either, if anything I’m agreeing with you that graphics are irrelevant to sales

          • missingno@fedia.io
            2·
            21 hours ago

            if anything I’m agreeing with you that graphics are irrelevant to sales

            I didn’t say this.

    • Nikelui@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      21 hours ago

      As gamers have called for more and more unrealistic standards of graphical fidelity, more and more budgets have gone to the legions of graphical artists necessary.

      This is one of the things I personally like the least about modern games. I don’t want ultra-high detail textures for 4K resolution that will be completely wasted on my not-so-new hardware. Instead, I’d rather have optimized games that don’t intoduce 100+ GB of bloat and require me to set all the graphic options to minimum quality in order to run with a decent fps.