Games Are Cheaper* Than They’ve Ever Been | Extra Credits Gaming 

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Income hasn't kept up with inflation. So even though games technically have become cheaper, its recently been getting harder to afford them for most people.

this has some real "the economy is actually doing better than ever" vibes

"If you don't pay me more I'll starve" Multimillion dollar companies

Opening Premise is Not true. Sorry I remember when we had video games in the early pre-Windows era (1980) that sold for $10 each (and maxed around $20). Minimum wage was $3.10 an hour. So a video game was worth a little over 3 hours of minimum wage employment, and 6 hours for that $20 game. At $70 and a minimum of $7.25 an hour is 9-10 hours of minimum wage employment. Tell me how that is cheaper.

A "yes, and" to the point of why they don't "feel" cheaper, in extreme brief: aggregate studies (i.e.: bureau of labor statistics data) count all dollars as equally effective, act as though money is normally distributed (i.e.: along an even curve), and are completely ignorant of what you must spend (i.e.: taxes; costs of living) because the concept of inflexible goods/services, necessary variability, or imperfect agency get in the way of neat models. The reality is, as a percentage of discretionary spending, AAA games are still pretty pricey for most people, as other specific costs have way outpaced general inflation and wages.

From the people that was saying lootboxes are the same as dlc expansions

"Who are you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?"

Extra Credits - "games are cheaper than ever" Tarkov - "hold my beer"

My conclusion from watching this video is that Factor foods gives you brain damage.

If a publisher justified a higher sticker price with a promise of no microtransactions and free DLC I would just assume they were lying and would renege on it about a month after it released

I didn't see the bullet point about CEOs and shareholders getting larger and larger slices of the pie

Others here mention that income isn't keeping up. Lets not forget that the cost of living is getting ridiculous! Rent (+utility), groceries, and phone bills come to mind, plus emergency funds and maybe savings. If you add in the recreational stuff like subscriptions (of which, there will always be _way_ more each year and always with a price hike), you now don't feel so content in spending a full price of a game.

I think part of the reason is because EVERYTHING has gone up. That 70 just hits harder now that streaming has gone up, eating out has gone up, broadband has gone up, etc.

If you're outside the 10% of the population that lives in the first world countries, paying 60$ for a game is insane. Even if regional prices are half that, our salaries are at least five times less, so it's still extremely expensive, so with rare exceptions, most people of this planet will keep investing in hardware and either pirate or wait for major discounts on software.

Technically cheaper, sure. But the buying power of the dollar for the common household on their disposable income is lower than ever. Most financial statistics fail to capture or account for the widening wealth accumulation. A lot of metrics based on inflation are incredibly skewed, since a fair part of mandatory monthly expenditures prices were raised above inflation, but other superfluous goods and services were lower, keeping the "inflation metric" lower on paper. And the vast majority of AAA games now have 5 different premium versions, in game monetization and MTX on top of sticker price. Games are only cheaper in theory. AAAs tend to have over-inflated budgets and low content delivery for the sticker price. There is a reason you feel like you are paying more for less. You are. When you consider you have relatively less surplus income for entertainment. Your money is worth less than before.

the only problem here is that wages haven't followed inflation since reagan

never paid $70 for a game and never will

Gotta say, that point about $70 not covering the cost of production is nonsense. Bobby Kotick and Yves Guillmot (spelling?) are both filthy rich as the CEO’s of the biggest game publishers. They wouldn’t be that rich if the cost of games didn’t cover production. I’ll happily pay $90 for a game if I know the developers are getting paid and it’s not all going into some CEO’s pocket who then lays off all the staff after publishing their best earnings report in years.

How does bro have the worst takes in gaming 💀 Remember when he thought we were orcs ☠️☠️

I think another big factor is that everything else has gotten more expensive and wages havent increased at the same pace. So even if "% of paycheck" is equivalent, "% of discretionary budget" isn't because people are needing to spend more of their paycheck on food/shelter/healthcare etc.

"GAWK PLEASE GAWK GIVE GAWK ME GOK AN GOK INDUSTRY GAWK JOB"

What a tone deaf and out of touch video, minimum wage hasn't increased in nearly 20 years, the income hasn't been keeping up with the inflation. Pay 70 dollars for an unfinished game, just to be riddle with microtransactions. The people who actually put effort into said games are getting less and less with CEOs stealing the money from them.

We are now seeing that it doesn’t actually cost much to create a great game if you don’t want it to. Indie developers have been eating triple A’s lunch with higher quality games at less than half the price tag because it’s much cheaper to fund 1-10 devs than 500. And the triple A publishers are laying off thousands because people aren’t buying their lower quality games.

There's also the relative age of the player as you grow up. Those who were children or teens during the 90s were mostly either not paying for games themselves, or were doing so while not responsible for rent, food, etc. Their "percentage of a paycheck" concept doesn't really start until after games had started settling at 60$, making the cost seem even more static.

Beo is not even trying to hide his sellout power levels

The customer base for video games has also massively expanded

"Leave the multibillion dollar company alone.... or else.."

To convince me of this, you need to show me over the years how much a game and console costs, and then compare that against a minimum wage paycheck after expenses, aka fun money.

Other people have mentioned how stagnant income has been and I think that's the biggest factor, but another thing I think often goes overlooked is diminishing returns. Games are more expensive to make because of their scope and new technologies, but a lot of that effort makes less and less of a difference overtime. The quality of a game from 2020 and a game from now don't feel all that different to me, but the quality of a game from 2015 and a game from 2020 feels like a huge jump, and that just gets more extreme the further back you go. If I'm paying 20%(ish) more for a game that only feels 5% better, it's gonna seem like games have gotten more expensive.

So what you're telling me is that for the better part of 40 years, we've been overpaying for games, given that companies still report record profits today? Good to know.

every time this channel comes up its always the most brimstone ass coal post

Prices go up, quality and quantity goes down.

It's probably got to do with how they shove all the monetization in our faces all the time. In the past the games might have been more expensive, but we only saw that price tag once. After buying we went on to just play the game. Now everything has a store front built into it and we can't stop thinking about it cause the game won't let us.

Median purchasing power (which have gone down since the 80s) plays a big role, not just inflation.

I think a part of it is, as mentioned, the consumer experience. When you are "buying" a game, you are buying the right to use a piece of software currently rather than before where you got a physical cd, a box or case you can show off or throw away at your discretion, the manual, and a complete game. So while overall quality has improved, part of why it feels so expensive is because we are getting so much less.

As corporate CEOs and shareholders gain skyrocketing profits year after year while firing legions of staff, as eggs are now double the price they were ten years ago (and look up greedflation), as companies push higher and higher arbitrary numbers that given diminishing returns for their games, as rent continues rise and wages continue to stagnate. No I don't FEEL like games are more expensive. They are, because we're not soley purchasing video games and living off that. Its a luxury good, and one I'm not putting money into at 70. I usually really like your guys' stuff but on this I have to really disagree.

Look, I'll start looking at games that run $70 once I can properly afford groceries again.

Back in the days, when you bought a game you either had it forever or could sell it. Today you can't. So if games are cheaper now, they are cheaper to rent up until somebody decides to turn of servers and you can't.

The main reason you're missing is that in much of the world pay checks have failed to keep up with inflation. Therefore yes technically you are correct but while the price compared to the value of the money is lower than ever the percentage of a paycheck that represents is not scaling accordingly.

This channel has become the reason I am CHEERING for the Next Videogame CRASH!

Oh yeah, 100%, I looked up last year that when i was a kid, Chrono Trigger released at 80$ in the US (1995). It was actually more expensive than normal because the cartridge because most cartridges were 24 bit, but they went with a 32 bit cartridge. It would be the closest thing to a AAA game today. Last year happened to be about the time the modern dollar doubled compared to 1995. So that sublime 30 hour experience would be 160$+ today (plus tax). I have a couple theories on why I think it feels expensive. 1.) Comparable pricing. Kind of mentioned with the Indie example but id argue the micro transactions, and post sale monetization in many AAA games is also now found in F2P games. F2P games have jumped significantly in scale/quality in the last 5 years and I think that the fact they are closing the gap makes us question why we are paying 70$ AND the micro transactions. 2.) Steam. Steam sales, especially when companies do aggressive price cuts after the game has been out for a few months. It kind makes us think that we are paying a premium at launch much greater than actual cost . Its much different than years ago when price drops would only occur around holidays or when a game was re released under a "greatest hits" label. 3.) Decreased distinct difference between console generations. There isnt a big jump in visual difference now with the jump from 60-70$ as say the 50->60$ jump going from SD to HD. The jump from PS4 to PS5 just wasnt nearly as great and graphics typically have been the leading cost factor. Instead the primary improvement in games seems to be scale, and honestly a lot of scale is harder to really express to consumers as easily. Especially if its not used effectively. 4.) Modern development. Most games launch with a ton of bugs, and day one patches. Back in the day, games just worked. What do you think feels more valuable, something that works as intended in 99% of cases or something that can be neigh unplayable until a year later when everything is patched and working correctly? Especially since all the marketing and hype is around the release. 5.) Open World games/ trend chasing. Most AAA studios play it safe and 95% of AAA games feel like they are Open World. Having so many games in the same genre take away the uniqueness of those games so I dont think players get the same "highs". As such I think many AAA games lose "value" to the consumer because the experiences are similar. To use a hyper specific example, BotW vs TotK and many peoples dialogue around revisiting that world. I think this is also a big reason why BG3 took off. The mass market hadnt seen a AAA game like that... ever as that genre has always been niche as far as the mass market was concerned.

"Hey, games are cheap, a bargain at just $70.00, so you can definitely buy my sponsor's $12.00 per meal microwavables!"

Extra Credits: hey we haven’t had a bad take in a while. Let’s get the internet angry at us again.

As Stephanie Sterling likes to remind us all about, 70 Dollars or whatever it is, now is only the entry fee. You don't get to have the full experience of the game without paying for collector's edition, season pass, dlc, microtransactions and so on. So, yes, the shelf price is cheaper than inflation suggests, but what you get is oftentimes far less than you would have in the past, e.g. content or features cut from the game just to be sold to us seperately again. And don't forget the fabled time savers that are sold to solve problems that were deliberately introduced during development...

Part of why the "low price" + DLC model feels bad is because it's a backhanded way of raising the price, and we know it. That "$70" game isn't $70, but $120 in the most spurious way possible.

You have to factor in DLC though. When you bought a game pre-PS3/X360, you got the _entire_ game. So pricing needs to be compared to the base game + DLC. Plus you didn’t have to worry about your “license” being rescinded (sorry, no refunds) because the store closed.

I get the idea but salaries haven't been rising to accommodate inflation this time around, games aren't really "cheaper" in that sense.

"I'm just a widdle multimillion dollar corporation, and you have to fund me!" "I am not doing that." "AND JUST LET HIM FUCKING DIE?" >This Video.

EC has been cranking out consistently bad takes for years now

I just googled 90's videogame ad and found several examples of games costing 60-70 bucks...in 90's money!

If an Extra Credits take isn't the most tepid, universally-accepted one, it's the dumbest take imaginable.

"and as wages grew with inflation" well ours fuckin didn't

Something to add is the balancing of the price vs DLC content volume that's made games feel more expensive because we've seen a really mixed bag of results over the years. For example, Elden Ring's DLC is $40, but it adds a slew of new content (i.e. bosses, gear, classes, etc.) that makes it feel like it's a whole game of its own to add on top of an already complete game. They had reached a fair balance where the full priced game and the price for DLC were both justified due to the volume of content and high quality of the products. On the other hand, there was Fallout 76's subscription service introduced back in 2019. It wanted to charge $13 a month to allow players access to highly requested features in the game, which that price was more than the Xbox Game Pass at the time. Here, you had players already frustrated with an incomplete game now being asked to pay a monthly sub just to get features that, the players repeatedly communicated, should've been in the base game from the start. While it is hard to find that middle ground when pricing DLC, the players/market definitely has felt the pinch in numerous ways and now hold higher expectations when it comes to DLC.

I think an issue is partly that we buy more games now, and we can't be sure if a certain game will give us 4 hours of meh, or 140 hours and great replay value. There weren't as many games released "back in the day", so you tended to invest more of your time in the ones you got. Today, there is always a bunch of new releases increasing the FOMO feeling. It's kind of interesting comparing video games with other entertainment industry. While some blockbuster movies can have more expensive tickets, these prices are usually tied to the type of screen or time of day, not the cost of making the movie. And some streaming services are more expensive that others, but we pay a flat fee for all the content - whether it's 60 hours of a favourite sitcom or 2,5 hours for a prestige movie.

I've seen games as expensive as 89.99...

There are MORE GAMES being made now than ever, so the RATE at which we spend money to keep up with the industry is insane.

I think the feeling is a combination of: 1) Expectation: games have held at $60 for so long that its been ingrained that's just what a AAA game costs. 2) Cheap, but quality Independent games providing a high quality experience for much less, and our brain compares the value we get from our time playing the games against the dollars we spend. Not really looking at all the line items that may have gone into each games creation. 3) Those of us that remember the era of $40-$50 games were probably kids when that price point was a thing. While we may have been aware of the price of games we were likely not very cognizant of the relative cost of those games against our parent's paychecks. So, we are unable to appreciate how much more affordable they are. 4) Wages are a lagging indicator, and we've had about 7-10 once in a lifetime events in the last couple of decades. Inflation is rising without wages keeping pace. As basic living expenses have increased and wages have not (or at least not as much) the amount that one can budget for games has gone down, and when the list price goes up it feels like a slap in the face.

In Canada, Tears of the Kingdom was $90 which came to $101 after tax. It was painful.

Reasons games are "cheaper" now. The market and ease of making them. The market is bigger than ever. The size of the market dwarves most entertainment markets.

Nothing like hearing from the corporate bootlicks over at Extra Credits. EFAP roasting you boys rn.

This video was brought to you in part by Big Video Game

You also have to keep in mind that disposable income is shrinking due to the price of necessities increasing, so games take up more relative space of our extra budget. If this isn't fixed, games may just have to lose their playerbase and a lot of developers may just have to go back to bagging groceries.

It's funny how it never even crossed their minds that it might not be the percent of the paycheck, but how much of that money you can actually spend on having fun. You can't spend 70 on something other than food and rent when you get paid under 15 dollars an hour.

Obsessing over inflation data is nonsensical when wages haven't kept up. In actual practical terms games are more expensive because for normal people they make up a bigger chunk of your income. This also ignores the rest of the world outside of the US where game prices absolutely do up at least with the official rate of inflation if not more.

Let's also not ignore the fact that a lot of AAA revenue doesn't go to devs or dev costs, it goes to the executives

"I have done a whole night of research on the topic of monetization, DLCs, and microtransaction, and I will include my finding in a DLC to this video" How do you even recognise your reflection with so little self awareness?

Something else to consider in the value proposition is that we aer very aware of not owning our games these days. I suspect that if gamers had an option to pay 100 us and be able to resell their games and retain them even if they mod them it would make a reap difference in price feeling.

Everyone seems to forget that part of what makes the market's prices acceptable at the lower level was because the market size is much bigger. More people gaming now than in the 90s. 90s was more niche and so it required higher prices to make ends meet and make profit, but in modern times, everyone was still turning a profit when prices were $50-60 before this $70 new price... why ignore this? The price raise isn't about covering budgets, it's PURELY corporate greed.

If a game takes £000000000 to make… it doesn’t by itself justify its cost. No shade to the game devs getting paid, this is an executives decision. but if you can’t make back your money, your business model is the issue not the consumer. Also Second wind did a great video on what does AAA mean? And basically it’s just how much money is spent on the game.

The absolute level of corporate apologia on display here is remarkable lmao.

“Cheaper” on point of purchase. And then rammed full of paid cosmetics, currency microtransactions, day 1 dlc, deluxe edition upgrades, season passes and battle passes.

"Leave the billion dollor corporation alone!" In video form.

International audiences mostly pay more nowadays tbh, in Brazil's case the exchange from R$ to US$ was 1 to 1 in 1994, today it's R$ 5.20 to US$ 1.00.

Billionaire executives selling the same unfinished products year after year and demanding hundreds of dollars for dlcs... Extra credits: gamers are too greedy and games are cheap.

$70 for a game that is a souless remake of a previous game doesn’t feel good. You know the framework for these games are built already. You see Indie studios (No Man's Sky) putting more effort into free game updates than you will see from a sequel of a AAA game.

game + season pass 1 (a few dlcs) + season pass 2 (a few dlcs) + "micro" transactions, suuure, so much cheaper... The only thing that is cheap are indie games...

If the "Leave alone the multibillion dollar company" meme was a video.

I don't even remember the last time I played and enjoyed a AAA title.

I hope mommy corporation sees this bro...

Corporate higher-ups are lagging the devs for years, and then when the game needs to come out, it only has 1/5 of the content for the original price of $60, but is priced at $70 with a deluxe edition at $100 and a collector's at $150.

But CEOs and executives salaries never stopped growing. Funny how that goes but no one talks aboth it.

It feels untrue because, in terms of inflation, it might be lower. But what you measure it by isn't full year financial records calculated for inflation. What you measure it against is your personal budget. Taken in terms of hours of work required to pay for the game, it's higher, if you factor in other expenses first. After rent, gas, food... how much DO you have left?

And the whole thing on top of this is. That this whole thing is US based. The usa kept kinda okay among the pandemic times. Other countries sure as hell didnt. I live in eastern eu. And while i got a significantly better paying job in the same time. The price i pay for games more than doubled because of the fall of currency value. At this point a aaa game is costed at around 8 to 10% of monthly wage. Pre dlc and all the whistles. Its getting very hard to justify paying that tag. When price of 2 aaa games gets me a medium quality musical instrument or other tool. I usually just end up buying 1-2 15-20 dollar indie games instead and buy a triple aaa priced game once or twice a year at most. Its really starting to become a luxury good.

Those 2 thousands like are rich people

You know what? You're right. I am spending a lot less on games these days. Firstly, I buy less new games as I have Game Pass. Secondly I only buy on sale. And probably the most important difference, I found the archive.

I will consider paying for new games when games have a fully offline mode that will never update unless you specifically go to their store and force install the updates they recommend. Free updates. But optional

The games industry makes more money than it ever has. Stop trying to justify them cranking up prices even higher.

Yea they're cheaper if you pirate them.

Its a half truth; between inflation and the quality of product yes we are getting a lot more for less than we used to, however wages have not kept up with inflation at all so it is harder to _afford_ a game today than it has been in the past. That is the key distinction; cheap and affordable are two very different things and budgeting gets tighter and tighter every day. So ironically despite games being cheaper than ever they are the least affordable now in the entire history of gaming. Is it any wonder why people suck up terrible free to play models just to be able to play _something?_

Not to mention that a console/up scale pc is very expensive. A ps5 is $499. Way more than the $299 a ps4 could be. Heck you could easily buy a cheaper used one. It’s all more expensive.

I have no problem believing games are cheaper now then ever before. Two things. Obviously inflation - When Super Mario Bros came out in 1985 (30 years ago) it was $25. What kid in 85 had that much money to spend on ONE game. That was probably the ONLY thing that kid got for Christmas that whole year. Today Game prices are all over the place - While top AAA games cost $70 today, they aren't the only games you can buy anymore. With services like Steam we are buying more indie games and the prices vary widely, in 2024 you can buy a lot of new games for LESS than $25 now. So after adjusting for inflation and using the AVERAGE cost of new games, overall we're paying pennies for gaming compared to past gamers.

Say, what if instead inflation we compare minimal wage hours?, also I don't think that its fair to compare physical games with digital licenses.

How have they not learnt their lesson. This is the third time now

It's not that games are "more expensive" in the modern day. It's that modern AAA games are too expensive for what they actually give you in terms of enjoyment (read: no enjoyment whatsoever).

Game companies can makre more money without increasing the sale price or adding microtransactions. They do it by selling more games. The number of gamers and thus the number of people buying games has increased massively.

Did you know your wife cheats on you more than ever?

One thing not brought up here is that while game dev costs have risen, so to has the consumer base. They might make less per sale, but they have the potential to make a lot more sales. Even some fad of the week indie game can hit nearly 10 million now. The large market has been kept up with in indie by having way more indie games now but AAA hasn't really increased the amount of games coming out.

Another thing is that You are looking only from USA perspective. Digital distribution de facto destroyed regional pricing, so the AAA games are 150-200% more expensive than 10-15 years ago in my country. Idnie titles/small games are mixed - some are the same price, some are 500% more expensive.

I think people are proving you wrong. Sales are down gamers reject a $70 price tag