The latest gaming generation has introduced a number of features, but with all the new and shiny things comes a higher price tag. Some AAA game publishers have used this new generation as a springboard to increase the prices of games from $60 to $70. One of the companies leading the charge is Take-Two, who released NBA 2K21 for $70 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. During a conference call that took place earlier this week, Take-Two's CEO Strauss Zelnick reiterated the point of the price increase for major games going forward, saying, "our review was that we're offering an array of extraordinary experiences, lots of replayability, and the last time there was a frontline price increase in the US was 2005/2006, so we think consumers were ready for it."

While Take-Two seems to think that players are ready to accept the new MSRP for games, he also mentioned that the $70 price point won't apply to all future games published by the studio, as they plan to, "make announcements on a title-by-title basis" and that they "want to always deliver more value than what [they] charge."

Source: Morgan Stanley Technology Media & Telecom Conference (transcribed by VGC)

 

[Sono]

No, everyone! They are right! We are ready for 70$ games! My cursor is hovering on the "Mount ISO" button!

 

[eyeliner]

So glad I don't consider myself a gamer, then.

 

[yoyoyo69]

I'd be very happy to see this fool out squarely in his placed. Why does he he now feel prices should rise?

My counter argument is consumers are now ready, the time is right....to decrease prices.

They've been far too high for far too long, this sector is no longer held together by a few kids in their bedrooms, it's a mammoth sector making enormous profits.

The reason we're seeing this is, the huge sales attract far cats. They get placed at the too if these companies and look at ways to skin off bug bucks

They want sell millions of copies, then increase prices to $70. They then still want to make billions scamming kids for micro transactions.

It's beyond insulting. I'd be very happy to see Take Two, report some very serious losses going forward.

 

[thominho]

I can understand their need to increase the games price due to the high costs of the "next-gen texturing" which needs newer SKUs and working computers. However, I think (please correct me if wrong) the best option is the same price and graphics for the next 2-3 years and companies try to fix billions of bugs that already exist to their engines. They are so blind to see that they already spend 2-3 years "fixing bugs" and games getting almost 10 years to release?

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I'm a Switch owner. I've been dealing with $70 games for a while. And I still hate it.

Personally, I don't get why games need to be so huge. I am perfectly fine with a shorter 20 hour game if it's high quality.
Rather than making games bigger and bigger to where they need to increase the price, why not make multiple shorter games for a lower price, with the same level of polish. To me, a super long $70 game is a much harder pill to swallow than 2 $40 games with half as much content but the same level of polish. In fact it's better, because it's hard to get through super long games (like 50-100hr++) and they can feel like a slog. Two shorter games instead means more variety, so it's more worthwhile as a player.

 

[Kioku]

We're "ready" for feature and content packed games that don't require a day one patch at over 20GB.

 

[The Catboy]

Yeah, I am going back to piracy. I can't afford that shit and I am not about to even change my budget to afford to line the pockets of CEOs.

 

[th3joker]

Working at 2k games showed me how greedy and scumbag this industry is. Since loot boxes got karened they have to try to milk the customer for every pennie

 

[fst312]

This isn’t the days where people were paying for expensive game carts to charge that much. I’m sure cd based games aren’t that expensive to make especially when people maybe digitally downloading games. Also I agree with others on this one, a sports game is a bad example for a price increase especially because a year later if I wanted I could get that exact game way cheaper than its release price.

 

[FAST6191]

Let's be realistic about this.
Big productions will cost more, the bigger and better looking the games become.
It should be obvious that Mario Odyssey costs Nintendo more to develop than Mario 64. More polygons, higher resoluted textures, bigger levels, more effects, more content and so on.
Thus I can't blame the industry if they raise the price tag at some point because if they won't, they'll reach a point where even games such as a new GTA cost more money than they earn.

However this point is far in the future (the current GTA earned them half of the money on this f*cking planet).
And I don't see it ever apply to f*cking sports games.
It's not like they are creating new levels/maps, monsters, vehicles or anything for their releases.
They polish a bit and - yes - they may do an engine rewrite every 10 years or so but apart from that, sports games should get cheaper.
Or let me get this straight:
It's alright to take a full price for a FIFA or NBA game (full price = 50 or 60 bucks, not 70!) if everyone who has the game from the previous year can buy the new content (basically updated player stats) for a lower price (20 or 30 bucks).
If I pay 60 $ for FIFA 21, then 30 $ to update it to FIFA 22, then another 30 $ to update it to FIFA 23, that would be okay.
What they do at the moment is not.

Eh. If games cost more, give or take cost of wages inflation to make, then it is because they choose to spend more. They pursued polygons and want me to pay for it.
If you had a magic infinite money bank then you could spend 1000 billion on making the best solitaire game in history, and then again on tetris. They can do the same on film.

 

[Ishzark]

well Gamers may be ready but my bank account is far from ready for 70 bucks games

 

[SG854]

that may be so , but sometimes the company's interests clash with that of the consumer.

There is a reason they don't just offer the digital version of ps5. I for one would not get one if there wasn't a physical version and I'm sure I'm not the only one thinking like this

Sometimes games suck, and I want to be able to re-coup the cost and have an escape plan. Or I'm just done with them and don't feel the need to have them around anymore. And you save on disk space (at least in case of Switch, not the others)... and I just like collecting?

Digital has its place, but I don't think there should be exclusively one option.

If there's one thing about people is that they're lazy. They rather download a game then drive to the store.

The pandemic also pushed people to digital that didn't normally download. And many of them are going to see it's convenience and stay.

83% of games sold in 2018 were digital downloads. This was before the pandemic hit. It has been an upward trend over the years with the switch to digital.

The consumer isn't in clash with the developer. They both want the same thing.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/190225/digital-and-physical-game-sales-in-the-us-since-2009/

 

[XDel]

Considering that money value in America is about to plummet, $70 will be more like $120; not bad!

 

[leon315]

yEP, paying 70 bucks for a slot machine simulator DISGUSED as a basket game.

Definitely"!

 

[spotanjo3]

For those sports ?! What a useless games. NO THANKS!

 

[AkiraKurusu]

Right now, US$60 is roughly AU$78.51. An increase to US$70 would raise that significantly, to AU$91.60.

I already have a hard enough time affording games; this stupid, pointless, avaricious, customer-hostile, unnecessary price hike will just make it almost impossible to justify release-day purchases, instead having to wait for discounts - or for birthday/Christmas gifts from family.

Fuck you, Take-Two. Fuck you, games industry. Please go ahead and crash, like you did once before; you desperately need a reset.

 

[D34DL1N3R]

Lol, Take-Two and all the other publishers can simply fuck off. I'll never buy any game for €70.

Except it would be approximately €59, not €70. No wonder why so many people liked the comment. I wouldn't pay $83 plus tax a game either. Edit: Except I did for BotW + Expansion Pass so I guess I would.

 

[guisadop]

"shut up and take my money" was taken too far

 

[Jayro]

You know... If game developers would just slow the hell down, cut all this "crunch" madness down from being 90% of their dev cycle to maybe 30% of the dev time, would give us richer content with less bugs, and fuller games that you don't have to buy costumes, characters, etc... I could definitely see paying $70 for a new video game. But as it stands currently, with many games going digital-only, releasing broken, unoptimized, glitchy, downloading the 2nd half of the game in order to play it all the way through, and empty of purposely-withheld content to sell back as DLC later, I don't even like spending $60 on games.

So $70 per AAA game, with the current business model? You can kiss my old white ass before you get my $70.

DO BETTER.

 

[Willgheminass]

*wearing a smiling face with concerned eyebrows* Nah...nah, nope. *Runs to the nearest Walmart and points at clearance bin filled to the brim with 2Kwhatever was the last game* This? This right here, nah. If there was any way to talk to the bozo directly who thinks we're ready for $70 games while he's pulling this bologna off I'd like to tell him straight up he's a boomer who's out of touch with this generation. This dumby.