Yeah I pretty much almost never buy AAA games anymore outside of some very specific creators/franchises. Price is definitely a part of that, but the bigger things are creativity and business practices. Indie games are where all the new ideas are and where you get honest expressions of the artist’s intent. And you generally don’t need to put up with bullshit micro transactions, DRM, etc.

I’m not gonna pay $60+ for Call of Duty 500 when I can find full, fun, inspired indie games for less than $30. I will still buy the handful of more creative AAAs that do come out sometimes.

Aka the market has rejected your overpriced bullshit. Adapt or die. Welcome to the free market.

It doesn't matter if you're a mega corporation and previously had the winning formula. You adapt to meet evolving market demand or you die.

These c suites got too comfy doing everything to only please their shareholders. They forgot that pleasing their consumers wasn't optional. We are your money supply. If you lose us, it all comes crashing down.

I just started waiting as long as I needed to, years if necessary, for the games I want to drop down on a sale to under $20. I really don't care how long I have to wait. There's enough games out there now to keep me busy.

Because youre overinflated executive and managerial budgets dont justify the fucking price when games like Hollow Knight, Jump Ship, and Stardew Valley are 10x better.

Good

AAA games aren't worth $60+

I don't have the time anymore, the price isn't really the factor. Anything new has to compete with my existing library and backlog, and other things on my wishlist. It's a problem that's only going to get worse, games aren't really aging out of relevance at the rate they used to.

And if I DO want a triple A game, I wait a couple of years and then for a Steam sale.

25 bucks? That‘s cute. AAA studios are charging $80 for remakes or $250 for DLC packages. They‘re out of their minds.

If you asked me to name a major gameplay innovation in the last 5 years, I literally couldn't. Clair Obscur won a fuck load of awards for doing basically what Final Fantasy did 15 years ago, but not completely losing the plot. Hollow Knight blew everyone's mind for making a decent Metroidvania game. Balatro made a game where you make a series of combos that people have been making for over 200 years. You don't need fancy gimmicks anymore to be considered good, you just need to be good. Major publishers waste their time because they don't know how to put "be good" on a spreadsheet.

No it's the users that are the problem get more jobs idiots

Yah but the amount of shit games charging 3 dollars is insane. Really dragging down the median.

Not only that, but charging full price for a game and then charging $15-20 for cosmetic DLC is fucking wild. If I've paid you $60+ for a title, I expect the full experience. If you want to add some shit a year down the line to lengthen the life, I'm on board, but day one DLC that costs more than the base game was played out the moment Bethesda graced us with horse armor. I've gotten more joy out of Vampire Survivors than I have out of any Ubisoft and EA games in the last 20 years combined.

As an indie dev, this article is fucking stupid.

Want to know why indie games are priced at $10 to $15? Becaue AAA has been putting everything they've made in the last decade on Steam and it's all going for $20 - $25.

Indies can't launch at that price point anymore because they're competing with AAA games from 10 years ago that have been discounted to death.

The Steam winter sale is the best example of this, where most people will buy RDR2 for $19 instead of the new mega hit indie that's $20. So indies have been lowering their price to actually get sales. That's why team cherry priced Silk Song at $20.

Basically, AAA is now just competing with the bottom part of the market they spent that last decade flooding.

They're complaining about people actually choosing where to spend their money wisely because that means they might actually have to make a good product if they want to sell a game for $70.

i almost never buy games on steam itself anymore..Even on the steam sales. The sales are a poor imitation of the great values that they were 10+ years ago, and quite frankly..the quality of games coming out isnt what it was 10+ years ago, either.

I subscribe to Humble Monthly and, eventually, get almost every game I've ever wanted.

Let's see, 70-100+(!) bucks for the (yawn) twentyseventh COD with a 4 hour campaign, or 20 for a game that is complete and lasts for dozens if not hundreds of hours?

Yeah, my choice is easily made.

...until GTA6 comes out, then all bets are off.

And compared to the 10 year old titles on sale that actually work well and look great on 5 year old mid-range HW...

Would be interesting to see the stats for revenue by game, price by volume. If someone charges 300 for a game that no one bought. Then it shouldn't count, hypothetically.

Almost all of the "Top 10 most replayable games" I have are Indie games, especially in the last 10 years.

They're games like Factorio or Project Zomboid which I keep getting back to a year or two after I last played so much of it that I got fed up.

Glitzy AAA open-world-ish games have beautiful visuals but their replayability is near zero, worse so for games which seem open-world but are in fact linear.

Mind you, some older AAA jewels in that style (such as Oblivion) do get me to come back eventually, but it takes something like 5+ or more as I basically have to forget most of the story before it's interesting to play such a game again.

If Price matched "Hours of Fun", almost all of the AAA stuff would be way cheaper whilst many Indie games would be far more expensive.

Buying power is down. If they want me to spend more, capital has to pay me more.

Thing is, I can also NOT play games and spend my money on other hobbies.

Piracy is free. If you're charging 70usd for a game, then I'd rather just spend the time and pirate it. If it's 10 bucks, Im just lazy to do a Google search and pay you for it.

I had to drop my “under 5 bucks” rule because games don’t drop that low anymore. 10-15 is where it’s at now, for better and for worse

tbh i can buy a game for 30-60~ usd,but preferably i want them to be cheaper + it makes buying more games easier.

Each year there are only a few new AAA games that are worth full price. People be buying indie or older games on discount.

Why buy new bugged COD when you can pick up fixed up No Mans Sky?

I like some Indy titles but I’m getting sick of the side scrollers

Pretty much only play free to play games and never buy anything.