Games

Not buying it. GTAV was the least played for me in the series besides the first 2 games. I thought it's story was a major downgrade compared to Vice City through GTAIV. I feel like GTAV was a pullback from any bit of endearing human spirit to leaning heavily into wacky self-aware sarcasm. Not that the series wasn't that. Just that 5 to me was an edgy non-clever series parody. It's not that different than Far Cry. Empty commentary. Just mocking everything. Felt more affection in the 3 series and 4

Regardless since GTAIV, we've had a gluttony of open world games. Even the battle royale games I think fill in a niche for social multiplayer that's wacky and real world pop culture referential. GTAVI and it's RP community support I think will be what sends it past or below GTAV success. High unit sales expectations but I'm more tepid than most. Maybe it'll be even more effective at whale hunting

I will continue to wait until games go on discount

For the GTA delay, if it is so they can release a less bug filled finished product instead of the usual AAA strategy as of late of throwing whatever out and maybe kinda patching it later on, then good on them for doing it how it should be done. I probably won't buy it either way since I haven't cared for the tone of any of the GTA games since San Andreas personally, but for the people that will it is a good thing.

As for the price of games in general. I'm not opposed to theoretically paying $80, or even more, for a game I deem worth that kind of money. Never have been. The issue is 99% of the time the games in question aren't worth that kind of money. As an example, I am a Hitman fan. Over the course of the varies releases since 2016 to what is now just called Hitman: World of Assassination, I have spent well over $100 for maps and content. And I don't regret it because the end result is a huge game that I have gotten untold hours of enjoyment out of over the last ~9 years.

The AAA players have simply started to price themselves out of their own market, and smaller players have started to fill the void they left behind.

I’ve only bought one $80 game thus far (And that was during a 30% steam sale so only $55) and from my years of experience of buying games, I can confidently say that my enjoyment in games goes down as price goes up.

Although weirdly all of the $80 games that released so far have been pretty bad so that’s strange.

Just like other aspects of commerce, we’ll see what the market does. I hate to say it that way, but that’s simply how it works. Look at what’s happening to McDonalds right now. They’ve been raising prices for years, now tariffs have made things even worse, and people have responded accordingly and go to McDonalds less. Ball is in their court.

Another good example is the recent news about Beyoncé no longer filling major concert venues. I know there’s a lot of factors going on in these situations, but the truth at the core of it is that prices finally went up to a point where a not insignificant portion of her audience noped out of the transaction. Simple commerce.

What AAA title is worth $80? The most time I spend gaming is in a 10 year old shooter, and an indie survival game. Both of which I bought for <$20.

That's basically what I've been saying ever since the switch 2 announcement, I'm glad I can just copy the Sources from this article to support my intuition. Thank you, Superjoost!

I have 170 games in my backlog and the summer sale is coming. I ain't spending 80 bucks on one video game.

I made a rule that I can't spend over $10 on a game until I've played through my entire backlog. I haven't bought a game over $10 in 10 years and I've spent $6k on Steam since I started using it.

Nintendo fans gonna ~~beg daddy for another round of the belt~~ appreciate Nintendo’s innovation

Don't pre order games. Don't buy games at full price. Support indie devs.

I pirate games first before buying. Too many games become shit past the return window on Steam. I buy every game I like.

But it still spooked Wall Street, as parent company Take-Two Interactive Software Inc.’s shares plummeted as much as 10% following the news.

I think our economy might be predicated entirely on stupid.

Also, $80 is a lot when typical people's buying power is decreasing. I think like half of americans can't tank a $500 surprise bill, and they want people to blow nearly 20% of that on a video game? Fuck off, capitalists.

The amount of options isn’t the issue.

For most 25-40€ games I buy, i can get a great experience for the next 30-50 hours.

Indie games absolutely crush the statistics, where some sub-15€ roguelikes have such insane replayability, that i’ve clocked over a thousand hours into a couple. Not to mention how incredibly creative, unique, and story rich some of them are.

Meanwhile, what used to be 60€, and is now 80€+, is some “cinematic” 20fps on console slop, that you can barely get 5 hours of real gameplay out of. I don’t wanna sit there and watch a movie with an occasional A button press. Or even worse, play something like the Assassins Creed reboot, that had 500 hours of gameplay, 490 of which is just useless collectibles around the map.