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A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
If you're up for some constructive criticism: I think the meme would be more effective if you put the silksong price in the lower panel to balance the $70 figure found in the top panel. Said another way, the lower text is missing the suffix "...for $20".
...and I guess while I'm at it, whatever that meme law is about fewer words is better makes me think the top panel could be trimmed down: ~~The~~ gaming industry explains why they need to charge $70 for a game ~~in order to make a profit.~~
It's weird though, the value of the dollar has dropped since the 1980s, but games still cost $60.
Arguably Team Cherry is much, much leaner/more efficient. They don't have to pay starving managers and CEOs industry standard salaries so they can feed their families 😁
Once again the parasite class ruins things.
I feel like everyone knows the ownership class is ruining everything, but no one wants to do anything.
But that's not true. I just hang out with people with more class consciousness, I guess. The average idiot probably blames the queers and the non-whites. "They had to raise the price of CoD because of all the money spent on sensitivity and diversity!" is probably something a dud sincerely believes.
Sometimes I wish real life was more like some video games, and I could just crouch behind those people, snap their neck, and dump the body in a bush with no consequences.
What a weird example to use.. You don't understand the economic difference between paying a small indie studio vs paying 500-1000+ devs making complex 3d games where the work of setting up one character dwarves the work of one sprite based 2d character?
Silksong is a beautiful game worthy of all the praise in the world, but this comparison makes no sense.
Big development team ≠ valuable game
The argument implied here is that because more money was poured into development, the value of the game is higher.
It's putting the cart before the horse. The business logic on display by the studios is that they deserve a profit for the investment of making the game, and they have a right to charge more because they paid more to have the game made. That's just … not true, or at least shouldn't be the logic of the consumer. A game is only worth the value it brings to the player (which is of course subjective).
The argument being made here is that the $1M fancy character creator and it's dev team CAN be compared to the work of a handful of sprites by an artist - and the fact that the value is either on par or in the small artists' favor ought to be seen as damning to the larger studios.
To you specifically, @FreddyNO and regarding complex character creators specifically: do you really see value in them? My experience is that they're something I do once at the beginning of the game, but usually within a couple hours I'm wearing enough new equipment to all but fully conceal every choice I made … save perhaps overall skin-tone; plus in most 3rd person games i spend most of the game looking at the characters backside whereas the c.creator focuses on mostly the face. I get that a good character creator adds cost and complexity - but are you sure it really adds value?
You're confusing my point about a bad comparison with implication of what I value. I get it, easy connection to make, but they're two different things
I'm not confusing your point about a bad comparison. I'm confused on your point about it being a bad comparison because I disagree. I believe they're comparable. If there's a reason they can't be compared, perhaps you haven't explained it as well as you think you have?
I asked about your values because I believe you are trying to to make a point about the economics of large vs small studios, and I want to understand. So rather than imply I was insinuating something (language that suggests I understand you, but am being willfully subversive), could you actually answer what was outright an attempt to understand your point?
Why do the back-end costs matter to the consumer? I do understand the difference between the two and that's what makes the original meme funny.
Either you're confused or you disagree. That's fine.
I absolutely agree, compare the amount of skill and effort that goes into a 2d platformer versus something like red dead redemption 2.
It's like comparing a school play versus an opera, the amount of passion they put in might be the same or often way more but the opera is aiming higher and with a bigger budget.
That's not to say that an opera is necessarily more enjoyable, just that the tickets are justifiably more expensive
Arizona Tea is thinking about raising the price of their tea from $1 to $1.29 for the first time in 30+ years, but the fourth Call of Duty game to come out this year needs a 15% price hike.
Let that sink in.
The video games industry needs to learn to not be afraid of letting games cook for a little longer. Silksong took a long time to come out, but what we eventually got was a good game made by a small team. Imagine if instead of the 500+ team members working on the next annual release of Assassins Creed, they peel off 50 artists, writers and programmers to create a new IP over the course of the next 5-7 years? Kind of like the original decision to do just that which got us... Assassin's Creed for the original Xbox.
There has got to be a good balance between "Here is EA Sportsball 20XX, that will be $70 please." where you get an underwhelming and uninspired annual release title with minor changes from the previous year, and Duke Nukem Forever or Cyberpunk 2077 that were trapped in decades-long development hell and released a sub-par, buggy product.
It's not the $70 price tag that's the issue, it's "what am I getting for the extra $10 I am paying for this?". If the answer is a more polished and refined product, I'm all for it - but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Huge gaming studios churning out reskinned versions of the same franchises that have been running for a decade+ with no real original content? $70+. Indie gaming studio putting out original content? $25.
I was born at the beginning of the 1983 video game crash before Nintendo revived the medium, and I suspect another crash is in our future. Late-stage capitalism isn't helping either, but here we are!
Most modern AAA games don't appeal to my old ass, but I remember games when they were made by people who like to play games. These are our modern indie studios and it brings joy to see them succeed.
I doubt this'll be well received, but I actually don't think Silksong should be used to set price expectations. Hollow Knight made a shocking amount of money, massive sales were guaranteed, and the tiny dev team has enough money to pretty much vibe and make cool stuff forever.
Please don't compare other indie game prices to this, when those games can't guarantee their financial security, or massive sales number to turn a profit regardless of price.
Also, unrelated, but reading through the Bloomberg interview, and knowing what they charged for HK, 20$ is actually exactly what I assumed Silksong would cost well before it was announced, the shock for that kinda caught me off guard.
indi continues to save the gaming industry
We have thousands of games that cost even less. You should stop behaving like that Silksong's price is somehow outstanding.
It's not that the price in and of itself is outstanding, it's that it's one of if not the most anticipated game of the decade and they could easily have charged twice that and still sold millions of copies, but they chose not to. They doubtless would have made more money if they'd came in at a higher price point, but rather than putting profit above all else, they elected to make their game affordable.
Silksong was primarily developed by 3 people. For comparison, Baldur's Gate 3 was developed by around 300. There are probably more than 700 people making Battlefield 6.
Didn't some AAA studios complain that Baldur's Gate is "only" 60€ and too high quality, so it sets unrealistic standards/expectations.
Of course they did. They want to sell barely working alpha builds for hundreds of dollars. Good games for a fair price screw up their plan.
I don't care about Hollow Knight or Terraria or Blasphemous. I am not interested in souls-likes, platformers, or metroidvanias.
How I feel since last few years.
I mean, frankly, I agree with you ... but there are tons of other games in other genres of style and gameplay....that are also under $70 bucks, at or close to that $20 mark, that are pretty damn good.
They may not be as meteorically popular as Silksong...
But the point of the OP image is that... you do not in fact need a AAA production budget and AAA 'graphics quality' and MTX and FOMO and alo that garbage... to be able to have a successful game.
That you can in fact have a more modest yet also more focused approach, and create a break-out hit.
The point here is not 'Silksong popular!'
The point is 'Silksong proves that AAA development paradigms and business practices are ludicrously wasteful and not mandatory; there will always be other ways to be a successful game creator.'