Nintendo boss Doug Bowser explains the $80 price for ‘Mario Kart World’ - The Washington Post
“What you see right there is variable pricing,” Bowser told The Washington Post. “We’ll look at each game, really look at the development that’s gone into the game, the breadth and depth of the gameplay, if you will, the durability over time and the repeatability of gameplay experiences.
AKA corporate greed.
Video games were $50 20-30 years ago. Development costs are way higher now and they take longer. With inflation, let alone longer development, you’d expect a more expensive product.
I mean, even with current prices, look at all the studios that went under
This is a fallacious argument. If you look at sales for games 30 years ago the numbers will be much lower with much higher manufacturing prices. Game sell many more units today with lower overhead manufacturing. While development costs are higher it of offset by number of sales and digital distribution. Many game companies can profit even selling at half the price from 30 years ago or less.
This is pure corporate greed and should not be defended.
If it’s so fallacious, why are studio closures accelerating? And no, if you check my sources elsewhere, you can see that what you’re saying is untrue.
Because publishers get all the money and are squeezing studios dry to chase higher returns, but don't let that stop your circlejerk.
Yeah the development costs are so high game companies are operating at a loss... Oh wait, they aren't.
Right it's the development costs ... Not the CEOs making more money than any point in history, with a pay gap that's just insane, executive making dumb ass choices...
Can't be that, must be 'development costs'.
Never mind that today's world, we have some of the best toolings available for software development. Making it easier and more approachable than ever before and it only keeps getting better. And you don't need to hire people that know assembly to make a video game... You can do everything and high level languages.
Stop letting the PR machine from the corporations influence you.
Jfc people in here are dense. Most studios aren’t Nintendo-sized
Holy fuck you really love defending capitalism!
So EA missed your radar? Or Tencent, Microsoft, Epic, Sony, Take-Two, or Ubisoft... Just to list a few on top, there's certainly more. Rockstar already trying to say $100 minimum for GTA6.
I'm sure some CEO will send you a thank you card though. Maybe Bobby Kotick!
Oh that’s shocking that you bought tabloid speculation /s
Games are digital, much less production costs. Widely distributed, far greater than 20-30 years ago. Efficiency has gone up ten fold with modern tech. Nintendo still makes billions in profit each year, don't play the "they deserve more money for their work" bullshit.
I agree that, on paper, that is a reason for game prices to go up. However, I also think that on paper, there are reasons for it to go down at the same time.
For one, game budgets really should be controlled. A great many indie developers have put out superior products using the better technologies available. This often coincides with longer development time using a smaller team. You even see a disjointedness in AAA games now where it very much feels like 8 teams lumping their portions together.
Two, minimum wage has not gone up in the USA; and the reach of these games has expanded to many countries that (in part due to import laws) can't even pay what were considered normal prices elsewhere. Many of these games they're selling only hit viral growth when a lot of people are playing and talking about them, and we're in real danger of big, expensive productions being completely out of people's reach and thus dropping entirely off the radar.
i doubt dev are making minimum wage in the us they are usually making way more, so that shouldnt affect the pricing at all. i would question the employee if they were making min wage as a developer.
You misunderstand the relation of minimum wage to game prices. Video games, compared to other things like theatre, cool cars, fancy restaurants, are relatively cheap and high-longevity entertainment to be consumed at all income brackets; even if that means a single mom buying a used PS4, and one 140-hour Assassin’s Creed game a year for her son.
So raising the price in a country with such a HUGE low-income population can price out far more people than you realize. Even if inflation has grown, the budget has not changed for many of these people. It’s a broken financial system, yes, but that’s the situation.
How many video games were sold annually 20 to 30 years ago vs today?
How many games were released annually 20 to 30 years ago vs today?
Huh? What does this has to do with game prices? More games being released doesnt change the develepmont cost of a single game (it might even make it cost less because you could share assets, functions, animations etc between different games). But selling more games = more income directly since you don't even have release those games physically anymore.
Total sales / total releases = average sales per release
You’re welcome, I’m full of super basic math tips!
?
And how does average sales per release correlate to development costs? Your argument was "development costs are now higher so game prices should also increase", and now you are talking about average sales per release.
You might need some comprehension skills before offering other people tips.
Google “accounting equation”. That principle applies to profit too
Why do both sides of an equation need to balance?
The Common SNES game price in the UK in 1990-s was £59.99. that would be way over £100 in today's money. Games today are the cheapest they've ever been.
40$ for the longest time, but switch they became greedy and made it 60$, i refused to buy a swsh and a switch over it.
There are more people buying games now than ever before. 20-30 years ago, games would set sales records selling over 500k copies in a year or two. Nowadays that number is like 13 million in a month. Gaming companys report record profits year over year (except Ubisoft lol) and they monetize games even harder now with microtransactions.
Prices should be going down. Its not my problem development costs are bloated because dev teams are too big and the marketing team wants to play Beatles music in every trailer. But they're making it my problem by making me pay for it.
So I just don't pay for it. Problem solved. If they go out of business, its their own fault. Not mine. Unfortunately, Nintendo is too big to fail.
This is the kind of reasoned response i am on lemmy for. I was firmly in OPs camp and almost didn't read your reply. I read it and you convinced me.
Great point about total sales volume!
What independent studios are using expensive Beatles songs in their trailers? Most of the failing studios don’t have bloated marketing teams. And no, most games don’t sell tens of millions, let alone within “a month”
Mario kart sure does though. If it truly is whatever pricing they claim, it is THE GAME that could offset the development costs over the period of time it will be sold for going by past Nintendo consoles. There is one Mario kart per generation with maybe some (paid) downloadable content later.
Those companies are usually being closed down optionally by their owning corporations, they aren't going out of business. Sunset Overdrive's company was shuttered despite their success, for example.
If we're also going by games 20 to 30 years ago, $50 was the whole game, without stuff being chopped out for day one DLC, or micro transactions, or battle passes.
If we're upping the price - do we need monthly $30 battle passes? Do we need $20 micro transactions?
When these games are pulling so much MONTHLY in revenue, how can we then turn around and say games aren't profitable and the price needs to go up?
Also, wasnt buying digital meant to save me money? What happened to that?
Sunset Overdrive was made by Insomniac, who is not shut down. They are owned by Sony and still pumping out great games. Are you thinking Hi-Fi Rush and Tango Gameworks? If so, they've been sold off and are re-open too.
Ah yes you nailed it - I was still waking up but you knew what I was on about :)
CEO salary packages are way more expensive than 20-30 years ago. And shareholders keep wanting to see "line goes up".
Oh? How much did the average CEO make at a recently folded game company?
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/video-game-industry-revenues-by-platform/
Console are making 30 billion a year nowadays and studios are selling so many more copies of games than than thirty years ago and making money hand over fist with scummy microtransactions and fomo tactics.
And while AAA development costs have gone up, but again billions in profits, you're actually going to defend that a cart racing game's development is on par with Baldur's Gate 3 that still sold for 60 bucks or monster Hunter wild for the new average of 70 bucks?
Please, here's my variable rate call of bullshit. This is nothing more than Nintendo being greedy jackasses that know Nintendo fans will pay the extra 10 bucks more and allowing themselves to being gouged along with giving the other greedy publishes permission to do the same and exploit their fans, not that most aren't doing so already, looking at you Rockstar.
As for your, look at all these studios going under, that's not due to prices of games being too low, that's a lot to do with over expansion due to COVID 19, AAA publishes continuing to chase the trend of live services and making dumbass moves, and back to publishers again, over playing their hands with acquisition after acquisition or just publishers being absolute jackasses, like Microsoft and Tango Studios where they praised Hi-Fi Rush being a breakout hit and then closed the studio because it didn't make all the money and they did no marketing and released it on game pass.
Yeah, feel free to think Nintendo just doing gamers a solid here but I'm not variable rate dumb enough to buy it.
Billions in revenue is matched by billions in expenses.
Revenue /= profit
Revenues going up doesn’t really provide any evidence for your point
https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2001/011121e.pdf
2001, 664 million in profit, adjusted for inflation in 2022 dollars, 1 billion.
2022, 1.7 billion dollars in profit.
Won't someone think of poor Nintendo and their billions of expenses making them just so, so poor!
Won't someone think of the corporations!
But feel free to post your citations supporting your argument if you can take a moment to stop your corporate bootlicking.
Holy cherry-picking, Batman!
Yes, the video game industry is doing well because Nintendo’s Q3 ‘22 report is better than their ‘01 report. /s
Okay Billy Madison, you're the one that brought up games were 50 dollars twenty years ago and saying profits aren't keeping up with development costs in today's market, but not exactly shocked you didn't seem to make that connection here.
I mearly pointing out that Nintendo made a billion dollars, adjusted for inflation, twenty years ago at 50 dollars and they've made 1.7 billion dollars in 2022 when games were at 60-70 dollar range.
Sure seems like their doing just fine with profits vs increased development costs here, no justification for their variable pricing, extra 10 bucks on top, bullshit outside of corporate greed.
Again, go ahead and provide your facts to justify your position if you can stop your corporate bootlicking for just a moment.
Think I'm done playing chess with a pigeon for tonight.
I pointed to the multiple failed companies and you point to one company as a counter-example. You insult me, but you haven’t seemed to read my points.
Wild that Nintendo hasn’t diversified at all in 20 years to offer new products - oh wait…
You've done no such thing. You've been sitting here licking corpo boot. No sources or valid points just flippant dismissals, anecdotal musings, and bitching that no one is paying attention to what you are saying. You are way off base in this back and forth with them.
Ah, now you’re just trolling. Accusing me of not having sources when nobody else has any valid sources
In case you can’t google, here ya go:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Video_game_companies_disestablished_in_2023 (Click through each year and observe all the companies in financial ruin)
https://kotaku.com/microsoft-activision-blizzard-call-duty-gta-vi-halo-1850391113
https://www.polygon.com/24177290/video-game-industry-layoffs-studio-closures-record
https://www.wired.com/story/2024-was-the-year-the-bottom-fell-out-of-the-games-industry/
https://s3.amazonaws.com/media.mediapost.com/uploads/BAIN-report_gaming-report-2024.pdf
That makes sense, until you realise the market for it is significantly bigger than 30 years ago, and you can sell infinite copy of the thing you made. When we talk about physical item being cheaper after entering massive market we justify it being economy of scale. But when come to videogame people suddenly forgot that phase exists.
That‘s not even true, though. People will not like this, but most major console games used to be much more expensive 30 years ago, actually. They only became more affordable when the masses got into gaming and really dropped in price when they became fully digital. No idea where everyone got that morphed perspective from, maybe because most people borrowed games back then or bought them on flea markets. And I‘m really not trying to defend Nintendo here because what applied back then isn‘t the case anymore but people really have no idea just how expensive new N64 games used to be.
Whatever the case, I‘m happy to be a PC gamer right now. Let me tell you that.
Given modern platforms and tooling, development should be cheaper and faster than ever. You have a huge talent pool, you can cobble together something in Unreal or other Switch-compatible engine, and run automated builds and tests before shipping right to the online store.
That's called an asset flip, and they are rightfully mocked.
Using a pre-built engine/modern toolset and not doing anything yourself are two different animals.
No one has to painstakingly write their games out in assembler like they used too. Nor do they have to pay for the costs of manufacturing/logistics for digital copies.
Also keep in mind, their sales are way higher than they where 30 years ago because of market growth.
There's a reason indie games are flourishing, its because games are cheaper and easier to make than ever. (Not that their cheap nor easy)
You should go visit every game company and tell them how they are all doing it wrong. You could call yourself the Department of Gaming Efficiency
Every game company? There are so many companies and studios that release amazing games at $20 value, $30, $40,$50, $60. Anything above $60 is simply price gouging.
Name one game Nintendo has made that is so technically advanced or mechanically complex they can justify charging twenty more smackers than any other AAA developer?
Its not about telling people how to do their job. Its about the fact games are cheaper and easier to make than ever, and one of the biggest names in the industry is suddenly charging more than everyone else...
Reach and sales are also drastically higher now, and distribution costs down due to digital games.