I never said anything about the quality of the games. I’m speaking specifically to the monetization bullshit.

As I said elsewhere: budget bloat happens in a lot of places. Greedy executive and publishers is one place. Overambitious design goals that get scrapped is another. There’s also bad tools workflows, mismanagement, and any number of other contributing factors.

But even indie devs are getting screwed on pricing and making far less than they deserve to be in many cases.

If people keep buying CoD and Assassins Creed, devs will keep making them. And if they can’t increase retail price to cover the budget they will find other ways to do it.

I almost replied from my inbox; glad someone said it before I even got to it haha

Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the capital structure is fair by any means. I understand all the reasons why people - especially right now - are struggling to justify big purchases.

And I will readily agree that inefficient and improper use of resources is one of the contributing factors to ballooning development budgets

That said, video games are - and I challenge you to disprove this - easily one of the best investments for entertainment. Dollars-per-hour of fun on a 20hr, $60 game is $3. For a live service game where people spend hundreds of thousands of hours playing it can get below $0.10 per hour.

EDIT: I also agree that demos need to make a comeback because I’m sick of wasting money. Though people also need to read some reviews before they buy occasionally :/

While that may be true, the costs and budgets we’re dealing with today are orders of magnitude higher than they were back then. Physical product manufacturing doesn’t even come close to making up the difference when you factor in digital storefront costs.

I simply chose two big, well known, and beloved titles for the sake of expediency.

This problem is not unique to big budget games.

Indie devs are getting screwed too. You saying that you’ve found great games for $30-40 from indie devs isn’t an argument against more sustainable pricing like you think it is.

If the dev budget for the indie game was 5% of the AAA game but the price was 50% then you’ve literally just helped prove my point

The fact is - and I challenge you to prove me wrong here - video games continue to be hands down the best dollar-per-hour investment for entertainment. Even a $60 game that only lasts 20 hrs is still coming in at $3/hr of entertainment, which is very hard to beat. When you look at live service games where people will spend literally thousands of hours after paying anywhere from $60-200 you’re looking at $0.10/hr in some cases.

Fun facts incoming!

Cost of “Mario 64” on release = $59.99

Development budget for Mario 64 = ~$1.56mil

Inflation adjusted Mario 64 cost in 2022 = $111.91

Inflation adjusted Mario 64 budget in 2022 = ~$2.91mil

Cost of “Elden Ring” on release = $59.99

Estimated dev. budget for Elden Ring = $100mil-200mil

Mario 64 units sold = ~12mil

Elden Ring units sold = ~28mil

These details are provided without comment. You do the math and decide whether the fact that prices haven’t changed since 1996 might be the reason for some of the enshitification we continue to see.

And now for the comment:

Consumers are horrifyingly resistant to price increases for games. It is directly responsible for many of the shitty monetization models we’ve seen. Development budget continue to rise, even on indie games, while consumers pay less and less in “real money value” over time.

It’s completely unsustainable and the very reason the “business types” get involved, forcing unpopular monetization schemes

Exactly this. I work in the games industry as well and even big studios are falling over themselves NOT to release anywhere near GTA6.

Nobody believes there won’t be people playing other games at that time. But it’s going to dominate the media cycle for a month, especially if it is either better or worse than fans hope. And the reality is that many, many people have limited gaming budgets. If you’ve only got $100 to spend, GTA6 is very likely to be the default pick at that time.

It’s a behemoth in terms of grabbing attention from both the media and players. All the best laid plans for a successful release can be completely derailed by a game like GTA6.

Is It Wrong to Solo Cuties In a Dungeon?

That Time I Rizz’d My Would-Be Killer

Gawd this show is off the rails and I don’t even care

This is the most accurate conclusion so far. The US government considers it a national security threat. There are lots of things it’s “okay” for your own government to do but not a foreign government :)

Unfortunately most, if not all, of these AI filter apps offer some sort of beautification, as it’s very popular and a good source of user acquisition

It looks like the best you’ll find is something like B612

Great questions! You’ve identified systemic racism! Congratulations!

When you believe that showing children that something exists is equivalent to propaganda, you are part of the problem.

God forbid someone have to tell their kids “sometimes men love other men”, or “sometimes, people are born with a body and mind that don’t agree with each other”.

You are using the exact same arguments people have used to keep gay people, black people, and anyone else they hate from being represented in media forever

You don’t see the cross being tossed into every children’s show

This is a ridiculously inaccurate statement. Characters have been going to church, or reading the Bible, or wearing a cross necklace, or any of a hundred other forms of displaying Christian identity in television, movies, and ALL other media since the rise of Christianity.

I’m not sure whether you’re being intentionally misleading or just are blind to the reality you’ve been living in, but it’s seriously worrying.

Seriously, reflect on yourself a bit. You sound really ignorant and hateful

There are lots of reasons to pirate stuff, but this argument in particular boils down to “We should steal stuff now because maybe some day in the future I won’t be able to use the paid version after they go out of business.” And that is shitty.

You bought it, so go crack it now that the license check is broken and nobody will care. That’s GOOD piracy. Support the creators, pirate when you can’t or it’s unreasonable to pay (more).

Don’t just pirate to mitigate theoretical future inconvenience. Do it to circumvent actual inconvenience, or to get things you couldn’t otherwise afford, or to say “fuck you” to big, shitty companies.

But pirating from a small-time dev just in case there are maybe license problems far in the future is not The Way