this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2025
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They want $100 for this. They are trying to make games expensive again.
In my mind, the bigger and more expensive the dev team, the more likely the business people are to be involved. Those business types really know how to suck fun and fairness out of games in an attempt to turn it into unbridled profits.
Buy a handful of games from small independent studios instead of this if you feel similarly to me.
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
Cartridge manufacturing and distribution was hella expensive back then and that took a big bite on any sales.
Digital storefronts do take as well their lion share though, but that's on sales.
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.