• rtxn@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    some developers “hope” the next installment in the GTA franchise will be priced at $80–$100

    Management are NOT DEVELOPERS.

    Executives are NOT DEVELOPERS.

    Shareholders are NOT DEVELOPERS.

    • activ8r@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      Yeah, I guarantee you not a single developer gives two shits about how much the game costs. It’s not going into their pockets regardless.

      • WiggleDog@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        That’s not true. I’ve been a developer for 18 years on big AAA and small indie games. Most people I’ve worked with very much cared about pricing. When you work on a game and put years of hard work into it, you want it to be a success. If the game is not profitable, you might lose your job so of course you care when management shows up with a pricing strategy that doesn’t make sense to you. Sure, passion is a big part of making games but it’s also our job and we’re not oblivious to what the game we’re working on is worth.

        Oh and yes, we do get bonuses based on the performance of the game.

        • noobdoomguy8658@feddit.org
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          1 month ago

          Opinions on that one time Microsoft closed Arkane and the studio behind HiFi Rush, despite the latter’s success and the fact the former made Redfall a slop because of total mismanagement? I’m curious in how nervous that makes you as a developer and how common this bullshit is as seem from within; from outside, it’s basically all I remember about AAA because I don’t often interact wit the scene apart from reading.

  • Soulifix@kbin.melroy.org
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    1 month ago

    “According to Matthew Ball’s The State of Video Gaming in 2025 presentation, first spotted by VGC, some developers “hope” the next installment in the GTA franchise will be priced at $80–$100, fully capitalizing on its status as the most anticipated game on the market. This increase, the report suggests, would allow studios to raise the price of their own new games by at least $10 to offset declining player numbers and inflation while justifying the change by pointing to GTA VI’s example.”

    Who the hell are the developers clamoring for this?

    No, what’s going to happen is that, with so many game sales happening every week, people are largely going to wait for the sales axe to come down on GTA VI until it’s affordable. The only people who’d happily buy GTA VI at that price point, are gullible FOMO-pearl-clutching “gamurs”, gaming “journalists”, benchmark nerds and egotistical Day-1 flaunters. That’s about it.

    The moment GTA VI hits a single sale, then most will jump on it.

    • nyctre@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      While I wish you were right, something tells me that even with an 80-100$ pricetag it’ll still be one of the most successful games ever released.

      Look at diablo4, for example. 70$ base game, 90 for deluxe, and 100 for ultimate plus mtx in the store at stupid prices. And apparently it’s sold over 6 million copies and made over 600 mil in revenue in the first week. And it’s not even a good game, in my opinion.

      • Soulifix@kbin.melroy.org
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        1 month ago

        I’ll shamefully admit that I would’ve bought Diablo IV at launch. But the dealbreaker for me was when they made it online-only, like Diablo III. Good preventative measure.

    • Damage@feddit.it
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      1 month ago

      I rarely spend more than 15 eurodollars on a game, but realistically for the average cough console cough player the difference between 60 and 80 is a few beers with your pals, and you spend way more time playing GTA than drinking those few beers.

    • MudMan@fedia.io
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      1 month ago

      Who the hell are the developers clamoring for this?

      Gonna guess the tens of thousands getting laid off who are anxiously waiting for money to come back to the business so they can get hired again.

      VERY educated guess, there.

      • qarbone@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        If these hypothetical developers are waiting for cash infusions to “fix” the finances of thesw disastrously managed companies, then they’re pretty naïve. Successful games are making multi-millions, even middling franchise games can pull that. More than enough to sustain a normal sized development team.

        I imagine maintaining a reasonable team would result in fewer unemployed developers than overbloating the team thinking “more is biggerer is more money” and then cutting tens of thousands of positions for “costs.”

    • Ech@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      would allow studios to raise the price of their own new games by at least $10 to offset declining player numbers

      Wonder how much they’ll raise it next when they lose additional sales to absurd prices.

    • PieMePlenty@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I mean, I’d be pissed but I’d probably still buy it, providing it was fully playable offline and the content reflected the price. I play GTA when it releases, beat it, fool around a bit and never touch it again. The last time I spent money on gta was when V released on 360, more than 10 years ago.

  • Magiilaro@feddit.org
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    1 month ago

    I still have a huge backlog of games released in the last 30 years, so I can’t easy wait for every game to go into sale. There is absolutely no need or urge for me to buy any game on release.

  • Hyphlosion@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    I wonder… Will Grand Theft Auto VI be the next “AAAA” game? Or have we ditched that term now since the utter failure of the first game that dared wear that title?

  • frezik@midwest.social
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    1 month ago

    For $100, it better have a strip club achievement that comes with a coupon for a free actual lap dance.

  • TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    AAA games are already $90CAD here with deluxe/special editions going for $120-$160. I can’t remember the last time I actually bought one of those games because most of them are trash designed to exploit the player as much as possible. There are a lot of other hobbies I’d rather drop that kind of money on that respect my time heaps more than modern games.

    I think Tiny Glade is the only game I play regularly that is an actual new release. Everything else is 5+ years old because I got them on sale for good prices. Also means they’re already patched up and usually perform better instead of having people pay $90+ to beta test broken garbage.

  • superkret@feddit.org
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    1 month ago

    Just a reminder that you can play AAA titles until you die and never pay more than $15 per game, if you wait for a couple years and a sale.

    • frezik@midwest.social
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      1 month ago

      Hell, I got GTA V for free (legally, yes). It was the first GTA game I played, and I think its launch reviews were massively overrated.

      I doubt I’ll find a free deal for GTA VI, but I ain’t buying it new.

      • pycorax@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        I still don’t understand the appeal for GTA V either. For a game called Grand Theft Auto, the game sure likes to stop you from committing much crime for quite a large amount of time in game, at least to the point I dropped it at least.

        • Ibuthyr@lemmy.wtf
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          1 month ago

          Nah, the game is actually pretty fun. I still think San Andreas was the best part but GTA V is far away from being a bad game.

  • Pika@sh.itjust.works
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    1 month ago

    Just a reminder that no one’s forcing you to spend $100 on the game. If enough people refuse to do so the base cost of the game will go down again. Icarus is my most recent for example, I’ve had it on my wish list for almost a year and a half now, because I wasn’t willing to spend $35 on what that game provided. It’s currently on sale on Steam for $9.

    God of War 2018 is currently $20 on PSN

    I got Elden ring for $30 a few months back despite the fact that it’s still selling full price at 60.

    If y’all are patient and wait they stopped making money on the game which means that they lower the cost to try to incentivize people to buy it.

    Plus the first year of sale of a game is The Game’s most important release window, because companies generally will use the first year to decide how popular it was. If enough people refuse to buy the game at their original price point it will destroy their sales metric for the first year which will make it harder on the studio to justify to their parent company that it’s worth making another game, which means that they’re more incentivized to lower the base cost of the game within the first year of launch.

    The rate of this is significantly slowed down if everyone is just like oh okay I guess it’s $100 now and then buys it anyway, have patience and hold out, especially a game like GTA 6 where they’re going to gain more money off microtransactions then people actually buying the game. Honestly GTA 6 probably should have just been sold as a free to play because they operate like one

    • TheFriar@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      The thing is, universal action like this, even on a fraction of the scale necessary to make a dent and ultimately change things, just doesn’t work because people will always bow to capitalism. They’ll kick the dirt and grumble under their breath as they pull out their wallets.

      I know you’re saying just wait until it’s on sale, but the power of “keeping up with the joneses” is unfortunately a tried a true way of capitalism. When people are talking about the game in the first weeks and posting memes and making in-jokes, people that were trying to hold out will cave like a poorly managed mining operation.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      1 month ago

      I imagine there will be a premium version that’s $100 plus but I can’t imagine that they’ll risk trying to sell it at that price for the base version. People aren’t exactly running around with disposable income right now, at least in the US.

  • dinckel@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    It might inspire me to continue not wasting my money, and buying everything on sale, if it’s worth it at all

  • icecreamtaco@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    This seems fine given the scale of the game and assuming it’s not bad, but it’s more worrying how it will lead to $100 shovelware five years from now. We already had Zelda at $70 (also worth it) so i could see a trend forming.