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Is the Cost of Gaming Too Damn High?

Is the Cost of Gaming Too Damn High?

People are always going to be concerned about the prices of games. It’s a valid issue. Money can be tight. You never know when we could enter a turbulent economic time. Plus, as you grow older, you sometimes have to sacrifice an enjoyable hobby for something like rent, food, gas, or health insurance. While games have always grown steadily more expensive over the years, to deal with the price of development costs and mediums, there are some situations where you wonder why the price isn’t going down for some titles.

For example, let’s talk about digital games. With a digital game, a lot of the traditional expenses are absent. You don’t have to worry about a physical disc or boxes. That means reduced manufacturing costs. You aren’t taking up store floor space. You might even be able to cut back on things like art and design, since you wouldn’t need to worry about box and disc art.

While digital storefronts will take a cut of the profits, there’s enough of an absence that you might start wondering, “ Shouldn’t this $59.99 game be $49.99 or $54.99, since all I’m getting is a digital copy that could maybe even be delisted or lost forever?” It stands to reason that a company should acknowledge that its games might not cost them as much to make and send out if they’re avoiding things like physical media. Passing along that savings to consumers would be a nice gesture.

We also have more than a few games out there that, well, end up being games as a service titles. Maybe this is planned from the start. Perhaps it’s something that happens. This might be a bit revolutionary, but maybe any title billed as an endless, games as a service one shouldn’t launch at $59.99. Since these tend to have multiple season passes or expansions, not to mention different cosmetic DLC, then maybe they should always all start around $30 or $40. Given how much of an investment they’re going to demand and that there will eventually be a need to pay for the latest content, it doesn’t seem right to charge full price.

Is the Cost of Gaming Too Damn High?

Then, there’s Nintendo. I love Nintendo and its game. Really, I do. But I don’t dig how their games prices don’t often drop. Super Mario Party wasn’t great, so stop trying to sell it for $59.99. 1-2 Switch was a terrible launch game. It has no right to be $49.99 in 2020. Other companies drop their games’ prices after a reasonable about of time. Let’s see Nintendo do this too.

It’s all about being reasonable. We know that not every game is going to be cheap. People have shown they’re willing to invest lots of money into titles we love. Maybe a little consideration should be shown. Especially as we head into an all digital future, more games have multiple expansions, and titles grow older.

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