why are all of these $60 games trying to
sell me loot boxes why are all these $60
games selling me season passes for their
DLC why are all of these $60 games
including microtransactions
why are all of these $60 games trying to
sell me DLC on day one there are many
variations but the fundamental question
being asked is the same why are they
trying to make me pay more than $60 for
this game today we are going to answer
that question
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triple-a games should not cost $60
anymore and I'm going to spend the rest
of this video explaining why the price
for a triple-a game was set at $60 right
around the launch of HD consoles the
Xbox 360 and the ps3 that was around
2005 and the price hasn't shifted again
since but the value of the u.s. dollar
certainly has the rate of inflation over
the last decade has averaged out to
roughly 2% per year according to the
best figures I can find that means that
the value of goods has inflated twenty
five point three four percent since we
started selling games for $60 and let's
just round that down to a flat 25% to
keep the math simple so due to inflation
alone triple-a games should be selling
for seventy five dollars right now but
obviously inflation isn't the only
factor in play here triple-a games are
all competing to have the best looking
game on the market and that graphic
alarms race gets way more expensive with
each new console generation and sure we
have found a lot of clever efficiencies
along the way to reduce costs I mean
heck we treat third-party game engines
like middleware now and that saves tons
but even with those savings I would
estimate that Triple A games cost
somewhere between three and four times
as much to make as they did back in 2005
so does that mean games should actually
be costing somewhere between 225 and 300
dollars
fortunately no things aren't quite that
dire it's pretty hard to pin down exact
numbers on this but the game playing
audience is a lot bigger than it was in
2005 - like several times bigger
and that means that there's a lot more
customers to sell to which helps to make
up for that higher production cost and
can result in even bigger profits if you
manage to make a huge hit unfortunately
when you're counting on that higher
number of sales to make a profit if your
game flops well you're gonna be losing
an impossibly large possibly studio
sinking amount of money but since we're
just focusing on what the average retail
price of a game should be let's just
ignore that increased risk factor for
now based on what we've seen firsthand
working in this industry much of which
is under NDA unfortunately if I had to
make a gut estimate and understand this
really is just a rough guess I would say
that the actual retail price of a modern
triple a game without any additional
ongoing revenue sources to support it
should probably be as high as eighty
five to ninety dollars new now
understandably that number freaks the
industry out who outside of Australia is
gonna pay ninety dollars for a video
game I mean we all saw what happens to
the Neo Geo and this fear has been
compounded by the success of the mobile
game market which has sort of trained
consumers to think that games should be
astonishingly cheap I mean for a tablet
game $10 is considered expensive even if
that same game would cost $30 on the DS
or $40 on Steam for that matter steam
sales have been training us to expect
cheaper games too and so the industry
has kept that $60 price right where it
is and I mean maybe they're right to do
so a lot of people got pretty bent out
of shape when the price got bumped up to
$60 back in 2005 and there is something
about the number 70 that just feels like
yikes that's a lot of money industry
wisdom really may be right here maybe
raising that standard price any higher
than $60 would lead to a drop in sales
but by not raising prices we've sort of
put ourselves in a tough spot if we are
gonna cover our development costs reduce
the risk of catastrophic losses and show
our shareholders the return percentages
they're expecting we've got to do
something to increase revenue and we've
tried to do that in a lot of different
ways to varying degrees of success
first we tried increasing revenue by
selling DLC but fans got
set if we sold that DLC at launch and
they didn't buy it if we released the
DLC later next we tried designing games
to be perpetual experiences games that
you would play all year long because
then we could sell map packs and
expansions over that game's longer
lifespan but supporting those games
long-term turned out to be pretty
expensive too and it didn't really work
for every kind of game
besides players can only actively keep
up with so many perpetual games at once
so all of those perpetual games have to
compete for attention and the audience
just gets locked down it's like the
MMORPG flood all over again and so now
we are trying the next thing loot boxes
will come back to the specific topic of
loot boxes in a couple of weeks but this
is basically where we're at and now we
as an audience have to decide what we
want are we okay with paying more for
these games at retail $70 $80 maybe even
more the data suggests that the answer
is no but if that's the case well we're
gonna have to learn to live with loot
boxes or microtransactions or whatever
other model the industry attempts next
and by learn to live with I don't mean
put up with predatory crap I mean we're
gonna have to find a way to reward
developers for making good supplementary
income systems that aren't overly
aggressive or in any way required to
play competitively monetization systems
that leave you satisfied and actually
increase your enjoyment of the game
you're spending dozens of hours on even
if you choose to spend very little but
make no mistake those really are our
only two options right now because like
I said at the beginning Triple A games
just should not cost 60 dollars anymore
see you next week
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