Yeah, the argument that price gouging and nickel-and-diming and straight up scamming is okay "because inflation" is abjectly asinine. And yeah, minimum wage (at least in the US and where I live in NC) is at best maybe a dollar or so higher now than what it was 20 years ago (and any and all efforts so far to improve the situation have been pretty much dead on arrival, because Republicans). And minimum wage most assuredly does not account for inflation, so Pat's argument is invalid on that front, too.
And as you say, that $60 is no longer for the full, finished, polished game like it once was 20 years ago. So yeah, I fully agree with at least the premise, as stated by Pat, of Jim Sterling's video (which I haven't actually watched myself, because listening to Jim Sterling talk is, for me, only slightly less terrible than fingernails on chalkboard) that modern AAA games should absolutely not cost $60. Maybe, maybe the game-of-the-year/ultimate/collector's/complete editions of these games, which contain all the various DLC for no extra cost (and no extra download, but fat fucking chance getting even that much these days)... maybe those can get away with being $60, instead of double or triple or quadruple that, like they typically are these days, but not the base-level, sans DLC, chopped up horseshit versions of the game. Hell the fuck no.
I kept watching, because I was hoping that Ian would chime in to be the voice of reason, as is often the case, countering this dumb bullshit that Pat brought up, but this time, he failed just as hard as Pat did, if not even harder. Ian uses the original SNES Mario Kart as an example, but again, Mario Kart was a full fucking game. No DLC, no microtransactions, no season passes, no loot boxes, none of that fucking bullshit. In fact, Ian went even further into lala land by saying that video game companies should just straight up start charging even more for their games (though he meant for the "full" games, not the base-level, chopped up shit). Well, guess what. They already goddamn do that. And if they did start charging more, it would be for the base-level chopped up shit, and then, of course, the prices on the "complete" editions of these games would also go up to two to three to four times higher than that.
Ian did, at least, say that he wished they'd stop selling games piecemeal, but then said he'd be okay with buying "full" games for way more than $60. And as Pat said, that piecemeal dumbshit is pretty much here to stay, regardless of pricing, whether we like it or not. It's one of the few things they said in this video that I grudgingly agree with, even though I fucking hate it, and even though they seemed far more okay with it than I am.
They say at the end the banal chestnut of "if you don't like it, don't buy it." Which is why I fucking don't buy it. There are still plenty of (truly) indie game developers out there who are releasing plenty of excellent quality games (which I would say rival any given AAA game any day of the week, even if they may not have A-list celebrities voicing in them or photo-realistic graphics or flawless Newtonian physics or Skynet levels of AI or whatever other unnecessary shit) and are charging a reasonable $5-$20 for their games, such that, no, I don't have to and won't pay $100-plus (or even $60) for an amazing experience. As for me, I think the last big AAA title I bought was probably Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, and I sure as fuck didn't pay $60 for that. I think I got it as part of a Humble Bundle for which I paid maybe $12-$15, or else I paid maybe $5-$10 on a Steam sale for it, I can't recall which at the moment, and it doesn't much matter, either way. And the only reason I bothered with even that much is because the Dark Arisen version contained all of the DLC at no extra cost. Someone can call me a villain or an asshole if they want for that, but I don't fucking care. If that game still cost $60, I would not be playing it today, same as any other so-called AAA game that costs that much, and that's a stone cold fact. And if I have to wait five or ten or more years for the currently $60-plus games to reduce their prices to a more reasonable level, then so fucking be it. I have plenty of other stuff (too much stuff, to be completely honest) to play in the meantime.
At the very end, Pat says rather snarkily "Let's be reasonable here. Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water, uh, there." No, in this case, I say to hell with the baby and the bathwater. Put that baby on a fucking spit and roast it until it's charcoal for all I fucking care, at this point. I'm still wishing and hoping for the utter crash of the bloated modern video game industry, even though that seems less and less likely to ever happen as time goes on.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2018-02-22 03:18 pm (UTC)And as you say, that $60 is no longer for the full, finished, polished game like it once was 20 years ago. So yeah, I fully agree with at least the premise, as stated by Pat, of Jim Sterling's video (which I haven't actually watched myself, because listening to Jim Sterling talk is, for me, only slightly less terrible than fingernails on chalkboard) that modern AAA games should absolutely not cost $60. Maybe, maybe the game-of-the-year/ultimate/collector's/complete editions of these games, which contain all the various DLC for no extra cost (and no extra download, but fat fucking chance getting even that much these days)... maybe those can get away with being $60, instead of double or triple or quadruple that, like they typically are these days, but not the base-level, sans DLC, chopped up horseshit versions of the game. Hell the fuck no.
I kept watching, because I was hoping that Ian would chime in to be the voice of reason, as is often the case, countering this dumb bullshit that Pat brought up, but this time, he failed just as hard as Pat did, if not even harder. Ian uses the original SNES Mario Kart as an example, but again, Mario Kart was a full fucking game. No DLC, no microtransactions, no season passes, no loot boxes, none of that fucking bullshit. In fact, Ian went even further into lala land by saying that video game companies should just straight up start charging even more for their games (though he meant for the "full" games, not the base-level, chopped up shit). Well, guess what. They already goddamn do that. And if they did start charging more, it would be for the base-level chopped up shit, and then, of course, the prices on the "complete" editions of these games would also go up to two to three to four times higher than that.
Ian did, at least, say that he wished they'd stop selling games piecemeal, but then said he'd be okay with buying "full" games for way more than $60. And as Pat said, that piecemeal dumbshit is pretty much here to stay, regardless of pricing, whether we like it or not. It's one of the few things they said in this video that I grudgingly agree with, even though I fucking hate it, and even though they seemed far more okay with it than I am.
They say at the end the banal chestnut of "if you don't like it, don't buy it." Which is why I fucking don't buy it. There are still plenty of (truly) indie game developers out there who are releasing plenty of excellent quality games (which I would say rival any given AAA game any day of the week, even if they may not have A-list celebrities voicing in them or photo-realistic graphics or flawless Newtonian physics or Skynet levels of AI or whatever other unnecessary shit) and are charging a reasonable $5-$20 for their games, such that, no, I don't have to and won't pay $100-plus (or even $60) for an amazing experience. As for me, I think the last big AAA title I bought was probably Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, and I sure as fuck didn't pay $60 for that. I think I got it as part of a Humble Bundle for which I paid maybe $12-$15, or else I paid maybe $5-$10 on a Steam sale for it, I can't recall which at the moment, and it doesn't much matter, either way. And the only reason I bothered with even that much is because the Dark Arisen version contained all of the DLC at no extra cost. Someone can call me a villain or an asshole if they want for that, but I don't fucking care. If that game still cost $60, I would not be playing it today, same as any other so-called AAA game that costs that much, and that's a stone cold fact. And if I have to wait five or ten or more years for the currently $60-plus games to reduce their prices to a more reasonable level, then so fucking be it. I have plenty of other stuff (too much stuff, to be completely honest) to play in the meantime.
At the very end, Pat says rather snarkily "Let's be reasonable here. Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water, uh, there." No, in this case, I say to hell with the baby and the bathwater. Put that baby on a fucking spit and roast it until it's charcoal for all I fucking care, at this point. I'm still wishing and hoping for the utter crash of the bloated modern video game industry, even though that seems less and less likely to ever happen as time goes on.