Looks like the thieving from EA and others game makers might be done

The loot boxers are keeping game prices low. The minute they ban loot boxes is the minute you begin paying $100 for a new game

Eta: game companies are going to do everything they can to compensate for the lost revenue. Once it gets banned, they’ll just charge everyone for that revenue instead

So game companies are just going to take a huge loss per game?

That doesn't seem right.

Why can’t we just let the market sort this issue out?

You don’t like EA’s practices, don’t buy EA’s games.

Problem solved.

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Why can’t we just let the market sort this issue out?

You don’t like EA’s practices, don’t buy EA’s games.

Problem solved.

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This is the best solution by far but unfortunately doesn't always work for a variety of reasons.

Video games are primarily aimed at younger audiences, including teens and children. Having laws to protect these people from themselves is very common.

It's a bit like laws having to exist to protect people from loan sharks and pay day lenders and stuff. Ideally people would be smart enough not to take out 4000% interest loans, but some people are just so foolish or ignorant or desperate they can't help themselves. Society feels the need to step in and try to protect "vulnerable" people from themselves.

This sort of nanny state philosophy can be taken too far obviously and in general I'm against government getting involved in things they shouldn't.

But I'm just pointing out it's not exactly unprecedented for governments to have consumer protection laws when consumers are apparently too stupid to know they are getting bent over.

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It's not about companies losing money. It's not even about companies making money. It's about companies trying to make ALL the money. Greed. They do it because they know gamers are dumb enough to fall for it.

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To me it's not even about greed, it's about dishonesty and truth in advertising.

If the true cost of the full game is $100, then charge $100 for it. Creating a $50 gimped and incomplete version of the game to try to rope people in at a lower price point and then strong arming them into buying a hodgepodge of DLC and microtransactions is just dishonest. It's bait and switch.

It's the same shite as in Vegas where hotels advertise a room rate of $120 a night, which doesn't include the mandatory $30 "resort fee" per night which is impossible to avoid. The true room rate is $150 but they want to advertise a lower rate to sucker people in. That's how I view the morass of DLC these days.

If the true cost of your full game is $100, freaking charge that. I can then make an informed decision to get the full known product at a known price.

Advertising that the game costs $50 and then rigging the game I buy to try to force me into paying another $50 to actually be able to fully play or enjoy it? frick YOU.

Prices have remained low for several reasons:

1) They sell way more games than they did back in the day. Just on the PlayStation alone, Madden 2000 sold 1.75 Million. Madden 18 sold 2.58 Million just on PS4. TLoZ sold 6.5 million on the NES. BOTW is over 10 million and still going. Higher demand, higher sales keeps costs per unit down.

2) Annual titles such as Madden don't have a robust development time nor costs. Sure, they update a few graphics or animations here or there, but they're not building a new game from scratch. There's a reason Madden 19 looks like 18 and 17 and 16 and 15. This is why I'm glad the NCAA series died. Same tired-arse game year after year. Quit buying in after NCAA 12 when it was the exact same game I had bought the previous two years.

3) Digital sales.

4) It's a great way to pull people in, then manipulate them with additional purchases. No different than mobile games and the addictions associated with them. Then, they get fools to support them with the "See, we're not raising prices, we're good people" schtick.


Gotta give them credit, though. It's an incredibly well-done strategy they've pulled off. Sell you an introductory-level game, section off the fun parts and charge more for it. Then, cry about how broke EA is meanwhile they're announcing to shareholders the billions of extra revenue they made this fiscal year.

I'd love it if EA tried charging $100 for Madden 19. It'd be the end of their run. Or maybe, just maybe, they'd have to actually develop the game properly for a change.

Prices went as high as about $80 on cartridge games.

Prices started coming back down to $50 once the media changes from cartridges to optical discs which had a much lower unit price.