then don’t buy it
people keep buying it, so why wouldn’t they raise the price?
Typical moron gamer moment, though: Bitch about price, buy it anyway, leave a bad review at 500 hours played, and repeat next year.
They named this pathology The Maddening.
Now that FIFA’s gone, EA needs another cash cow.
Fifa isn’t gone, only the FIFA in-game branding is gone. It’s just called FC24 instead of FIFA 24.
And most of the world that plays FIFA isn’t going to play an American football game. American football is completely different and not relatable to pretty much anyone except those from USA (or maybe Canada, dunno).
The game isn’t for you.
They continue to do very little updates and charge full price because people keep buying it.
They sell like crazy. There was a chart that showed Madden selling more per year than most Nintendo games.
It’s a free market. Just don’t buy it
Sport games should be sold as game as service rather than yearly releases.
I wonder if they’d have a hard time selling a service that doesn’t include the micro-transactions.
Relying on only seasonal subscriptions is not enough. They have to sell something else és well to keep up.
Why? They’re probably making way more money this way anyways.
No game should be 70$ if you ask me
Games should not follow inflation at all?
N64 games were 50$ in the 90s, more limited releases (Ogre Battle 64 for example) were 60$.
Games pricing has stagnated, that’s good for the consumers but bad for smaller developers…
Surely the difference in overheads involved in physical vs digital would mean profits are increasing at a higher rate then sale price
Maybe, development cost hasn’t gone down though, not one bit!
Not really.
Optical discs are dirt cheap. This old answer from Quora says physical media (disc, case, artwork, inserts, etc) accounted for $2-$5 of the cost of a game.
And selling on steam costs 30%
IIRC 30% was also the standard box store cut. Steam just carried it on.
So that’s like a 2.5 - 7% margin on a $70 game… an extra 7% profit margin at the high end is pretty significant
Yes, if you’re selling millions of units. But if you’re buying just one, $2-$5 probably isn’t going to matter to you. Not many people would buy a game at $68 they wouldn’t buy at $70.
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The medium games came in were more expensive
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The gaming audience was much smaller
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Games were only sold in stores
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If you add all the season passes you’re paying the same or even more with further microtransactions
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Games in general now have a longer shelf life
AAA games in my country have been 69,99€ since the PS3 launch and now they’re asking 79,99€. It’s true development costs have ballooned, but I just don’t think that’s a good price/time ratio and rarely do I buy games over 15€. I really don’t mind waiting a couple years.
Bad price/time ratio? I don’t know many hobbies where you’ll spend that kind of money for 100h+ of enjoyment…
You can buy musical instruments for that price software or hardware synthesisers, for example.
But that’s exactly the point, I’d rather pay double, triple, quadruple for something I know I’ll use for hundreds of hours (a monitor, a new keyboard, a Steam Deck) than 80€ for a game that will last me 12 to 30 hours (I only play offline story-based games).
Even if I considered game X, there are decades worth of games availabe for under 10€ that I would rather get now or buy a Humble Bundle while waiting for a sale.
The issue becomes of all publishers start to follow Nintendo’s model and not dropping the prices much.
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If you’re going to count in inflation then I’m going to count in the poor quality of those games
Rose tinted glasses.
K
Tears of the Kingdom was $70, and I honestly feel like it was worth it because it’s quite an entertaining and enthralling experience.
“Pro football video game v. 34” is probably not in the same caliber though.
TofK could be the best game ever made (and I don’t think it’s too far fetched given how good it is) and I still wouldn’t justify anything bigger than 50€, 60€ being generous.
New releases used to be £40 when I was a kid (twenty years ago), given inflation, £70 sounds not too bad.
That $40 included plastic packaging and a disc both of which largely don’t exist anymore.
And a complete game!
Those cost pennies. They were never part of the cost.
Absolutely agree with you. However it’s what’s been said to people for years to justify the cost
I guess I just have never heard that before. 🤷
Never was a significant cost. So complaining, you are never going to get you 50c of plastic to burn down the planet to spite publishers.
40? I remember when they were 20. Hell, I remember when you could get slightly older titles for 10. I used to go to Egghead and buy slightly older games with my allowance.
No you don’t. You are just imagining. At no point ever was $20 typical for a new game.
It absolutely was in the 1980s.
Edit: Here. Even cheaper than I claimed.
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more importantly they sell way more units now. It takes virtually no more effort or cost for gaming companies to sell 20 million units vs 1 million.
Let me share a secret with you: Madden (Year) is the same game as Madden (Year-1).
Wait, if I rename my Madden1.exe to Madden23.exe will I get the latest game?
… You’re gonna need to rename to madden25.exe
Thanks. I feel like, I just saved 70$.
“SportGame (Year-1) is literally unplayable because my favorite player is no longer in Team X.”
– Every sport sim players
PS3 NCAA 14 blows next gen Madden out of the water. It’s not even close.
NFL 2K5 is the GOAT NFL game.
Oh no question.
Typically yeah but this year is actually the first time PC is getting the next gen version ps5/xs have had since 21
No yearly release should be $70.
At this his point they could start charging $100 a year for it and I wouldn’t even blame them.
Just take your John Madden Football Sega Genesis ROM and use this tool to update the roster yourself. Who’d be able to tell the difference?
those of us that actually play the game
For like 20 years y’all have been buying the game, year after year, even if it’s not worth it.
See also: Pokémon.
I’ve always been bothered by the lack of competition (and anti-competitive behavior) in the football space.
Madden is worth whatever people are willing to pay for it.
I’m reliably informed by people who really hate Overwatch that thinking like this makes you a chump for capitalism who is ruining the industry.
Madden is so dumb its literally the same game with one feature taken out and one feature reintroduced every year
God look at those crusty ass grass textures, def not $70 material
They know that people are going to pay for it. For exactly the same reason I haven’t bought a Formula 1 game in a few years. Every year it’s just not quite worth the 60-70 euro’s for me. I’m not even that mad about the 70 euro price tag if I get something nice for it in return, everything has gotten more expensive and games have been 60 euro since forever, but last year’s game with some small changes is not going to cut it for that price.
EA sucks. They suck, EA fucking sucks and can I say it again? Fuck EA. Price gouging for shitty products. What they did to battlefront 2? Lootbox pay to win bullshit. The AI in EAs F1 is so abysmal, 2022 was such a colossal disappointment and they are saying 80 bucks USD is a sale price for F1 2023. Naw fam fuck EA and their entire product line. I’ll only buy on steam sale at 70% discount on principal
Thankfully they backed down from Battlefront 2 and removed every single microtransaction. It’s a really fun game actually.
Oh totally. Over 2000 hours in it. I love it but it could have been so much better. Imagine balanced teams (like Nintendo does with Mario cart) instead of total domination by one side which is western philosophy encapsulated. Imagine showing server population so we can join what’s bumping instead of showing no data for fear of investment analysis hurting stock price. Imagine if they supported the community at fucking all.
I love BF2 but so much wasted potential it’s just depressing
What is the allure to a yearly new Madden game?
Statistics of players being updated and new character models being added. Nothing that couldn’t be done in an update. Honestly most sports games should literally just be games as a service already.
Updated stats and roster. Slight gameplay tweaks.
Not my problem really.