Leaderboard

I'm just going to point out that Battlefront 2 was a bad example, it's price drop was brought on entirely by the bad press it was getting for it's mishandling of loot boxes and EA's shady business practices. Steam always drops prices but those price drops are only for certain events (like the Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring sales. Generally most games stick to full price unless Valve decides to drop it (its generally not a publisher call when a business runs a sale)). Humble Bundle is a special case, almost all money for those sales goes towards charity if chosen to. Most publishers make very little to no money off of it (I know I place most of the money to charity when I buy a bundle, with very little going to the publishers and Humble Bundle itself) and this is by choice to try and improve their reputation to gamers. Waiting isn't a bad thing, it's what most of our generation does now when it comes to buying games. As I said above I've been doing it since the $60 hike back in 2005 and I buy a lot less games now. If you don't want to pay full price that's your choice as a consumer but honestly a raise in prices is not uncalled for. There are plenty of gamers out there that will pay $75+ for a game and they'll do it day 1, a price hike would not hurt the industry as much as everyone thinks it will (it'll be a blow that's for sure but it won't kill it). With the shift to multiplayer only games now you won't see many games that will retain their value longer then you deem it to. Single player games are becoming non-existent now unless you're in the market for indie games (which are always reasonably priced) because, like DX pointed out, companies can't currently make their money back on a game thats's one and done with no DLC or map packs to keep money rolling in. Sadly the value of a game is what you deem it to be and it always will.

I honestly think $75 is a good price, it's a $15 hike that honestly anyone in today's work climate can afford (and I say this barely making ends meat each month). However, it's a price hike not everyone will agree with (I mean look at the fallout that happened when games initially went to $60, it was mind blowing how many people lost their shit over it (I was initially one of them but in the end it wasn't that bad, it just meant I bought less games over the year and made more attempts to research the game before I purchased it)). I mean I'm that guy that's willing to drop $200 or more on a game (fuck I spent $230 on the Stormblood expansion for FFXIV and I even dropped the $100+ to get the Horizon: Zero Dawn Collector's edition, a brand new IP that I actually believed in and was honestly blown away but how great of a game it is (and I still need to beat it)) that I feel will do well but honestly I'm one of the few. Sadly a game price hike needs to be regulated and done without the consent of publishers but it will never happen because publishers want more money (as seen with EA's Battlefront bullshit) and this is why I sadly agree with your point that they won't rise because we all know what EA will price a game at (I could honestly see a new Battlefield being priced at $100+ without the Premium membership if they had their way). It's sad though because members of the actual development community are paid like shit if you're not an established name or studio (fuck most studios are lucky to get 5% royalty deal on sales (and this was back in 2010 when I was still in school, I'm sure shit isn't any better now) after their initial milestone payments). With the current infrastructure I wouldn't be surprised if the gaming industry ends up like our current movie and music industries (barely hanging on due to greed and archaic practices). Early access needs to go but it won't. It's the only way indie and non-AAA games are being funded these days outside of Kickstarter. It's a shit practice but considering how well PUBG did with EA and how good Fortnite is doing in EA I don't see it going anywhere and wouldn't be surprised if more little known developers go down this path in the future (and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if AAA titles started doing this as well). I know I harp about the old days but I really miss them. I hate being an old jaded gamer and consumer, it sucks that my favorite hobby/past time went from being passion projects to being nothing more then publishers fighting for more money and releasing shit. This is pretty much the reason why I stick solely to FFXIV these days, its a great game and I'm willing to pay $86 or so for 6 months of game time (please note that's with extra, optional account shit. It normally costs $78) plus extra for Mogstation shit (like mounts, outfits, minions (pets), etc). Purchasing games now-a-days is like going to a casino, you never know when you're going to hit the jackpot and end up losing more than you win.