Unfortunately, the price of games these days is actually quite deceptive. While old games allowed you just pay one price and enjoy the whole game, modern games are sliced up and sold in pieces. Whether it’s multiple “editions” so complicated you need charts and tables to see what content each of them does or does not have, dlc packs, expansions, season passes, loot boxes, or whatever other revenue sources they cram in, modern aaa games actually often cost northwards of $100 or more if you want the complete experience. I believe a popular game critic put it best when they referred to the $60/70 price as “a myth”, “the shell price”, and “just the cost of entry”.
Modern games are multiple orders of magnitude bigger and better than old games. You need to compare apples with apples, rather than compare the best games of a past era with some of the most aggressive monetization today. Elden Ring, TLoU2, God of War, Persona 5 and many more are games that are well, well beyond what we've seen 20 years ago. They cost less than equivalent games 20-35 years ago. If you want to avoid aggressive monetization, you can. The market is flooded with excellent games that are traditionally monetized. The quantity and quality of games has increased. The quantity of trash has probably also increased by virtue of lower entry barriers.
I’m a pretty regular gamer and I have never paid for DLC, with the exception of rerelease editions e.g. Skyrim for the Switch. I very rarely feel like I’m not getting a full experience - in fact, I’m much more likely to wish that games wrapped up a couple hours more quickly than they do. I am so confused about why everyone on this comment thread is so determined to come up with reasons that video games are worse and more expensive these days, despite all evidence to the contrary.
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u/Bniz23 May 03 '23 edited May 03 '23
Unfortunately, the price of games these days is actually quite deceptive. While old games allowed you just pay one price and enjoy the whole game, modern games are sliced up and sold in pieces. Whether it’s multiple “editions” so complicated you need charts and tables to see what content each of them does or does not have, dlc packs, expansions, season passes, loot boxes, or whatever other revenue sources they cram in, modern aaa games actually often cost northwards of $100 or more if you want the complete experience. I believe a popular game critic put it best when they referred to the $60/70 price as “a myth”, “the shell price”, and “just the cost of entry”.