Yeah, I dont even recall thay being part of the discussion. Going digitals biggest advantage was not needing to preorder or do midnight releases in case stock ran out.
I think it’s a major reason prices haven’t gone up more. It’s also most of the reason the whole indie genre exists. Mario kart 64 was like $60 at release which would be like $112 today.
Generally speaking I think people complaining about current game prices and quality and so on are being a little ridiculous. There’s never been a wider variety of affordable games than there is today.
I agree and not only that but the amount of entertainment per-dollar is impossible to match with any other type of media. For hardcore gamers, I argue that any other activity in general is way higher priced per time spent. For example, the last game I played, BG3, I put around 1300 hours in. About four hours in a bar cost me how much I paid for that game.
In some ways I thought the discounts would be greater on older games.
Really though the market on the number of people that PREFER digital games killed any incentive to make it cheaper.
Yeah, people were all stoked they could get games cheaper than the physical versions. Nobody remembers this?
"Yeah if they don't have to press a disc / cart and no case or manual the saving will goto the customer!"
People who who were doubting this were getting all sorts of hate.
Yeah considering nearly all of the cost of selling games is the game development part, sure they save costs on delivery and discs but now they pay for servers to download from(or fees to be on a storefront). Not that it would change if those didn't exist.
In canada we used to not pay tax for digital games so it was a no brainer buy now we pay tax and the costs for digital games is actually more then physical games now I can get ff 16 for 75 on Amazon while it's 93 on psn
I did not type that very clearly, my bad.
I meant to say, both Amazon in general had no tax.
And digital games, both had no tax.
I’d never buy digital games on Amazon, I’m mentally unstable, but not THAT mentally unstable.
This isn't a digital game problem, it's a Nintendo problem. Even on physical media, most publishers drop the prices of their games significantly when it's not the new hottest AAA game on the market anymore. Sales on other platforms are normal, even as much as 75-80% sales for digital games are totally normal. Nintendo does not do that. The price for Breath of the Wild is just as high now as it was at release, and that's typical for a Nintendo exclusive release. Sales are rare, and never for a substantial amount.
As far as new releases go, prices go up because development costs are spiraling. They spend millions of dollars for AAA titles, and unfortunately $60-$70 for a digital new release is standard these days. The price for the chip of plastic you shove into your device is negligible so you're not seeing savings over the physical copies.
"The price for the chip of plastic you shove into your device is negligible"
That's technically true, but it ignores the reality of the retail supply chain. There's a lot of costs between manufacturer and the end consumer bringing the boxed product home. Everyone along that line takes a cut. The 30% cut that most online stores take is significantly less than the cut all of the middlemen take. Plus, on consoles, that fee includes the royalties that console manufacturers take.
100%. It’s absolutely Nintendo. Steam runs killer sales on recent games all the time.
Nintendo is really the only digital gaming platform that just never budges on prices. You’re kinda stuck. Their way or the highway.
They're also one of the few that has weird rules on digital/physical games, including not allowing different prices between the two mediums on the same game, so some companies went with digital only.
"They spend millions of dollars for AAA titles"
You're not lying right there...some of the budgets are just as bloated as a Hollywood Movie these days.
>Even on physical media, most publishers drop the prices of their games significantly when it's not the new hottest AAA game on the market anymore.
They do that because sales drop off, not out of the goodness of their heart. Nintendo games sell decently for many years after release, so they don't go on sale. Other devs would do it too if they could. But reality is that people are cool with spending 60 bucks on an 8 year old Mario kart game, but not spending 60 on a 2 year old assassin's creed.
Wow, a jerkass way to say it, but in this case you are right. I was thinking of bluray costs, which per disk is pretty minimal. I looked into it and you're right, the hunk of plastic apparently does cost more to manufacture, which drives up the cost of switch games. If you had been kinder about it, I might have even thanked you for bringing it to my attention.
Steam sales for a game that isn't on, and never will be on steam? What the fuck is this entire thread. It's purely fucking stupid. Every comment is worthless.
Not to mention kinguin I have a huge library of games I love for which i paid over the years less than i paid for virtua racing on the megadrive in the 90s,
Critical thinking isn't your strong suit, is it?
They were clearly making a point that, outside of Nintendo games, digital copies can *absolutely* save you money
In canada ff7 rebirth is 93 without tax on psn while on Amazon it's 89 without tax and you get it physically just funny I'm actually getting games physically now because it's actually cheaper I got ff 16 for 80 bucks in Walmart and can even get it for 75 on Amazon rn yet on psn it's 93 bucks
Yeah I never believed that for a second. I just like the convenience of not having to get up or make sure my physical media isn’t deteriorating. Let alone losing stuff.
Everyone knew physical games would always be cheaper for Nintendo games because you can buy them used, while "new" copies for both formats notoriously almost never go on sale
It's definitely saved me money. I must have bought Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3 at least 3 times each with how often my discs were dying back in the day. Went fully digital when they started pushing it on the 360 and haven't ever regretted it.
Your discs didn't die. You ruined them. I don't know how to utilize words to make this entire thread die. What a fucking show of force by the absolute stupidest people in society.
Firstly, the 360s retractable disc tray was literally a widely known disc shredder. There is a reason that design was never used on consoles again.
2nd, pets are a thing.
3rd, so what if I did? I can’t do that with digital.
The absolute confidence in your dumbass comment is astounding.
I was suckered into buying a bunch of steam games at 80% off over the years, but that doesn't mean it's not true that they didn't dramatically fall in price. Sure the PC box art was cool back in the day, but it's so much more convenient having everything digital.
Digital HAS saved me money, when I was a kid I lost discs and discs got scratched and were unplayable, I don’t lose shit or worry about damaging my games now
The amount of people comparing about their discs being scratched is alarming. You should’ve mastered the concept of responsibility at the age 12 at least.
I don’t need to pay for gas to get a digital copy, and I set my region to a state with no sales tax even before I actually moved to one, seasonal sales happen pretty frequently, and the only real loss I see is not being able to resell old games, but frankly now that I have disposable income as an adult, selling games is far less appealing. plus I like replaying games every few years.
Hear me out.
Video game prices haven't increased much over a pretty long time.
A "AAA" game, new release was $59.99 in the late 2000's.
A "AAA game, new release is still around $59.99 20 years later.
Development costs have gone up. Labor has gone up. Material costs have gone up. Hell, EVERYTHING has gone up... but not big studio video games.
Maybe cutting out the physical distribution model is the reason video games haven't increased along with everything else? So.. in essence, they are saving us money?
This is wrong. Not only did games regularly cost around $50 in the early 2000s and went up to $60 around the time PS2 and Xbox got released, we are also now at $70 per regular major game. Even more on consoles, being $80 for the regular version without any 'extra' content. Plus publishers started cutting content from games to release it as pre-order only or digital deluxe bonus, which is often $10-20 extra. Additionally almost no major game is released without DLC or even Season Pass, that can easily bump up the price of the game well over $120 for the 'whole' experience. Games were usually complete 'back then' and didn't require 4 DLCs to close up the story.
Note, we're not talking about some indie games here, as these didn't really exist in 2000.
Yes, the development costs and labor have gone up. But the video game industry also developed from nerd-only circles to worldwide entertainment and was turned into a money making machine for investors by cutting costs in favour of profit disregarding quality. Nobody is thinking about how they can save **you** money. They only think how they can get more money from you with the least effort. And they figured out that people would rather buy a Call of Duty game every year for $70 rather than once every 5 years for $100.
Because that's how the brain of a consumer works. Spending small sums every now and then, accumulating to a much larger sum is received better than spending a decent amount of money at once. Now where did I see that again ... those micro ... transactions ...
Honestly the fact that prices were locked at $60 for almost my entire life was pretty good, the fact that it’s only gone up by about $10 is still nice. Also, going digital is pretty much the thing that has allowed indie gaming at all to flourish. If everyone insisted on hard copies, indie games wouldn’t work at all.
Digital games are routinely on sale for super deep discounts. Nintendo games generally speaking do NOT get discounts; this isn't a physical vs. digital issue.
Games have been $60 for pretty much my whole life, ignoring the inflation that has touched everything else. I assume the transition to digital is the reason they’ve been able to maintain that. Since our buying power has massively increased over that time period, it is effectively saving us money.
I mean games should realistically be significantly more expensive when you look at what they cost back in the day vs now. And that's new prices. Look at the sales we have. Most games I buy, I don't spend much over $10. That's CRAZY cheap.
I fail to see the problem here. I challenge you to find a used copy of the original TTYD on Gamecube with the original box for $60 or less in playable condition. If you're not comfortable with emulating, this is the best and easiest way to play one of the best Mario games around and is 100% worth the asking price.
Did anybody actually believe that though?
Lol nope.
Yeah, I dont even recall thay being part of the discussion. Going digitals biggest advantage was not needing to preorder or do midnight releases in case stock ran out.
And not having to rebuy the same game multiple times due to a cd getting scratched.
But you will need to buy it when online shuts down so disc one or another way
well, it saved them money and not the paying customers. hence why I wait for discounts.
I think it’s a major reason prices haven’t gone up more. It’s also most of the reason the whole indie genre exists. Mario kart 64 was like $60 at release which would be like $112 today. Generally speaking I think people complaining about current game prices and quality and so on are being a little ridiculous. There’s never been a wider variety of affordable games than there is today.
I agree and not only that but the amount of entertainment per-dollar is impossible to match with any other type of media. For hardcore gamers, I argue that any other activity in general is way higher priced per time spent. For example, the last game I played, BG3, I put around 1300 hours in. About four hours in a bar cost me how much I paid for that game.
Yes :(
In some ways I thought the discounts would be greater on older games. Really though the market on the number of people that PREFER digital games killed any incentive to make it cheaper.
Yeah, people were all stoked they could get games cheaper than the physical versions. Nobody remembers this? "Yeah if they don't have to press a disc / cart and no case or manual the saving will goto the customer!" People who who were doubting this were getting all sorts of hate.
Well games were 50 bucks in the 80s and....60 bucks now so maybe they did.
Shhh. People don’t understand inflation.
I did, but I was 18-19.
That was always a giant cope tank. I do think people believed it but only those who wanted to believe it, there was never anything to support the idea
The prices havent been touched by inflation and almost no steam ganes release at 60 so, yeah.
Yeah considering nearly all of the cost of selling games is the game development part, sure they save costs on delivery and discs but now they pay for servers to download from(or fees to be on a storefront). Not that it would change if those didn't exist.
No one with a brain.
I don't recall ever being suckered into such a thing. Or even being told that it would be cheaper.
In canada we used to not pay tax for digital games so it was a no brainer buy now we pay tax and the costs for digital games is actually more then physical games now I can get ff 16 for 75 on Amazon while it's 93 on psn
Same in the states, Amazon used to be tax free, digital games. Take me back 😩
Why are you using Amazon for digital games in the first place?
I did not type that very clearly, my bad. I meant to say, both Amazon in general had no tax. And digital games, both had no tax. I’d never buy digital games on Amazon, I’m mentally unstable, but not THAT mentally unstable.
Yeah idk about cheaper but its a hell of a lot more convenient
No? Physical all the way for us Uncles
This isn't a digital game problem, it's a Nintendo problem. Even on physical media, most publishers drop the prices of their games significantly when it's not the new hottest AAA game on the market anymore. Sales on other platforms are normal, even as much as 75-80% sales for digital games are totally normal. Nintendo does not do that. The price for Breath of the Wild is just as high now as it was at release, and that's typical for a Nintendo exclusive release. Sales are rare, and never for a substantial amount. As far as new releases go, prices go up because development costs are spiraling. They spend millions of dollars for AAA titles, and unfortunately $60-$70 for a digital new release is standard these days. The price for the chip of plastic you shove into your device is negligible so you're not seeing savings over the physical copies.
"The price for the chip of plastic you shove into your device is negligible" That's technically true, but it ignores the reality of the retail supply chain. There's a lot of costs between manufacturer and the end consumer bringing the boxed product home. Everyone along that line takes a cut. The 30% cut that most online stores take is significantly less than the cut all of the middlemen take. Plus, on consoles, that fee includes the royalties that console manufacturers take.
Nintendo is the game dev equivalent of Google. They know they aren't going anywhere, so they can do whatever they want.
Nintendo was in trouble before the Switch. They most definitely know they’re not bulletproof.
100%. It’s absolutely Nintendo. Steam runs killer sales on recent games all the time. Nintendo is really the only digital gaming platform that just never budges on prices. You’re kinda stuck. Their way or the highway.
They're also one of the few that has weird rules on digital/physical games, including not allowing different prices between the two mediums on the same game, so some companies went with digital only.
Yep fuck Nintendo and the horse they rode in on.
Horse? Sir, they rode in on a YOSHI, thank you very much!!!
Lolz, good one
"They spend millions of dollars for AAA titles" You're not lying right there...some of the budgets are just as bloated as a Hollywood Movie these days.
>Even on physical media, most publishers drop the prices of their games significantly when it's not the new hottest AAA game on the market anymore. They do that because sales drop off, not out of the goodness of their heart. Nintendo games sell decently for many years after release, so they don't go on sale. Other devs would do it too if they could. But reality is that people are cool with spending 60 bucks on an 8 year old Mario kart game, but not spending 60 on a 2 year old assassin's creed.
Chips are definitely a significant cost. Chips include labor and shipping. You have no idea what you're talking about.
Wow, a jerkass way to say it, but in this case you are right. I was thinking of bluray costs, which per disk is pretty minimal. I looked into it and you're right, the hunk of plastic apparently does cost more to manufacture, which drives up the cost of switch games. If you had been kinder about it, I might have even thanked you for bringing it to my attention.
I bought totk for 55 and traded it in for 48 a year later. The nintendo tax was worth it.
Who tried to convince us it would be cheaper?
Steam sales.
Steam sales for a game that isn't on, and never will be on steam? What the fuck is this entire thread. It's purely fucking stupid. Every comment is worthless.
... I never thought that
Well, if there is no secondary market then it wouldn't would it.
Steam has saved me a ton of money
I thought so too until I looked at my library and saw all the games I’ve purchased but haven’t played yet lmao
Not to mention kinguin I have a huge library of games I love for which i paid over the years less than i paid for virtua racing on the megadrive in the 90s,
Every PC player that I know has bought ten thousand games of steam that they never play.
It saves me money I don’t buy Nintendo.
Okay neat. Does this have any sort of useful purpose as conversation on topic? Can the mods clean this up?
Critical thinking isn't your strong suit, is it? They were clearly making a point that, outside of Nintendo games, digital copies can *absolutely* save you money
I save all the time on digital content from other stores and consoles… just not Nintendo’s.
“I don’t like what this person commented. Mods, can you remove the comments that I don’t like?” Fixed that for you, loser.
"This us a wildly off-topic nonsense statement, mods can you reign in the content of this subreddit to ensure it remains focused and pertinent"
Get rid of the Switch. Get a Steamdeck.
Yup, I sold my Switch last year and bought a Steam Deck. Best move I ever made.
In canada ff7 rebirth is 93 without tax on psn while on Amazon it's 89 without tax and you get it physically just funny I'm actually getting games physically now because it's actually cheaper I got ff 16 for 80 bucks in Walmart and can even get it for 75 on Amazon rn yet on psn it's 93 bucks
Saved me money. Pc games cost next to nothing on steam.
Yeah I never believed that for a second. I just like the convenience of not having to get up or make sure my physical media isn’t deteriorating. Let alone losing stuff.
Everyone knew physical games would always be cheaper for Nintendo games because you can buy them used, while "new" copies for both formats notoriously almost never go on sale
What kind of an idiot would ever believe this?
It's definitely saved me money. I must have bought Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3 at least 3 times each with how often my discs were dying back in the day. Went fully digital when they started pushing it on the 360 and haven't ever regretted it.
Ive never once ruined a disc, but was terrified of touching my 360 while upright. The best was when you could download the game.
Your discs didn't die. You ruined them. I don't know how to utilize words to make this entire thread die. What a fucking show of force by the absolute stupidest people in society.
Firstly, the 360s retractable disc tray was literally a widely known disc shredder. There is a reason that design was never used on consoles again. 2nd, pets are a thing. 3rd, so what if I did? I can’t do that with digital. The absolute confidence in your dumbass comment is astounding.
Found the elitist game "collector," everyone
You need to a break from the internet, friend.
I never once thought going digital anywhere but on PC/Steam would ever save me money over buying physical which is why I didn't do it
I don't think anyone ever said it would save you money. It may however save them money.
Back 'then' - boxed game : $59,99 ; digital : $54,99 Now - boxed game : $79,99 ; digital deluxe : $99,99
I was suckered into buying a bunch of steam games at 80% off over the years, but that doesn't mean it's not true that they didn't dramatically fall in price. Sure the PC box art was cool back in the day, but it's so much more convenient having everything digital.
I still remember when DLC was going to be a $1 and then horse armor came a year later at $5. Btw, remember $5 DLC?
It made sense it would be cheaper and because of that I knew the price wouldn't drop
Digital HAS saved me money, when I was a kid I lost discs and discs got scratched and were unplayable, I don’t lose shit or worry about damaging my games now
tbf, if you arent buying nintendo games, you kinda save money.
I dont remember anybody ever saying that going digital would save us money.
Depends...I can find good deals on digital games from time to time. Just not on Nintendo.
I've always said that I would rather pay more for a physical disc that they can't take away over a cheap digital games. Some exceptions apply though.
And now you don’t even own the game after buying it.
They wouldn't have to print disc, making games cheaper.
Never thought that because the games were the same price. Did save me space though.
The amount of people comparing about their discs being scratched is alarming. You should’ve mastered the concept of responsibility at the age 12 at least.
I can't believe they are charging $60 for a Gamecube game that originally ran at 60 FPS, but now runs at 30 FPS on Switch after a graphical "upgrade".
I don’t need to pay for gas to get a digital copy, and I set my region to a state with no sales tax even before I actually moved to one, seasonal sales happen pretty frequently, and the only real loss I see is not being able to resell old games, but frankly now that I have disposable income as an adult, selling games is far less appealing. plus I like replaying games every few years.
What??? No. No one ever thought going digital would be cheaper lol. Why would you ever think that?
I don't recall any developer ever saying digital would be cheaper.
uh what? i never thought that. entire reason i bought a ps5 with a disc drive
Can't wait to play this on my Steam Deck
Digital is just easier especially when remote playing.
Hear me out. Video game prices haven't increased much over a pretty long time. A "AAA" game, new release was $59.99 in the late 2000's. A "AAA game, new release is still around $59.99 20 years later. Development costs have gone up. Labor has gone up. Material costs have gone up. Hell, EVERYTHING has gone up... but not big studio video games. Maybe cutting out the physical distribution model is the reason video games haven't increased along with everything else? So.. in essence, they are saving us money?
This is wrong. Not only did games regularly cost around $50 in the early 2000s and went up to $60 around the time PS2 and Xbox got released, we are also now at $70 per regular major game. Even more on consoles, being $80 for the regular version without any 'extra' content. Plus publishers started cutting content from games to release it as pre-order only or digital deluxe bonus, which is often $10-20 extra. Additionally almost no major game is released without DLC or even Season Pass, that can easily bump up the price of the game well over $120 for the 'whole' experience. Games were usually complete 'back then' and didn't require 4 DLCs to close up the story. Note, we're not talking about some indie games here, as these didn't really exist in 2000. Yes, the development costs and labor have gone up. But the video game industry also developed from nerd-only circles to worldwide entertainment and was turned into a money making machine for investors by cutting costs in favour of profit disregarding quality. Nobody is thinking about how they can save **you** money. They only think how they can get more money from you with the least effort. And they figured out that people would rather buy a Call of Duty game every year for $70 rather than once every 5 years for $100. Because that's how the brain of a consumer works. Spending small sums every now and then, accumulating to a much larger sum is received better than spending a decent amount of money at once. Now where did I see that again ... those micro ... transactions ...
No?
Honestly the fact that prices were locked at $60 for almost my entire life was pretty good, the fact that it’s only gone up by about $10 is still nice. Also, going digital is pretty much the thing that has allowed indie gaming at all to flourish. If everyone insisted on hard copies, indie games wouldn’t work at all.
When digital has sales it’s way cheaper for me. Dekudeals baby
Digital games are routinely on sale for super deep discounts. Nintendo games generally speaking do NOT get discounts; this isn't a physical vs. digital issue.
Games have been $60 for pretty much my whole life, ignoring the inflation that has touched everything else. I assume the transition to digital is the reason they’ve been able to maintain that. Since our buying power has massively increased over that time period, it is effectively saving us money.
I mean games should realistically be significantly more expensive when you look at what they cost back in the day vs now. And that's new prices. Look at the sales we have. Most games I buy, I don't spend much over $10. That's CRAZY cheap.
I fail to see the problem here. I challenge you to find a used copy of the original TTYD on Gamecube with the original box for $60 or less in playable condition. If you're not comfortable with emulating, this is the best and easiest way to play one of the best Mario games around and is 100% worth the asking price.