Have video games become expensive now?

VanHalbgott@lemmus.org to RetroGaming@lemmy.world – 42 points –
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I don’t really think so.

If you adjust for inflation, historically, it’s very cheap.
If you compare it to movie tickets, which in essence is 2-3 hours of entertainment for $25, it’s the same story.
Some games can give you hundreds of hours for close to the same price.

This excludes games with monthly fees or predatory in-game systems.

AAA titles have been $60 since the 90s iirc. The difference now, though, is the addition of paid DLC, micro transactions, etc that historically didn't exist, so I'd say it's a little bit of a toss up.

I always saw the higher $60 games were cartridge-based games, while the CD-ROM equivalent was cheaper. When everybody switched away from cartridges it dropped back down to $50 being the norm until around 2005-2006.

Really? I could swear that the top PS1 games were around $60. Granted this was about 30 years ago when I was a kid, so I could easily be mistaken, I just remember my parents bitching about them being expensive lol

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I stand corrected, thanks for the nostalgia

In fairness that looks quite late on in the lifecycle of PS1.

I remember games coming down in price later on, like they were around £45 and came down to about £30 for new ones.

I remember the greatest hits (green sidebar label) ones being about $25-30

Yeah, they were called Platinum over here. £20 each. Ideal for a younger me, who could never justify full price games and frankly wanted to play the older ones first anyway.

I think "around $60" is still accurate. They're above $50, and they still say that's the price "*after coupon".

This is the comparison I end up making. Is it more up front? Yes, but will I get more hours out of it? Yes. Can I pick it up again without any additional cost? Yes. Can I be a goblin and not leave the comfort of my own house? Yes.

$25

You mean $2.50, right? That can't be how much you pay for cinema tickets!?

Our currency has taken a bit of a hit since covid, so I guess it's more like $20 today.
210 NOK when I checked my local price for Dune 2 just now.

Add in some snacks and we're way over $30, so hopefully my point still stands.

That's mad, I can't remember the last time I paid more than £5 to see a film