Ads in full priced videogames. Lawful evil in its simplest form.
Holy hell, I'm not even sure I'd call that a game. I swear it took 20 minutes to actually start a match because of all the explicit ads, then ads disguised as ceremony. And 30 seconds into play, it crashes.
I can't imagine why people actually pay for these games year after year.
as in "THIS IS AN AD" or as in "this is a porn ad"?
Seems like there could be a demand for an independent standards committee that certifies games as shenanigan-free. My children are starting to play games themselves, so I’d like a service like that. I would pay a premium to know my kids aren’t going to be prompted to put in my credit card information and won’t be assailed with toxic marketing ploys.
The monetization schemes are mostly just a way to squeeze every drop out of the customer possible. They use them because they work, not because they aren't profitable already.
It's like when people say "if you're not paying for a service, then you're the product" to describe when user data is sold, when in actuality many services you do pay for happily sell your data all over the place.
If this was really an issue - game prices not keeping up with inflation - publishers wouldn't be posting profits (not revenue, profits) in the billions of dollars.
And on a more explicit point: God of War, a game with no microtransactions or any other BS, made their company over $500M in revenue in a year, for a game that cost them under $100M to make.
So while I'm not surprised these multi-billion-dollars-of-profit companies are so ready to squeeze as much money as they can out of us, I don't attribute it to Tiny Tim begging for enough money to live, but to Ebenezer Scrooge hording as much money as he possibly can, no matter the societal cost (or cost to himself).
You're taking the most succesful game on the most successful platform as an example, not sure it's very relevant for the thousands of games that get released every year...
If an independent company like New Blood can find success simply by making good games and being a good company then major publishers can follow suit or die off.
https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2019/business/us-minimum...
A lot of people who buy games aren't on 6-figures.
I have a newer one that I paid $35k for, it has 460hp, leather interior, a banging sound system, dozens of airbags, computer-controlled wizbangery that makes the car a breeze to drive, massive tires, and somehow gets 20mpg.
Adjusted for inflation, these cars cost the same, but the newer one is such an incredibly massive improvement in every aspect.
Cars have a higher development investment, as well as marginal costs per unit considerations. Adding a feature to a car, like a carbon fiber hood over a steel one, incurs an added unit cost, while adding a level or something to a game has almost no marginal cost increase.
It's not like I'm getting five cheap 2008 Fiestas in a Humble Bundle any time soon :-P
EDIT: I stepped away for a moment and just noticed that you edited your answer. I'll keep my reply intact anyway.
ha ha ha
They have. Mario was $50, games generally run $60+.
The big difference? You don't need to manufacture a cartridge anymore.
A bit of research shows an approximate $7 for developer cut of each sale at the 1988 figures. Given the approximate inflation adjustment, that becomes $18.20. Given that cartridge, physical retailers, and boxes are mostly gone, and even even with the deep licensing fees of the platforms today (30%), a $50 game will make the developer almost twice as much revenue as it did in 1988.
My example I've used elsewhere in this thread: God of War, a game without microtransactions, making $500M in the first year for under $100M in development costs.
1: https://www.quora.com/How-much-did-the-game-Super-Mario-Bros...
I recall specifically SMB3 retailing at $55 at Walmart.
I see some reports online that the average price was $50 in 1990, and others that say $40-$50, and maybe slightly higher for select titles. I think it's fairly safe to say that Nintendo priced their launch titles low to attract people, and third party titles were likely averaging $40-$50 within a few years.
I also think it's safe to say that most people's memories about this are fairly faulty, given 30+ years. There's numerous reports online about people saying they paid $60 for all their NES games. In addition to that, there were probably some places that sold above MSRP, and some people bought from those locations.
That's the big difference today. A person can develop a good game in a reasonable time frame, but they can also put that game on a virtual shelve in front of about a billion gamers world wide.
It's absurd, really, how ads have become such an invasive part of our lives. To the point where you're looked down upon as abnormal for not appreciating ads.