this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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Capcom's president and chief operating officer has said he thinks game prices should go up.

Haruhiro Tsujimoto made the comments at this year's Tokyo Game Show, Nikkei reported. TGS is sponsored by the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association, a Japanese organisation which aims to support the Japanese industry, which Tsujimoto is currently the chairman of.

"Personally, I feel that game prices are too low," Tsujimoto said, citing increasing development costs and a need to increase wages.

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[–] [email protected] 79 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think my salary should go up

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Have you considered being a CEO for a gaming corporation?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I’m still working on “Be attractive. Don’t be unattractive.”

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Have you seen many CEOs? Those aren't requirements.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Everyone: "Games are getting WAY too expensive."

Out of touch executive: "Games are too cheap! Why are our sales going down? I promised the shareholders infinite growth!"

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Games haven't gotten more expensive since ever. Like I said above, The Original Donkey Kong for the SNES was 66 usd. It releases in 1994.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (4 children)

That's a very US-centric view, at best. I paid about 23 dollars for a brand new copy of Half-Life 2 in 2004.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

If you buy a game today, does it come with a free SSD to install it in? Does it have a paper manual and a nice box? Is it even finished? Games aren't cheaper, you're just getting scammed.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That was as expensive as it was back then because the game released on what is effectively a PCB. Which was expensive to make.

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

No matter what price they make games, have no illusion that developers will be paid more. This is to pad C level pockets.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago

$80 for AAA games is already super expensive. I buy most of my games on sale now.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago

You know what, I'll bite. For this to work though, let's agree on two things. First, the game they're selling shouldn't be a hot pile of garbage on day one. Second, I don't want to even catch a whiff of microtransactions or subscription based models. If we can nail those down, I would be fine with a price increase. As it stands, the sticker price is just the cost of entry in the vast majority of games. They are still bringing in cash well after the initial purchase.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

It's funny how it's "the game's are not expensive enough" and not "we don't know how to manage our or money" or "our profit are too high". Fuck those capitalists.

Oh the stupid shit head "games are 100 times more expensive to make now" but you sell thousands times more and there no physical media anymore is irrelevant I guess... Assholes...

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

If they weren't profitable at the current price they wouldn't be charging the current price.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

And "budgets keep going up!"

Whose fault is that, guys? Were those numbers placed on you by a witch's curse? No. You spent $100M on one game, it made $300M, so you spend $200M on the next game. Games didn't get twice as hard to make, between those decisions. They didn't require twice as many people or twice as much time. You're just treating them like a factory where more capital in means more revenue out.

The original Doom was made in nine months by a team that fits in an elevator. Yeah, it's simpler than modern games, but they had to make the nearly-unprecedented engine and all their own tools as they went. It's not like anything's harder, now. People have basically recreated that seminal title as solo one-week game jam projects. A modern handful of professional computer nerds can pick from a handful of modern high-end toolchains and start banging out content, today.

If the market for video games only supported six-digit budgets - there would still be video games. Big ones, fancy ones, creative ones, whatever. Would they be the spectacles that currently get advertised to death? Nope. But they also wouldn't produce as many unstable bug-fests as those sprawling mega-projects. Nor would they be announced in 1999, previewed in 2006, delayed in 2017, and launched to middling reviews in 2025.

Studios that aren't injected with obscene capital and forced to deliver "AAA" money-trees tend to shoot their shot and move on to the next game. That's how they survived and grew as plucky little private affairs, before some publishers swallowed them whole and turned them into a sequel factory for their breakout hit.

If your games cost too much money to fail, stop giving them more money.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

I'm already waiting for games to go on sale in order to avoid being an unpaid bug tester, so sure do whatever you want.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

Lower your budgets, ship more often, stop treating products like services.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Not surprising for the man who thinks an iPhone port of an 18 year old GameCube game should cost $60.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Are you talking about RE4? Because they were actually talking about an Apple port (iPhone, iPad and Mac, with people being able to play on all platforms with one purchase) of the recent remake, which is a 2023 game that only really borrows the story and some layouts from the 2005 game.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Personally, I feel that game prices are too high. Patient gaming is where I'm at.

Besides all of that, I don't have the time for all of these games maybe cut down the scope of the game, go back to linear, 10-20 hour games and if its an open world don't make it a huge empty sandbox with most of it being unused or with a boring game loop. If a game publisher decides to jack up prices then I expect top notch quality with no fluff included anywhere and that it works day one the fact that I have to mention that is sad, then and only then to me such a high price would be justified which has not been the case for some games in recent years. Finally, if a full priced game incorporates f2p monetization and battle passes, then to me its price increase is not justified in my book.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

I don't/can't pay full price for games now as it is so good luck with that.

Patient gamer for life I guess.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

Didn’t these chucklefucks just charge over a 100 bucks for all the content in their TMNT collab? Super fuck that guy.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"Man who stands to gain from an increase in game prices advocates for increase in game prices".

Seriously though I'm not sure there's much more room to go on the top end when it comes to prices rises. I've got to think at some point you'll just push more people into buying at sale, or waiting for a game to hit their subscription platform of choice.

Maybe it's time we re-evaluate what makes a AAA worth £75 in the first place? And, what role do micro transactions have in this system, because anyone who's ever spent £75 on a new AAA game will know there's plenty of other ways they try to skin the proverbial cat.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If the market could support higher prices, they'd already be charging them.

I honestly don't care what Capcom does. I couldn't tell you the last time I bought a Capcom game.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (20 children)

I remember getting Donkey Kong on release for the Super Nintendo and it was more expensive than most games are right now, 66 usd. Name one thing that has the same price in 2023 that it did I 1994. It's insane.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

They were a lot cheaper to make back then too.

Rare spent 18 months developing Donkey Kong Country from an initial concept to a finished game, and according to product manager Dan Owsen, 20 people worked on it in total. It cost an estimated US$1 million to produce, and Rare said that it had the most man hours ever invested in a video game at the time, 22 years. The team worked 12–16-hours every day of the week.

These days that's indie game territory.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

As the great Jerma985 once said, "Fuck Capcom!"

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Some are. BG3 could have been double and still worth it. I'd say most capcom games are overpriced as is.

[–] adept 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Quality can only increase. If people have to think twice about buying games and don't preorder every half- finished game

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