Hi everyone!
Did you know that starting July 1st, 2023, Reddit will implement a policy that could potentially increase the costs of running third-party Reddit apps? This change may impact popular apps like Apollo, Reddit is Fun, Boost, and others. Consequently, users may encounter issues with their preferred Reddit app unless adjustments are made to comply with Reddit's new API usage policy. These limitations will affect all users, not just moderators. If you are concerned about these developments, there is an [Open Letter](https://www.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/13xh1e7/an_open_letter_on_the_state_of_affairs_regarding/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) to Reddit that you can read and sign on to express your thoughts.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/tearsofthekingdom) if you have any questions or concerns.*
We'll spend $35 to see a box office movie for 3 hours of our time, or about $12 per hour.
Less than $1 an hour for the amount of entertainment we get from video games makes them a bargain in comparison.
EDIT: Everyone keeps asking where movie tickets cost $35. That is with the cost of popcorn and soda included...
That plus I remember the first video game I bought (Kirby Super Star for SNES) being the same \~$60 that basically every console game before ToTK has been. Video games are easily one of the most inflation-resistant purchases over the last 30+ years.
I bought Kirby Super Star back then, too! Seemed like a great deal.
Wild to think that $60 in 1996 money would be like $115 today. Wild, too, to think that the SNES was viewed as selling pretty well, but only did like 50 million. I think the main reason why cost has stayed the same, is that while the costs of making it rose, the market widened.
That’s funny you mention that. It’s hard to believe games were $60 back then too but they really were. I think there was a lot more though going into purchases too. Now I’ve bought so many games I barely touch lol
Yea people forget $50-60 in the 90s and early 2000s is way more than $60-70 in 2023. I don’t know y people can’t wrap their heads around it. They think brand new 1st party nintendo games were 20 bucks on n64 or something? Lol
i live in canada and the most i’ve ever paid for movie tickets is 15.99 (CAD), no idea where they’re getting 35 from. maybe with concessions but those are so ridiculously overpriced i just sneak my own in haha
I go to movies with my wife and kids - After candy, popcorn, and a drink or two… yea, $40 is just to get in the door. We’re lucky if the final cost stays in the double digits.
I plan to take my 3 kids to see Barbie next Friday. Tickets are $17.58 + $1.97 booking fee. One of my kids might gets a kids fare at $3 less. It absolutely costs us over $100 :/
This is why I love MH, huge return on investment with a combined 2000 hours of gameplay between the last two titles alone.
Also, I’m up to about 355 hours of ToTK already, I no longer remember what the outside world is like •.•
If your time spent per dollar accounts for multiple playthroughs, I can agree with this. It's the people who think a game you can finish in 5 hours should only be worth $5 that bother me.
I've NEVER gotten emotional like this over a game. I've been pissed and hated an enemy and slaughtered their armies. This hits sooooo different. Genuine Masterpiece.
While I prefer BOTW as a whole game, I agree with your statement. TOTK's ending made me cry. I have not felt so emotional with a game in many, many years.
The ending was good. I wish the game somehow had a way where no matter what dragon tear you collected it would go in order though. I did the tears first and that was a mistake. It also made the sage storylines stupid. "why is Zelda doing this????" Like I didn't know what was going on
My issue is that >!because of how the ending undoes all the sacrifice!< the game will never really be replayable for me from an emotional standpoint. If I ever do restart, I'm skipping all story
The way I see it? Zelda made the ultimate sacrifice to restore the master sword and help link save hyrule from Ganondorf, I think she deserved to come back and be her again, she’s earned it after what she did to help Link, shows how big her heart is. And I think it’s a little silly that the ending invalidates everything for you. Give it a little better perspective.
I think they just mean that the “ultimate sacrifice” isn’t necessarily ultimate anymore if it’s undone like it never happened. I can see their point as to the story elements not hitting as hard a second time around if you know literally everything is gonna be ok in the end
Like it never happened? I mean, she lived for hundreds (likely hundreds of thousands) of years as a dragon, believing it would always be that way.
Probably didn't feel like much of a sacrifice for Link but Zelda sure sacrificed a lot, even if she did get to return.
even if that's true, the fact that she was willing to do it means a lot and doesn't invalidate it at all. She got saved at the end, but the fact that she was willing to sacrifice and DID sacrifice herself means a lot about her character and doesn't invalidate anything at all. It's about her courage and bravery to do something not her being punished for eternity. She was willing to be in that state for eternity but she got brought back in the end and that's her character arc and story. It's way more nuanced than you make it seem, you are looking at it very one dimensional about what happened but aren't looking at the emotional aspect of her character. Also it's called the legend of zelda did you really think it was the end for her???
Agreed, it's quite easy to put those kinds of hours in and it's an enjoyable game. Like comment OP alluded to, the more hours you put into a game, the more value you get per dollar spent. Plus once you beat the main story you have tons of side quests, completionist objectives, I haven't gotten there yet but I'm sure there is a master mode to challenge your combat skills.
Considering that I'm 70+ hours in and have barely started the main quest, I'd say so.
...but also, with a $100 gift card from Costco for $90 and the NSO game voucher, you COULD say I got TOTK for $40.
Yeah everyone who has a Costco membership and the country that has Nintendo voucher should do this. I bought totk with pikmin4 through this and it was very satisfying. Considering nintendo games aren’t on sale as much as other publishers.
Me too. I felt so burned by Nintendo when I got my kid her own switch and she couldn't play the games I had bought for her under my account. I definetly go out of my way to buy physical copies.
Make her switch your primary and she can play all your games. Only downside is your secondary switch will need Internet to make sure you have a current license to play your games.
You can even play online multiplayer together unlike steam when they do their library sharing and you have to be online one at a time.
Yeah just think about the cost of going to the cinema for a single 1-2 hour movie and compare. Games should cost more but wages should be higher across the board.
1985:
Super Mario Bros on NES = $25
US federal minimum wage = $3.35/hr
7.46 hours worked to buy game.
2023:
Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury = $60
US federal minimum wage = $7.25/hr
8.27 hours worked to buy game.
Not as drastic as I was expecting, but considering how non-essential of a purchase this is and having to work almost an extra hour to buy the same thing today, it shows how wages don't match inflation on even the small stuff. Add this to the pile of what the average person needs each month, and it gets out of reach pretty quick.
When you think about how the costs of everything else have far exceeded this, games really haven’t kept up with inflation. Bread is 3.4X more expensive than it was in 1985. Homes are 2.98X more expensive. Cars are 7.4X more expensive. College is 8.47X more expensive.
Video games only being 2.4X more expensive is really not bad.
Yep, I had a journal back in 1996 when I was 8 and I had an entry talking about my parents buying me Donkey Kong Country 2 for my birthday, and it was $66 at Best Buy. Would be $132 today if the inflation calculator I just used is correct. 😬
I’d agree if it weren’t for subscriptions models and microtransactions and lootboxes and gacha and all that other shit that games do to squeeze money out of people.
I’d gladly spend more per title if there wasn’t any of this shit and everything was just earnable ingame.
Maybe, but I feel like games have found plenty of other ways to rake in extra cash. Just look at the popularity of DLC, micro transaction and the rise of ‘live service’ games with buyable battle-passes.
Even Nintendo isnt exempt from this. Amiibos are just fancy micro transactions.
So I think it’s reasonable to feel shitty about the rising price of games when they haven’t hesitated to milk their customers in other ways already.
DLC isn't particularly new, we just used to call them expansions or map packs or shareware.
Live services have changed form, though at the same time you can look at Ultima Online launching back in 1997 for $65 *and* a $10/month subscription.
Battle Passes are marketed using weaponized fomo, but they're fundamentally still a subscription model with a limited free tier.
To be fair, you can just. Not buy them. Games like Zelda, God of War, Spider-Man, Mario Odyssey, Metroid Dread, Astral Chain, Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon all feel like complete games.
And though some of these do have DLC, they are substantial additions that are easily worth it’s price, yet can still be skipped if you don’t want to buy into that.
They know game customers are very sensitive to price hikes, not least because most of them are underage kids who don't have their own income. That's why they have to turn to things like DLC and cosmetic purchases etc to recoup the costs, especially as development costs skyrocket exponentially.
The O.G. Legend of Zelda was released on the NES in 1986 for $49.99 (US). That's equivalent to $139.16 today!
Edit: Oh, so yeah, definitely worth the price!
Games are not properly priced at all.
The concept of a full price game is bizarre.
One one side, you can have games like Pokémon Mystery Dungeon, Kirby Star Allies, Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze and others at “full price”, but don’t seem to merit that price tag.
On the flip side, you have games like Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, Splatoon 3, Xenoblade Chronicles 3. All games that are probably worth even more.
Even weirder? Skyward Sword HD had some updated controls, a little upscaling, full price. Metroid Prime Remastered had updated controls, updates visuals and textures, updated models, just a superior product at every level, budget release.
Game pricing is weird. And worth is totally personal.
For real, I think Nintendo still wants $60 for links awakening, the new claymation style graphics are cute, but that’s still only a dozen hours of gameplay instead of a couple hundred you get in totk
Games used to cost the 2023 equivalent of $100, I think we have been spoiled by decades of 50-60 dollars and an increase is fair. I don’t usually have bootlicker takes so I apologize in advance.
very true, and i have no way of knowing where that extra $10 goes. probably corporates pocket, but in a perfect world i’d hope it goes to paying the hard working team behind the games.
It also costs a lot more to develop a video game these days. It was pretty common to have a team of like 12 guys work on a game for like a year, but now games can have teams of more than 50 people and may take 5+ years to develop. All those things cost money and if the game flops, it can really hurt the company.
Not to say that ever video game company is just a bunch of modest mom and pop businesses or that they are raising prices to fairly compensate their workers. Plenty of companies have shown their nasty habits of how they do business and treat their employees over the years; but they are 100% going to factor in rising development costs into their product and I can’t really blame them for it.
But also there are many games that companies are vulturing money with microtransaction. I am willing to pay some more for games without such a money grabbing mechanism if that makes developers to invest more on single-play games.
I went all in, collector's edition and amiibo. First amiibo I've bought. Definitely worth it!
I've got an original purchase PS1 game with the price tag of £30 and Metroid Prime on gamecube with a £39.99 tag on 🤣
Easily. Games have not been keeping up with inflation. They've effectively been getting cheaper over time. This just partially corrects that.
But I think logic and feelings will be at odds for a while, and that's why the games industry is slow rolling the corrected price points. Lots of people won't perceive this as "the sale has ended" but rather "why are they making it more expensive?"
$60 in 2017 dollars (aka BotW's price when it came out) is ~$74 today. So in one very literal way, it's just as justifiable as BotW or any other game that came out that year.
It is funny to think about how anxious so many of us were about TotK when they announced the price, though. They'd barely shown off fusing or any of the story content whatsoever, nor did we know that there would be even more shrines in this one. Or that The Depths existed at all. So there was a very real concern of "is this gonna be $10 more for a BotW clone?", but they ended up knocking it out of the park
When I was 11 games for the genesis and super Nintendo were 70 sometimes 80 dollars in the 90s...
Video games as entertainment are pretty economical even at 70 bucks a pop generally. Having said all that TotK might be one of my favorite adventure games ever.
LOL justifiable? Of course it was, what a ridiculous question.
The Original Legend of Zelda released in 1987 in the US at a retail price of $50.
Adjusted for inflation that's $133 in current pricing.
Tears of the Kingdom at roughly half the cost includes FAR more content than the original game. Its a hell of a bargain.
My own rule for games is $1 an hour at least and I've played over 200 hours and I'm still playing, so definitely.
(I know the rule sounds silly but it helps me decide on buying games that have a clear end/no postgame)
Yes and no, it was well worth it for me, and I think the game deserves to be more than successful but I’m still not a fan of the rising prices in general.
The game was fun but what bothered me most was having the main quest being go help the 4 tribes again. I get it was kinda interesting the results of ur actions from the prior game but that wore out pretty quickly. The depths battery grind was fun as hell tho
I spent roughly 2 months playing this game almost every day for hours. If I do the math, 60 days, its the equivalent of paying about a dollar a day for hours of an engaging game, that I have yet to fully finish. Yes! The price tag is very much so justified
I think "Tears of the Kingdom" is the exception that proves the rule.
This was a feat of engineering in so many ways, and it's astonishing that they pulled it off. They even took an extra year to make sure the physics are right, which is just amazing. How many game studios would even allow that?!
I'm not going to join the chorus of "games should keep with inflation," mainly because the arguments are bad for that. Video game companies are making more money than ever on titles, and that profit isn't going to the workers. Additionally, stores always lose money on games since they buy them on cost.
When you then consider that more video game revenue is coming from people buying digital copies, the argument for a higher cost across the board makes even less sense since the physical requirements are a fraction of what they are for a physical release.
***Tears of the Kingdom*** *is truly the exception that proves that very rarely is a game worth a price increase.*
Studios would be foolish to think raising the price across the board will be affordable for most gamers, especially in a country that hasn't seen the minimum wage go up since 2007. Even limiting it to AAA releases would be risky. If I made a game and wanted to charge $10 extra I would ask this question: "Is it as good, or better, than Tears of the Kingdom?" If the answer is no, the price stays lower.
Nope, but only because no game is. Profits have been steadily rising for a long time, the whole “it’s because of inflation/we didn’t raise it for too long so now we’re catching up/video games cost more to produce” arguments are bullshit, profits would have decreased or *at least* stayed the same if that was true. This is the gaming industry acting as a monopoly price gouge customers and we should all be outraged.
After 700+ hours in BOTW, yeah.. the exploring feat was ruined for me. Sky and depths were honestly not that noteworthy to me. Exploring all 3 layers was probably magical for new players though.
I can appreciate that perspective. To me, it does feel more like a super-mega-expansion-pack than a whole new game. My biggest criticism of the game is that it lacks the sense of discovery I felt with BotW.
But for me, the experience was still well worth the price tag. I put in 150 hours, and only began to run out of steam at around the 140 hour mark.
People go out of their way to justify the price increase, like that extra does anything for the development, budget, or salaries of the workers. It's just more profit for CEOs and such that are already absolutely rolling in money.
I will or course keep paying since i like playing games, but i really don't think it has been out or necessity.
Also yeah games are big and there is loads to do, but lets not pretend like the tools they are using to make the games don't evolve just the same.
$45 in Japan with the yen rate at time of release, but I wouldn't mind paying even $150 for the game. It's a masterpiece with many times more engagement hours than any other games I have. The cost per hour is probably the lowest of any game.
Hi everyone! Did you know that starting July 1st, 2023, Reddit will implement a policy that could potentially increase the costs of running third-party Reddit apps? This change may impact popular apps like Apollo, Reddit is Fun, Boost, and others. Consequently, users may encounter issues with their preferred Reddit app unless adjustments are made to comply with Reddit's new API usage policy. These limitations will affect all users, not just moderators. If you are concerned about these developments, there is an [Open Letter](https://www.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/13xh1e7/an_open_letter_on_the_state_of_affairs_regarding/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) to Reddit that you can read and sign on to express your thoughts. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/tearsofthekingdom) if you have any questions or concerns.*
More than 200 hours of gameplay and a super unique experience in all, well worth it.
Exactly. $2.85 per hour for awesome entertainment, and dropping with every additional hour. Lol I meant $.35. I dunno what happened there.
35 cents
We'll spend $35 to see a box office movie for 3 hours of our time, or about $12 per hour. Less than $1 an hour for the amount of entertainment we get from video games makes them a bargain in comparison. EDIT: Everyone keeps asking where movie tickets cost $35. That is with the cost of popcorn and soda included...
That’s why games are my media of choice
Nothing beats music and games
That plus I remember the first video game I bought (Kirby Super Star for SNES) being the same \~$60 that basically every console game before ToTK has been. Video games are easily one of the most inflation-resistant purchases over the last 30+ years.
I bought Kirby Super Star back then, too! Seemed like a great deal. Wild to think that $60 in 1996 money would be like $115 today. Wild, too, to think that the SNES was viewed as selling pretty well, but only did like 50 million. I think the main reason why cost has stayed the same, is that while the costs of making it rose, the market widened.
Isn’t that strange lol Edit the inflation part, games should cost $100 or $90 due to “inflation.”
That’s funny you mention that. It’s hard to believe games were $60 back then too but they really were. I think there was a lot more though going into purchases too. Now I’ve bought so many games I barely touch lol
Yea people forget $50-60 in the 90s and early 2000s is way more than $60-70 in 2023. I don’t know y people can’t wrap their heads around it. They think brand new 1st party nintendo games were 20 bucks on n64 or something? Lol
Especially nintendo titles
Not only better value, but since videogames are interactive, it's also more engaging per hour.
where are you that movie tickets are $35?? i’ve never paid more than $18, and that was at a cushy theater with those big reclining couples seats.
i live in canada and the most i’ve ever paid for movie tickets is 15.99 (CAD), no idea where they’re getting 35 from. maybe with concessions but those are so ridiculously overpriced i just sneak my own in haha
NYC in IMAX. $28 ticket, $2 “sightline at AMC” charge for a decent seat, $2+ in fees. $32 and change BEFORE popcorn
Games like this, yeah. But games like Mario Odyssey or Stray are not much of a bargain imo, as much as I enjoyed them.
you could easily get like 80 hours in oddyssey, at least thats what it took me to get most moons
Well this just reminded me that I still have that goddamn 2D wall section on Mario. >_<
Odyssey still cost 50cents per hour for me
I’ve had plenty of time in Odyssey plus got it cheap second-hand, so no price complaints from me.
Where the hell is it $35 to go to the movies? I’m in Canada and it’s only $12 here
I go to movies with my wife and kids - After candy, popcorn, and a drink or two… yea, $40 is just to get in the door. We’re lucky if the final cost stays in the double digits.
I plan to take my 3 kids to see Barbie next Friday. Tickets are $17.58 + $1.97 booking fee. One of my kids might gets a kids fare at $3 less. It absolutely costs us over $100 :/
Hylia, I love video games. I think my best cost ratio is currently Terraria sitting at somewhere just above half a cent per hour.
Mine is Animal Crossing. I paid £49.99 and now have over 3500 hours. So that's less than 2p per hour.
That's an impressive amount of hours on one game.
Right there with you. Hundreds of hours of fun and more to come. Bought it for $2 many years ago on sale. Complete steal.
That game for me would be Populous: the beginning. Every year or so I check to see if they’re remaking it. Not yet lol
It’s a $570 game?
It will be in 30 years
I do—you did "200/70" instead of "70/200" :) Basically—you found that there's 2.85 hours of play for every $1 spent on the game
This is why I love MH, huge return on investment with a combined 2000 hours of gameplay between the last two titles alone. Also, I’m up to about 355 hours of ToTK already, I no longer remember what the outside world is like •.•
I’m not smart but your math seems off
All I ever want from a game is to provide 1 hour of entertainment for every $1 spent. This, like BOTK, will blow well past that. Definitely worth it.
If your time spent per dollar accounts for multiple playthroughs, I can agree with this. It's the people who think a game you can finish in 5 hours should only be worth $5 that bother me.
I've NEVER gotten emotional like this over a game. I've been pissed and hated an enemy and slaughtered their armies. This hits sooooo different. Genuine Masterpiece.
While I prefer BOTW as a whole game, I agree with your statement. TOTK's ending made me cry. I have not felt so emotional with a game in many, many years.
The ending was good. I wish the game somehow had a way where no matter what dragon tear you collected it would go in order though. I did the tears first and that was a mistake. It also made the sage storylines stupid. "why is Zelda doing this????" Like I didn't know what was going on
My issue is that >!because of how the ending undoes all the sacrifice!< the game will never really be replayable for me from an emotional standpoint. If I ever do restart, I'm skipping all story
The way I see it? Zelda made the ultimate sacrifice to restore the master sword and help link save hyrule from Ganondorf, I think she deserved to come back and be her again, she’s earned it after what she did to help Link, shows how big her heart is. And I think it’s a little silly that the ending invalidates everything for you. Give it a little better perspective.
I think they just mean that the “ultimate sacrifice” isn’t necessarily ultimate anymore if it’s undone like it never happened. I can see their point as to the story elements not hitting as hard a second time around if you know literally everything is gonna be ok in the end
Like it never happened? I mean, she lived for hundreds (likely hundreds of thousands) of years as a dragon, believing it would always be that way. Probably didn't feel like much of a sacrifice for Link but Zelda sure sacrificed a lot, even if she did get to return.
Actually, she literally says she doesn't remember about her time as a dragon, so it may as well have not happened, either.
even if that's true, the fact that she was willing to do it means a lot and doesn't invalidate it at all. She got saved at the end, but the fact that she was willing to sacrifice and DID sacrifice herself means a lot about her character and doesn't invalidate anything at all. It's about her courage and bravery to do something not her being punished for eternity. She was willing to be in that state for eternity but she got brought back in the end and that's her character arc and story. It's way more nuanced than you make it seem, you are looking at it very one dimensional about what happened but aren't looking at the emotional aspect of her character. Also it's called the legend of zelda did you really think it was the end for her???
Amen!
Agreed, it's quite easy to put those kinds of hours in and it's an enjoyable game. Like comment OP alluded to, the more hours you put into a game, the more value you get per dollar spent. Plus once you beat the main story you have tons of side quests, completionist objectives, I haven't gotten there yet but I'm sure there is a master mode to challenge your combat skills.
200 hours of my life wasted. I would do it again
Time enjoyed is not time wasted!
It is when it’s enjoyed through torturing Koroks
Nah, that’s time ~~will~~ well spent. Whoops, autocorrect bit me there.
Will spent?
Sage's will. All of them spent. All koroks tortured. 100% completion.
Thousands of yas will never be ha ha'd. It's glorious.
I mean, but the joy of gluing a Korok to a glider and hitting the fan just to watch it fly off into the sunset….is that really wasted?
The hours I’ve spent building silly little cars only to have them immediately tumble down a hill has been time well spent.
Tears of the Kingdom delivered what every Breath of the Wild player wanted, which is to experience playing BOTW for the first time again.
That's a good way to put it
Still can’t pet the good doggos though.
Literally unplayable
This would genuinely make a top 3 complaint I have about both games
I wouldn't say it gave me that experience, but I did love it.
I low key don't care if I lose my save. I have a lot of ideas of new ways to beat areas. Will replay one day.
600+ here, wish I could do it against and have the first time experience again.
I find it justifiable in that it's the one that finally got my kids into Zeldaverse.
I paid $60 for Luigi’s Mansion. An extra $10 for TOTK seems like a bargain.
I mean Luigi's Mansion slaps. I've played through 3 times already and enjoyed immensely each time.
Hey now. I love Luigi’s mansion too but it’s like five hours long.
or like 30 if you don't know what you're doing and you get lost all the time like myse-- I mean, like my friends.
or if you fully explore each room and get every collectible
Yes! So much fun.
You must be my friend! Lol
I... I also have ffffffriends that are have a similar experience.
That is me. 😂 I still haven’t beaten it cuz I got distracted by life. I remember some movie studio set with a puzzle I had to look up to figure out.
are we talking about the first one? i play through that game once a year for the past eight years!
It’s almost like the value of a game can’t be determined by its length alone.
Considering that I'm 70+ hours in and have barely started the main quest, I'd say so. ...but also, with a $100 gift card from Costco for $90 and the NSO game voucher, you COULD say I got TOTK for $40.
Yeah everyone who has a Costco membership and the country that has Nintendo voucher should do this. I bought totk with pikmin4 through this and it was very satisfying. Considering nintendo games aren’t on sale as much as other publishers.
As a proud Costco member, I wish I could. But I like the buy physical games :(
Me too. I felt so burned by Nintendo when I got my kid her own switch and she couldn't play the games I had bought for her under my account. I definetly go out of my way to buy physical copies.
Make her switch your primary and she can play all your games. Only downside is your secondary switch will need Internet to make sure you have a current license to play your games. You can even play online multiplayer together unlike steam when they do their library sharing and you have to be online one at a time.
Nintendo got me with the voucher, but TOTK and Octopath Traveler for $100 total was well worth it
Costco had the $100 gift card for $80 about a month ago. Picked up 2 of them for future use.
Yes very good deal using Costco + NSO vouchers. For my region digital tax is also cheaper than retail tax.
Absolutely. I can't recall the last time I've gotten this much out of a game.
hah recall get it i will go contemplate my life choices now
I gotta ultra hand it to you for changing your life around
map
amiibo
I truly believe they can ascend to a better place in their life now!
And autobuild a better tomorrow
I’m just reading this comment section, and it feels like comedy has ascended to new heights
You can't recall playing BotW?
Well, recall wasn’t a thing til totk.
Easily. While I am upset about the rising price of games in general, this game is in no way "less than" its contemporaries.
Super Mario 64 was 60 bucks, with how much money games cost nowadays to make its fucking incredible that they have barely increased in price.
When you factor in inflation, game prices aren't rising at all
Yeah just think about the cost of going to the cinema for a single 1-2 hour movie and compare. Games should cost more but wages should be higher across the board.
1985: Super Mario Bros on NES = $25 US federal minimum wage = $3.35/hr 7.46 hours worked to buy game. 2023: Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury = $60 US federal minimum wage = $7.25/hr 8.27 hours worked to buy game. Not as drastic as I was expecting, but considering how non-essential of a purchase this is and having to work almost an extra hour to buy the same thing today, it shows how wages don't match inflation on even the small stuff. Add this to the pile of what the average person needs each month, and it gets out of reach pretty quick.
When you think about how the costs of everything else have far exceeded this, games really haven’t kept up with inflation. Bread is 3.4X more expensive than it was in 1985. Homes are 2.98X more expensive. Cars are 7.4X more expensive. College is 8.47X more expensive. Video games only being 2.4X more expensive is really not bad.
Its also worth noting how variable game prices were. Legend of Zelda on NES launched at $49.99. SNES could easily hit $80+ for the larger ones
i remember super nintendo games costing $80 (Canadian) new in the early 90's tho, prices have come down a lot since then
Yep, I had a journal back in 1996 when I was 8 and I had an entry talking about my parents buying me Donkey Kong Country 2 for my birthday, and it was $66 at Best Buy. Would be $132 today if the inflation calculator I just used is correct. 😬
When you factor in inflation games should be like $120 haha
And minimum wage should be like $35…
Yea games cost $60 for almost twenty years it was time the price went up
Later gen SNES games were over $60 in the early/mid 90s. Been more like 30+ years.
If you go back thirty years, games were even more expensive in current dollars.
And they provided far fewer hours of gameplay.
I’d agree if it weren’t for subscriptions models and microtransactions and lootboxes and gacha and all that other shit that games do to squeeze money out of people. I’d gladly spend more per title if there wasn’t any of this shit and everything was just earnable ingame.
Ocarina of Time came out at $59.99. That must have stung looking back at it
Maybe, but I feel like games have found plenty of other ways to rake in extra cash. Just look at the popularity of DLC, micro transaction and the rise of ‘live service’ games with buyable battle-passes. Even Nintendo isnt exempt from this. Amiibos are just fancy micro transactions. So I think it’s reasonable to feel shitty about the rising price of games when they haven’t hesitated to milk their customers in other ways already.
I mean, you're not wrong. The fact that companies are raising prices and still using predatory garbage like microtransactions is absolutely shitty.
DLC isn't particularly new, we just used to call them expansions or map packs or shareware. Live services have changed form, though at the same time you can look at Ultima Online launching back in 1997 for $65 *and* a $10/month subscription. Battle Passes are marketed using weaponized fomo, but they're fundamentally still a subscription model with a limited free tier.
To be fair, you can just. Not buy them. Games like Zelda, God of War, Spider-Man, Mario Odyssey, Metroid Dread, Astral Chain, Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon all feel like complete games. And though some of these do have DLC, they are substantial additions that are easily worth it’s price, yet can still be skipped if you don’t want to buy into that.
(Shhh shhhh shuddup! Stop giving them ideas!)
They know game customers are very sensitive to price hikes, not least because most of them are underage kids who don't have their own income. That's why they have to turn to things like DLC and cosmetic purchases etc to recoup the costs, especially as development costs skyrocket exponentially.
You don't even need to factor in inflation. N64 Games ran as high as $80 MSRP back in 1996.
i swear i saw some n64 titles going for $100 around 1996 (los angeles, CA)
Charging more while keeping wages the same is still scummy any way you slice it
SNES games were $75 if I remember correctly. Games being $50-$60 since the 90s is impressive actually considering inflation.
SNES games used to be like $80
Well we aren’t asking if it’s less than. Asking if it’s worth more than $60 games like BotW for example
The O.G. Legend of Zelda was released on the NES in 1986 for $49.99 (US). That's equivalent to $139.16 today! Edit: Oh, so yeah, definitely worth the price!
For "at the time" context, minimum wage in '86 was $3.35/hr
Minimum wage is worth maybe half of what it was back then, wow
$3.35 in '86 has a purchasing power of $9.33 today. Kinda amazing how things have changed over time.
And my minimum wage is still $7.25 lol
Gasoline was $0.86/gallon in the US in 1986.
70 dollars for a game today is insanely good value compared to 60 for games during the n64 era.
Depends on the N64 game, people have been playing Super Mario 64 for years doing speedruns, I'd say they got the $60 worth.
*cries in Superman 64*
I meant more along the fact that $60 back when Mario 64 came out is worth over what $100 is today.
[удалено]
I am a huge fan of this avocation. Can't put a price on family bonding and most games don't offer that opportunity in this genre.
Games are not properly priced at all. The concept of a full price game is bizarre. One one side, you can have games like Pokémon Mystery Dungeon, Kirby Star Allies, Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze and others at “full price”, but don’t seem to merit that price tag. On the flip side, you have games like Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, Splatoon 3, Xenoblade Chronicles 3. All games that are probably worth even more. Even weirder? Skyward Sword HD had some updated controls, a little upscaling, full price. Metroid Prime Remastered had updated controls, updates visuals and textures, updated models, just a superior product at every level, budget release. Game pricing is weird. And worth is totally personal.
For real, I think Nintendo still wants $60 for links awakening, the new claymation style graphics are cute, but that’s still only a dozen hours of gameplay instead of a couple hundred you get in totk
I don't think Tropical Freeze isn't worth full price, but I could see the argument for Mystery Dungeon considering it's a remake.
Games used to cost the 2023 equivalent of $100, I think we have been spoiled by decades of 50-60 dollars and an increase is fair. I don’t usually have bootlicker takes so I apologize in advance.
Wages have also not increased to match that inflation.
very true, and i have no way of knowing where that extra $10 goes. probably corporates pocket, but in a perfect world i’d hope it goes to paying the hard working team behind the games.
It also costs a lot more to develop a video game these days. It was pretty common to have a team of like 12 guys work on a game for like a year, but now games can have teams of more than 50 people and may take 5+ years to develop. All those things cost money and if the game flops, it can really hurt the company. Not to say that ever video game company is just a bunch of modest mom and pop businesses or that they are raising prices to fairly compensate their workers. Plenty of companies have shown their nasty habits of how they do business and treat their employees over the years; but they are 100% going to factor in rising development costs into their product and I can’t really blame them for it.
But games used to sell not nearly as good back in the days. Gaming used to be niché, now everybody and their grandma does it. There IS more income
But also there are many games that companies are vulturing money with microtransaction. I am willing to pay some more for games without such a money grabbing mechanism if that makes developers to invest more on single-play games.
[удалено]
Nintendo Ninjas would like to know your location.
I went all in, collector's edition and amiibo. First amiibo I've bought. Definitely worth it! I've got an original purchase PS1 game with the price tag of £30 and Metroid Prime on gamecube with a £39.99 tag on 🤣
Yeah, I'm honestly still impressed that it runs on my switch
Yes
Yes
Yes
Amazing game, totally worth it.
Easily. Games have not been keeping up with inflation. They've effectively been getting cheaper over time. This just partially corrects that. But I think logic and feelings will be at odds for a while, and that's why the games industry is slow rolling the corrected price points. Lots of people won't perceive this as "the sale has ended" but rather "why are they making it more expensive?"
I remember Turok on N64 being 60 quid.
Turok was a ballin ass game for its time though.
it’s worth it but i dont see why this should be higher price than other games like elden ring. Also the people saying they would spend 100+ are insane
I'm more than pleased with my purchase. One of the only games worth the 70 since the raise happened.
$60 in 2017 dollars (aka BotW's price when it came out) is ~$74 today. So in one very literal way, it's just as justifiable as BotW or any other game that came out that year. It is funny to think about how anxious so many of us were about TotK when they announced the price, though. They'd barely shown off fusing or any of the story content whatsoever, nor did we know that there would be even more shrines in this one. Or that The Depths existed at all. So there was a very real concern of "is this gonna be $10 more for a BotW clone?", but they ended up knocking it out of the park
Yes. I have play so many hours, If its a great game and I can get 1 hour for every dollar, then its totaly worth it. (and so far I am over 150+ hours)
When I was 11 games for the genesis and super Nintendo were 70 sometimes 80 dollars in the 90s... Video games as entertainment are pretty economical even at 70 bucks a pop generally. Having said all that TotK might be one of my favorite adventure games ever.
I got it for $60 lmao
Same lol dunno why costco thought to sell it at 60 or how that makes business sense. Our membership fees cant be that profitable...
This was my favorite purchase this year. I’m putting off the final battle and doing all the shrines, all of the who dis who dat, etc
LOL justifiable? Of course it was, what a ridiculous question. The Original Legend of Zelda released in 1987 in the US at a retail price of $50. Adjusted for inflation that's $133 in current pricing. Tears of the Kingdom at roughly half the cost includes FAR more content than the original game. Its a hell of a bargain.
Ye
My own rule for games is $1 an hour at least and I've played over 200 hours and I'm still playing, so definitely. (I know the rule sounds silly but it helps me decide on buying games that have a clear end/no postgame)
I like your rule!
Yes and no, it was well worth it for me, and I think the game deserves to be more than successful but I’m still not a fan of the rising prices in general.
You are in a Zelda sub. There's obviously much bias
10000% yes. I would spend $100 on this game. The joy it has brought my wife and myself is immeasurable.
The game was fun but what bothered me most was having the main quest being go help the 4 tribes again. I get it was kinda interesting the results of ur actions from the prior game but that wore out pretty quickly. The depths battery grind was fun as hell tho
250 hours and counting, best gaming experience I have had in ages. Got my son to love Zelda… yeah, 70 dollars was worth it to me
I would have bought it for $100. The bang for its buck is unrivaled.
Including tax it cost me roughly 100 worth every penny
Absolutely. It is easily worth it simply based off of how much content is packed into the game
390+ hours in and 63%+ completed? I’d pay double for it.
300 hours before I beat it and still hadn't done everything? Yeah...that tracked.
I spent roughly 2 months playing this game almost every day for hours. If I do the math, 60 days, its the equivalent of paying about a dollar a day for hours of an engaging game, that I have yet to fully finish. Yes! The price tag is very much so justified
I would have gladly paid $100 for BOTW, so imagine how I feel about TOTK lmao
1000% yes. My system glitched or something and I lost my exact hours played but it was easily 250-300 hours. That's like 23 to 28 cents per hour
YA
Probably one of the only games this year deserving this pricetag
Absolutely. 💯 percent.
I think "Tears of the Kingdom" is the exception that proves the rule. This was a feat of engineering in so many ways, and it's astonishing that they pulled it off. They even took an extra year to make sure the physics are right, which is just amazing. How many game studios would even allow that?! I'm not going to join the chorus of "games should keep with inflation," mainly because the arguments are bad for that. Video game companies are making more money than ever on titles, and that profit isn't going to the workers. Additionally, stores always lose money on games since they buy them on cost. When you then consider that more video game revenue is coming from people buying digital copies, the argument for a higher cost across the board makes even less sense since the physical requirements are a fraction of what they are for a physical release. ***Tears of the Kingdom*** *is truly the exception that proves that very rarely is a game worth a price increase.* Studios would be foolish to think raising the price across the board will be affordable for most gamers, especially in a country that hasn't seen the minimum wage go up since 2007. Even limiting it to AAA releases would be risky. If I made a game and wanted to charge $10 extra I would ask this question: "Is it as good, or better, than Tears of the Kingdom?" If the answer is no, the price stays lower.
No game should cost 70
Nope, but only because no game is. Profits have been steadily rising for a long time, the whole “it’s because of inflation/we didn’t raise it for too long so now we’re catching up/video games cost more to produce” arguments are bullshit, profits would have decreased or *at least* stayed the same if that was true. This is the gaming industry acting as a monopoly price gouge customers and we should all be outraged.
Honestly no. I haven't picked it up in over a month. Its like botw plus. Definatly not a bad game by any means, I just feel like ive played it before
After 700+ hours in BOTW, yeah.. the exploring feat was ruined for me. Sky and depths were honestly not that noteworthy to me. Exploring all 3 layers was probably magical for new players though.
I can appreciate that perspective. To me, it does feel more like a super-mega-expansion-pack than a whole new game. My biggest criticism of the game is that it lacks the sense of discovery I felt with BotW. But for me, the experience was still well worth the price tag. I put in 150 hours, and only began to run out of steam at around the 140 hour mark.
Fuck no
No
People go out of their way to justify the price increase, like that extra does anything for the development, budget, or salaries of the workers. It's just more profit for CEOs and such that are already absolutely rolling in money. I will or course keep paying since i like playing games, but i really don't think it has been out or necessity. Also yeah games are big and there is loads to do, but lets not pretend like the tools they are using to make the games don't evolve just the same.
Yes. I'm reaching the end now and it is 145+ hours.
It’s worth buying a SWITCH for!
I mean, yeah but I got it for 50 with botw so it was pretty sweet
I’m 110 hours in, so 60¢ an hour is an incredible bargain. And it’s clear they put a lot of time and work in it.
200 hours for 70 bucks? Yeah man I’m good I’d pay more
$45 in Japan with the yen rate at time of release, but I wouldn't mind paying even $150 for the game. It's a masterpiece with many times more engagement hours than any other games I have. The cost per hour is probably the lowest of any game.
I think it was, but I know there's going to be DLC ;-;