You realize that the gaming industry has to trick, to somehow keep the price tags in the 60-70 euro range in AAA titles - it is also all noticeably more expensive. Human resources, energy, distribution - and companies also want to make money, legitimately.
Personally, I do not like the direction in which it's going. More and more games come with in-game purchasing opportunities to extend the lifespan of the game and simply distribute the previously calculated revenue over a longer period of time. In this sense, one can probably assume that the actual price tag of AAA titles is a good 80-140 euro, if one assumes DLCs and Microtransactions.
Now it is debated how ethically acceptable these transactions are. Most DLCs are probably still understanding, borderline it is then in additional cosmetic purchases or Lootboxen. Some games seem to have no idea about this and go directly to Pay to Win, where you can get faster at items or experience, if you feed the game with money.
This is where World of Warcraft recently came to my mind. Here, almost the main game was paid and then every month about 13 euro - relatively much admitted - for more playing time. For this one has received extremely high quality, very fast support and solid updates and for a while free extensions.
Here's my idea why very few developers dare to take that path as well. There are quite a few games in which I would be willing to pay a single digit amount per month with ongoing updates and support.
Anyway, I think a lot of the games will someday be streamed, bought or subscribed via a kind of platform like Netflix for series and movies.
What do you think of all this? I would appreciate a comment and a vote for one of the survey answers.
Monthly fees are too stupid for me. I prefer to buy the game once, against DLC's and Microtransactions I have MOST nothing.
I have not invested any extra cents in any game so far, so I'm convinced that there's no reason to do so.
I just think it sucks how commercialized the gaming industry has become. I mean, you buy a game for 70 euro and then spend money for DLC's, microtransactions or whatever else. And the cheekiest is still that the games are not even finished or error-free.
