So, the Act Man came out with yet another banger of a video that sums up a lot of what I've been feeling lately about the video game industry. I've been kinda going full throttle here myself on this, ripping the industry for becoming increasingly apocalyptically expensive, and yeah, this video hits the spot so hard.
So, we've discussed my own consumption habits recently. I spend $200 a year on games. 9 games a year, on average, $22-23 a game, with widely variable costs per game, ranging from as low as like $2.50 on the low end, to maybe $52.50 (or 25% off a $70 game) on the high end. And apparently, this is a lot. Most gamers only buy 1-2 games a year on average, and apparently most spending is driven by a small number of hobbyists. Apparently I'm way above average here. And of course, hardware costs are high, despite this. And uh...I didnt think that the picture was this dire, but holy crap.
Yeah. With me, my own spending is inversely proportional with how much I have to spend on hardware. If you make me buy new GPUs and stuff every few years just to game, that's less money Im spending on games. And nvidia is getting greedy AF and their making GPUs insanely expensive is gonna affect that. If you want people to pay for software, maybe dont make them pay a lot for hardware. Seriously, I'd rather game devs at this point NOT push graphics, but instead make games playable on like 10 year old systems, so I can just spend more on games. Again, it's not like games are progressing like they did in the past. At this point we're well past "peak gaming" as I call it where we're just putting insane financial constraints on people for no real tangible benefit.
But beyond that, yeah, the economy is horrible. Even though it's great on paper, people can't afford to live. Everything is expensive. The new switch is $450, $500 with mariokart. The next gen PS6 might be as high as $800, the next gen xbox might be as high as $1200. Games cost $70, some wanna push that to $80, jobs pay $15 an hour while rent costs like $2000 a month, and then people are like, "gee, why arent people consuming?"
And yeah i guess with games, older games are an option, f2p is an option, and that does flesh out our options for games, meaning we spend more time on either cheap/free games, or buy 1-2 games a year and spend most of our time on those. Or we just enjoy our back catalogs and crap.
But yeah. None of this is working for people. These corporate stooges are trying to suck as much money out of people while giving them nothing back. People forget that to have a functioning consumerist economy, people need money to consume. You need to pay people, so they can buy products. But with everyone squeezing people for everything they're worth, while paying them as little as possible, nothing is working. And a lot of people just check out of the consumerist cycle where they end up playing decade old games still being updated, or f2p games, and yeah, they stop consuming. Even the switch 2's sales might be driven by this wealthy minority who can afford everything, because let's face it, our economy has 20% of people making 50% of the income, so they're living the dream at least on paper (dont ask them about how many hours they spend at the office or how little time they actually have for gaming), but for the rest of us, we're struggling to keep up. And that's where I keep saying gaming is going at this rate. After it becoming increasingly accessible from the 80s through the 2010s, now they're squeezing us and going on about how we should be willing to pay because that's what stuff cost in the 90s. Except...that's how the 90s were for most of us. We didnt buy tons of games. Consoles were cheapish, much cheaper than today tbqh, and games were prohibitively expensive. We bought like 4-6 games a year if we were lucky, and rarely at full price. Thankfully prices dropped fast back then. They dont now. Another decision fuelled by corporate greed. Companies dont like to lower prices ever, so they stay high longer.
And yeah. I just wanted to post this because I feel vindicated if anything by these statistics. Sometimes i wonder if I'm the one who is out of touch here, but then I remember basic economics and see stats like this and it's like "no, I'm just on the curve here." Game developers, and well, the owners of capitalism, are gonna have to realize, if they want this system to work and they want us to consume, they gotta make stuff affordable. $1200 xboxes and $80 games are a no go. That's economic suicide. And while yes, a small portion of people will pay it, the vast majority won't. PS, redditors, you're that minority. You know who you are, the ones who spend thousands on your PC, and then buy every $70 game when it comes out, and then dunk on everyone else for being poor? You're not the rule, you're the exception. I'm closer to the median than you guys are.
No comments:
Post a Comment