Subjectively, video games did get both worse and more expensive over the last 20 years.

But putting that aside, the ratio isn't 1:1. I'd expect the ratio to be at least 20:1 - you can name at most 1 thing that got better/cheaper for every 20 things that got worse/more expensive.

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oneeyedpigeon 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I'd like to see your evidence for video games getting more expensive. Even if they were like-for-like (I'll make a case that the average video game is a far better product now than it was in the 90s), they are approximately the same absolute price today that they were 30-40 years ago, without adjusting for inflation.

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cogman10 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Even if they were like-for-like

That's the thing, the style of game release of the 90s is all but dead. Sure you can still find indy studios releasing in a 90s style, but you can't find the big players doing that. Now a lot of the big name games have switched to either a freemium model or a pay to play model.

You don't simply buy a game like Overwatch, you have to get a battle pass to keep playing. And you don't ultimately own overwatch, once blizzard is done with it, the game is over and you can no longer play it. Then there's the fact that to be competitive, these games often sell items and loot boxes. If you want to not always die, you end up needing to buy these perks.

That is a worst experience designed to milk money out of players as much as possible, more than what you'd be paying adjusted for inflation.

The entire genre of FPS is like this now. Unless you play the old games, you basically cannot get the old experience of setting up a server, maybe letting it be open to the public, and just playing a game with friends. Instead is a bunch of random dumb shit that you have to deal with.

	▲	yifanl 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Nintendo would be the big publisher who still largely releases games the same way, but they aren't American.

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Xirdus 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There's a reason I said 20 years and not 30-40. I'm not going to defend a point I didn't make.

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xnorswap 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Which games are you trying to compare between now and 20 years ago?

From my point of view, 2006-2012 was a nadir of PC gaming. A string of unoriginal games or bad console ports.

I'm always happy to keep my mind open to alternate points of view, but I'd really struggle to name the big and cheap hits of that era.

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Xirdus an hour ago | parent [-]

What do you mean "and cheap"? Video games at the top range have very consistent pricing throughout history, about $80 adjusted for inflation.

That era in gaming had many releases that are still considered among the best games of all time, that pioneered trends that reshaped the whole industry. Almost every year had at least a couple such titles.

2004 GTA San Andreas, Half-Life 2

2005 God of War, Need For Speed: Most Wanted

2006: TES: Oblivion, Gears of War, Okami

2007: Call of Duty 4, Portal, Bioshock

2008: Dead Space, Left 4 Dead

2009: Batman: Arkham Asylum, Uncharted 2

2010: Read Dead Redemption, Bayonetta, Starcraft 2

2011: Skyrim, Portal 2, Dark Souls

2012: XCOM, Guild Wars 2, Diablo 3, Far Cry 3

2013: GTA V, The Last of Us, DOTA 2

	▲	xnorswap 24 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The best of those games are either outside 2006-2012 or were console exclusives and not on PC, the strength of games before 2006 ( and Oblivion only just sneaks into the window ) and 2012 onwards only prove what drought there was in PC gaming in-between. Red Dead Redemption still hasn't even come to PC yet, it's due out this year! Okay, so I was the one who narrowed it to talking about PC games, but if we look at console gaming then it has got consistently cheaper. Sonic & Knuckles cost around $60 in 1994 money, that's about $130 in today's money. Games have got vastly cheaper, for decades they were consistently around $60 and it's only recently they've crept up.

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bluefirebrand 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> they are approximately the same absolute price today that they were 30-40 years ago, without adjusting for inflation.

You used to get a lot of stuff in a game box that wasn't just the game though. Manuals were often very detailed, arguably works of art in their own right. Also the cost of producing and shipping games is way lower online than it was for physical copies. Companies all used to have to develop their own engines and tooling to build games, that cost is mostly just gone with Unity and Unreal now.

Last and definitely not least, there's way more competition in the gaming industry now, and that tends to drive prices down.