Trying to raise the "standard" price to $80 will have very nice ripple effects of more pricing diversity, where each game will really consider what it's actually worth, which we haven't had for a long time. Even now we're getting first-party Microsoft titles releasing at $20, $30, and $50.

[–] samus12345@lemm.ee 5 points 2 days ago

I think all it will do is raise the ceiling of what publishers are willing to price games at. If they think they can get away with it, they'll charge $80 instead of $70, with the rest being $70 and less just like it already is now.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Steam doesn't advertise at the scale of Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. It won't have a ripple effect because it won't change the degree to which artificial hype drives people towards the "Buy" button.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

A lot of games priced at $70 right now are having a rough go of it, so charging more on top of that isn't going to help, but there are the likes of South of Midnight and Clair Obscur launching at $50. If your game isn't as hot of a commodity as Mario Kart, you're probably going to try to lure people in with a lower price.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

there are the likes of South of Midnight and Clair Obscur launching at $50.

Beautiful games, both. But again, they aren't having the full court press of advertising like a new Call of Duty or Final Fantasy or Diablo would.

That's the real cost savings. You don't need to change $80+ for a game if you aren't focused entirely on presale figures to justify your studio's budget.

Incidentally, you also get to focus on a better game. Balatro didn't need wall to wall subway ads in New York to end up on everyone's phones.

[–] Yermaw@lemm.ee 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Steam doesn't need to. It's got the steam sale and a hundred million people to share memes of "sale so good spent all my money no time to play all the games I bought in such massive sale"

[–] mesamunefire@piefed.social 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

You don't need to promote if everyone else does it for you lol.

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

How much is Factorio worth though, everything?

[–] ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The amount of time I've put in it could have cost me $200 and it would still be one of the best $/hr games I have

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 days ago

I bought it long before the steam release, back when multiplayer was in experimental. So glad that there are 1000s of hours that were never tracked so I don't need to see those.

[–] lagoon8622@sh.itjust.works 0 points 2 days ago

If they charged according to value no one on Earth could afford to buy it

[–] LandedGentry@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 days ago

Yeah Ex33 at $50 to me was a welcome surprise