It's no secret that life has become a lot more expensive in recent years. Everything has risen except wages, and while we can poke fun at it by measuring inflation in terms of Freddos, when faced with economic difficulties it's always the luxuries that are the first to go.
Compared to other hobbies, gaming has historically offered strong value for money. Games never break the bank, consoles get cheaper over time, and sales are plentiful and good value. And when you're putting in the hours to keep the lights on and food on the table, escaping into some other world full of either wizards, aliens, or zombies provides an invaluable bit of solace and respite from the stresses of the outside world.
The thing is, while we're all struggling, the gaming industry doesn't seem to be reading the room. And one of the most popular current pastimes is steadily slipping away from us and heading toward becoming a hobby reserved only for the more affluent among us. Is that a little farfetched? Maybe, but it's certainly within the realm of possibility when we take a look at how the price of gaming has risen.
Dynamic AKA predatory pricing
While this doesn't affect PC users much, the price of playing online has been climbing for years for console players. As prices for PlayStation Plus rose last month because of apparent "market conditions" (we'd love exact answers please for what those are) gamers are again left further out of pocket just for the sake of playing online games.
Both PS Plus and Game Pass have steadily raised their rates over the years, and even their cheapest options aren't exactly cheap. These price increases often come with the "market conditions" excuse and not a lot of value or new service added along with the raises.
But Sony seems to have their mind set on taking things even further. Not only does it look like more pricing adjustments to PS Plus are on the horizon, but the same also applies to games on their digital store as Sony looks to "adjust our pricing strategy in a dynamic way". Dynamic being the key word here as they have been playing around with prices on their digital store recently.
For those unaware, dynamic pricing is a strategy where business adjust prices for their goods and services in real-time, based on "market conditions", competition, and customer behaviour. It's absolutely not consumer-minded and any Oasis fan will tell you it's designed simply to extract as much money as possible out of people. The iconic UK band's recent reunion employed the strategy for their tickets, with plenty of outcry to the point the Competition and Markets Authority had to step in as tickets were going for almost triple their original price.
As we reported in March, there have been price discrepancies of 5-12% on the store depending on your region. And this is just the experimental phase; imagine how out of hand this can get if it's fully rolled out. People bought those Oasis tickets at gouging-prices, and it can absolutely happen here too.
A.I. continues to ruin everything
A lot of people are worried about the slop-ification of games thanks to the onset of A.I, and so they should be. But there is a much more immediate problem artificial intelligence poses to the everyday gamer. We're at a time in the console lifecycle where they should be getting cheaper for the consumer, and yet, consoles are now more expensive than they were at launch. The Xbox Series, PlayStation 5, and Switch 2 have all hiked their prices. How does that happen?
"Market conditions" may actually apply here, as the booming business of A.I. requires a lot of hardware, particularly RAM and storage components. And when demand increases, so do prices. The result as Asha Sharma points out, is a component crisis. When console manufacturers have to compete with A.I for the materials to build their consoles, so not only can they not afford to lower prices, but they've had to increase them because of this demand.
And until that A.I. bubble bursts, this isn't a problem that's going to go away any time soon.
Grand Theft Auto VI
With its cover art finally revealed and pre-orders now beginning, the wait for GTA VI actually has an end in sight. While these last few months may feel more agonising than the previous thirteen years, Rockstar's latest release and the biggest game since, well GTA V, has the eyes of the entire industry on it for reasons other than whether it will live up to the hype. It could well be the turning point for the price of games going forward. It's a big and expensive project, and rumours of the game releasing at a $100 price tag have been rolling around for a while, and now proven.
And when you have Take-Two's CEO Strauss Zelnick talking about how games have been value for money relative to inflation for years, it's no surprise to see that GTA VI will officially break the $70 pricing point for standard editions of games. While $80 isn't quite the $100 many feared (though the Ultimate Edition bears that price tag), it still presents a problem for gaming staying affordable in the long run.
That's not to say GTA VI isn't worth more than the standard price, as to many gamers it absolutely will be and they'll happily pay it. The problem isn't the game itself, but the precedent it sets and what comes after. As soon as you set that new price, other games will follow suit. And suddenly, gaming slips that little bit further into being a premium expense.
Wage war with your wallet
When prices go up, they do so fast and very seldom come down at all, let alone just as quickly as they rose. Gaming isn't the only industry where prices are on the rise. Look at football as a prime example. This was the game for the masses, hugely accessible because of its affordability. Now? The world's biggest tournament is charging thousands of dollars for the final. The world's most popular sport loved by billions loves the fans back less and less each year.
But what can we do? The only thing we can, vote with our wallets.
It has been shown to work. The huge hike of Game Pass prices last year resulted in millions of lost subscribers, prompting yet another adjustment where prices actually went down. A big win for Xbox users (unless you stacked a few pre-paid cards shortly before the change) and a sign that we, the consumer, can have an effect on the market as a collective.
When disposable income is shrinking like a crisp packet in the oven, naturally you have to be more selective. If we want to stop dynamic pricing, we just need to be more dynamic with our gaming. Wait for sales, take a break from that subscription, and finally start digging your way through that Steam backlog.