You see it in the comments of just about every major announce trailer, and even more so during the week of a release of a $70 game. “It’s too much i’ll wait for a sale” is the most common. “It hurts sales too much” is another. The flip side is the gamers who think $70 is justified especially considering inflation and where prices were 25 years ago. Saber Interactive CEO Matthew Karch recently said he believes its “Just A Phase” and that prices will come down soon enough. But what effects have $70 games made on both the consumer and the industry?

By all accounts consumers are buying fewer new games and playing older games. Last year PlayStation data showed that the $70 price tag was resulting in fewer sales. Part of that data showed that there were 39 million less games sold in 2022 than the previous year. But is this a direct result from $70, or is that just a small cog in the wheel that's taking the fall as the reason?

First off let's get this out of the way. $70 games is absolutely resulting in fewer sales. That's just how money works in the world. The more expensive a product the less people that can buy it. If you have $500 a year to spend on games, going from $60 to $70 is the difference between 7 new games and 8 new games. That is just reality. But is that really the main culprit? In my personal opinion it's not. In my opinion there is 2 bigger reasons.

The main reason should be pretty obvious. Free to play games and games as a service have skyrocketed in popularity over the years. Revenue is way up in gaming despite the lack of sales because people are spending their money in these "old" games. The problem with calling these games old is they are constantly updated to stay fresh. So in a lot of ways they aren't old. Instead of spending $200 on a couple new games, gamers are spending that money on dlc and micro transactions of the games they already have.

Gone are the days you'd play Halo or Call Of Duty for the year and then move on to the new iteration the following year. Games are made to last for years and years. But this is only really for the multiplayer crowd and casual gamers, what about the single player experiences? This brings me to my other point which rarely gets talked about in this discussion.

As gaming has moved to a more digital landscape two things have changed. One is people just waiting/hoping for games to land on their preferred subscription service. The other is games simply don't go on sale or drop in price like they used to. Physical games would go on sale a lot more frequently and get permanent price drops much quicker. Retailers wanted quick turn around of stock to make room for the next round of games. This simply doesn't happen anymore.

At retail, stores don't buy stock like they used to so they aren't in a rush to get new space, and obviously digital stores don't need to worry about that. It's not uncommon to see 5 year old games still cost $50+. And while the games do go on sale it doesn't seem as frequent as they once used to.

Just for example I was waiting on Starfield to go on sale to add it to my collection. I played it through Game Pass at launch and bought the upgrade so decided to wait for a sale. The game came out in September 2023 and I was just finally able to buy it on sale last week. It took 6 months to get a meaningful sale price.

So while I do think $70 games has played a part in sales dropping I think it's a small part of the problem. As much as I'd like to see games cheaper I don't think it's enough of the problem for companies to revert back to $60.

Having said that though I do think there is something to be said about GAAS games getting a lower entry price. Those games live and die off of player count and micro transactions so it really would make sense to go the Helldivers route and sell at $40 and gain more players than $70. Would games like Suicide Squad and Skull & Bones be in better shape if they were $40-50? Maybe.

So that's my take on this debate, though it might not be a popular one. But as always it's your money and what you choose to do with it is up to you. If you don't like $70 continue to wait for sales. Just don't expect it to change anytime soon.