grudgebearer wrote on Jun 26, 2019, 16:44:
jdreyer wrote on Jun 26, 2019, 16:28:
Today a AAA game is $60. In 1999, it was $50. However, $50 in 1999 is the same as $75 today. So AAA games are in fact cheaper than they were 20 years ago, and get relatively cheaper every year.
How many AAA games that come out now are really $60.00 for the full game? How many of them don't immediately have season passes and/or day 1 DLCs available?
In 2019, for $60.00, you get the base game when it comes to AAA games, and that's it. You can play just the base game, but let's not pretend that you are getting the full experience for $60 and that content hasn't been carved out as DLC that's going to cost you an extra $20-$50.
Tack on some loot boxes or an in-game storefront, and get yourself some "recurrent user spending" which didn't exist in 1999, and you have a completely different gaming sales paradigm.
"Full game" is kind of a weasely term. How many games actually needed the DLC, or in most cases, were even improved by it? Fallout 3, I'd say. Can't think of another.
DLC is almost always coming from a second budget. The game released is the full game, the DLC is budgeted separately and often done by different teams. It's outside the scope, and even in the 90s would not have been included.
Ignoring full expansions, because we've always had those, what else actually completed a game, instead of adding either more of the same or, in some cases, lesser versions of content already in the game (looking at you, pirate-and-jungle themed expansions for Borderlands 2.) Most of this stuff is also completed months after launch.