this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2023
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[–] mojo@lemm.ee 137 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

then don't buy it

people keep buying it, so why wouldn't they raise the price?

[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 75 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Typical moron gamer moment, though: Bitch about price, buy it anyway, leave a bad review at 500 hours played, and repeat next year.

[–] BilboBargains@lemmy.world 34 points 1 year ago

They named this pathology The Maddening.

[–] twistedtxb@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Now that FIFA's gone, EA needs another cash cow.

[–] lud@lemm.ee 25 points 1 year ago

Fifa isn't gone, only the FIFA in-game branding is gone. It's just called FC24 instead of FIFA 24.

And most of the world that plays FIFA isn't going to play an American football game. American football is completely different and not relatable to pretty much anyone except those from USA (or maybe Canada, dunno).

The game isn't for you.

They continue to do very little updates and charge full price because people keep buying it.

They sell like crazy. There was a chart that showed Madden selling more per year than most Nintendo games.

[–] dmm@lemmy.world 56 points 1 year ago

It's a free market. Just don't buy it

[–] AndreyAsimow@lemmy.world 38 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Sport games should be sold as game as service rather than yearly releases.

[–] CorrodedCranium@leminal.space 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I wonder if they'd have a hard time selling a service that doesn't include the micro-transactions.

[–] AndreyAsimow@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

Relying on only seasonal subscriptions is not enough. They have to sell something else és well to keep up.

Why? They’re probably making way more money this way anyways.

[–] Amilo159@lemmy.world 36 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Let me share a secret with you: Madden (Year) is the same game as Madden (Year-1).

[–] alphacyberranger@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wait, if I rename my Madden1.exe to Madden23.exe will I get the latest game?

[–] touringbot@programming.dev 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

... You're gonna need to rename to madden25.exe

[–] alphacyberranger@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

Thanks. I feel like, I just saved 70$.

[–] redcalcium@lemmy.institute 7 points 1 year ago

"SportGame (Year-1) is literally unplayable because my favorite player is no longer in Team X."

-- Every sport sim players

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[–] Bluefalcon@discuss.tchncs.de 35 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No yearly release should be $70.

[–] Ostrichgrif@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

At this his point they could start charging $100 a year for it and I wouldn't even blame them.

[–] kemsat@lemmy.world 31 points 1 year ago (2 children)

For like 20 years y’all have been buying the game, year after year, even if it’s not worth it.

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[–] Targy@lemmy.world 30 points 1 year ago (24 children)

No game should be 70$ if you ask me

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Games should not follow inflation at all?

N64 games were 50$ in the 90s, more limited releases (Ogre Battle 64 for example) were 60$.

Games pricing has stagnated, that's good for the consumers but bad for smaller developers...

[–] Selmafudd@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Surely the difference in overheads involved in physical vs digital would mean profits are increasing at a higher rate then sale price

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 year ago

Maybe, development cost hasn't gone down though, not one bit!

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[–] Hunter2@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)
  1. The medium games came in were more expensive

  2. The gaming audience was much smaller

  3. Games were only sold in stores

  4. If you add all the season passes you're paying the same or even more with further microtransactions

  5. Games in general now have a longer shelf life

AAA games in my country have been 69,99€ since the PS3 launch and now they're asking 79,99€. It's true development costs have ballooned, but I just don't think that's a good price/time ratio and rarely do I buy games over 15€. I really don't mind waiting a couple years.

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Bad price/time ratio? I don't know many hobbies where you'll spend that kind of money for 100h+ of enjoyment...

[–] Hunter2@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You can buy musical instruments for that price software or hardware synthesisers, for example.

But that's exactly the point, I'd rather pay double, triple, quadruple for something I know I'll use for hundreds of hours (a monitor, a new keyboard, a Steam Deck) than 80€ for a game that will last me 12 to 30 hours (I only play offline story-based games).

Even if I considered game X, there are decades worth of games availabe for under 10€ that I would rather get now or buy a Humble Bundle while waiting for a sale.

The issue becomes of all publishers start to follow Nintendo's model and not dropping the prices much.

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[–] FoxBJK@midwest.social 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Tears of the Kingdom was $70, and I honestly feel like it was worth it because it’s quite an entertaining and enthralling experience.

“Pro football video game v. 34” is probably not in the same caliber though.

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[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Madden is worth whatever people are willing to pay for it.

[–] Pxtl@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm reliably informed by people who really hate Overwatch that thinking like this makes you a chump for capitalism who is ruining the industry.

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[–] greavous@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago

I'd say that's its because there's only really 1 country that's going to buy it in large numbers but the reality is it's the standard ea tax. Stop buying it every year or stop complaining.

[–] CorrodedCranium@leminal.space 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Just take your John Madden Football Sega Genesis ROM and use this tool to update the roster yourself. Who'd be able to tell the difference?

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[–] NOOBMASTER@lemmy.ml 17 points 1 year ago

Not my problem really.

[–] Thedogspaw@midwest.social 17 points 1 year ago

Madden is so dumb its literally the same game with one feature taken out and one feature reintroduced every year

[–] gerryflap@feddit.nl 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They know that people are going to pay for it. For exactly the same reason I haven't bought a Formula 1 game in a few years. Every year it's just not quite worth the 60-70 euro's for me. I'm not even that mad about the 70 euro price tag if I get something nice for it in return, everything has gotten more expensive and games have been 60 euro since forever, but last year's game with some small changes is not going to cut it for that price.

[–] lemmyseizethemeans@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

EA sucks. They suck, EA fucking sucks and can I say it again? Fuck EA. Price gouging for shitty products. What they did to battlefront 2? Lootbox pay to win bullshit. The AI in EAs F1 is so abysmal, 2022 was such a colossal disappointment and they are saying 80 bucks USD is a sale price for F1 2023. Naw fam fuck EA and their entire product line. I'll only buy on steam sale at 70% discount on principal

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[–] yokonzo@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

God look at those crusty ass grass textures, def not $70 material

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If people buy it anyway at the full price, then the game publisher will correctly deduce that it indeed worth at least that much money for enough people (otherwise those people would not part ways with that much money to get it) to get that game as soon as it comes out.

In Economics, perfect pricing (which is not yet possible but, damn, they're really trying hard) from the point of view of a seller (i.e. for maximum profits) is when they get exactly as much money from each individual as that person is willing to pay for it, so the "ideal" world for them would be individually-tailored prices going as high as it could possibly go for each person whilst still managing to sell to that person.

As they can't as of yet sell at different prices to each and every individual, they've gone as far as they can (regional pricing, different prices in different stores with different audiences and, maybe more importantly, time-from-publishing pricing) and then push prices up and up slowly whilst checking if in total the price increase has yielded more money or not (they have no issue with loosing customers due to higher prices if in total they still make more money at the price point than at a lower price point).

IMHO, in the face of this, the easist and best reaction for somebody who wants the game but does not think it's worth $70, is to wait until the price falls down to how much they're willing to pay for it (even better, let it fall some more and buy a couple more games with the savings). In fact if enough people do it the price will fall much faster as the publisher's sales data analysis will signal to them that they've put the game at too high a price point and they'll lower it trying to pick up the "money left on the table" from those who are interested but not at that price point before those people lose interest.

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[–] Devious_Thoughts@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What is the allure to a yearly new Madden game?

[–] Jyek@sh.itjust.works 16 points 1 year ago

Statistics of players being updated and new character models being added. Nothing that couldn't be done in an update. Honestly most sports games should literally just be games as a service already.

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[–] Phegan@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

I loved sports games growing up, but they are absolutely terrible now. Over priced, full of cash grabs and needlessly complex. I just want to hit x to pass. I don't want a fucking story line, I just want to play the game.

[–] legion@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Anytime I consider buying a Madden game, I watch a YouTube video of competitive play for the latest version. It always reveals how garbage the football sim part is. It's all audibles and hot route spam and exploiting the useless AI in the same ways over and over again.

I'll never buy a Madden game while all that crap is in there. They should make it so that spamming audibles and hot routes causes players to blow assignments and false start all the time, but the average "competitive" Madden player would probably die from nonstop crying and pants-soiling if EA did anything like that.

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[–] WorldieBoi@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Same for FIFA. Or EAFC.

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