Hugo Hacker News

Video Game Pricing [video]

Leftium 2021-08-16 18:41:54 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Related: https://youtu.be/VhWGQCzAtl8

This 6 min video explains from game dev perspective why (AAA) games have been pegged at $60 on release, even though they should be priced higher to be sustainable ($85-$90 in 2018).

So game developers tried various ideas to make up for this gap: DLC, perpetual experiences (map packs & expansions), loot boxes, microtransactions...

mister_tee 2021-08-16 19:39:35 +0000 UTC [ - ]

in response to the video's message - I get that $60 in 2006 inflated to $80 today. And that development costs have gone up rapidly (so have sales IIRC but I know that's not evenly-distributed).

Might the move to digital distribution, even if not complete yet, already be giving publishers substantially increased profits per unit sold?

A decade ago, an article suggested publishers made $27 on a $60 physical game, and the platform holder a $7 royalty[1]. With digital, retailers lose out and no longer get a cut, cost of goods is reduced, and returns go away.

With a $60 digital game, don't Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo/Steam all charge a 30% platform fee for infrastructure/store costs and their profit? They'd take $18 (+157%) and leave $42 for the publisher (+55%) (edit:math). Is that the extent of the pie or is it divided more?

Multiplayer still requires a $60/year fee on console systems too, correct? And all the extra and ongoing costs mentioned in the parent post are unlikely to go away with increased base price, right? I don't mean to be skeptical but feel we're going to see some price increases (beyond gaming too) just because businesses can.

[1] https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/...

muststopmyths 2021-08-16 19:53:55 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Most of what used to go to the retailer apparently goes to the console maker now ($7/60 vs $18/60), so the studio hasn't really gotten much of a benefit from digital.

Multiplayer fee does not go to the game maker either.

And costs are astronomically higher. A mid-market AA game with a studio of 80-100 people will cost in the order of 15-20 million USD a year to produce. Art is enormously expensive in 3D, even outsourced. My numbers are a few years old, so it's probably worse now.

It's ludicrous to assume that in the cut-throat gaming market (unless it's the 1000th iteration of a franchise) game developers are looking to increase the price "just because they can". They actually can't because gamers have shown themselves to be incredibly hostile to price increases.

The main reason there are no more mid-market games (i.e. between AAA franchises and indie small-scales) is that it is absolutely not profitable or sustainable. You can put all your money and energy into a game, but unless it's a huge hit, you will never recover the cost. It is just not worth it to most of us these days to even try.

account42 2021-08-18 08:07:43 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> Most of what used to go to the retailer apparently goes to the console maker now ($7/60 vs $18/60), so the studio hasn't really gotten much of a benefit from digital.

There isn't any less microtransactions and loot boxes on PC, even with PC-only games, where you can sell directly to customers without any store or platform cut - and most big publishers do just that. All these additional money grabs have one reason only: because they can get away with it and make more profit. If selling games for more than $60 was more profitable they would do that too.

> And costs are astronomically higher.

Only because AAA publishers choose to chase photorealistic graphics. Why? So that they can appeal to more customers, making them more money. Yet again and again there are games (mostly from independent studios) that proove that graphics are not the most important thing to many players.

> It's ludicrous to assume that in the cut-throat gaming market (unless it's the 1000th iteration of a franchise) game developers are looking to increase the price "just because they can".

It's ludicrous to believe AAA publishers' claims that games are not profitable when their CEOs can pull in $150 mil [0]

> The main reason there are no more mid-market games (i.e. between AAA franchises and indie small-scales) is that it is absolutely not profitable or sustainable.

There are mid-market games, they are just not as profitable as AAA franchises so most big pusblishers avoid them.

[0] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/activision-blizzard-pulls-...

2021-08-18 14:45:42 +0000 UTC [ - ]

lupire 2021-08-17 19:15:19 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Meanwhile, $20M is peanuts for movie that only charges $10/ticket

sprafa 2021-08-17 21:59:09 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I think the economics of this are radically different. The movies that get released in theatres have already gone through A Great Filter - they’ve either been selected or made from the get go to movie theaters. When you have a film going to theatres you already have a lot of spend behind it, a marketing campaign etc. Sadly the most reliable correlation for whether a movie makes profit is how much you spent on marketing (and no I am not kidding).

Lots of movies, in fact the vast majority of them don’t get to go to theaters. It used to be that this meant VHS or dvd release, now it means streaming, sometimes even just YouTube or Vimeo release. If you go to any film festival circuit I no your life you will see upwards of 1000+ films in a year. But not that many of them will go to theaters anywhere in the world.

Basically the 20$M films you talk about have some reasonable chance of sucess. Gaming is a bit more of a free for all, having steam, early access, GOG. You have a Wild West capitalism type of ultra competitive env. When you launch a film in theatres, that is not what’s happening at all - you’ve already gotten a booking at the natural moated monopoly of Very Large Screens, a limited amount of which you have in the world.

Basically I would estimate that the chance to launch a game and have VERY slim returns is far higher than a film.

muststopmyths 2021-08-18 14:58:12 +0000 UTC [ - ]

In fact, you see the same problem in movies where you either have big tentpole blockbusters or smaller low-budget movies ( like Blumhouse or A24 releases) or indies. There aren't many mid-budget (I guess that's around 50-75 million USD ??) movies made any more.

Yes, you do have breakout hits in that space once in a while, but not enough for studios to risk them without big name stars. Or more commonly actors who fund their own productions.

In both industries the case can be made that the market has made the choice and whiners should STFU. But then we should also make peace with what's lost in return.

sprafa 2021-08-18 15:35:37 +0000 UTC [ - ]

As much as people say that there is no organic way to find films at this point in time. There is nothing like Early Access for films or TV. You need the backing of a large organisation to make a film - they’re just too expensive. So interestingly games have both a lower start cost, a better alt-funding infrastructure and more opportunities for competition through an open storefront like Steam.

There is nothing similar in Film today - people don’t open the Vimeo paid section daily looking for new stuff to watch, neither does Vimeo allow for “fund this project” drives. I have hopes crypto DAOs will emerge to solve this issue.

ornornor 2021-08-17 16:41:31 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> Might the move to digital distribution, even if not complete yet, already be giving publishers substantially increased profits per unit sold?

There is also no more used market with digital only. I can’t sell a game when I’m done with it, and I can’t buy it for 1/2 or 1/6th of the price if I’m waiting long enough after release.

Leftium 2021-08-16 19:23:48 +0000 UTC [ - ]

One additional major revenue stream not mentioned is merchandise.

Pokemon's merch revenue completely dwarfs game revenue: https://youtube.com/clip/UgxvU_ygdejMiTGyChN4AaABCQ

Merch is great because it allows "whales" to spend as much as they want without the questionable gambling aspect of loot boxes/gacha.

TheRealNGenius 2021-08-17 07:37:53 +0000 UTC [ - ]

That’s not exactly a fair comparison since Pokemon is more of a multimedia franchise in that it has trading cards, tv shows, movies etc. It’s more like a brand than just a video game. So barring these huge franchises (along with Minecraft/Fortnite), I would assume physical merch sales for most games is low by comparison.

Leftium 2021-08-17 08:03:15 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I think Pokemon is a brand because they started with the video game and capitalized on its merchandisable nature. I don't think there was was a Pokemon card game (or anything else) until after the video game was released.

I agree some games are less amenable to the merch model, but that is within the control of the game designers.

In fact, some games were designed explicitly to support the sale of merchandise. I think Rovio's Angry Birds and/or Seriously's Best Fiends used this strategy, but I can't find the source, now...

Apparently Garfield is a cartoon that was created solely to sell merchandise. It's quite blatant: https://youtu.be/1ei_eNTmCsU?t=33

I don't see why the merch strategy can't be applied to games, too.

detaro 2021-08-17 08:10:54 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Yes, the original Gameboy game was first. The other branches followed quite quickly though, so they probably fed into each others popularity and I'm not sure it would have made a huge difference if e.g. the anime had come first and a bit later then the games. EDIT: that all these channels were there was probably quite important though.

Japanese releases:

Game: early 1996, second late 1996

TCG: late 1996

TV series: 1997

movies: 1998

TheRealNGenius 2021-08-17 08:54:49 +0000 UTC [ - ]

detaro makes some good points, and you’re right it’s totally possible for some things to be designed for selling merch. I agree that it’s really up to the game makers.

At this point, I think it’s more about IP and who your target is. If your target is general audience/kids, you could probably sell a whole variety of merch, even if it’s not directly tied to the game. But if the target is hardcore gamers (collectibles, exclusive t-shirts, memorabilia, etc), the market seems smaller.

Leftium 2021-08-17 09:02:25 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Yes. That gets to a marketing concept that many businesses ignore at their peril:

Sell what people want to people who want it. (Vs what you want to make to who you want to sell it to.)

dkersten 2021-08-16 20:00:51 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> sustainable

The popular AAA games have been making record breaking amounts of profit in recent years before you even include the microtransactions they've been adding. The market is bigger than ever. This is from the earning reports. This is just an excuse to try milk more money out of consumers.

Wowfunhappy 2021-08-16 20:28:04 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Which ones?

The big yearly franchises rake in tons of cash, just as superheroes do at the movie theatre. But if you go a bit deeper, the situation is more mixed. Bioshock Infinite just about bankrupted Irrational Games, for instance, despite being very well-received.

dkersten 2021-08-16 23:11:53 +0000 UTC [ - ]

The big publishers (EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Zenimax) have had numerous record years. Irrational Games has been a subsidiary of Take Two since before Bioshock Infinite.

Wowfunhappy 2021-08-16 23:21:18 +0000 UTC [ - ]

That doesn't mean the individual games or studios were profitable.

https://www.polygon.com/2014/2/21/5431332/what-irrational-ga...

> Earlier this month, Irrational co-founder Ken Levine announced that less than a year after the release of BioShock Infinite, the studio would be "winding down," which meant that everyone but Levine and 15 others were being laid off.

dkersten 2021-08-17 08:22:33 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I mean that whether or not the studio closes is at the parent companies whims.

According to Wikipedia, Bioshock Infinite sold 11 million copies. If your development is so costly that 11 million sales, vastly higher than most games sell, isn’t a success then maybe you should go out of business. That’s not a price point problem but a budgeting problem with unrealistic expectations.

If you look at the top selling games, the top 50 ever bottom out at 20 million sales so they were half way to being on the top 50. If your game has to be in or close to the top fifty selling games of all time in order to be profitable then you’ve planned something very wrong.

Wowfunhappy 2021-08-17 16:51:14 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Isn't the other possibility, though, that the game was just too cheap at $60? And only launch, mind you—I do think another issue here is just how quickly even high-demand games get marked down in price. (This is not entirely in the manufacturer's control—but Nintendo somehow always manages to maintain the prices of their games. Nintendo is doing something smart which no one else is doing...)

I don't know about you, but I like big-budget games! I don't think Bioshock Infinite would have been as good if they had to pair back the art team that constructed that gorgeous floating city, or lowered the amount of experimental iterations which made it possible to get the gameplay feel just right!

dkersten 2021-08-18 21:19:48 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> I don't know about you, but I like big-budget games!

I like some big budget games, but most of what's been released by the big publishers (EA, Activision, Ubisoft) has been, lets say, lackluster. Those are the games with the biggest budgets and quite frankly, they tend to be all flash and little substance, gameplay-wise.

account42 2021-08-18 08:12:17 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Do you think games are piced at $60 and marketed down because publishers are being generous?? Those price points are set exactly because they are expected to extract the most profits.

lostmsu 2021-08-16 20:51:31 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Sounds like they should have put $80 price tag on the game. It was worth it.

pcwalton 2021-08-16 22:36:33 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Anecdotes are one thing, but the picture is clear when you look at inflation-adjusted trends: https://venturebeat.com/2018/01/23/the-cost-of-games/ The development cost for games, especially AAA titles, has in fact risen significantly.

Given the sacrifices that developers and especially artists have to undergo to work in the industry, I have absolutely no problem with saying that video games should monetize as much as they can, to ensure that the crew can continue to make a decent living.

dkersten 2021-08-16 23:17:45 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Its worth keeping in mind that typically those huge budget games spend approx half of their budget on marketing.

For example, Red Dead Redemption 2's budget was US$ 70–240 million on development and a further 200–300 million on marketing: https://venturebeat.com/2018/10/31/red-dead-redemption-2-cou...

> Given the sacrifices that developers and especially artists have to undergo to work in the industry, I have absolutely no problem with saying that video games should monetize as much as they can, to ensure that the crew can continue to make a decent living.

If the money actually went to the developers, I'd agree, but largely it doesn't. It goes to the executives. Bobby Kotick got a US$200 million bonus while at the same time laying off staff. The money made by big budget AAA titles largely doesn't go to the developers who have to undergo those sacrifices, it goes to already rich executives who don't need it and make no sacrifices.

AndrewOMartin 2021-08-17 07:14:52 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Thank God for you.

Grakel 2021-08-16 23:01:50 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Unfortunately you're both right, and companies are making huge profits at the expense of their employees typically measured in time and mental health.

dkersten 2021-08-16 23:07:38 +0000 UTC [ - ]

And money. Lets not forget the trend of paying their top executives big bonuses while laying off the staff.

For example: https://www.ign.com/articles/activision-blizzard-has-reporte... (yes, yes, that bonus was part of a contract from 5 years ago, but its still in rather bad taste to pay out hundreds of millions while laying off a load of staff)

chriswalz 2021-08-16 19:14:56 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I found it weird how the video doesn’t account for the massive economies of scale that AAA companies have access to. The audiences & market size are way bigger now than they were back in the day.

gambiting 2021-08-16 19:51:11 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Our own marketing department made a good summary of this( I work for a AAA games company) - according to them as little as 10 years ago there was maybe a dozen big, AAA, 50h+ long releases each year. Now there’s 100+ a year and increasing. Yes your markets are bigger, but there’s more competition and fundamentally it’s still winner takes all - big names sell 20/30/40 million units, while if the game isn’t either a big well known franchise or an absolute 10/10 hit it struggles to pay for its own development cost.

And the length of games plays big part too - my wife took 100h to complete Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and there’s still tonnes to do, it just meant that she wasn’t ready to buy another big AAA game for like 3-4 months.

gruez 2021-08-16 20:00:57 +0000 UTC [ - ]

>according to them as little as 10 years ago there was maybe a dozen big, AAA, 50h+ long releases each year. Now there’s 100+ a year and increasing.

What's the criteria for "AAA"? 100+ AAA releases per year seems a bit on the high side.

Leftium 2021-08-16 19:38:01 +0000 UTC [ - ]

There's a bit of handwaving and the the video admits $90 is just a gut estimate.

However, I think they did try to account for things like that: they started with an estimate games should cost $225-$300 before accounting for larger audience size.

Larger market size and efficiencies like reusable game engines are balanced by increased productions costs. The first versions of Final Fantasy just had text captions in 2D. Now they are in full 3D with fully acted voice actors.

Starts here: https://youtu.be/VhWGQCzAtl8?t=96

ekianjo 2021-08-17 01:00:28 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> I found it weird how the video doesn’t account for the massive economies

because it's a bad video made by someone who understands nothing about economics.

Hamuko 2021-08-16 18:57:49 +0000 UTC [ - ]

>So game developers tried various ideas to make up for this gap: DLC, perpetual experiences (map packs & expansions), loot boxes, microtransactions...

There's also "ultimate" editions, which bridge the gap at sales time.

Sure, you could buy Forza Horizon 5 for $60, but you could also buy the Deluxe Edition for $80 to get some extra cars or the Premium Edition for $100 to get the same extra cars + the DLC when it comes out and some extra goodies.

Leftium 2021-08-16 19:08:03 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Many players complain when DLC is released at the same as the main game because they feel it should just be part of the main game.

Framing this DLC as an "ultimate" edition seems like a great idea!

foxfluff 2021-08-16 19:52:33 +0000 UTC [ - ]

To what extent does it backfire though?

"Would you like the ripoff edition or the inferior edition?"

Actually, I don't want to buy the game anymore.

Leftium 2021-08-16 20:13:56 +0000 UTC [ - ]

The difference a tiny change in framing can make is amazing: https://www.psychologyofgames.com/2010/03/framing-and-world-...

> In World of Warcraft what they did when they first designed the game was they had an experience system that would, over time, lower the amount of experience you got because [Blizzard] wanted to encourage people to play for like two hours at a time instead of twelve hours at a time. So the longer you played you’d get this experience degradation and then it would bottom out and at that point it would be a fixed rate of experience. And people just hated it.

> And so they went back and [Blizzard’s Rob Pardo] was like all right, basically what we did was we made everything in the game take twice as much experience to achieve as before and then we flipped it. So actually what happens is you start getting 200% experience and eventually it goes back down to 100%. So that effectively now how they spin it is that if you log out for a while you get this 200% boost when you log back in! And then over time it goes away and you just get regular 100% experience. It’s EXACTLY the same as it was before, except NOW everyone is like “Fuck yeah, Blizzard, this is exactly what I want!”

pankajdoharey 2021-08-17 09:32:18 +0000 UTC [ - ]

A good solution would be to make these games in places like India or China where they have advantage of exchange rates. And relocate the Devs and Artists to these places or maybe they can work remotely and save on expensive office costs?

ekianjo 2021-08-17 00:57:05 +0000 UTC [ - ]

AAA games sell a more than they ever did, with digital distribution.

gopher_space 2021-08-16 19:05:39 +0000 UTC [ - ]

A lot of your examples are also attractive because you'd already have the framework set up to deliver them.

esotericsean 2021-08-16 18:25:47 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I love dunkey. He comes across as a dumb YouTuber making silly videos about video games, but this was really insightful just like the majority of his videos.

As a game developer, it's a crazy world out there.

lapetitejort 2021-08-16 19:50:29 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Dunkey makes visual essays only when he comes up with a good one. He doesn't force one out every week. The rest of the time he goofs around or makes a half-hearted review. But even during his goofing around he'll make a good point or slyly highlight out some shady practice. Take for example his review of the recent Ratchet and Clank on the PS5. He shows off these beautiful vistas while reading Sony's claims that this could only be made on the PS5 because of such-and-such technology. Then he pulls the rug and says all those beautiful vistas were actually from the previous Ratchet and Clank game on the PS4. It's not an explicit take-down of Sony, nor does it need to be, but it helps reenforce the idea that marketing claims should always be treated skeptically.

wsinks 2021-08-16 18:37:06 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I saw the title of this, and as a dunkey subscriber, I was hoping this was the first time that I'd seen dunkey on HN.

What a wild cross-over day!

spywaregorilla 2021-08-16 18:57:06 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I'm not sure how insightful this is. It's largely predicated on his personal beliefs of what games are good and what you're looking for in a game. I think Pikmin is a great game. I'm not sure I would call it close to being the best RTS game, or even worth $60.

If anything I would say some of the takeaway should be reversed:

* Games are significantly cheaper than ever before

* Games are generally longer and have more content than ever before. A year of multiplayer life is pretty good for $60.

* Free to play games aren't successful as an adverse reaction to monetized non-free games. Free to play games are more monetized than most.

* Old games are great. Go play them. But don't expect a fungible experience with new games. There is no classic game equivalent for Resident Evil 8. I would say, there isn't even something particularly equivalent for Hollow Knight, which is a direct evolution off of old school metroidvania.

But definitely try to look past marketing. We can of course agree on that.

stevenwoo 2021-08-16 21:16:58 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I worked in the industry a while back when those prices were set, and he does not even mention several factors 1.) games sold in stores required a concrete date for shelf space with an agreement with large retailers for shelf placement and kiosks, better cost the publisher more concessions IIRC, the game publisher sold the game for half the retail price to retailers so they were making say $30 out of the $60, ballpark estimates of sales were used to set budgets and almost everyone tried to time release for optimum sales period of Christmas shopping, setting the date - often years in advance, so that's why the time crunch problem was/is an issue, most games sold an extremely high percentage within a month of release often > 90% at least at full retail price (I can't remember if the publisher had a penalty for those that didn't sell after a while) 2.) many console games required a contracted number of actual physical media burned at a certain date so the publisher had to predict sales, a popular console might have limited timeslots for production to sell to game publishers and overshooting the mark on physical media is a loss and undershooting means lost sales at retail price so this makes console more high stakes than PC games in a way for publisher (Nintendo being console maker and publisher changes this somewhat for them alone), also the surcharge the console makers charged publishers was $10 per physical media produced in PS3/360 days, this had not changed from Game Boy days when we looked into making a new cartridge game when those games sold for $30-$40. Obviously the situation has changed and I don't know what the numbers are now, and some of these are alleviated/changed by the availability of digital only versions of games.

lapetitejort 2021-08-16 19:53:23 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> Old games are great. Go play them. But don't expect a fungible experience with new games. There is no classic game equivalent for Resident Evil 8.

Similarly, there is no modern equivalent to Katamari Damacy. Some games are just too perfect to be recreated.

spywaregorilla 2021-08-16 20:14:04 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Potentially unpopular opinion, but I think a large part of Katamari Damacy's appeal was it's oddball aesthetic, with a feeling it was kind of intentionally shitty, but executed really well. I think this hasn't aged as well as it deserved because so many indie games ham up the "low quality" aspect of their game now. Whereas KD did it artistically, indie games do it as an excuse for not being better. And for keeping that company, I find KD hasn't aged well.

Good theme song though.

swivelmaster 2021-08-17 01:18:00 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Indie games often do it because they can't afford to do more.

spywaregorilla 2021-08-17 15:38:06 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I don't buy that. You may not have the budget to hire a great writer with elaborate stories. You can, on your own, not constantly make 4th wall breaking allusions to being in a low quality game. You can also just step back and not have the dialogue at all.

Bad writing is much much worse than no writing.

MaXtreeM 2021-08-16 20:21:39 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I never thought I would see videogamedunkey in top hot posts on HN but here we go. As others have already pointed out, he usually makes silly videos but has been consistent for many years if you like his kind of humour. From time to time he makes a video-essay which are usually great, I would recommend a "Game Critics"[0] and part two if you liked the first one.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG2dXobAXLI

supperburg 2021-08-16 22:12:47 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I think that this kind of content doesn’t belong on HN and I think that it’s a violation of the guidelines. It saddens me deeply to see today for the first time ever a blatant Reddit post reach the front page of HN. I’ve been here a decade.

supperburg 2021-08-16 22:27:52 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Once again, I don’t think pop culture videos belong on hacker news and I think it’s a violation of the guidelines.

frosted-flakes 2021-08-16 23:53:23 +0000 UTC [ - ]

The guidelines are quite clear that "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" is allowed.

supperburg 2021-08-17 00:20:49 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Yes and it is quite obvious that comedic, meme-packed, popular culture nostalgia driven YouTube videos do not gratify anyone’s intellectual curiosity, ever! It clearly gratifies something else! Is this not obvious?

MaXtreeM 2021-08-17 06:16:46 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> it is quite obvious that comedic, meme-packed ...

I don't understand why comedy and memes should be a problem if the overall content is trying to communicate some thought.

> ... popular culture nostalgia driven YouTube videos ...

What you call nostalgia I see as a history reference for comparison to today.

Your comments give me an impression that you have a problem with YouTube videos. There are blog posts filled with jokes, memes and "popular culture nostalgia" which get to the top of HN every day. As I said videogamedunkey's videos are mostly humorous but from time to time he makes an essay with suprisingly good observations about video game industry. You don't have to like his way of humour as a lot of people don't but at least he has been consistent and not afraid to call out some people for their bullshit.

supperburg 2021-08-17 11:40:06 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I have a problem with YouTube videos certainly. They weren’t allowed for a reason. There are plenty of places to go if you want junk food, why do you have to insist that it’s posted here? Can’t you just let there be one place on the internet where a person can be free of vapid nonsense?

The intellectual substance of his video “essay” is anemic at best. And this was done on purpose because making videos is his livelihood, videos are optimized for views which means they are designed for mass appeal and the average person isn’t interested in anything intellectually engaging. And therefore the video doesn’t belong on HN… I can’t believe I have to explain this.

I am a fan of donkey. Been watching his videos for years. I watch lots of junk food videos on boob tube. Whether or not I like him or you like him or everybody likes him —- whether or not his videos are any good has nothing to do with whether or not they belong on HN based on the guidelines and history of this website. Such things objectively do not belong here.

my_usernam3 2021-08-16 18:50:54 +0000 UTC [ - ]

As a gamer who rarely finishes games, I love the DLC model. $60 back in the early 2000s was always too expensive for me, so I only ever had used games. If I were a kid today, $60 isn't too bad. And if love the game enough, $10 DLC packs is an easy pill to swallow.

Wish dunkey did a little more focus on that, but theres tons of other videos that go more into the economy of DLC and micro-transactions.

tenaciousDaniel 2021-08-16 17:36:15 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I've always been curious about video game pricing. The car dealership comparison was perfect, really shows how wild the market is.

gruez 2021-08-16 17:46:58 +0000 UTC [ - ]

>really shows how wild the market is.

makes sense when the marginal cost is near-zero.

moonchild 2021-08-16 19:43:58 +0000 UTC [ - ]

The majority of consumer products are priced according to what people will pay, not what they cost.

gruez 2021-08-16 20:09:14 +0000 UTC [ - ]

>The majority of consumer products are priced according to what people will pay

That'd depend entirely on your purchasing habits. "what people will pay" is an upper bound on the price, and "what they cost" is an lower bound. For high end/luxury products (eg. iPhone 12 pro max 256GB), prices are indeed dictated by "what people will pay", but for low end/commodity products (eg. low to mid range android phone, or everyday staples like food) it's dictated by "what they cost" due to competition.

yifanl 2021-08-16 19:09:55 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Its weird, because the quality of the product has fairly low correlation to the production costs associated with the product (including even the marketing budgets!), whether it is distributed as a cartridge or 2 DLLs over Steam.

bspammer 2021-08-17 08:22:32 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Pretty much all my favorite games of all time are indie games.

Video games as a medium seem to be really, really well suited to passion projects, and I can’t explain why. None of my favorite movies are indie movies. Very little of my favorite music is indie.

account42 2021-08-18 08:45:16 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> I can’t explain why.

I think one reason might be that being interactive lets the player contribute to the enjoyment themselves, which lowers the bar for what the developer has to achieve. Give people blocks and ways to move them and some will have endless of fun building something creative whereas with a movie the author is responsible for making sure the blocks are arranged in an interesting fashion.

For me though I think a large part is also simply that I am more into games than movies/music so have spent a lot more time looking into the indie scene there.

bspammer 2021-08-18 16:53:44 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> I think one reason might be that being interactive lets the player contribute to the enjoyment themselves, which lowers the bar for what the developer has to achieve.

I really disagree with this, I think it's underselling the quality of indie games. It explains Minecraft, maybe, but there are so many incredible indie games that look gorgeous and have tons of interesting content, that aren't just relying on the player to entertain themselves.

Braid, Celeste, Hollow Knight, Ori and the Blind Forest, Limbo, Inside, Frostpunk, FTL, Outer Wilds, Spelunky 2, Rocket League, Darkest Dungeon, Disco Elysium, The Witness, Terraria, Return of the Obra Dinn, Papers Please, The Stanley Parable, Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons, Hotline Miami, Undertale, Firewatch, Dustforce. I could honestly double that list if I thought for long enough.

> For me though I think a large part is also simply that I am more into games than movies/music

Maybe. It still feels like indie games punch way above their weight compared to other forms of media, but it's true I could be biased there.

yuy910616 2021-08-16 19:24:55 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It reminds me of something I think someone from Netflix once said (paraphrasing): We're not competing with Hulu or Disney Plus, we're competing with sleep.

These days games are not the only forms of addictive entertainment - there are games, social media, streaming service, youtube, tiktok, and so much more.

Maybe games are cheaper (in real-term) because entertainment in general are getting cheaper.

nottorp 2021-08-17 10:30:15 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Am I growing old or have AAA games (the ones not multiplayer focused) become too long?

I recently finished Ghost of Tsushima. Brilliant, but if you ask me it would have been about as fun even at 1/3 of the length.

How about instead of padding a game with more of the same just to add length you make it shorter and reduce development costs? Probably not linearly, but still significantly.

lazypenguin 2021-08-17 13:02:13 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Several years ago I played The Witcher 3. I couldn’t finish it since it had so much content. After about 20 hours in, I think I only got halfway through. For many people that much content for the price is an amazing deal but for me it was too much! Putting in an hour a day sporadically playing the game during the week, I was playing for almost half a year. From my perspective that’s a big commitment compared to a movie or something but probably equivalent to a good book or television series. I guess it all depends on your commitment to games but I also enjoy shorter games.

ziml77 2021-08-17 15:01:42 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Games are a bigger commitment than TV shows. They require a focus to get through. Even if I'm into a TV show there's a good chance I'm going to spend a lot of time only half paying attention. Can even do productive things like cleaning the house while watching a show.

Books are probably a better comparison to video games... which is probably also why I hate when those are too long.

nottorp 2021-08-17 17:40:50 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> Books are probably a better comparison to video games... which is probably also why I hate when those are too long.

Hmm books last 2-6 hours for me, depending on how bestseller-ish they're written. You're not talking about technical manuals are you?

Series can get long, but those come out one "episode" every year to couple years.

> Several years ago I played The Witcher 3. I couldn’t finish it since it had so much content.

Welcome to the club :) I've made it to the Nordic themed island so far. By the time Cyberpunk 2077 is fully patched and PS5s or new gaming PCs become available and affordable again, I might finish it!

ziml77 2021-08-17 14:49:20 +0000 UTC [ - ]

The lengths of games aren't the worst they've ever been, but yes they are too long. The lengths went up as players and reviewers complained about paying $60 for a game that's 8 hours long. People really wanted to get 40 hours of story driven gameplay out of that $60.

I find it absurd the lengths that games are padded to in attempts to appease this crowd. It ends up causing the game to be a slog if the padding isn't optional.

nottorp 2021-08-17 17:41:38 +0000 UTC [ - ]

8h is kind of too little, but the padding doesn't go up to 40 hours, more like to 80+. If you're a completionist at least.

kevinlou 2021-08-16 18:43:58 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Never thought I'd see my boy Dunkey on HN, but here we are

andrewmcwatters 2021-08-17 01:03:14 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I'd love to just see a company price a game at $150 dollars without any of the micro-transaction fanfare. Be it an indie studio or an EA-like. I'd be fine with paying good money for something that was genuinely fun and didn't feel like it was nickel-and-diming me.

You'll pay a few bucks for a movie that entertains you for maybe a couple of hours at best, but the idea that people are averse to paying $60 for something you get 1,000 fun hours out of really turns me off.

npteljes 2021-08-17 08:40:51 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Do you know that you're going to get that fun though? Most of the time you don't, really, and then spending $150 on something unknown is way too much of a commitment. I would not mind at all in retrospect, for a game that I really liked, but I could not have predicted that when buying them.

So the question turns into how to monetize that. And DLCs, microtransactions, and subscriptions seem to be an answer.

andrewmcwatters 2021-08-17 14:35:43 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Demos.

ekianjo 2021-08-17 00:59:39 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> Why play newer games instead of classic

Because "new" trumps "great" every time. If that was not the case, we would stop watching any new movies for a long time since there's an abundance of great old movies that you could watch before even starting to watch anything new. But that's not how entertainment works. Humans crave for stuff that's new, and that's precisely why this business can exist.

silisili 2021-08-16 23:14:25 +0000 UTC [ - ]

RE: Game Pass...

Not saying it is ethical...but one can buy a max length xbox live subscription(3 year), then 'upgrade to gamepass' which gives you 3 years of gamepass for a nominal fee.

muststopmyths 2021-08-17 20:01:39 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It's not unethical. It's a deliberate choice by Microsoft to suck people into GamePass at a great price. If it was an actual loophole they would have closed it long ago.

For those not in the know: There were offers of "upgrade to GamePass Ultimate for $1 for x months" which when applied to an existing XBox Live account extended GamePass for the length of your XBL subscription, for the same $1 (flat, not monthly).

Sounds like those offers are still around.

OmarIsmail 2021-08-16 21:15:19 +0000 UTC [ - ]

At this point I literally only play games on Xbox Game Pass and I'm playing more now than ever before. It's truly unreal how good of a value Game Pass is.

vlunkr 2021-08-16 18:20:53 +0000 UTC [ - ]

This is entertaining and informative, but it needs some sort of thesis statement to be worth discussing.

sleibrock 2021-08-16 18:42:58 +0000 UTC [ - ]

There's a lot of ideas to too wild for one thesis to draw up, but I think there's a lot of good talking points.

* Triple-A games are often-times yearly releases of a series priced at $60 (Battlefield, Call of Duty, FIFA), but are hardly ever new games with new technologies. Most times they last about a year before they're effectively EOL'd.

* Indie games are much lower in comparison and receive more love from their developers

* Nintendo are renowned for their titles and IPs, but their games are far from innovative at times, and their prices are not competitive in the slightest.

* Pricing of modern video games makes players turn to free-to-play games which receive more updates on a regular basis.

* The only way to play classic games reliably is emulation. Getting modern versions of old games from devs/pubs is very unreliable currently (Silent Hill collection, Super Mario 3D Allstars, etc)

vlunkr 2021-08-16 21:09:19 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I still think getting into one of these topics in-depth would be more interesting. Like this one:

> Nintendo are renowned for their titles and IPs, but their games are far from innovative at times, and their prices are not competitive in the slightest.

They aren't priced competitively, yet they are incredibly successful (depending on the decade). Could other companies, especially indie devs, price their products similarly? I'm no game dev, but I assume it doesn't feel great to sell your game for $0.99 on Steam.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 2021-08-16 19:04:19 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Honestly emulation is so good now, and games so easy to acquire via torrent communities, that it is kind of difficult for me to justify (to myself) collecting retro hardware. Especially since I end up using Everdrives and ODEs anyway.

I've been seriously considering selling off my collection, but I'm too lazy to do it piecemeal.

lapetitejort 2021-08-16 19:58:14 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I mainly collect retro hardware for the hardware itself. Emulations can play the games, but nothing can emulate how the Game Boy Color perfectly fits on the curve of the N64 (try it), or taking a Dreamcast VMU with you on the go, or the TV tuners that kids like me craved. I love seeing hardware evolve in front of my eyes.

ryankrage77 2021-08-17 18:04:13 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> nothing can emulate how the Game Boy Color perfectly fits on the curve of the N64 (try it)

I did try it, and I think I'm doing something wrong because I can't see how they fit together. Could you expand on this?

lapetitejort 2021-08-17 19:07:33 +0000 UTC [ - ]

The best image I could find: https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/bjwrb3/how_a_gamebo...

bennysomething 2021-08-16 19:32:06 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I've got nes, snes, megadrive and a N64 everdrive. I don't use them anymore. I've got a pc under my TV that can handle everything up to GameCube. I can't be bothered dragging out hardware and hooking up an ossc.

bitwize 2021-08-16 20:13:18 +0000 UTC [ - ]

No, it's never the same. There will always be glitches.

KiwiFarms murdered the person who could bring emulation within spitting distance of real hardware. So yeah, now there's even more reason to collect gaming hardware.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 2021-08-16 20:31:06 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> No, it's never the same.

You're right, but of course the nature of emulation is that it can actually be better in a lot of ways. More power efficient than original hardware, no cartridges or discs, no composite or NTSC artifacting[0], save states, networked multiplayer, automated translation, etc.

> There will always be glitches.

It is at least theoretically possible to build a perfect emulator. Practically, though, we are already so close that it is more than good enough[1] and fake it for the rest if anyone cares.

> KiwiFarms murdered the person who could bring emulation within spitting distance of real hardware.

Yeah, that was horrible and tragic without even connecting it to emulation and those fuckwits can die and rot in hell.

[0] Ok, that one being better is debatable since the art was designed with that in mind. Of course, there's always shaders.

[1] With the exception of a few systems, like my beloved Saturn.

toast0 2021-08-17 04:05:27 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I think emulation is fine, but it always leaves you guessing a little. Was it really accurate or were you missing something?

I'm intruiged by the fpga emulation stations though. They seem to have the posibility of more accuracy with less latency, but it depends on how good the people making the cores are.

detaro 2021-08-16 19:01:42 +0000 UTC [ - ]

"too wild"? That seems like fairly generic gaming opinions.

(Well, the F2P one seems a bit weird, given the wide range of options of getting games cheap-ish if you don't insist on only playing the newest AAA titles)

idle_zealot 2021-08-16 18:29:13 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It came sort-of in the middle, and a bit more at the end, but my reading is that the thesis of the video is that games are a rip-off; emulate the classics and you’ll have a better experience than chasing the newest wave of hype (and will save hundreds of dollars).

spywaregorilla 2021-08-16 19:01:10 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I don't think that's right. He made it pretty clear he thinks Super Mario Odyssey is a game worth $60 or more. I enjoy retro games, but I wouldn't enjoy playing through an entire catalogue of old games before I wanted something that had a more modern design sense.

wsinks 2021-08-16 18:38:08 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Completely agree.

Dunkey uses the tried and true method of SaaS selling in this video too. Start with the pain, then move to the solution that you definitely didn't start your pitch with.

supperburg 2021-08-16 18:59:26 +0000 UTC [ - ]

This is absolutely unacceptable. When HN started allowing videos, I was weary because it was a step in the wrong direction. But obviously the majority of users didn’t care. Now we have this. A popular culture YouTuber featured on the front page… of hacker news. A YouTube video that is listed on trending on YouTube is also on the front page of hacker news.

This is a blatant violation of the guidelines. This video, besides not even being the best quality in Dunks library or the most interesting, is vapid popular culture content and is in no way, by any stretch of the imagination, intellectually interesting. And that’s just the threshold for entry! It doesn’t even come close to being as intellectually stimulating as the long-time HN user has become accustomed to.

This is the day that I know beyond any doubt that this is not a noob-illusion (a decade old noob), HN is allowing itself to degrade. For the love of god this is the only place left on the internet that I know of where a person can have an intelligent conversation. The last place where I can expect that the curation of links will please and surprise me. Please don’t let this special place die. Ban YouTube links and ban garbage like this from appearing here.

dang 2021-08-17 20:19:59 +0000 UTC [ - ]

HN has always allowed videos: https://web.archive.org/web/20071109094837/http://ycombinato.... It has also always allowed Youtube: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=youtube.com&next=2500....

No doubt occasionally a video appears here which is also popular on YouTube, but that's to be expected from randomness. Let's not overinterpret it!