If you’re in the gaming community you would have noticed a change in games these past few years. Many times people complain about AAA games being released in poor conditions and not really working. Others might have noticed that high end games used to be 60 dollars but now companies have changed to a seventy dollar price point for their base games. For a majority of people all these problems lead them away from High end games made by huge companies and instead look to indie developers as an alternative.

Prices

Not too long ago you used to have three-twenty dollar bills in your pocket and buy a high end, well built game. In today’s day high end games now cost seventy dollars to acquire and it’s more of a gamble whether it’s actually good or not. It’s said that Nintendo was one of  the first companies to make this move with their recent Zelda game, Zelda Tears of the Kingdom. One of the reasons people speculate they did this was because for years Nintendo games were always around the sixty dollar price point even in the 90s. It’s said they bumped up the price in order to keep up with inflation and make the games evolve with the economic change. Another more malicious reason is that they can simply get away with it. Nintendo was the pioneer for this price change and with it many other high end companies followed. Sure, while inflation can be a reason many speculate the price change was caused due to greed and simply make a little more money.

Greed

Not only are games getting higher and higher in price they are also getting much more greedy. One instance of this is Escape From Tarkov. There was a DLC for EFT that cost $100 and promised that those who bought this DLC would have access to all future DLC. Not too long ago EFT came out with a new gamemode that cost $250, not only making it really expensive but also paying to win. While many people were upset with the price point and that it was pay to win, the company also lied and didn’t give it to the people that had bought the previous DLC. 

Another instance of greed is from an upcoming Star Wars game called Star Wars Outlaws. This game has a base price of $70, which is no surprise to anyone, but they also have additional stuff you can buy. For Example If you buy one of the expansions which is $120 you can gain access to a Jabba The Hutt mission. While this might sound normal they had the Jabba mission in the trailer leading everyone to believe that the mission would come with the base game and got everyone excited until they told everyone it would only be playable behind a paywall.

Quality of games

Many people aren’t even disagreeing with the price change of modern games, the main problem with modern games though is that you never know if your money is going towards something finished or just a work in progress. Games today are released with an abundance of bugs that can even make the game unplayable. When this does happen to games the companies always follow up with an apology saying they’ll fix all of these and sometimes they do but many times they just leave the game half baked. This is a constant issue within the gaming community and if it continues it can be the downfall of many gaming companies. 

While the quality of games is on the decline there are a few instances of hope. One of these is Cyberpunk. This game had a horrible start, there were so many bugs to the point the game was almost unplayable. Over time CD Projekt RED, the developers of cyberpunk, fixed many of the bugs and made the game playable and really fun. They even added DLC not too long ago adding many new features and weapons. Another instance of a well built game is Elden Ring, this game is highly praised for having fun gameplay and not following the trend of bad games. 

Conclusion

The video community has gotten to the point where high end games just aren’t worth buying anymore, at least until after the initial release and all the bugs have been fixed. There used to be a time when the games were made by people who care about the gamers but now it just seems like the games are being made just to make a quick buck.