Sakurai: Games are Cheap

Did he open pandora's box with this statement?

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Games were used to look cheap until around late 2010s.

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous
  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Fricking lunatic doesn't take into account that games sells thousands of copies.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      No, he's correct.

      >Donkey Kong Country sold 6 million copies in its first month ALONE
      >MSRP adjusted for inflation: US$164.30
      >Development cost adjusted for inflation: $513k

      >Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze sold 200k copies its first month
      >Only 4.12 million copies sold total, lifetime
      >MSRP: $60
      >Development cost: $12m

      So video games are over 10 times more expensive to develop, sell either the same or fewer copies than 2-3 decades ago, and each of those copies sells for less than half what they used to.

      27 of the 50 best selling games of all time are from before 2010.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Yes but companies have more ways to make money now.
        >lower distribution costs
        >online stores
        >DLCs
        >microtransactions
        >remasters and remakes

        Plus most games companies expand into other territories like mobile apps. Game publishers are not being ripped off by us.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >using fricking Wii U sales as a benchmark
        Lol
        Lmao

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Anon, those were Switch sales.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >using sales of a PORT of a fricking Wii U game
            OMEGA LUL

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              switch has had very good success with ports. botw was a flop before switch

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        and yet we keep hearing from every corner that gaming is more popular than ever. I think we're being misinfo'ed.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Because some games still sell well.
          Super Mario World has 26 million lifetime sales across all combined platforms. It was the best selling SNES game, and the best selling handheld game for like a decade straight after its GBA port. It's the 32nd best selling game of all time.

          Mario Odyssey has sold almost 24 million copies. It's #46.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Its not that games are less popular but that the market has crowded around only a handful of tentpole games at a time due to the semi-death of AA development. Or they are on mobile which is a sperate culture and ecosystem from the rest of gaming.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Gaming is popular, buying games isn't

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Games have never been priced based on how much they cost to sell to you, that's why they can discount a $70 game to $5 whenever the frick they feel like it if it will generate 14x as many sales.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Where are you getting these numbers from? I see estimates of 1 million in '94 dollars for DKC's budget. You're also omitting the 16 million dollar marketing campaign (according to LA Times in '94) that DKC had.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >>Only 4.12 million copies sold total, lifetime
        We don't know the digital sales numbers

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Little to no one on Ganker is going to care to see his point. We're just at a point where $60 will always be what people think is right and developers will keep adapting to microtransaction, free2play and subscription shit to side step around that issue.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      even if they made games more expensive, suits will never miss an opportunity to take more money from consumers.
      profit is the name of the game when any business gets sufficiently big.

      this is why i sometimes understand Ganker’s hate against israelites as a hate against avarice as a whole.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Even with an increase to the base game price, the nickle and diming will not go away.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      If you think game devs would stop milking you with season passes, microtransactions, DLCs, live services and other israeli tricks if game prices rose you're delusional.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      games wouldnt be nearly as expensive to develop if publishers werent so demanding of games to have overly realistic graphics

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I mean he isn't wrong where video games compared to other leisure activities are pretty awesome value. Problem is that video games themselves as a genre of entertainment are offering less and less for the same price or more.

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I mean they literally are since AAA vidya has 10x the production/product cost ratio.
    How much does it cost for someone to write a book, have it printed, send to stores and sold for 10-20 bucks? How much does recording an album cost? Even Marvel movies don't cost as much as God of War/Read Dead/Ass Creed.
    Games have been 50-70 bucks for 40 years now but game development has escalated from a couple nerds making a game in their basement for a couple hundred buck to studios with thousands of employees making games with budgets of upwards to 545 million dollars.
    If you can't see why selling a product that cost that much at the same price as Doom then I can't help you.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      the skill level to make games has greatly decreased though so they can easily get morons to make games now. Also games are so easy to get for free now that they need to stay cheap to be worth purchasing

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Genuine question: are you moronic?

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          as someone who has worked in game development probably

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          They kinda are, aside from graphics. Get a couple neckbeards to do the hard performance related shit and actual pajeets could do the rest for most games.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            You're showing a pretty strong ignorance to how game production is carried out

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Putting aside graphics is like putting aside seasoning in cooking. That shit needs to be taken into account for the complexity of the product and what you get. Its one reason why devs were saying frick the Sega Saturn vs. PS1 back in the day when it came to game development.

            Creating 90's level games may have gone down with all the engines and tools out there. But expectations of AAA games have only gone up and no longer something that can be done over a sliced pizza.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Using morons gives us shit like Gotham Knights or Saints Row 2022.
        Good devs are still required for well made games

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >Even Marvel movies don't cost as much as God of War/Read Dead/Ass Creed.
      I'm pretty sure this is wrong.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous
        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >random numbers pulled out of the ass by journos of all people
          >no confirmation whatsoever
          >other estimations by actual analysts land in the $170-$240 million territory assuming everyone was making a 6-figure salary (they likely weren't)
          >even the $500+ million speculation includes marketing when the movie budget deliberately does not
          >the highest confirmed budgets are Star Citizen, a known investment scam, at $339m (as reported in 2020), and then Cyberpunk all the way down to $174m. $400m and $316m respectively when marketing is included.
          Yeah, no, the only game that might scratch Marvel-tier budget is Scam Citizen. Everything else is still way off it, even by the most moronic and wildest estimation.
          Also, lmao
          >believing RDR2 had a fricking bigger marketing budget than Cyberpunk - a game that was literally all marketing and nothing else
          tell me more.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            m8, do you think marketing is not a cost?
            of course that shit is included you can't just separate it out and say 'look guys game production is cheaper if you ignore one of the biggest expense'

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              the avengers number isn't counting marketing either, and you can be damn sure endgame marketing budget is way above any videogame marketing ever, shit was everywhere

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              >m8, do you think marketing is not a cost?m8, do you think marketing is not a cost?
              That's not what I'm talking about.

              If you are making an apples-to-apples comparison, you have to either include marketing in both scenarios or exclude it entirely.
              Production budgets for movies never include marketing - it's always a separate cost on top of the budget that is rarely disclosed.
              So, even disregarding the utterly ass-pulled numbers, comparing the production + marketing budget of a game to just the production budget of a movie is misleading and disingenuous, to say the least.

              Also, sometimes the marketing budget for movies is actually disclosed, and a great example of that is Avengers: Endgame with its marketing budget of $200m on top of the $356m production budget - so we are looking at $556m total here - that'd be an apples-to-apples comparison.
              Believing that RDR2 had a marketing budget that is anywhere, even remotely, close to what Endgame had is delusional.
              Even Cyberpunk's numbers are most likely bloated up with random shit like full-time marketing personnel salaries for multiple years when it was highly unlikely that shilling Cyberpunk was the only thing they did, but at least that game was actually marketed from 2013 all the way to its release, so it's not entirely unfeasible for it to accumulate this high of a marketing budget over the multiple years.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >
        New saints row (or some gta game idk, I don’t play them) has a budget of a BILLON dollars. Name 3 billion dollar movies.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Viy (1967, USSR) had a trillion dollars budget.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      its costs 20 bucks to watch a marvel movie in theatres. my games should be cheaper

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        cheaper than a movie, why?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        If you wait for sales, then you can get any game for less than 10 bucks. Just gotta be patient.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      You will never convince a board full of second world teenagers that paying money is fine

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        The biggest problem with piracy is that it gives people access to TOO MUCH entertainment. So much, they don't spend any time improving themselves and their financial situation. I keep running into people who keep talking about being unable to learn a 2nd language, and it's cause they keep watching anime season upon anime season and playing hundreds of games.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          If you believe this then why the frick are on Ganker fricking homosexual

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            He's busy not playing games while shitposting on Ganker, his life's calling

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I won't be buying any games at full price anyway.

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >He brings up other more expensive luxuries like going to theaters, eating outside food and fricking gambling

    Yeah sakurai its true, compared to literal gambling, video games are pretty good value

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      what's an entertainment product that gives you a better value than video games?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        I dont disagree with him im just saying yeah no shit movie theaters are highway robbery for how little entertainment youre getting

        Its why even if game pass does raise its prices one day its still superior to paying full price for games like Scorn

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        not them but you can watch videos online for free or even full playthroughs of said games

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          I can even play games for free :^)

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Found the zoomzoom

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            unfortunately im probably the oldestgay here

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              38gay here, can you beat me?

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                im only 34 you beat me

                I've been here since 2004. If you know who Cyber_Akuma, the Ganker poster that's obsessed with catgirls, then you're about as old as I am.

                came here on and off earlier mostly just /b/, but 2006 is when I got stuck here

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >came here on and off earlier mostly just /b/
                Everyone treated /b/ like the SomethingAwful General Bullshit board where only the lesser human posters post. Nowadays, everyone goes reddit, reddit, reddit, but on SA and Ganker it was gb and /b/-tard. The only time I checked in on /b/ was right when some kid was live-streaming himself overdosing on pills and a fat police man was bumbling around in his bedroom. Everyone's behaviour then solidified in my mind what everyone meant by /b/ being the arsehole of the internet.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >/b/ stands for bullshit
                It only makes sense

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                I got you beat.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              I've been here since 2004. If you know who Cyber_Akuma, the Ganker poster that's obsessed with catgirls, then you're about as old as I am.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Anything with meaning deeper than surface level and that isn't padded with fetch quests, so a lot of older books and some rare film I guess

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        jacking off

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Furries spend literal thousands of dollars for porn to jack off to.

          Even that is not always free.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        you're posting on it

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Based.
          Based.
          BASED.

          Love you too, Anon-kun.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >maybe if I say based a lot they'll think I fit in!
            try 'goyslop'

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              What about 'zoomslop'? Is that a thing yet?

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              >goyslop
              the funniest meme shitpost in years. Oddly fitting.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          I'm laughing, but I'm still not happy about it.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          tough truth

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          right on the money

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        boardgames

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        fleshlight?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Trolling joggers by calling the cops on them

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        A music record.

        >Long live Rock'n Roll
        >Born Again

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Public domain books and shota sex slaves.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        A ball or a book

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        The stock market.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        That's a pretty unrefined take. He doesn't take a bunch of stuff into account, like the cost of production going way down with digital stores and no manuals, buttloads of DLC that wasn't possible in the old days (unless you were EA), literal f2p gacha mechanics in 60 dollar games, etc. And modern games are also often short as frick, providing maybe 10 hours of entertainment on average, most of which is watching boring cutscenes. Compare that to fricking Netflix or something, and the difference is staggering.

        I can give you a frickton of hobbies that are way cheaper than vidya.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        The library since someone or you already paid for them.

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    sakurai is a fricking moron and hasnt made a good game in over 2 decades. who gives a shit what he says now

  10. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >Takes minutes to load
    >Lags
    >Badly balanced
    >Lags more
    >Running on outdated hardware
    Yeah games sure are cheap man you said it

  11. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    sakurai looks cute

  12. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >Rich guy who works at Nintendo thinks games are cheap
    No shit, you're rich

  13. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    hotter than 99% of western women ngl senpai

  14. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    He's not wrong. But the current reality of overhead companies funneling out ridiculously amounts of money from the actual developers is a massive turn off. Sakurai knows a lot about game development. But as a Japanese, Nintendo developer I wonder how much knowledge he really has about non-Nintendo games. Especially those in the west.

  15. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    well he is not wrong. Look up average game prices for the NES, what they cost in the late 90s, they cost $40 back then. In today's dollars that would be over $100 for a game. Seems only fair that game prices should increase.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >le inflation
      Move that goalpost to reddit alongside your cuck ass.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Has my salary nearly doubled since then as well?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I paid $90 for nes Metroid at Kmart.

  16. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    don't games make more money now?
    so they can sell for less money

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      yes but companies HAVE TO minmax profit or the investors will have a stroke

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      You mean like Genshin Impact where it's F2P and P2W?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      But they also take more to make now. He pointed that out.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Profits are Razer thin. Its why creative and random new games have pretty much died in AAA while mobile, F2P, and indie are the places to go for random fresh takes.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >random fresh takes.
        >mobile, F2P, and indie

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >while mobile, F2P, and indie are the places to go for random fresh takes.
        >budget, P2W designed skinnerboxes, and deritative central are the places to go for random fresh takes

  17. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >Sakurai says making a video that dozens of countries watch
    >Their currency has fallen to shit and people are struggling to even own a home

  18. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    He is right

  19. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    It really depends. Sometimes a $60 video game will give you 100 hours of entertainment, sometimes it will struggle to even give you 2 hours. The main problem wirh video game pricing is its uniformity.

  20. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Says guy who released Brawl 4 times in a row and Kirby... well, it's impossible to count.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >HAL Labs is Sakurai

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Yes.

  21. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    As a Pirate i don't care. Every game is free for me.

  22. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    He's right but he's also leaving out the fact that a lot of games have found other ways to nickle and dime you with things like DLC, microtransactions, season passes, and games as a service bullshit.

  23. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    No, for an ultimately frivolous product, games and movies are both too expensive. A single person can buy three two-three weeks of groceries for the price of a new game provided they aren't a dumb lard ass who buys expensive snacks and premade meals instead of frozen meats and veggies. It's also nearly one-sixth of market rent. Maybe it's just me being a value shopper, but I can't justify spending full price for a game hardly ever, especially when Steam exists and I can just wait and get the exact same product for a fraction of the price. And the developer of fricking Smash Bros. saying this is absolutely rich. Ultimate is the game where all the DLC costs MORE than the base game's MSRP and offers 0 bundles, from the same company that used to say they didn't believe in DLC and products should be complete on release. Fricking scam artists.

  24. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    That's not us to worry about. The industry will squeeze as much from us in other ways like they always do.

  25. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    why should i care bout the opinion of some dude that made a few kirby games and smash bros?

  26. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Random no-name games sold like hotcakes on the PS1 and it was back when games were only $40. Do the math. If they aren't making the kind of money they want, it's because they're too expensive. They should reduce MSRP and make up for it with raw numbers. That's what worked back then and it'd still work today. But they're getting greedy, budgets are too high only to get diminishing returns, only indies experiment anymore, and he says this as buttholes try and raise MSRP another 10 dollars. They're going to set up for another crash if they keep this shit up. Seems well enough now but you'll wake up one day and it'll be pic related except for smaller scale digital titles. We're already halfway there with the way devs dripfeed releases one at a time nowadays.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >That's what worked back then and it'd still work today.
      Those no-game PS1 games were sold at a store, and clueless parents will walk into the store to buy their dumb kid the first game that caught their eye. Steam used to be like this for a short bit, but now it's filled with TOO MANY games. You're lucky if someone even notices your game exists these days; it's why everything smart is slowly switching to F2P and micro-transactions.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >budgets are too high only to get diminishing returns
      This is not true, returns have only gotten exponentially better.

      >They're going to set up for another crash if they keep this shit up.
      Not happening. The industry's too big to fail now.

  27. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    This moronic chink is insufferable and his fanboys are the worst I refuse to listen to his shit tips.

  28. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I just won't play games by big gaming companies if they try to increase the price even more or sell their game in piecemeal form.

  29. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Don't worry, Sakurai, civilization will collapse soon and video games will end

  30. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Disregarding dlc and other mtx, digital distribution, and economy of scale

    Games are a multibillion dollar industry with indie, double a, and triple a all finding successful niches. The market sustains the product cost it can sustain. People don't want to pay more and they fricking shouldn't. The company exists to fulfill a need, you don't exist to fulfill the company. Moreover consumer demand drives innovation that brings cost down.

    Do not buy into this weird inverse religion pysop that wants you to believe you are morally obligated to pay out the nose for leisure product cause da poor devs worked soon hard on it. You cannot parasocialize a fricking company. No no no. FRICK YOU.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I bought Metroid Dread for $60. I got 20 hours of fun out of it.
      I bought Elden Ring for $60. I got 250 hours of fun out of it.
      I bought Pavlov VR for $20. I just broke 1000 hours on it this week.

      With all three games, I don't feel ripped off at all. And if, knowing what I know now, I had to rebuy them at twice the MSRP? I'd probably do it. Not for whatever moronic reason you've convinced yourself of, but because I genuinely enjoyed the experience enough to justify the price tag on each of those.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >knowing what I know now
        Except you don't fricking know, you could get 10 hrs out of a game you could get 20 minutes. Commit Etika, you are an enemy of the consumer

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          You're acknowledging that the issue has nothing to do with price but with most games simply being dogshit.
          Meaning we agree.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Right. And I remember when aaa studios were actively doing everything rhey could to obfuscate games before you bought them, I remember companies fighting against steam refunds and EA talking shit about demos

            No company deserves the benefit of your doubt. Treat all of them like conniving liars, because 90% are

  31. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    From the guy who released DLC that cost more than his game itself. This channel is really just him sprinkling his bad takes in with some incredibly basic info about game design from Wikipedia.

  32. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >all those people in this thread saying he's right
    What the frick happened in the past few years?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Because he IS right you homosexual. Game RRP has mostly disregarded inflation, and subscription services have made an absurd amount of content accessible.

      People whining about MTX are the same ones that keep spending money on them.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        inflation is a meme. if it were really inflation then wages would rise to keep up with cost of living increase, namely minimum wage. it hardly has and has been stagnant for a long time. you're letting the media lie to you by calling it inflation. it s JUST shit getting more expensive, and it's just being sugarcoated.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >shit more expensive
          So inflation.

          That has been the whole complaint these last few years, min. wage hasn't risen up but instead companies have taken short cuts. Example wal-mart just has people apply for welfare and game companies contract a huge amount of their staff with zero benefits like medical while still paying them crap (in STEM terms).

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >wage hasn't risen up but instead companies have taken short cuts.
            >implying they were raised in the first place
            Indoctrination completed, goy.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >if it were really inflation then wages would rise to keep up with cost of living increase
          Wow I guess employers are being israelites about wages so inflation isn't real

  33. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I am fine with $60, I am fine with $120, I will pay whatever for games I want to play.
    But, funnily enough, I only play old games since all new games are either pretentious or for hyperactive twitch people

  34. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Sakurai isn't living paycheck to paycheck like most people watching his videos

  35. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    why is everyone so fricking greedy these days?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Publicly-traded companies are legally obligated to generate as much profit for their shareholders as physically possible.
      Not being greedy is grounds for a shareholder lawsuit.
      Yes, I'm serious.

  36. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    He's right. People have become too accustomed to the shear amount of games available. There needs to be a culling at some point.

  37. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    "Videogames are cheap."
    -Man sitting on a $1,000 couch

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Couches are expensive. $1000 is sadly pretty reasonable.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        every couch I've owned was second hand

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          How're the bedbugs treating you?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            they were delicious, thank you.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >it costs $1000 to fumigate a couch

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              >he thinks the bedbugs are only in the couch if he brought it home
              Oh no no no
              But yes, bedbug fumigation is pretty expensive

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >this couch has bedbugs
                >should I fumigate it first?
                >no! I will put it in my house first and then fumigate it
                What the frick?

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                where do you put it while fumigating? out in the rain and weather?

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                The fumigator's.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                He probably don’t want it in his house neither

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >someone gave me a couch with bedbugs to fumigate
                >should I fumigate it immediately?
                >no! I will put it in my house first and then fumigate it.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Is everyone rich or just drowning in debt?

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          There are plenty of <$1000 couches. You can buy couches secondhand, sometimes get them for free.
          You don't buy couches regularly. You only usually need one for your house, and it will last you over a decade or two, longer if you take care of it.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          A couch is a one time purchase. It should be a long time before you need to buy another one. It's not like you're spending close to $1000 left and right.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >not upgrading your couch every year
            >he still couches in 1080p

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        You can easily get a couch for as low as $200

  38. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    If you do the calculation on value per hour. Yes he's correct. Even a 10 hour game at 7 dollars a hour is still cheaper than other forms of entertainment. It fails to take in account the upfront cost is much higher than those activities. A -15 dollars to my bank account is much easier ask than -70. -15 dollars for a movie ticket isn't the difference between having enough gas money to fill my tank or groceries for a myself.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      ???
      You're not buying a new video game every time you want to play one.
      You ARE buying a new movie ticket every time you want to watch one.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        If a new game is 10 hours long and it costs $70
        the value is 7 dollars a hour. 2 hour movie at 15 7.5 per hour

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Five two-hour movies at $15 is $75.
          One ten-hour game is $70.

          There are games that last significantly longer than 10 hours.
          There aren't many movies that last significantly longer than 2 hours.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >There aren't many movies that last significantly longer than 2 hours.
            I wish your statement was accurate in current year.

            >In 2021, the average length of the top 10 highest-grossing movies in the United States and Canada amounted to 130.9 minutes (or two hours and 10 minutes). This figure is 17 percent higher than the average recorded in 1990 – 111.8 minutes (or one hour and 51 minutes)

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Exactly, so the per hour value is better with a video game. Sakurai's point is that video games are a better value. And I was agreeing with him.
            But its harder for me and alot other people to put that upfront cost even if that investment pays off in the long term.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              If you can't afford to skip your next five movies and buy a long-lasting video game instead, you have SIGNIFICANTLY bigger financial issues than choosing between a movie and a video game.
              Especially when we're not talking about buying a $1000, it's a $60 game.
              I'm not even resorting to the "What are you, poor?" shitpost, this is a genuine issue for you.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                For me personally, I haven't gone to the movie theaters in years. Mostly because I'm not interested in seeing anything. For anything I want to see my home setup is more adequate for my needs. I would personally rather spend that money on games. Gaming isn't a cheap hobby regardless. I understand the sentiment if I can't afford to buy games than I need to seriously restructure my finances and not spend on frivolous things. I personally don't buy games unless I know will get my moneys worth.

  39. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Hey Sakurai, why don't you tell everyone about how much money big developers and publishers waste on stupid shit.

  40. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I mean he's been working with Nintendo for god knows how long so I don't blame him for that mindset.

  41. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I bet that perm he's got isn't cheap. These rich fricks want to take you for every red cent.

  42. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Companies keep making record profits while shoving their games full of microtransaction and battlepass garbage. frick off with this greed

  43. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >HEEHEE OUR GAMES WHICH NEVER GO ON SALE ARE SO BEAUTIFULLY CRAFTED THEY SHOULD COST 200 DOLLARS EACH

  44. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I buyed vampire survivors for like $3 and great games like dmc5 go on sale for like $10 so yea

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      dumb esl

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        yes

  45. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Link to video for deeper context?

  46. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Once you go galaxy brain you'll realize shorter games are better because they have less padding and thus give you more time to shitpost on the internet. Elden Ring severely disrupted my shitposting habits and I was not happy about that.

  47. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    me thinks this is out of context
    also, anyone has that pic of that dev b***h saying "Pay us what we due" or something like that

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >me thinks this is out of context
      Sorta'.
      He's just saying despite games becoming more expensive to produce and more people working on them they're still relatively cheap -- digital, subscriptions and F2P games notwithstanding.
      He concludes that if you want to support something, fricking buy it or sub, homosexual.

  48. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    sakurai is a dick who literally wants to silence free speech. genuinely not surprised about this shitty take.

  49. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    He sort of has a point, as from a value prospect games are technically cheaper for the amount of work that goes into them, and what they charge for them, and economically, I can get that.
    However for a value proposition games aren't nearly as good, and regardless of any other extraneous factor you're grabbing at, inflation, cost of other forms of entertainment, or goods. You still on some level have to deal pragmatically with the actual Value of your game intrinsically, as it relates with other games, and I'm not talking like.
    Super Mario 64 autists shrieking about how Mario 64 is masterpiece 4ever and ever no game ever compares, but, even things like in Sakurai's case, comparing what is offered from something like Brawl intrinsically to any other smash game in the series.
    Or like any multiplayer FPS and TF2.
    tl;dr the abstraction of munny makes games both incredibly cheap and hard to actually discuss quality wise, but he kinda right.

  50. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    This man cannot live without getting any attention, ahhh geez just make Kirby Air Ride 2 man.

  51. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >waste trillions of dollars on voice acting and the latest graphics, and for bonus points you hire 50 writers to put out a painfully milquetoast and generic story about love and friendship or something
    >allocate about 10 dollars towards the actual game programmers
    >"BRUH WE NEED TO CHARGE MORE FOR GAMES, PLS PAY 70 DOLLARS NOW!"

    You should be thankful that I'm not just helping myself to your games for free. It's on you to justify your absurd costs. It's not my job to dicksuck you and pay you for it.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >"BRUH WE NEED TO CHARGE MORE FOR GAMES, PLS PAY 70 DOLLARS NOW!"
      It was always like that, Zoomer. Frick off.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        I don't think you understand anon. I'm saying that was too expensive, even back int he 90's. I'm getting 1000+ hours of enjoyment out of games that cost me 10 dollars and don't even take up a single gigabyte of space on my SSD. What are you, the game dev, doing to justify ten times that cost, with a hundred times the size requirement?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        People were okay with paying $113 for "NFL Quarterback Club '98" three decades ago.
        When did consumers get so greedy? Everything is 50% off by default now, and it's STILL not enough?

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          People used to have disposable income.

  52. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >Man who almost died from overwork developing a game thinks they don't cost enough
    What a surprise.

  53. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The only "pandora's box" here is that no one is asking publishers to pump more money into game development of single projects, especially considering that almost half of it ALWAYS goes into marketing and not the game itself.

    Games don't have to be as expensive as AAA publishers is making them to be since players will buy games no matter how much money is put into them, just look at minecraft, undertale or any other recent indie darling and you'll understand what I'm getting at. Publishers should focus on making more games for less cost instead of making one really big game that threatens the entire company if it doesn't make enough money. It would slow down the rate at which they make money, but it would also protect them from bankruptcy and once in a while they would get a smash hit that makes them 3x as much money as they would have made with their current setup

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >Publishers should focus on making more games for less cost instead of making one really big game that threatens the entire company if it doesn't make enough money.
      Square did that way back when and it nearly killed them though.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        That was because the games they released during that time were mostly shit and just look at the position they are in now, they are having the exact same problem even when they are dumping massive amounts of money into single projects (while they are dying faster than before) and they are failing for the same reason, they are just making shit games

        People shit on the graphical capabilities of a game when the art in it doesn't carry it, that's why minecraft/undertale (and their clones) gets a free pass but Pokemon doesn't

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >That was because the games they released during that time were mostly shit
          Doesn't matter. They were still relatively small and cheap projects regardless, and it was only when they went "high risk, high reward" mode via the original FF that they were actually able to make their shit back.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      There's a level of quality you expect from AAA games that they can't dip below. Notice that the games you listed, Minecraft and Undertale, look like SHIT. Meanwhile Pokemon is relentlessly blasted for its dogshit graphics even though it's leaps and bounds better than Minecraft of Undertale.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >modern pokemon looks better than minecraft or undertale
        I'm willing to disagree with you there.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          The graphics are objectively more complex.
          Minecraft is literally just textures over cubes.
          Undertale's graphics are mixed quality, with some intentionally drawn by an amateur as a joke.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            ok, counterpoint.
            Minecraft and Undertale despite being "amateur" level asset quality make far better use of their assets and don't look as actively offensive as pokemon generally does.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Undertale was deliberate artistic choice, and minecraft's optional textures packs published by microsoft and mojang for free look significantly better than anything the Pokemon company has ever published. We give pokemon alot a grief in large part due to their association with nintendo and they look much worse than their other first party title. Also because are the most profitable media franchise in history so they have the money and resources to do better.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          You're confusing stylization and subjectivity with complexity.
          It doesn't matter if you think Pokemon's graphics look good or are implemented well or not (I don't think they do either, don't worry), they're objectively more complex and expensive than 2D sprites or cubes.

          >We give pokemon alot a grief in large part due to their association with nintendo and they look much worse than their other first party title. Also because are the most profitable media franchise in history so they have the money and resources to do better.
          Exactly. There are standards and expectations with AAA studios regarding their experience, competence, and budget, all for a variety of reasons.
          Could a AAA studio cut down on their budget? Sure, but if they go below a certain threshold, they get fricked, and Pokemon's a prime example of that. Or should be, but SwSh still broke records lol

          ok, counterpoint.
          Minecraft and Undertale despite being "amateur" level asset quality make far better use of their assets and don't look as actively offensive as pokemon generally does.

          I agree, but that's irrelevant.
          Pokemon's graphics are barely tolerable. If Game Freak suddenly dropped a mainline game with assets that looked like Undertale's gag reel, there'd be a riot.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >but that's irrelevant
            Compositional quality is absolutely and inseparably relevant to a discussion of how a game looks you disingenuous wienerfart.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              It's irrelevant because we're talking about graphical complexity and not subjectivity or stylization. Graphics can be both complex and stylized or simple and stylized, or complex and unstylized or simple and unstylized. They're too different concepts.
              Using a different series as an example: do you think people would be okay with the next God of War or Call of Duty shipping with N64 graphics?
              Meanwhile, indie games are making shooters that emulate Goldeneye, and they're smash hits. This is because there are different expectations when it comes to AAA and Indie. AAA has high budget and experienced artists and developers, and the expectation is that they use that to push things like graphics to their limits instead of going with a lower-quality or easier approach for stylistic reasons.

              >If Game Freak suddenly dropped a mainline game with assets that looked like Undertale's gag reel, there'd be a riot.
              Pokemon players left, anon. Only normies and slurpers remained; that line was already crossed.

              Sword and Shield is the 39th best selling video game of all time, matching Gen 4 and 7's total sales. That number doesn't count SwSh's DLC but DOES count Platinum/USUM.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >Sword and Shield is the 39th best selling video game of all time, matching Gen 4 and 7's total sales. That number doesn't count SwSh's DLC but DOES count Platinum/USUM.
                Yes, normies and slurpers. Did I stutter?

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >"Pokemon players left"
                >sales still break records, as if no one had left
                Yes, you did stutter.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Normies, moron. Far more than actual longtime players of the series.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Well, Sword and Shield is selling more than or matching the old games.
                Meanwhile, most other games have either stayed roughly the same over the decades in terms of sales, or gone down. Even Pokemon itself suffered from that.
                So either no one left and you're coping, or they're lying about the sales numbers.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >Well, Sword and Shield is selling more than or matching the old games.
                Yes, dipshit. That's why nobody will riot when they downgrade visuals further, that was the point of no return. Jesus frick, you're trying to have an argument in your spare time.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >If Game Freak suddenly dropped a mainline game with assets that looked like Undertale's gag reel, there'd be a riot.
            Pokemon players left, anon. Only normies and slurpers remained; that line was already crossed.

  54. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >games are cheap
    >There's a frickton of entertainment to have with f2p and susbcribing services
    >Acknowledges the struggle for competing with old games that are just better
    It's so naive it's the classic case of japanese fake nice.

    >F2p model is bad for everyone but the one in charge of it.
    >Games are expensive
    >Subscription services are cancer in every context.
    >More entertainment doesn't replace quality of it.
    >Older games are simply better in comparison
    >Most devs do not aim to entertain the player or make something fun when making the game
    >Actually doing physical dirty since gen 8
    Simple as. There are just more reasons to not bother with games than playing them nowadays.

    Like the video stated; it's better having a vacation to somewhere far than wasting time and money in this travesty of medium + paid dlc.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      frick racism

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Is it still racism if it is a cultural affect rather than a racialized one?

  55. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Frick you, sakurai
    Then why are nintendo games always full price?!

  56. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Steam regional pricing hike is enough to point out Sakurai is uppity hack.
    Frick off with your Nintendo/Smash money.
    https://steamdb.info/blog/valve-price-matrix-2022-update/

  57. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Man I'm glad I buy Nintendo consoles, just upgraded my PC to something modern, can play every 9th gen game at 4k/60fps, I enjoyed the first month with my Switch with only Breath of the Wild and Blaster Master Zero than my first few weeks with my PC with Metro Exodus, Control and Cyberpunk, Metro Exodus was the highlight.
    Looking forwards to Switch 2 games still costing $60

  58. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Not japanese games though, they're way overpriced.

  59. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    If you can't hack it, go out of business then.
    I'm not paying $100 for a video game.

  60. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Well of course a guy with billions in his pocket thinks games are “cheap”, can smash fetishists stick to being jackasses in their own community and stop trying to spread their shit everywhere? Please? Your gamedev is not a god so please shut the frick up, thank you.

  61. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >Launch the PlayStation with the promise that CDs will be cheaper
    >Third parties now have to spend 100s of millions on marketing and production values because the PlayStation taught them that production values = gooder
    >Nintendo now sits on the most successful game system of all time without a single disc in sight

  62. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Raise the price all you want. The minute you do the minute I stop buying any and all games that do as such. 60 dollars is already too fricking high for these movies that do nothing, but insult your intelligence.

  63. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    If video games are too cheap, then why are they discounted so heavily so quickly.

    Video games might cost $60 at launch, but they're usually half that price within six months. That's not a how the price of a product that's underpriced behaves, that's a product that is overpriced and sold on hype.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Physical products can't do that because they are made in limited quantity and would simply be unprofitable to do so
      Videogames don't work like that, once the game is made you can play the whole demand curve curve to squeeze out every sale
      What you should really be comparing them to is other licences, which do get discounted frequently

  64. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Maybe like... don't make such expensive fricking game?

  65. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    smash is just goyslop for children.
    Why would anyone care about this dude's opinion?

  66. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I mean he's right, development costs have spiralled out of control and the price tag has mostly stayed the same
    But some blame has to fall on developers for hyperinflating development costs through all sorts of moronic shit and getting outperformed by indie devs coding retro inspired trash out of their moms basement

  67. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    This is exactly why I never buy video games nowadays. Game devs are so fricking entitled that they unironically believe they deserve more than $60 for their child toy. If they want to frick me over so much, fine, I will just keep pirating your shit.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Imagine in he same sentence comparing videogames to a childs toy and then throwing a tantrum over them
      What does this say about the poster in question

  68. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    he meant cheap as in quality. games are shit

  69. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Shortly after I started watching this, my mind went to metroid dread, how short it is with no replay value and absolutely not worth 60 bucks
    >look at these awesome games!
    >they each offer DOZENS of hours of entertainment!
    >it's fricking dread
    GOD frick no Sakurai god damnit dread is a 6-hour game at best and I'll never turn it on again because it's DONE. There is nothing to do in it after finishing it once.
    I can't believe he had the audacity to use it as an example. You KNOW some games are trash and overpriced.

    If a game does not genuinely offer 100 hours at least, it is not worth 60.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      As soon as I finished Dread I played through it again straight away on hard because i found it really enjoyable.
      It being on the shorter end contributed to that of course.

  70. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >spend 60 bucks on a new AAA game
    >has around 10-20 hours of worthwhile content and 40-100 hours of pointless optional grind
    >means i spend 3-6 bucks an hour for decent entertainment at worst
    >theater ticket for a movie is like 20 bucks for 1-2 hours of entertainment
    >going to a restaurant/clubbing is even more expensive with people easily spending 100 bucks or more depending on the hours
    He is technically right.
    The only things that provide similar value for less are books, boardgames or the internet. Not counting just spending time outside with your friends (who am i kidding) and throwing rocks at eachother

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      TBF about movie tickets, don't most people agree though that those are overpriced too?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Yes and that value proposition is part of why they're so popular and why companies are making record profits.

      He's academically correct but anyone trying to advocate for price raise like it'll be good for the market can frick themselves with a rake. I already wait for 50% sale on most games as it is

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >implying needing to invest 20 hours over a 2-hour session is a good thing
      Yes, you with your time in addition to money. Also as long as publishers boast of record earnings I will never pay a full price for a game except for ones made by Fromsoft.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      that argument only works for quantity over quality. most people pay more for other forms of entertainment because they lead to more valuable outcomes, e.g. having sex, which video games don't

  71. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I wonder what he thinks is an appropriate price, 90 dollars?

  72. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    His argument is just that videogames are very efficient as far as cost/time goes. He doesn't really make an argument that they should be more/less expensive.

  73. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    la mulana >>>>>> dread

  74. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I will never pay more than $70 for a game.
    >B-but INFLATION!
    Nope!
    >B-but MUH RISING DEV COSTS
    Nuh uh.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >B-but MUH RISING DEV COSTS
      devs put the rising costs on themselves by making every fricking tree look photorealistic, shit like RDR2 wouldnt be tolerated in an ideal industry

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >ideal industry
        And what is that. Your command economy for games?

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          yes

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