An interesting story popped up on Insidehoops.com talking about a recent interaction between an NBA player and a casual Xbox Live user, one that's simply too awesome to pass up.
New York Knicks point guard Nate Robinson gets a kick out of playing Call of Duty: World At War on Xbox Live, it seems. The other day, he found himself matched up against a random player. According to what he told Al Trautwig at the Madison Square Garden television station, he clearly identified himself as an NBA player to the Xbox Live user. The player was taken aback, unaware that he was playing against an NBA athlete. He didn't really believe it.
Najam from eXputer: "The norm of $60 AAA games is no more as developers now charge more for their games. Here's why this might not be a bad thing for gamers."
*Elden Ring type games, yeah sure. (scoring 8+)
(AAA/quadruple A) slop can shove it up their discounted ass
In recent yrs my purchasing In Indies has increased and its decreased for major IP's because I cba with the lack of innovative gameplay.
Focusing on the topic, why not mention Take-Two CEO getting his pay increased while axing 500 staff? I'm getting annoyed that those practices get ignored by the "gaming" media because ya don't want to burn potential bridges but seriously, gtfo.
Im not contesting that triple a games are not innovative, but most indie games are 2D side scrollers with pixel art, fompletely lacking in innovation
"I'm getting annoyed that those practices get ignored by the "gaming" media because ya don't want to burn potential bridges but seriously, gtfo"
What exactly is gaming media going to do that it's not already doing?
Welcome to capitalism and corporatism - every industry has this problem, it's not a gaming one.
It's a bad thing for gamers and for in the chair game devs. We just heard of massive layoffs across the industry.
I'd pay more if I read articles about how they were hiring. I'd pay more if I read articles about how the people who made the game scored record setting pay raises and CEOs were no longer given 1 year bonuses that could sustain a small studio for 10 years.
But that's not what happened.
Yeah there's only so much people are willing to pay for entertainment. Especially in the form of games at the same time that there are free to play games and cheaper in the titles that compete with triple A. You're not going to be able to keep increasing pricing and get the same amount of sales. I already don't buy games at the new price or even at $60. I wait for $40 or less. And I don't believe I'm alone in that department. If you don't have any other expenses you can probably continue to afford buying games at the top price but many people eventually have other things that take priority and you're just not going to spend it that much money on a video game.
Heck if I have to play one game for the rest of my life I'd probably end up playing Warframe or Counter-Strike. These are all either free games or were paid games and now are free.
The AAA industry is a threat to the gaming industry. They're trying to continue to ride the way and keep increasing prices. They're trying to get all of the money as long as they're able to.
It's bad. People just want good games at decent prices. Not everything has to be super realistic with 200 voice actors. Look at Palworld.
The industry will and is already imploding due to double standards relative to prices everywhere else in society. Just as with food, housing, transportation, and other forms of entertainment, costs will increase even if only due to the constant rise in inflation.
Inflation is a fact of our modern world, and is a consequence of normal (usually healthy) economic activity. It is a result of a slow and continuous growth due to increasing money supply, and the complex relationship between consumer supply and demand. Inflation leads to the eventual increase in wages, whether through cost of living increases, yearly increases, minimum wage increases, or a higher demand of workers than there is supply.
The fact that the game industry has managed to keep game prices at or near the $60/70 range for DECADES is amazing in its own right. The buying power of a dollar has dropped in half in the last twenty years, so each year that prices don’t increase, it is essentially a price decrease for the previous year. Think about that.
Part of the problem is that games have been arbitrarily held at such a low price for so long that it has created a psychological ceiling in peoples’ heads that can’t be exceeded. MTs and other schemes have been created to try and mitigate this discrepancy, but those don’t work with every game/genre and have also received their own significant consumer blowback.
If games can’t exceed the $60-70 barrier even though that $70 is economically a lower “true” price than the cost of games even a decade ago, publishers will do what they can to make up the difference before eventually running out of options and exiting the industry.
I don’t like to pay more than I have to just like everyone else, but you have to be fair in comparing price increases (or lack thereof) in the game industry with the price increases across the rest of society.
The first PlayStation is home to an array of iconic video games that went on to define the sheer significance of this console.
I think from a historical perspective I would change Spyro for Grand Turismo. It's the franchise that made the PS1 look like an absolute unit. Other than that, I can't argue with the rest when it comes to games that defined the PS1.
And to be honest, there should be space for Tekken 3, Wipepout and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater in order to round out the PS1 identity as the machine to own at the time.
With Tomb Raider 2, Silent Hill, Symphony of the Night, Tenchu, and Soul Reaver as backup contenders.
This could be fun as they make great tables. Go big or go extinct. Prime your senses for a neural handshake and step into the cockpit of a Jaeger. It is on you to cancel the apocalypse when Pacific Rim Pinball comes to Pinball FX on May 16.
