News How Much Would You Pay for Your PS5 Games? Dev Says Industry Is Waiting for GTA 6 to Hike Prices

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The thorny issue of game prices always proves controversial. There are some, raised in the early 90s, who recall the hundred of notes they dropped on Super Nintendo titles like Street Fighter 2 Turbo. There are others, raised on a diet of PS2 in the noughties, who remember getting a full physical game for about $50, and it didn't need patching when you inserted the disc.

Obviously, there's a lot to like about the games industry today, but many quite rightly feel the cost of games is too high. Publishers pushed prices of new games up to $60 on the PS3, and now you're looking at $70 for anything other than Concord on your PS5. That's a lot of money, and while inflation does help make the numbers a little more reasonable, the sticker shock is still real for the average consumer.

The problem is there's a huge disconnect between the cost of making games and the prices fans are willing to pay. Sony's giga budget single player games demand many hundreds of millions these days, and while it'd be fair to point to the platform holder's record-breaking profits, that's still an enormous amount of money to stump up for a title that could, potentially, flop.

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One way publishers have been trying to artificially raise prices is through expensive Deluxe and Ultimate Editions. These often include early access, effectively encouraging players to pod out up to $120 for some digital tat and the opportunity to play early. Star Wars Outlaws is a great example of this tactic in action, but those who plumped up extra ended up with little advantage, as they were asked to reboot their progress due to a bug.

While Baldur's Gate 3 publishing director Michael Douse is critical of this practice, he does believe the base price of games needs to increase. "I think a game should be priced accordingly with its quality, breadth, and depth," he wrote on X (or Twitter). "Almost all games should cost more at a base level because the cost of making them (inflation, for one) is outpacing pricing trends. "But I don't think we'll get there with DLC promises so much as quality and communication. Everyone's just waiting for GTA 6 to do it."

While Douse is predominantly goofing around here, it will be interesting to see how Rockstar handles the release of GTA 6. There's no doubt that the tantalizing promise of even 24 hours early access could prompt it to upsell millions upon millions of copies, effectively enforcing a higher price point for anyone that wants to be part of the zeitgeist. That's a fascinating and undeniably frightening prospect.

Obviously, we understand the challenges the industry is facing; this year has been bursting with bad news about redundancies, closures, and layoffs. But, while profit margins have been tightening, the industry is still generating obscene sums of money, the majority of which we suspect are stuffing the pockets of unscrupulous executives. And with that in mind, we don't care how much your costs are rising: video games aren't a necessity, and from our point of view, we're already paying more than enough.