Budget Titles Dominate 2025's Top-Rated Games as AAA Prices Climb To $80 (bloomberg.com)
- Reference: 0177323421
- News link: https://games.slashdot.org/story/25/05/05/073207/budget-titles-dominate-2025s-top-rated-games-as-aaa-prices-climb-to-80
- Source link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-05-02/players-have-too-many-options-to-spend-80-on-a-video-game
Clair Obscur, developed by a small French studio, sold 1 million copies in its first week. Split Fiction, despite being published by EA, was created by a small Stockholm team and has reached 2 million sales. Blue Prince, a puzzle-roguelike largely created by a single developer in Los Angeles, is showing strong performance on Steam, Bloomberg reports.
All three games share key traits: they use commercially available engines, take creative risks that big-budget projects couldn't afford, and target specific player demographics rather than trying to appeal broadly. The contrast is striking -- Clair Obscur's developers celebrated reaching 1 million sales while EA declared Dragon Age: The Veilguard a failure with similar numbers, underscoring the economic realities of different development scales.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-05-02/players-have-too-many-options-to-spend-80-on-a-video-game
[2] https://games.slashdot.org/story/25/05/01/143211/microsoft-hikes-xbox-console-prices-by-up-to-100-games-to-hit-80
Old games (Score:3)
This is why i just stuck to playing games that are many years old. They are still a lot of fun to play and so by the time I get to this game it will be at least half price.
Years (Score:2)
I've been doing this for years. I think the last full price game I've bought is Unreal 2004, or maybe Morrowind GOTY edition. Since then, I picked up the special edition of Oblivion for half off initial retail, and ditto Skyrim. Though I acquired an XBox One for my son from a relative who didn't need it any more, I picked up a 360 with two dozen games from an estate sale for $50. My daughter loves the old Kinect games - she plays them with her friends all the time.
That being said I might spring for the new
Re: (Score:2)
AAA titles don't interest me, but I'm just now getting around to Super Mario Galaxy. Great game and a lot cheaper as a pack of 3 games for the Switch. Technically I bought it used for the Wii first but I never got around to it and I could never keep batteries charged for the Wii remotes consistently, where the new controllers use the same charging plug as everything else.
Re: (Score:2)
I would add that many smaller independent games are worth buying especially since many of them are cheaper. For example Balatro was released last year on almost all platforms for $10. It is a poker style card game. Hollow Knight released in 2017 is considered one of the best Metroidvania games is $15 on Steam when not on sale.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm surprised you didn't spell it "wallah". Good job!
Re: (Score:2)
AAA games are broadcast TV. They think they're somehow going to capture 5-10% of the market with every major release. Streaming services have proved that you can do better by doing limited budget high quality niche work. Streaming company executives may keep trying to return to a broadcast mindset with bigger and bigger projects but it works against them.
Re: (Score:1)
In 1985, the NES cost about $200 and games cost about $50 on release.
The business model has always been that the console is the "sunk cost," and the real profits come from the walled garden of games.
This is nothing new.
Re: (Score:2)
Inflation adjusted from 1985 to 2025 the console cost would be $600 and the games $150(!)
Re: (Score:1)
Yeah, so games have gotten cheaper but American purchasing power has degraded even more.
Actually this applies to everything. Funny, that.
Re: (Score:2)
> is 1/8th the cost of the console its running on, you know "Ultra Nightmare" level greed mode is engaged ;-D
So, I *half* agree with this.
The Sega Genesis MSRP was $199, and games were $60 a pop back in 1990, so it was a little less than 1/3 the cost back then. The PS1 improved things with their $50 game MSRP and $300 system cost in 1995, but the Nintendo 64 also had $60 games against its $200 system cost in 1997, so I would submit that the "game cost vs. system price" has improved if it's 1/8, rather than the 1/3 to 1/6 that it was back in the 90's...to be fair, that also included physical distribution and retail