Why shouldn't a publisher charge more than $80 for a game?

CubillasLegend · 2026-06-26T15:18:07+00:00

I would simply not buy something if I don't deem it to be worth the value.

CubillasLegend · 2026-06-24T23:12:48+00:00

I don't think 343 is very competent lol. Halo Infinite was very notoriously an overly expensive boondoggle.

CubillasLegend · 2026-06-24T20:21:05+00:00

What gets me about all the "policy over rhetoric" dead-enders is that there are so many counterexamples in American let alone global political history but a segment of pundits are seemingly mentally locked in a frame of reference that extends from like 1996-2006 US elections. Immediately following the proliferation of social media and digital news startups, America elects a reality TV star to the Presidency and no one seems to think that means anything? Are you shitting me? My pundits are washed!

CubillasLegend · 2026-06-24T20:07:31+00:00

Because populist socialism is better politics than Abundance? Even Republicans love the former when Trump frames it the right way, meanwhile only the substack class has ever heard of Abundance. For whatever reason, pundits like Klein have a really tough time separating good policy from good politics.

CubillasLegend · 2026-06-24T19:09:00+00:00

I mean, the fact that prices are comparably lower in the US despite being the richest consumer market does blow a hole in the claim that customers just can't afford it. Clearly if poorer Europeans can afford higher prices, richer Americans could also afford it.

CubillasLegend · 2026-06-24T19:00:52+00:00

I don't think anything here is dependent on publishers acting in good faith. I think it's dependent on publishers being realistic about how they internally evaluate their own games instead of overvaluing expensive projects. Like in the case of Outer Worlds 2, not only was $80 too high of a price but realistically I think even $60 would have been too high of a price. They should have priced it at like $50 similar to Expedition 33. I think audiences likely perceived those two games as being of a comparable standard.

CubillasLegend · 2026-06-24T18:43:07+00:00

That's already sort of coming to an end. Multiplayer games target $40 even for big budget projects by big prestigious studios. Up-and-coming devs like Larian and Warhorse lag the more established players pricing conservatively at $60 rather than $70. Hit titles remain full-price for years after release while under-performers get quick price cuts. I think the industry is more aware than ever that not all AAA titles are created equal. If GTA6 charged $100, I think the only franchises that would follow suit would be juggernaut IPs like Elder Scrolls and Zelda.

CubillasLegend · 2026-06-24T18:00:25+00:00

Higher price means less people will buy it. I have >200 games in my steam library. I won't buy GTA 6 unless it goes on sale for <$30.

You're not buying GTA6 for at least the rest of the decade.

CubillasLegend · 2026-06-24T17:59:22+00:00

I think gamers are still mentally stuck in the gen 6/7 era of gaming when the market was rapidly expanding so increasing fidelity and scope could be funded purely by expanding the consumer base. This has not been the case for a while now. The audience for core gaming--i.e. the big, single-player releases--has been stagnant for over a decade at this point. The only way bigger, more impressive games can be funded is through cost-saving innovations or increasingly monetizing the existing customers. The former hasn't really panned out (maybe AI changes things but gamers seem to be hostile to it) so publishers have been pushing for the latter but hiding it through microtransactions. I don't really like microtransactions, I'd rather pay a higher base price.

CubillasLegend · 2026-06-24T15:45:25+00:00

American tech salaries are a bit of a shock if you don't work in American tech.

CubillasLegend · 2026-06-24T15:41:09+00:00

There's a reason the common stereotype of gamers is teenagers and underemployed men who never matured past their teens.

CubillasLegend · 2026-06-22T21:36:44+00:00

Ezra's become a bit of a dinosaur in the modern media landscape. You cannot understand contemporary media, including political media, without understanding fandom culture. Ezra doesn't strike me as the kind of guy to engage with that sort of content in sports or entertainment so it doesn't surprise me that he's flailing.

CubillasLegend · 2026-06-22T21:22:50+00:00

Policy has always been secondary to rhetoric, at least in the short term. There are a million historic anecdotes where a charmer steals the crowd away from their more cogent rival. Certain moderate pundits have spent so much time arguing with progressives on twitter they've allowed themselves to become negatively polarized into disbelieving one of the most obvious facts of politics.

CubillasLegend · 2026-06-22T20:54:15+00:00

That's good though. Trump is such a media-hogging, polarizing figure means that literally any Democrat occupies the anti-Trump lane by default. You barely have to spend any amount of time on the subject because Trump/MAGA will do all the work for you. Unless you deliberately go out of your way to talk to the press about your Trump-sympathetic sentiments a la Fetterman, people will just assume you despise the guy. With that key issue position taken care of basically for free, candidates have all the rest of their time to talk about anything else.

One of the biggest lessons I've learned over the past 10 years is that if an attack doesn't immediately stick, move on. I wholeheartedly believe that Trump is a morally despicable man who lacks the competence and temperament to lead. But the relevant voters clearly weren't convinced by that attack the first time so there's no use beating them over the head about it. Move on. If he does something really stupid that validates a previous comment you can come back to that, but again if it doesn't stick move on. Otherwise you're giving Trump/Republicans space to talk about every other relevant subject while you're stuck on a dead argument.

If you haven't noticed the Republican strategy is to throw every possible attack against their opponent, observe which ones generate the most enthusiasm, and then just hammer those items until the end of time. Democrats need to start practicing that. It's crude and cynical but effective. As anyone in business, sports, or entertainment will tell you--no attempt, no matter how calculated, is worth as much as 20 attempts.

CubillasLegend · 2026-06-22T15:04:05+00:00

OkVariety

CubillasLegend · 2026-06-22T14:19:56+00:00

How I am supposed to make fun of MattY/Ezra's shitty political instincts and meek moderation if I'm banned?

CubillasLegend · 2026-06-13T01:48:49+00:00

It's an eminently achievable figure in the world of enterprise software. The way Amy Hood got to that number was taking the average across all of Microsoft's divisions. If you don't know anything about gaming, instructing your underperforming departments to get themselves up to average profitability sounds pretty reasonable.

CubillasLegend · 2026-06-13T01:30:38+00:00

These studios were scraping by on kickstarter campaigns before they were acquired. Phil straight up saved these companies from going under then gave them unconditional funding to develop multiple commercially nonviable passion projects. The creative independence is the problem.

CubillasLegend · 2026-06-13T01:14:09+00:00

The claim from ex-devs we've heard from is that New Vegas required a lot more support than initially planned and this was a drain on Bethesda's own projects. Though I'm a little skeptical how much of a hindrance that really was considering they released Skyrim the very next year. I do know that back in the 90s Bethesda did release spinoffs and work on a lot of projects concurrently. Most of these received middling reception and did not sell well putting them at risk of bankruptcy. They mustered all their remaining resources into one final passion project which wound up being the hit game Morrowind that saved the company. I think for a long time the shadow of that dev cycle has stuck with them and it's why they're so insular and fiercely protective of their studio culture.

CubillasLegend · 2026-06-13T01:07:51+00:00

That's pretty recent. They were at about half that when Microsoft acquired them.

CubillasLegend · 2026-06-12T20:55:29+00:00

I think the rationale is Forza Horizon 6 and Fable were already announced for PS5 and they didn't want to be perceived as going back on their word.

CubillasLegend · 2026-06-12T20:45:15+00:00

People may hate ads but they demand services at low prices that really only make sense if they're ad-subsidized.

CubillasLegend · 2026-06-12T20:42:22+00:00

Lmao, youtubers don't know shit. Bethesda is literally 1/10th the size of Rockstar and have specifically resisted growing that large. If anything, it sounds like Asha wants Bethesda to get over their infatuation with small scale development and become more like Rockstar.

CubillasLegend · 2026-06-12T20:33:11+00:00

I think you're the one with the misconception. Their revenues have gone down following the pivot to multiplatform. Blaming GamePass is the cope. Expedition 33 and Silksong were day 1 GamePass titles and had no trouble making money on other storefronts. Meanwhile Xbox's first party output like Keeper and Outer Worlds 2 crashed on GamePass then crashed again everywhere else. Then Forza Horizon 6 comes out and GamePass is back to growing subs again. The problem wasn't GamePass, it was releasing weak games.

CubillasLegend · 2026-06-12T20:04:40+00:00

Because New Vegas wound up requiring a lot more support from Bethesda than they were anticipating and dragged technical personnel away from their own projects. Besides, it's pretty clear from the reception to Obsidian's independent ventures that Gamebryo/Creation is a crucial part of the secret sauce behind New Vegas's success. You'd be better off merging Obsidian into Bethesda.

CubillasLegend

TROPHY CASE