God of War Director Prefers PS5 Price Increases Over Microtransaction Hellscape

Agreed, but I can't help but think the extra 10 smackaroos in currency of choice will not prevent these publishers from adding microtransactions. Too much money to be made.

If only it were one OR the other...

Nice sentiment, ain't gonna happen.

I agree but MT are here to stay.

There are some people — like myself — who feel that $60 is too expensive for a game, never mind $70. If publishers do raise prices to $70, they still won't see day 1 money from me. I'll still do what I did with PS4: wait for prices to drop at or below $30 USD. God of War was a great purchase for me at $20 USD, and I'll do the same thing when GoW 2 releases.

Eh, I’d like to at least be able to afford the game in the first place.

Sorry, Corey, but we're getting both.

Knowing that microtransactions are going nowhere and getting more aggressive all the time, I'm not sure I can agree with him.

The EA boardroom on hearing that people think higher prices means no microtransactions

@JJ2 this. I mean look at 2K with 2K21. Charging a tenner extra and filled with microtransactions for 2K team or whatever its called.

The pricing is fine. Compared to cinema games are a steal. An experience like TLoU2 for 60 bucks? 25-30 hours of epic opposed to a 3 hour film that is 30 bucks on bluray. I will glady pay then extra 10

The scope of modern AAA games has generally increased while the quality oftentimes has decreased. Too often broken messes of beta-software get released only to be fixed months after initial release, if it all. Oh and don't get started on DLC that could easily have been part of the initial release and only being held back to sell it to us further down the road.

In my book, most Indie games have a far better value than many (not all) triple A titles.

Increase quality, not price.

It kinda voids the whole you'll get the next gen game for free if it costs you £10 more though? I may just be looking into it to much but just a thought.

Guaranteed that a price increase won't stop the hellscape.

Living in the hyper-technicized world we do I wonder if something like this would fly:

For digital games, make ALL games 30 bucks. Halfway through the game a screen pops up, asks you to rate the game and if you like it, if you'd pay 30 bucks for the second half of the game. Also you're provided with a code that you can use to legit-review the game on metacritic. If you didn't play the second half of the game as long or much as the first half, you're eglible for a refund of 30 bucks. If you're done with the game another window pups up asking you to tip the dev if you liked the experience better than expected.

That way developers are encouraged to create quality games, players don't run the risk of wasting full 60 bucks if they didn't like a game. User reviews would be legit and people could get a refund, but only if they really stopped playing the game after paying 30 bucks for the scond half. If they were amazed with the game, why not tip the dev team?

I'd love that kind of thing.
It would be much more transparent and fair than the crap we got moving forward.

@roe If they do hike the price, they should be obligated to not include micro transactions or release the game in an unfinished state. The 70 bucks should be kinda lika a "quality guarantee".

Then I woke up.

I'm okay with $70 price as long as there isn't mtx in the game.

But hold on, where’s all the chatter gone with the free upgrades brought on current gen?. I know not all publishers have signed up, but a few have. For a genuine nxt Gen title I can understand a price increase but cross gen🤔, just seems like a money grabbing op to me especially if the PS5 or Series X are back compat, digital could be a prob but disks brought for this Gen apparently will have some benefits from running on new hardware.

Some studios will still have microtransactions.so a 69$ price tag is not a on point verdict.word up son

It's laughable how they think raising the price tag by 10 would destroy micro transactions. The pricing for a game could be 99$ and we'd STILL be overrun by them, it's a joke honestly. Developers will do whatever they can to get an extra dollar, and that will never change.

Microtransactions aren't going away, and games realistically don't need to uniformly go up in price. The $59.99 price tag encompasses games of varying budgets, and even a lot of the most expensive games still generate obscene profits.

These companies will keep pumping up prices as high as they think people will tolerate to juice day one buyers as much as possible.

Problem is we're gonna have BOTH!!!!!

If you believe for a second that big corporations are going to abandon a proven revenue source that requires almost no investment I have a farm to sell you.

They can charge more, it just means I won''t be pre-ordering or buying at launch - certainly not as many games as I have this generation. Instead, I will be waiting for the inevitable price drops and maybe will end up playing through many of the games in my backlog and the 'free' games with PS+/Gold.

There is absolutely NO reason to spend more on a game if you don't want to. It will find a price point that people are willing to spend and the fewer people that buy at 'full' RRP, the quicker it will likely drop - as has been the case for years.

If you are not 'happy' with the asking price, wait!!!

Oh oh, second Sony big guy talking about this... it sounds like the previous statement to try to get people to expect shorter games, but to expect higher price standard. Wonder if the standard PS5 game will have a suggested MSRP of $69.99 in the US, and I’d MS will somehow follow. After all, buying the Xbox One version of the game cheaper will get players the Sereis X version too... can’t wait to see price news from both companies, and not only hardware now.

@MS7000 was thinking the same, unless legal blocks make these micro transactions harder to implement, the players that have been using them will continue to use them.

I gladly pay €70 for a quality firstparty game most of them have no MT. A big RPG no problem but i wait with the Ubisoft, EA, Activision Blizzard games and i just dont buy anymore 2K games.

God of War sequel confirmed at $70.

But actually - yes, I completely agree. I’ll happily pay the extra for a complete product rather than having it riddled with MTX or have to buy a portion of the game back later as DLC for $15. And yes, I realize not all DLC is carved out and held back to charge for later, but sometimes it seems that way.

They can charge whatever they want, but they can't make me pay!

If anything, devs should make $40 games that are 10-15 hours long, instead of $60-70 and bloated up with another 15-25+ hours of filler content.

They not going to sell a $70 game and take out microtransactions.
Anyone who believes that, I have a Bridge I am selling.

At $70 a pop, it is not worth it. For that I go PC 100% for anything i want Day 1.

Cyberpunk 2077 already has RayTracing, HDR10, Ultra settings and 4K textures/art on PC and I payed $42 for my pre-order.

There will still be DLC so it's not the 'complete' experience upfront. Wait for the goty/gold/complete edition for $20.

Price here in Denmark! Is high already! Compare to US its nothing so sure let it go up in US
Here it's for 90$ a new game that

If people believe Microtransactions will be gone because games cost an extra £10 your deluded, Microtransactions make companies like Activision, Microsoft etc millions. And i am position that Halo infinite Multiplayer will follow the same root, live service with Microtransactions.

What's the fuss!? Every time there's a new console, the launch games average 10-20€/$ more than anything else, just because early adopters are desperate for content. It usually levels out a while later. Also, many retail stores in Europe ask an absurd 69.9€ for PS4 games ever since we had Euros, so that price point is nothing new.

A $70 game with microtransactions is an automatic Say No Go.

A $70 game without microtransactions is a go. People seem to forget SNES cartridges sold for $70 and $80 over 25 years ago.

Which is how it should have normally been, but gamers' fan heads and consumerist buttocks begged to differ. By now it would have been naive to think that a straight price bump to reflect the development and publishing costs of today would mean an end to microtransactions - the F2P market runs entirely on them, and investors will eat for breakfast any major publisher who will dare the abolition as well. At least as long as audiences continue whaling this stuff, booing at a mobile Nintendo game for 10 bucks but opening their wallets towards a mobile Nintendo game character for 40.

We consumers goaded the industry into this all, let's have the guts to admit that any way back will not be an easy or fast one.

the problem is, there will be a price hike AND there will still be MTX on top of that... it's not like it is one or the other for the most greedy publishers in the business. it is naiive to believe publishers will suddenly kick MTX to the curb, even if the base price increases by $10 lol

there are very few AAA publishers left with integrity... sony is one of them but i wonder how much longer that will last with ryan at the helm.

@Scollurio And the stupid comment of 2020 goes to:

EA's price hike for their copy and paste sports game 2k21 would be understandable if they removed microtransactions because the series is already pay to win.

It's one of the many reasons I don't mind microtransactions at all. I completely ignore them and people who pay for them are keeping costs down for the rest of us.

@MS7000 they will raise the price, and then later on they will still pull their stunts.. And it isn't because 59.99 isn't enough. That's what's piszes me off.. They NET billions..... They don't need to raape us

If the next GOW is an improvement over the last game in all aspects, then yeah, I could see myself paying 70 for it. But so many games are not worth it. They're either riddled with MTX, filled with bugs and glitches. I don't mind paying more, but then I also expect quality. And sadly I know that's not going to happen for most games.

One won’t stop the other

Does he really think that'll stop micro-transactions?

PFFFFFFffffffffffff

1) I really doubt he would say something different than that;
2) They're going to charge us more and still shove microtransactions down our throats;
3) While americans always paid US$60, at least for the last 15 or 20 years, there're a lot of places that the price is not the same at all, like here in Brazil. I remember paying R$150 on PS3 titles on their release date and now games costs almost R$300.

When you account for inflation, video game prices have either gotten cheaper, or remained in the same ballpark. There were plenty of NES games that were at least $40 at launch. That's $100 in 2020. Even a $50 SNES game would be about $90 by today's standards. When you consider the incredible difference in graphics, physics, controls, storytelling, etc., you're actually getting a great deal. An extra $10 for PS5 games is no big deal.

@MS7000 It definitely won’t stop EA and Activision. Maybe Ubisoft would ease off but if it means MT-less single player games will still live in I’m cool with that.

@OthmaneAD something else besides your salt to add to the conversation that would be of actual value to anyone besides yourself?

If you think these publishers won't load up on micro transactions, you are woefully naive.

Here's the thing: we would all prefer games go up by $10 if it meant no more microtransactions. But reality is going to be that games will go up and games will continue to have them. No way NBA 2K, Madden, GTA, etc ever drop them. They make too much money of that stuff.

I don't buy microtransactions or DLC. They can add all they want and leave games at $60.

Microtransactions will get worse in the next gen not better.

He's talking out of his behind if he really believes that a price increase is going to prevent some publishers from including MTX in their games.

Can you really imagine Activision not putting them in CoD? Or EA giving up the millions of dollars they make on FUT for a $10 increase in the retail price? I can't.

I know that games are expensive to make. I know people need paying. And I know some smaller developers struggle. But I really don't see this hike as justified across the board, when you see the profit that some of these companies are making with games at $60 or less... and were making even before MTX became a regular thing.

Paying extra for full retail will also increase the expectations for content and value of the game. If there is even remotely a feeling that they left out content to be sold to you later on as DLC or you get a bug riddled game for which you pay the privilege to beta test...people will go mental (and rightfully so). I hope publishers are aware of this.

Games absolutely do not need to go up in price...m here in Canada we are already getting gouged at 79.99 for basic editions. Premium editions cost 99.99... this is just corporate greed to be honest. The sales of games are going up that makes up for the extra cost.

If the cost of making games goes up but it also gets rid of microtransctions I'm all for it. To be honest I'm not surprised by the news of a price increase. It was bound to happen. I never buy microtransctions other than the occasional season pass. So add that into the extra 10 bucks and you got a deal.

The market will only tolerate it for so long. Only buy one major release and another will suffer. There will be more people waiting for the sales. PS4 backwards compatibility will at least let me work on my backlog until PS5 titles eventually hit the sales.

This is irrelevant because we all know microtransactions are not going anywhere, so why raise the price and use something that is already in place and not get rid of it as an excuse. This guy is a complete moron and doesn't know what he is talking about.

This article was fairly pointless - I never paid £49.99 for a PS4 game. Ever. Actual gamers just wait it out for the price to drop a bit. The only people who don't are the hashtaggers on Twitter trying to blag free games to test.

I have NO PROBLEM paying an additional $10 for a game, a PHYSICAL game that is.
But should digital cost the same?
Physical has a disk, a box, boxart, its sent to brick and mortar stores for you to buy.
Digital is uploaded, no disk to pay for no boxart to look at no store to go to. So why then is it the same price? You're literally paying the same and getting less.

What a lot of people don't seem to understand here is the actual cost of making a game. The cost of licencing the software, the graphics engine, the cost to have their devs code the game, the cost of having someone develop the in game world visually, the cost of mocap, the cost of voice actors, etc....Last of Us 2 cost $100 M or more to make. Just to recoup the cost of making the game they have to sell I would say, at least 2-3 M copies of the game before they even see a profit off the game, because they still have to pay off distributors, investors, publishers, and everyone else that help bring the game to the world before the game developers get any thing. Don't forget, even digital copies have a shelving cost to. And now with the new gen consoles, these dev costs are going to increase even more. So a increase in the price of a game of $10 is more than reasonable and probably over due.

@Akimi he's not saying they aren't going anywhere he's just saying he would take 10 more bucks over microtransactions any day. Sony exclusives won't ever have microtransactions because they have to sell Consoles. Game development does cost more every year so giving them 10 dollars more is alot better than them putting in microtransactions and keeping it at 60 or making games even less and probably not putting much in them so they seem more bare than others. EA and other companies like to make their microtransactions operate in tip top shape and work even better than the game itself like some of these games are buggy and the controls are ***** but the ability to give them more money works flawlessly. Less time making monetization schemes in games means more time developing the actual game making it much better and even less time in development making it release earlier than it would if they had put time into making that monetization scheme so 10 more dollars for a company that makes good games and doesn't put crap microtransactions and other stupid credit card swipe mechanics is worth it to me, if a game has microtransactions and it seems like they care more about money than their fans then I won't get the game. Ubisoft is one who is getting more greedier every year by adding microtransactions in every one of their games and even in single player games which is the stupidest thing iv seen, EA started that ***** too. But people will always give them money so they'll keep doing whatever they want.

I still remember back in the day when you bought a sports game and all the players came with it and you didnt have to grind for hundreds of hours or shell out hundreds of dollars just to have the team you wanted. Sports games are one of the biggest ripoffs in the gaming industrie and now 2k thinks you should pay even more. I enjoy sports games but honestly I'm done it's not worth the money anymore. A quick side note free to play games are literally the worst cash grabs ever cough cough fortnight.

Us Gamers have to send a message to not support games crossing the price threshold.
Here in Los Angeles, sales tax is 10.25%.
And as others pointed out, this won't stop companies from keeping microtransactions in their ***** games. GameFly here I come.

Wow, why don't they just BEG more people to use bittorrent? This is what will happen: $70.00 games, same/more microtransactions, increased pirating of games.

I agree with him too bad we all know paying 70 dollars today isn't going to get us the same amount of game that paying 70 during the N64 days will.

Had publishers raised the price to $70-80 6 years ago like they should have then maybe we wouldn't have such BS dlc practices.

Keeping prices at $60 (OOT on n64 was $90) for so long was a huge mistake. It killed the middle market... You know, those games that were just ok but half the price. That's kind of been replaced by Indies but now there is so much indie junk it's really hard to find the good stuff.

Another issue we have now that's not price related is the unwillingness to delay a game. Only certain companies do it and those companies tend to put out the absolute top tier games. Rockstar, CDPR, Nintendo...

I understand that most people commenting are younger and won't like any increase in price but I truly wish they had been raised to $80 years ago... It would have prevented so many bad things we deal with today and even if they raise the prices now they will still have MTX.