How did gaming become soo expensive,lets find out!
If you are currently in your late 20s to late 40s, I hope you can remember with fondness the magic of gaming from your Childhood. How defeating your friends in MK3 Ultimate made you feel like king or queen of your small social hill! Or how trading Pokémon was such a marvel that you almost always looked forward to it once one of your friends visited with a link cable (which was almost as rare as a shiny Pokémon back in the day).
Remember how exhilarating it was playing soccer, whether FIFA or PES using football sprites that had no face and the ball was not so round but that was enough? How it was possible to even save enough of your lunch money for a couple of weeks and finally be able to afford a new game disc or cartridge? Those were simpler times.
Welcome to 2025 my dear joystick shifters and controller chuckers! An age where the new Mario Kart World game for Nintendo Switch 2 is currently going to set you back a whopping $80!!! How much of your lunch money back then would you have to save and for how long to finally get this much for the game, whether physical or digital?
It is understandable that with the evolution of gaming, thanks to all manner of technological advances, the cost of anything involved with gaming will rise at a pace. That’s absolutely no news, not even to people who simply hopped on the gaming wagon 3 days ago. But this article isn’t aiming to beat a well-beaten dead horse at this point. It seeks to garner enough opinions and answers to answer one question: Is gaming Now…or soon going to Become a Luxury?
Gaming has greatly evolved from everything we’ve known over the past couple of decades. We no longer need link cables to trade or battle in any Pokémon game since the Nintendo DS.
We can almost see the sweat on a football player’s brow and face in any line of the top tier soccer games now on PlayStation and XBOX (maybe Nintendo too…?) and there are way more services being offered by major gaming companies to the point that most gamers are simply spoiled for choice now…or are they?
Now, more to the point, the word Luxury is defined as: “a state of great comfort or elegance, especially when involving great expense.” Another definition: “a pleasure obtained only rarely.” There are two main words that denote luxury – expense and rare. And with the price of gaming hardware – from hardware in handhelds, home consoles and PC – is it possible that our favorite pastime and ‘bonding agent’ could soon become a thing of luxury in the future?
To help put this article in perspective, I could prattle on and on, but I think a small set of tables will help at this point:
Hehehehee…how you like those numbers? Newer generation consoles haven’t been added yet as they are more still into early years of their cycles. But the numbers only seem to get better for the companies in terms of console generation, its supposed improvements (which to be honest, are really minimal in most cases) and estimated profits while things seem to get worse for the end users and gamers with regards to product and accessories pricing. I mean, look at the Switch 2 Camera for crying out loud! 😭 That thing does NOT justify a price tag of $55 and I think more than half the world and Nintendo fans in it could agree to that!
I’m no industry shark, but I’m willing to bet its also making things difficult for game developers and studios big and small alike. Sure, they get to have to try out ‘new toys’ in terms of newer technologies to make even more stunning games taking advantage of hardware with improved graphics and ways to play, but there is surely a compromise or sacrifice made by developers that affects them more than the average end user would ever know.
Because looking at the current trend of most games being buggy as hell, there is definitely something wrong somewhere. If a mechanic as simple as making a moustached plumber jump on the heads of mushroom-shaped enemies and uppercutting blocks for coins and power ups, in 2D or 3D, can STILL be a success in this day and age, then developers should look more to gameplay mechanics running efficiently than gameplay looking over-the-top to be honest.
I could point at Octopath Traveler being a simple yet great example: HD-2D style, slight change to RPG mechanics that at its core has been the same for years, and we got a masterpiece that may likely end up with its own universe as a result.
And this is a 7 year old game and its STILL loved! Just check out the video above if you can’t take my word for it. Chef’s Kiss! Super Smash Bros Ultimate may not be on par with games like Street Fighter 5/6 or Mortal Kombat 11 and above with regards to looks and technicality, but that never stopped it from becoming a worldwide phenomenon.
I think gaming hardware “advancement” could use a break to allow gaming “improvement” to take root for a while more. That’s even before we get into other costs involved that I have not the head for: production, marketing, shipping, distribution, etc. All these add up along the value chain and a chunk ends up on the consumers’ end with a price tag for consoles, accessories or games that either raises your eyebrows or makes your jaw drop (looking at you Bananza).
With the current global economic crunch to consider, game development, game distribution, game sale and game purchasing are all taking a hit especially when end users now have to weigh things between enjoying this favorite past time of theirs or making sure they have power or gas to cook the noodles that keeps them alive and have enough money to transport themselves from point A to B, C, J and S without weeping at night.
We won’t even delve into other countries outside of US and Japan that have to play the Dollar conversion game (yes, I do it and some scare me sometimes) to decide whether or not a game or accessory is worth their lunch for the next few days. Even Sales, which tend to save gamers from starvation and financial ruin, are not as great as they used to be and fluctuate a lot more between “Awesome!” and “…what??” Particularly First party Nintendo games. Whats a Gamer to DO now?
For most, a visit to the good old backlog would suffice. For the more determined, some patience and very VERY strict expense management diet may be the ticket to save up for that game on day 1. For others…some may just end up giving up on gaming entirely.
Till then, lets hope, save and pray that gaming isn’t lost to the category of luxury and eventually lost to a lot of us…
