Welcome to Inside Games Daily, the only gaming news show. Brave enough to say that games are just too expensive, Lawrence. Nobody’s ever said that. That’s right. We’re the first ones and the bravest ones. The price is too damn high. Uh we’re taking a break from our usual corporate shilling to uh to be on the side of belleaguered gamers for a second. Really though, uh there’s some interesting trends specifically this year and in recent months that really start to paint an interesting picture about the shifting cost of games and the reasons why that’s happening. Yeah. So Nintendo fired a first shot by announcing the Mario Kart World would retail for $80 and literally nobody liked it. I mean, we’re we’re talking everybody was mad about it. Uh since then, Xbox not only raised prices, but also announced that they too would start selling $80 games by this holiday. Mhm. And then GTA 6 just got delayed. I think even on the current timeline, everyone was probably expecting that to cost 80 bucks. Now that it’s pushed into next year, everyone has a whole year to push prices even higher. So, the gamers have had enough, Bruce. Our wallets are stretched thin. And actually, it seems like there is some movement and trends that indicate that people are tired of these high prices or just can’t afford to pay them. Yeah, that’s true. Writing for Bloomberg, Jason Shrier connects recent price hikes to a curious development. Uh, the three highest reviewed games of 2025, according to Metacritic, do not cost $80, obviously, or even really $70, which was actually the new retail price. Yeah, those three games specifically are Clear Obscure, Expedition 33, Blueprints, and Split Fiction. Those games are 50, 30, and 50 respectively. Uh, Split Fiction even has a friend pass. If you buy it once, somebody else gets to play through it all the entire thing with you. And yeah, those other games offer a lot of value and specifically uh kind of stand out in the crowd. Char notes that these games apparent financial success connecting that to their riskier concepts that help them stand out in a crowded and higher priced market. Uh, so again, Assassin’s Creed Shadows has been one of the top selling games, but it’s not one of the highest rated games, which may be due to the fact that it’s a Ubisoft game. Not necessarily that it’s a bad game. Um, cuz I enjoy it. A lot of people have, but it’s Ubisoft. Nobody likes to give money to Ubisoft. It’s also a game that was probably worked on by hundreds and hundreds of people, making it a far more expensive and riskier prospect. But we’ll get into those dynamics in a second. Yeah. Shrier uh concludes all these observations in a headline that says, “Players have too many options to spend $80 on a video game.” And uh you know, as games enthusiasts, I certainly feel that way, Bruce. I’m I’m sure you do, too. Especially when these games don’t look like they’re 80 bucks where I mean, Mario Kart, it’s just Mario Kart, man. Uh so yeah, in the games market is super super crowded. Uh I think we’ve seen anecdotally some evidence of that. Uh EA recently had a lot of layoffs and canceled a lot of projects and that was after a couple of financial quarters where let’s say the traditional and safe games Dragon Age Veilgard EFC just did not capture people’s attention and actually had a bit of a drop off. Yeah. But there’s more data that does not reinforce the notion as cleanly. Uh Circana executive director and video game industry analyst Matt Piscatella hits us with some other stats, namely sales. All right, Lawrence, give him give him the sales. Yeah, this is always the depressing thing. H we can we can get up in the headsp space and the review scores and the positive social media, but when the money hits the table, these are so far the top three bestselling games this year. Monster Hunter Wilds, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, and Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered. M Well, two of those cost $70. Uh all of them are obviously known franchise. This is one of my favorite things about uh existing IP, movies, television, video games. It doesn’t matter what it is, books, everyone’s always like, I want original IP and then they never pay for it. So, uh uh and then the the existing IP always makes the money. So, it’s kind of one of those things that we as consumers have to decide together that we are only going to give our money to the original IPs and not the MCUs of the world, but we keep going back to the MCU. So, I think yeah, I think it’s a side effect of there it being a crowded market. Uh it’s the thing you remember. It’s the thing that’s familiar. Now, uh, we’re not saying that those games don’t deserve those sales, I think all those games are are pretty awesome, uh, in their own way. You know, Assassin’s Creed Shadows kind of wore out pretty quick, but it’s gorgeous. Anyway, I’m getting off on a sidetrack. And while we’re still in the realm of like evidence that doesn’t necessarily support this notion that gamers are outpriced, which too, you know, there was a lot of anger about the price and the accessories, but everything flew off of shelves as fast as it possibly could. Um, it is the first pre-order wave. I saw people even circulating headlines that even the Wii U’s pre-order sold out and that didn’t turn out super well. So, the real price or the real test of the Switch 2 is probably going to be next year. Still, everybody’s burnt out on paying high prices and yet everybody’s flopping on the table to buy a Switch 2 and all these $80, $70 games, excuse me. So, what gives? What uh like we can feel that there’s a sea change happening, but we’re still seeing some disperate performance. We’re in a state of transition basically. It is worth noting uh one of those games in the top three that sold Oblivion Remastered was not $70. It’s 50. It’s also a Game Pass 2, but um 50. So that makes sense that it it broke it pretty fast being the cheapest game of the three. Um and also Lawrence, I’ve seen a million comments on our YouTube uh that always say the same thing. Those Switch 2 pre-orders are scalpers, Lawrence. They’re all scalpers. So maybe they’re all scalpers and they’re not actual people that want to switch to. I don’t necessarily subscribe to that, but that’s what a lot of people say. Well, we’ll find out if um if if people That’s going to be really sad if scalpers buy them all up and then people buy switches above retail. That’s going to be even more evidence that actually people have plenty of spending money to go around. Uh what would be really funny is if the scalpers are sitting on a ton of stock they can’t move and then they have to sell them under retail. Uh, so maybe we’ll be the beneficiary if there was a mass scalping wave. Maybe we’ll all be the beneficiary of that. All right, so going back to the fact the games industry really is in transition right now. A lot of people have been talking about how AAA might be changing because it’s so bloated. Uh, Fred of the show, Alana Pierce covered this trend in a recent video pulling data from Matthew Ball’s state of video gaming in 2025 presentation. It’s actually a super fascinating presentation. Goes way into depth on a lot of the trends we’re going to summarize here in a minute. We actually went through this uh on a podcast a while ago, except we were kind of focusing on the PC bits because that’s specifically what I’m a dork for. I mean, we’re both PC gamers, but long story short, uh the extended growth of the industry, and I mean like since the ’90s, decade over decade, was just getting bigger and bigger, outpacing growth in any other field really, in addition to the COVID spike. So you had a long period of outrageous growth and then a period of hyper hyperrowth led a lot of analysts to just follow the line and say like oh the industry is just going to keep blowing up. Of course it it didn’t. Co stopped. We all went outside and there’s a very a variety of other reasons. Uh yeah the investors bought into this whole thing of the fact that uh the industry was going to go up and up and up forever and ever. They were wrong. Um obviously what a what a surprise. And then growth plateaued and all that money got yanked out. And that’s what you’re seeing now with all these layoffs. Like we’ve been seeing layoffs for years because because all these [ __ ] idiots thought it was going to grow forever. Like what the what a dumb [ __ ] thing to think. Well, we won’t say that analysts and and investors are necessarily always the wisest, huh? Uh apparently the trend is while games used to be the hot investment, now it’s AI. So that’s another thing. But all that investment is mostly at the top of the top like the games that get heavily invested into and also expect heavy returns back which is why you see AAA shifting to things like games of service. Uh none of that worked. So So now at the end of the line AAA games basically have to raise their prices because their market’s not growing and the market they have is not producing more money. Yep. Uh there are various reasons for this. Obviously service games like Fortnite and Roblox just gobbling up players and then holding on to them for years. Once you’re in that ecosystem, you’re in that’s it. Yeah. Uh social media use is growing and there are just not enough new players being born ironically uh right now. So that’s the that’s kind of an interesting thing. Yeah. That’s that’s only in the context of of number go up. You actually need bodies coming in earning revenue and spending them on on microtransactions. Uh so in this market where the traditional model of hyperinvesting into a AAA game that produces hyper returns is not working anymore. Suddenly, what has worked really well is games that have a smaller staff, so a smaller budget, smaller investment. Uh they can choose to make a more vibrant, risky, or interesting game because they’re divorced from this investment culture. Yeah, lesser startup costs means the game can be riskier in its approach like we saw with a Blue Prince or Expedition 33. Um, also, as we’ve seen too, risky games are more distinct. They stand out from the safer and more repetitive games from the bigger publishers. Now, those are the ones selling the repetitive games, but they don’t stand out as much. They’re not going to win the awards. They’re not going to gather all that social media clout, the whole deal. Uh, this is coupled with the fact that, like we referenced earlier, PC has been one of the few growth platforms through this period of plateau. Uh, which has made an amount of investment money slash into the PC scene, which has has been great for me and great for Bruce, I think. Uh, but there’s a new business model here. Uh, it allows you to make a lower budget game because you has have less staff and you can distribute it to an audience that is actually growing via a digital distribution service that’s taking less and less of your revenue. Yeah, I just I just read this. This is super cool. Great for developers. Uh, just recently Epic announced that they will charge a 0% store fee for the first 1 million in revenue per app per year. So, if you’re a developer and you make under a million dollars, they’re not going to take a cut at all. Yeah. It makes it a zero risk proposition to have your game on Epic. While this isn’t exactly recent and it is kind of connect connected to Epic, Steam also adjusted their revenue splits back in 2018 to take a smaller percentage on games earning over 10 million and then $50 million. I think they wanted to attract the bigger ones like the the revenue games that they also get a cut on. But yeah, they have their cut scaling down as the game earns more. Right. So Epic is trying to get the indies and Steam’s trying to get the big AAA. It’s very interesting. Um, so really honestly, what does this all mean for you, Lawrence? What does this mean for the consumer, the person who’s very mad about the Switch 2 pre-orders uh that are from scalpers? I think what I’m going to further contextualize it and I’m going to get a little generational about it. Um, cuz I see a lot of frustration from the people that like the games produced under the old model, which is to say the big investment, big brands from the 2000s. Basically, Mass Fett, you know, Boware games, uh, Gears of War, like all the console AAA from that space. Bad news, they’re dead. the the industry that funded them and made them in the format that they were has shifted. Uh so you probably knew that already though. There’s a lot of frustration out there about how games aren’t as good as they used to. That’s true if you’re only looking at yeah the topline console AAA stuff. But there’s a massive opportunity for those who actually want to move on and graduate their tastes a little more. uh these smaller, more vibrant games, they break through. They make loads of money on higher margin. Um and they generally, like we said, are creatively more risky and they have kind of a singular vision and got a smaller team. It’s just it’s usually a a really cool uh more creative project. Yes. Which uh is the kind of project that kicked off this story, the Blue Princes, the uh Clare Obscures. So, we we bang this drum a lot on this show, but if if you’re burned out on on the gaming experience or if you think it’s too expensive, uh give up on AAA, try and get a PC. I know that like too expensive, get a PC. They don’t mix very well, but there’s some budget options out there and it’s a great way to get started. I think if you’re going budget PC though, you will have to roll back your presentational expectations a bit. I mean, Steam Deck is the best way to do that. It’s cheaper than the Switch 2. Yeah. And then, I mean, you can play most of these indies. I don’t know about Expedition 33. Um, I would assume it’s got to run on a Steam Deck, but regardless, I know Blueprints will. Um, and there are so many of these amazing indies that will run on a Steam Deck. Uh, and that’s 400 bucks. Yeah. I mean, I I was playing Expedition on the Rag Ally, which is 450, but we got the Switch 2 coming out that’s supposed to run a lot of AAA stuff, too. So, that and that kind of links into another question that I had there. there is a a glimmer that the traditional AAA consoles we or the traditional AAA games we love could come back in their big bombastic form and that’s specifically if Switch 2 or GTA 6 or both bring a lot of players and money and line go up back to that expensive AAA console experience. Bruce, do you think that’s going to happen? I don’t think Switch I don’t think Switch 2 is going to be the change. No, I do think I do think if anything it’s going to be GTA. Um I do think GTA like hilariously GTA got me thinking. I was like damn I got to buy a PS5 Pro. I was like I was like crap like I don’t want to do that but I have to for this game that’s coming out in May of next year. It’s almost like like we’re a year later. So, um, so it’s it’s funny that it’s even got me looking to spend a bunch of money on a console that I’m never going to use except for the one game. Um, so GTA to me is the is is what’s going to bring people back to that uh bombastic form. So, I don’t think that’s going to write the ship though. I think this GTA is just going to be an outlier. Uh, and then we’ll continue on to the path that we are on right now, which is everybody plays Fortnite. Yes, that’s that’s what I think a lot about. What is the game that’s going to get somebody away from playing Fortnite and back into like a general games ecosystem or I think make them spend their evening playing GTA 6 instead of flipping videos on TikTok. Uh I Yeah, GTA 6 I wonder if cuz it’s been so long since GTA has been a thing. Part of me wonders if it’s gone the way of Dragon Age. You know, there’s just a new audience that doesn’t care. I think us, by that I mean millennials, we’ll always care about GTA until we’re dead. But I don’t know if that necessarily means growth because the the babies are all wrapped up in Roblox and Tik Tok and and uh and and there’s there’s some market data to to prove that out. That’s not just me shaking my fist at a cloud. Um so yeah, I’m going to be really fascinated. To me, that’s the Switch 2 connection if it pans out this way. is that uh kids that grew up with a Switch, they’re now in their 20s, they get a Switch, too, and they’re back into the ecosystem of looking at a store that has traditional console games on it versus um I don’t know, yeah, spending their evenings with Tik Tok or god forbid going outside. Nobody’s going to do that, Lawrence. We already know that. No one’s going to do that. Yeah, they’re going to they’re going to play Roblox and only Roblox for a thousand years. We’d like to shout out Shaky Pants, a very special patron that supports the Inside Games Patreon every single month. Uh, and they’re a wise investor since they’ve invested in this show and they would the line only goes up over here on Inside Games and they know that we’re never going to see a decline. That’s right. That’s right. If you if you value your internet money, put it behind Inside Games and check out the Inside Games Patreon. Uh, there’s some fun over there. I post a Lawrence Select weird internet image of the day. That’s all publicly viewable, by the way. So, if you want your your best image ever, go check it out. But, uh, thank you very much for watching. And man, I don’t know. It’s It’s weird to be depressed and excited about games at the same time. You know, it’s kind of like real life.