August 30th 2024.
Baldur's Gate 3 has been making headlines recently for its unique approach in the AAA gaming space. With the ever-increasing development costs, the publishing director of Baldur's Gate 3 has suggested that every game should be priced higher at a base level in order to balance the scales.
It's no secret that the cost of making games, especially in the triple-A space, has skyrocketed over the past decade. This has resulted in studios taking fewer risks as one financial failure could potentially bring down the entire company.
While the base price of games has increased with the release of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, it hasn't gone up by much when you factor in economic inflation. As a result, many big-budget games are now sold in various special editions with added content such as season passes and pre-order bonuses in order to recover costs.
However, the publishing director of Baldur's Gate 3, Michael Douse, believes that the base level price of almost all games should be much higher due to inflation and rising development costs. In a post on Twitter, Douse pointed out the Ultimate Edition of Star Wars Outlaws as an example of publishers artificially increasing the price of games.
"I don't love the artificiality of pricing structures post-retail," Douse wrote. "Using an inflated base price to upsell a subscription and using vague promises of content to inflate ultimate editions just to make the base price look better all seem a bit dangerous and disconnected from the community."
Douse goes on to suggest that games should be priced based on their quality, breadth, and depth, rather than just fitting into established pricing structures. He also believes that the current trend of relying on DLC promises to inflate prices will only continue until a game like GTA 6 comes along and sets a new standard.
It's worth noting that Baldur's Gate 3, which recently came out of early access, also launched with various more expensive special editions. In a separate Twitter thread, Douse elaborated on the topic, stating that both Baldur's Gate 3 and Divinity: Original Sin 2 were priced below their value.
"Various people who are not very astute failed to understand that my point was perhaps $70-$80 games that function properly and have the content to back it up are better than buggy janky slop repacked with s**** skins for $120," Douse added. "The latter exists because the former doesn't."
According to Douse, the majority of development costs go towards salaries, which increase over the course of a game's creation due to inflation. This increase becomes even more significant towards the end of development when additional resources are brought on board to finish the project.
While some publishers in the AAA space are turning to AI and automation to reduce costs, Douse believes that this is only a short-term solution. He adds that these risk-averse strategies rarely result in better games and that if we want truly engaging and polished experiences, we need to be willing to pay for them.
While Larian Studios may be an outlier as an independent studio making triple-A games, others have turned to making mid-priced, smaller blockbusters to reduce costs. However, it remains to be seen if the development costs of bigger AAA games will eventually reach a breaking point, which could drastically affect the price.
For now, the trend of expensive special and ultimate editions is likely to continue. So don't expect to see many imitators of Baldur's Gate 3 anytime soon.
If you have any thoughts or opinions on this topic, feel free to email us, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign up for our newsletter. And for those who want to submit Inbox letters or Reader's Features, you can do so easily by using our Submit Stuff page.
In other news, fans have been roasting Xbox boss Phil Spencer for what they see as a betrayal over console exclusivity. Additionally, the highly-anticipated game Black Myth: Wukong has been indefinitely delayed on Xbox due to memory leak issues, according to an insider. And for those wondering, Xbox's Sea Of Thieves has reportedly hit over one million sales on the PlayStation 5, according to another insider.
Be sure to sign up for all the exclusive gaming content and get the latest releases before they're seen on the site. Your privacy is important to us, so we have a Privacy Policy in place to protect your information. This site is also protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
[This article has been trending online recently and has been generated with AI. Your feed is customized.]
[Generative AI is experimental.]
