Okay. It’s done. The floodgates were holding all the pressure they could. The pot was ready to boil over. The One Ring with ancient Elven dollar signs etched into it was just too tempting for the big boys in suits. Triple-A games have just had another significant jump in price. The catalyst? The plumber.
Mario Kart World, the long-awaited follow-up to Mario Kart 8, is $80. All we needed was someone to do it, someone to take the plunge, and now the others will follow.
This Isn’t The Beginning, And It’s Certainly Not The End
There have been conversations around game pricing for a while now, specifically involving Rockstar’s next behemoth, Grand Theft Auto 6, and the ‘worth’ of the game to consumers. Back in 2020, with the launch of PS5 and Xbox Series X, we saw games jump up to $70 as standard, with the majority of triple-A titles in the following years doing the same.
Games like Demon’s Souls and Spider-Man Remastered set the stage, and from Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart to Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, our wallets began to cry a little bit more with every new game that was released.
Just this year, we have analysts saying publishers are hoping GTA 6 sets a new standard of costing $100, all so they can follow suit and begin asking the same for their games. Since this, it feels like there’s been a corporate-level standoff, a showdown at noon with their six-(figure)-shooters to see who takes the brunt of pushing prices forwards.
Well, Nintendo just did it. Casually. With Mario.
The red and blue plumber has been innovating since the ’80s, so why stop there?
We Can Voice Our Concerns, But It Doesn’t Matter
As much as we can complain and worry about this, it’s going to happen. It was always going to happen. We don’t get a choice.
Let’s not fool ourselves that people will retaliate and boycott anything – do you really think that people aren’t going to pick up a Nintendo Switch 2 and the first new Mario Kart in ten years? That people aren’t going to pay $80 for another janky Pokemon game? And even then, do you really think that people aren’t going to pay $100 for GTA 6 and skip the game that is probably one of the most significant franchises on the gaming food chain?
Yeah, we’re consumers, and consuming is getting more costly.
We’ll see the price, we’ll cry, we’ll pay it, and then we’ll thank them for the opportunity.
While there are conversations to be had about how much more expensive games are to make – at least when triple-A publishers are involved with totally necessary budgets – and just how many years they’ll be worked on, I don’t doubt that Pokemon, Mario, or Grand Theft Auto at half that price would struggle to break even.
It might take longer, sure, but GTA 5 is supposedly the highest-grossing piece of media ever. It hasn’t sold nearly as many copies as Minecraft, but it holds that title because of triple-A pricing and numerous forms of microtransactional income in GTA Online. I give it two years before GTA 6 takes the throne from its predecessor – maybe even less. Hey, at $100, let’s play it safe and say one week.
In an industry that is so shaky and lacking job security despite being a leading form of rapidly growing media, seeing $100 or even $80 was never going to be taken well. If we could be sure games were launching at a more consistent quality, or that various factors were appropriately taken into consideration regarding the price, or even if the extra funding was going directly to developers and the people who put their hearts and souls into the work, it would be an easier pill to swallow.
But it’s not. There will still be layoffs. There will still be mistreatment. Except now, consumers will be poorer, developers will be pushed harder, and the men in their suits will get bigger bonuses to pat themselves on the back while their growing salaries continue to be the only thing to reflect any of the success in this industry.
