The worth of a thing is determined by what people will pay for it.

No, that’s how price is determined, not worth.

I don’t think you’ll earnestly want to argue that 1 hour of movie entertainment is in general worth multiple hours of gaming entertainment

Depends on the movie and depends on the game. Some games with lots of content are good (if they’re well made), others are filled with trash content that is a waste of time to go through. Same with movies, there are some fantastic 75 minute cinematic experiences, and there are some that drag on for 3+ hours and do not successfully utilize their resources into a good movie. And vice versa.

but if you compare those of similar quality, the fact stands that the game will give you more for your money

If it’s a good game, sure, but we’re talking averages here and the average game is not good, so needing to play even more tedious uninspired levels doesn’t add any value, it in fact just makes it a bigger waste of time.

I gather that gaming doesn’t seem to really entertain you for the most part.

I actually love gaming, and I wish more consumers would have higher standards to not enable the terrible practices of the industry.

The average movie isnt worth ticket price either IMO, and length certainly doesn’t equal quality.

And I’d certainly say “most games” are absolutely not worth it, as the majority of games are simply lacking in terms of inspiration, innovation, compelling gameplay or story, or anything else to set it apart and give me a reason to play.

Choosing presentation over game quality is what caused the games industry to be bloated beyond belief.

I’m not talking about about adding hours, I’m talking about adding quality.

But at below AAA levels, I’m often served extremely well for $35.

yes, good games exist at that price point, but the average game is not good, and is not worth that.

You mention things like better resolutions, better frame rates, better voice acting, more modern, more better, etc, but none of those things are what makes games good or worth more money. AAA games with cutting edge graphics and star-studded voice acting are not automatically good games, and in fact it frequently has an inverse effect where focusing so much time and money on stuff other than the game leaves a shitty game that will be forgotten about in months; that would absolutely not be worth $30, despite having all your superfluous qualities

That used to be the norm, and we were happy with that

Then you should be supportive of deflation in the video game industry, instead of making excuses for why we should pay more for less

Video games are afraid to be only a couple hours because they are afraid of charging less than $10

If your game is short, doesn’t offer replayability, and doesn’t have any novel gameplay to truly set it apart, then youtube Lets Plays offer real competition of getting basically the whole package.

but if you multiplied a movie’s runtime by 2-3x for some extra production value in your game, you end up at that $35 price point easily for a game that’s 5-10 hours long

That’s making a couple assumptions though, that price point is for large studio releases and non-matinee prices. If I go see a movie on a Tuesday afternoon, it’s only $7, a perfect price for an average small game.

Even for a direct comparison to Atom RPG, I’d rather pay 2-3x as much for a Wasteland game to get what I’m looking for

Atom RPG isn’t exactly a Wasteland game, it leans pretty heavy on classic Fallout, which while inspired by Wasteland, have diverged noticeably in the end product. So if you wanted to get what you’re looking for in this case, Fallout 1 and 2 are $10 each, or you can get a bundle of 1/2 and Brotherhood of Steel for $20 (more like brotherhood of steal amirite).

That’s true, I’m using hours per dollar as a shorthand for value, but on the flip side if video games are going to be a couple hours of one-time fun, they gotta expect to have a price point similar to movie theaters which have a similar experience, which is like $10-$15

I’d gladly pay $30 if they are worth it, most games are simply not worth it. Recently I’ve put over 75 hours into Atom RPG the last two weeks, and it’s $15 full price, and the developers have released a spinoff and announced a new project, so they seem to be doing fine.

Hopefully you can sit down with a calculator and figure out that things can be better.

8 full time 100k salaried employees is quite a bit more than “small team.” Doom was 6 people. That many people are simply not required to make the games that are being produced; they can choose to size down any time they want. If they want to go “all in” on making a “AAAA” game, then they need to deal with that reality and make a game that is actually worth $60.

Their games ranged from $30-$50 and had every sale, bundle, giveaway, and promotional opportunity you could think of.

Perhaps that’s part of the problem? Maybe they should have priced their works more fairly from the start and not rely on bundles and givaways which surely aren’t going to make them more money.

My point is, the “average” game is absolutely not worth $30. Most games should flop because they’re overproduced trash, and we should return to smaller, more artistic-focused development with a smaller scale, more consumer friendly pricing, and where the (few) devs get more slices of their pie.

“Moderately budgeted” compared to what? Modern AAA game budgets have absolutely exploded and are not sustainable, turning game dev cycles into 5+ year marathons and giving it Hollywood Syndrome where every game needs to be a blockbuster to be considered a success and no risks are able to be taken because of the massive investment each project requires. Do you think that’s sustainable? Or do you think that perhaps things have gone out of control when a $90 price point is being floated, even in conjunction with money printing anti-consumer features like lootboxes?

“Compared to the rest of the industry” is damning with faint praise.

I’d say most games are maybe worth $20, more only for the ones filled with content that you can replay many times.

Perpetual software bloat should not be encouraged; idling at 2GB is fucking insane