Trying to explain to gamers why the low prices they already pay are not any higher than they used to be is a fool’s errand.
This point is valid. The context it’s missing is that you used to be able to walk down the block and rent a game for the weekend for $2. Most people didn’t own a bunch of $100 games back in the SNES days. I had 5 or 6 I think, and that was the most out of anyone in my friend group. I would usually get one game per year. Now, I have nephews who get a new game every month, sometimes even more. I did have Super Mario Kart though.
The color scheme you chose is horrendous IMO.
is this including the new tariffs?
there’s inflation, then there’s unchecked, unregulated greedflation. We’re dealing with the latter these days
But the wages didnt increase as much as inflation.
Inflation as a whole is not a good metric. There is inflation for groceries, materials, etc. but there was no inflation for games.
This is an ad to prep people for 80$ digital games.
Fuck me. How many more ways can you visualise the price of Mario games?
*“The problem with Reddit is not the number of bots, but the number of people whose behaviour is indistinguishable from bots.”*
Can we get a graph that depicts the console game market value adjusted for value? Or perhaps the net profit?
I am pretty sure original Mario Kart on SNES was not a sub-$50 game on release.
Just looking at price doesn’t tell much.
Game companies back then were much smaller with lower budgets, a smaller user base, and the physical cartridge was quite pricey.
Many factors made it so you had to sell at a much higher price to turn a profit.
In the 1980s, word processing software sold for hundreds of dollars.
Now in days a small indie group can turn out a quality game for 20 dollars that would be similar to Mario Kart.
The higher prices are not because developing is expensive.
Now do the average salary adjusted for inflation.
Booooo don’t use logic booooooooo
It’s asinine to even bring it up, but maybe a few bucks off digital copies.
You can’t compare the cost of consumer electronics to inflation, however. As technology advances, the cost to produce something decreases over its lifecycle. Look at the price of TVs, for example. A tv that used to cost thousands now costs hundreds.
I’m happy for you Nintendo fans, please keep being yourselves.
Yeah but back then you could just give your game to someone else
Now? Not anymore
I paid almost $60 for Final Fantasy VI in the mall in 1994.
People are just glomming onto this stupid inflation narrative.
Look, “inflation” in the video game industry exists because consumers have shown they’ll pay whatever price. That’s because, in fact, they have money to pay it.
Don’t give me this “I can’t afford it” maybe YOU can’t, but probably you can, and you’re just complaining. Prices are high because people continue to buy things at high prices. When the economy is actually bad and people actually can’t afford things, prices go down.
But my fellow US voters griped about “but muh inflashun” for two years, elected a dictator out of spite, then went on to break records in holiday travel sales because they were just so poor and couldn’t afford anything.
Grow up.
Sincerely, a person living in a country with real inflation
The economy is crashing and all redditors can do is try to gaslight us into thinking $90 for a physical game isn’t ridiculous
It wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the fact that the price of games never goes down anymore in part thanks to digital.
Sure a game was expensive at launch but you could rent it for a few bucks then wait and buy it used
This topic has been visualised twenty different ways in the past 48 hours alone.
But has anyone done a sankey??? Noooo!!!
Now someone add average income so we can see how expensive things were relative to how much money people were typically bringing home.
Forgot the average Americans income. That’s stayed the same.
![[OC] Every Mario Kart game launch price adjusted for inflation (USD)](https://www.europesays.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/4f4ec67v4wse1-1920x1024.png)
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Source: On image
Tools: Keynote
Trying to explain to gamers why the low prices they already pay are not any higher than they used to be is a fool’s errand.
This point is valid. The context it’s missing is that you used to be able to walk down the block and rent a game for the weekend for $2. Most people didn’t own a bunch of $100 games back in the SNES days. I had 5 or 6 I think, and that was the most out of anyone in my friend group. I would usually get one game per year. Now, I have nephews who get a new game every month, sometimes even more. I did have Super Mario Kart though.
The color scheme you chose is horrendous IMO.
is this including the new tariffs?
there’s inflation, then there’s unchecked, unregulated greedflation. We’re dealing with the latter these days
But the wages didnt increase as much as inflation.
Inflation as a whole is not a good metric. There is inflation for groceries, materials, etc. but there was no inflation for games.
This is an ad to prep people for 80$ digital games.
Fuck me. How many more ways can you visualise the price of Mario games?
*“The problem with Reddit is not the number of bots, but the number of people whose behaviour is indistinguishable from bots.”*
Can we get a graph that depicts the console game market value adjusted for value? Or perhaps the net profit?
I am pretty sure original Mario Kart on SNES was not a sub-$50 game on release.
Just looking at price doesn’t tell much.
Game companies back then were much smaller with lower budgets, a smaller user base, and the physical cartridge was quite pricey.
Many factors made it so you had to sell at a much higher price to turn a profit.
In the 1980s, word processing software sold for hundreds of dollars.
Now in days a small indie group can turn out a quality game for 20 dollars that would be similar to Mario Kart.
The higher prices are not because developing is expensive.
Now do the average salary adjusted for inflation.
Booooo don’t use logic booooooooo
It’s asinine to even bring it up, but maybe a few bucks off digital copies.
You can’t compare the cost of consumer electronics to inflation, however. As technology advances, the cost to produce something decreases over its lifecycle. Look at the price of TVs, for example. A tv that used to cost thousands now costs hundreds.
I’m happy for you Nintendo fans, please keep being yourselves.
Yeah but back then you could just give your game to someone else
Now? Not anymore
I paid almost $60 for Final Fantasy VI in the mall in 1994.
People are just glomming onto this stupid inflation narrative.
Look, “inflation” in the video game industry exists because consumers have shown they’ll pay whatever price. That’s because, in fact, they have money to pay it.
Don’t give me this “I can’t afford it” maybe YOU can’t, but probably you can, and you’re just complaining. Prices are high because people continue to buy things at high prices. When the economy is actually bad and people actually can’t afford things, prices go down.
But my fellow US voters griped about “but muh inflashun” for two years, elected a dictator out of spite, then went on to break records in holiday travel sales because they were just so poor and couldn’t afford anything.
Grow up.
Sincerely, a person living in a country with real inflation
The economy is crashing and all redditors can do is try to gaslight us into thinking $90 for a physical game isn’t ridiculous
It wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the fact that the price of games never goes down anymore in part thanks to digital.
Sure a game was expensive at launch but you could rent it for a few bucks then wait and buy it used
This topic has been visualised twenty different ways in the past 48 hours alone.
But has anyone done a sankey??? Noooo!!!
Now someone add average income so we can see how expensive things were relative to how much money people were typically bringing home.
Forgot the average Americans income. That’s stayed the same.
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