Then, responding to those who have said he’s “only doing this for the money", Szymanski tweeted: “Yes, no fucking shit. I make games for a living. If I didn’t want to earn money from them I wouldn’t charge money for them.”
The game follows the premise of being trapped in an underwater submarine out of necessity to capture deep pictures.
Yeah, I dunno how fairly to price a video game. But it’s kind of interesting that price increases on some things are universally seen as bad, but when a video game developer does it (irrespective of how much money they have), everyone suddenly becomes the most staunch Ayn Rand free market capitalist in a way I don’t think they would be if their local plumbing company or restaurants suddenly raised prices 20% and said “no fucking shit, I do this for a living”.
It was a big thing with the Disco Elysium game, wherein the creators by all means did every single possible move to maximize their personal profits and ended up having it come back to haunt them, and basically everyone said they were being exploited by this horrific system because they’re vaguely communist game developers.
Again, it’s not to say that David shouldn’t price his game at $8 or that the DE guys didn’t get fucked, but it’s interesting how political views become flexible based on how much an audience likes a guy.
I realize this is grounds for the most downvoted comment on Lemmy. That’s fine. It is what it is.
You’ve left one thing out of your little “everyone is a libertarian when it comes to video games” theory there - I’ve never heard of the game, never heard of the dev, I am very much left leaning and I support the dev’s decision to raise the price of the game by 20% if that’s what they want to do. If it’s worth it, people will still buy it. If it’s not, they won’t. This is hardly some AAA publisher pulling a bait and switch during pre-orders. The game is out and available, anyone unsure of it can easily read reviews, watch videos of people playing it, etc and of course, they can also do a refund.
That’s fine. It’s not really a flaw in my statement. I assume you’re also fine with increases on most goods and services then on a somewhat “at will” / free market basis. My comment only refers to people who are often staunchly against such practices but make a “hole” in this view specifically for video games / media
I believe the prevailing opinion is that price increase for anything is fine as long as it goes towards the people doing the work. Increase a game’s price so the devs get better pay? Cool. Increase the price of bread so that bakers get better pay? Cool. Increase the price of anything so that shareholders get better returns? Not cool.
Yeah, the other comment mention about AAA game increasing price from 60 to 70 and “no once cares” and it’s fucking bullshit. Everyone would be in arms if it happens to a game that’s already released.
What they usually do now is selling it at 80 from the get go but it’s another discussion. People go in arms when a game DOESN’T go into discount after some time ffs. The usual expectation is for a game to go cheaper overtime, not more expensive.