Cue derision for Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot justifying Skull & Bones price point as being worthy of a AAAA game. For a game that is mechanically less than the game that spawned the idea 10+ years ago (Assassin’s Creed 4). I mean, fine, there are bound to be games out there that are such high quality and value that the top-tier price tag makes it arguably (and I will argue this) worth it, but that demographic is clearly suffering from some mental delusion applying such justification to Skull & Bones.

Preamble complete.

It is no mystery that the cost of everything is up, game development included. That trend was clear well before the pandemic, and isn’t helped when waiting 2-3 weeks after a release gets you a game for 20-50% off (35% off in the case of Skull & Bones!) The proliferation of Unity and other game engines, as well as hundreds of tutorials has democratized game development – anyone and their grandmother can give it a shot. Steam launched 14,451 games last year. What the actual hell?! Actually finding a good game in that pile is all but impossible, meaning lots of budgets on marketing (Dave the Diver!) or simply hoping that word of mouth is enough (Valheim!) Games should not cost $200m to make, they should not take 10 years to reach market.

Different that any other form of media, games in nearly all cases have improved content due to patches. What you’re paying for is effectively the privilege to test the content, and to a degree avoid FOMO. Even when looking at Game of the Year candidates – waiting a few days pays off. Alan Wake 2 is an absolute banger and still it had some rough spots that needed a few patches to iron out. But for every Alan Wake, you’re going to have to parse through piles of Suicide Squad.

In today’s hyper-connected world, it takes very little for the target audience to get a good sniff of a game prior to launch. A high price tag and zero reviews before launch, or extremely limited media attention are massive red flags. No news, in this case, is often bad news.

Next up is Capcom taking a mighty risk pricing Dragon Dogma 2 at top tier. Previews have been quite glowing, the character creator was launched early, and there is some relative positive track record here. That said, you’d be crazy to pre-order this game or any other. You’re not missing out on anything by not buying it early, and it most certainly will require some patches to be truly playable. Plus, you’ll save some dough along the way.

Markets only change when the consumers demand it. Time to start making small choices that will have major impacts.