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this post was submitted on 01 May 2025
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$80 on release day. $60 a month later. $40 a year later. $20 a year after that.
What you're paying for isn't the game, its the hype. An enormous component of a modern AAA game's budget is just advertising. That's what your $80 is going towards. You're paying to have people tell you to buy it.
Even assuming you don't feel like pirating... Just be patient, play something that came out a few years ago, wait for the next Steam Sale, and own the game for pennies on the dollar.
An enormous component of anything is advertising, I don't see your point.
Relevant XKCD.
I agree with the first paragraph, not the ones after
https://mainleaf.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-market-a-video-game/#elementor-toc__heading-anchor-0
As a rule of thumb, you're looking at 25-50% of a AAA game's budget going to advertising. So a $40 game becomes an $80 game in large part because the publisher is putting out $10Ms-$100Ms just to raise name recognition and build hype.
Except that if no advertising is done, the game's sales are probably a lot lower (which is why they do it). If the game doesn't do well initially, it's less likely that you'll find it years later as well