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this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
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Gaming
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Me, I wish more games respected my time like that, instead of costing 40$ and going on 20% sale every few weeks, leaving me to hunt bargain bins to be able to get it at its "efficient" price.
For me the major red flag is the price going up for inflation. The game went up in price when it left Early Access already and that was 3 years ago. But now the game is being sold as a full game sure it might get updates but one can expect a finished product to at least stay the same price, not go up.
As for sales, at least on PC games are pretty much always on sale either through steam directly or from sites like humble or greenmangaming. You can pretty much pickup any not recent game for 20% off at anytime if you search gg.deals or a similar service.
Well, inflation is real. And they are using sales income to fund current development. That's as fair as it gets.
Would you be happy if they released it at 60$ and had periodic 60% sales?
Well yes, if you do the math it would be cheaper then the $30 price point it's been for years. Actually it adds up to the same as a 20% sale of the $30 price.
I get the point you make. I can accept a game that never goes on sale. The main problem I have is it increasing price after 3 years out of early access.
The game has gotten continuous updates increasing the scope, mod-ability, stability (to an absurd degree, even cross play between Switch and PC), target new platforms (it runs on Apple silicon natively now and they did a whole bunch of work to make it work well on steam deck), etc. of the game for those same 3 years. Yes, they did come out of early access, but their approach to the game hasn't changed significantly and it continued to get better with time.
They could have called this game done way earlier and released the work they've done since as DLC, but they didn't. Instead they have massively increased the value in the game over nearly 7 years since initial early access release at $20 and have since raised the price a total of 75% to reflect this. They even gave advance notice of the both price increases.
Wube is still working on the next release of the base game, and are also working on an expansion they say will be as big as the base game. Perhaps your argument against price increases holds sway as the expansion isn't being added to the base game, instead it will be $30 (or maybe $35 given the base game increase).
I have played this game far longer than any other, and keep coming back to it when it updates or for new modpacks which completely change the experience. I would gladly pay $35 for what is in the game right now. I can understand if the game isn't for you or the price increase turns you off, you don't have buy it. In fact, unless you can afford to not sleep for the next 3 days you shouldn't, as the factory must grow and you are running low on iron.
While we disagree severely, I am grateful to hear the "other side" in a civil discussion. I suspect the no-downvote policy of Beehaw enables this discussion and hope to find more of it.
I agree more with your earlier comments, and add that inflation is only one part of the equation.
Wages have been stagnant for a while meaning you may have the same income as back then that now has less purchasing power, and with rising prices you have less spending money.
If wages are stagnant like they have been for a while (at least in USA), money has less purchasing power and people have less savings/spending money. So I wouldn't call that fair, or at least not the in the sense that "we're just adjusting it". Raising the price in economic situations like this is squeezing the customers (whether it's intended or not), and I doubt most prices hikes with successful things are just to keep the lights on.
I think this was my main problem with the reasoning being inflation. Everyone focusing on the value of the game itself. My problem is when someone blames something on inflation I think everything goes up in price except my wages lol.
But that's not the factorio developers problem, that's your governments problem. So it's a bit unfair IMO to assign the 'blame' to them.
He didn't assign the blame for his wages not increasing to Factorio, though.
That's not quite what I meant, I meant blame assigned for them increasing their price.
The devs aren't exactly billionaires either, I'm sure their groceries went up as well.
Afaik it's not done being developed. Wube is working on another update for it still, while at the same time ironing out remaining bugs. Of course it's not as fast is it was before 1.0, but they're still chugging away at it.
Your red flag is a green flag for me. It tells me the dev set a realistic and fair price in the first place, and i don't mind the increase in price specifically because it's so cheap per gameplay/hour compared to any AAA title.
If the price was $100 it would still be the best value game i've every purchased... and i think i've spent at least that much buying copies as gifts
Not to mention the mods essentially infinitely expand the base game.
Everything about how the dev has done this has been a green flag in my book, as a consumer.
I'll support any company who makes an incredible game and charges a fair price without implement IAP and such.
I dunno, I don't really see it as "respecting my time." Historically, games like this have been hit or miss for me, so I never wanted to blow over $20 on it, and I certainly don't feel like $35. I would much rather just play something else I already own or can get for cheaper until I can buy the game on a whim instead of having to commit and play "check every nook and cranny for deal-breakers during the refund window."
I would also far prefer something like what BattleBit Remastered is doing. Game came out for $15, it's one of the best shooters I've played in years, so I bought the $20 supporter pack for some in-game cosmetics. Low entry price and rewards for further support. I fundamentally disagree with raising prices on existing products and hate this idea of price FOMO that has extended past early access.
Factorio is one of the very few games that has a demo though.
The free demo allows you to figure out if you enjoy the mechanics of the game, and if you don't, you do not end up with more bloat in your library.