Unless they've got an instant breakaway hit (which not even Factorio was), they'll see a ho-hum launch week in terms of purchases and an almost complete flat-line beyond that. Consumers are trained to wait for the sale. And so if they want to eat and have a roof over their head, there's only one option left. It's a vicious cycle, and very few are in a position to try to break it.

It's not exactly the same thing, but itch.io allow developers to have a "reverse sale", where the price goes up for a given period. It was mostly a joke feature, perhaps intended to provoke a little thought about sales culture.

I did not think that through.

Oh well, exclusive Lemmy access promo I guess. I'll throw the Escapist an extra $10 on their next donation-enabled stream as an apology.

Ah that makes sense!

Not necessarily. Its also possible to view unlisted videos using a frontend like piped AFAIK

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.

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.

I cannot think of a game that has better value for money than Factorio.

Rimworld. It's the only other one I can think of that people play for insane hours, it's still my most played game and I've barely touched it in a long while, I think I have 1400ish, my boyfriend has over 3.5k hours

$35 being reasonable is an understatement. Most people take 50h to get through their first "full playthrough" and the replayability is limitless. Then there's free workshop content that'll take abase game and add another 200h onto it (Space Exploration, Krastorio, Sea Block, Bob's, Angels, etc)

Plus: They still have a free demo with no time limit too. You get exposed to the core loop within five minutes of playing and you'll know if it clicks or not for you before you even have to buy.

I bought the game at $25 but I'd buy it again at $35 and not regret anything...

The quotations was due to the fact that no other digital only game increases it price after release because of inflation. I get the devs are updating the game still, but the price of the base game shouldn't go up with time. But that's just my opinion.

They probably used quotes because it's only one part of the equation. 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.

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. Which is the big issue now with rising inflation and record profits.

Ok, I've watched the video. I will admit I had not known about the g2a thing. While I get the sale thing a little more. I still don't see the inflation point. I get it's to continue development and such but it's only affecting new users and in a way making it harder to buy the game at the best time. Imagine if I hadn't heard of this game until it went up to 35 bucks. Sure they say the best time is now, but now this fomo is also into play as a result of the price increases this game will possibly get.