AAA Videogames Are Too Expensive

Andrew thinks games are too expensive, and took it upon himself to find why

- Andrew Duncan

This has been coming for a long time, honestly, especially when Sony announced the first £69.99 launch titles for the PlayStation 5, making them $30 more expensive than the same game in America. It started before that, of course, with multiple editions of games, season passes, battle passes and microtransactions… But this sort of thing requires research, so the article had taken a back-burner.

But then Ubisoft had a sale. “Upgrade your favourite titles with new content” Ubisoft proudly proclaimed! While selling the Watch Dogs: Legion Ultimate Edition for £99.99, keeping those three characters, three outfits and six masks behind a £16 paywall over the Gold Edition. Of course, even the Ultimate Edition doesn’t give you the items stuck behind the in-game microtransactions, and on PC it doesn’t give you four weeks of “VIP status” or Watch_Dogs Complete Edition so that’s even worse value for money. When £100 isn’t enough money to get you every piece of content in a game, then it’s too expensive. Surely even people who are fine with £70 games can see that!

I’m not against people making money. I once had a lengthy conversation with the local comic shop proprietor, as I was curious how he converted dollar cover prices to pounds for sale. He made surprisingly little on each issue. But let’s talk videogames!