Is it though? IMO video gaming is fine, in a great spot, even. Consumer prices have stayed (unreasonably!) cheap for decades and especially the indie market is thriving right now. I remember paying more for games 15 years ago than I do now.
But I primarily play indie titles on Steam (currently Silksong), so that might warp my perspective.
Regarding commoditized nostalgia: I don't think pricing is that unreasonable. For instance, I'm pretty happy with the current state of Age of Empires 2.
> For instance, I'm pretty happy with the current state of Age of Empires 2.
Terrible example IMO. Microsoft has both disabled new purchases of "traditional" Age of Empires 2 on Steam and also spitefully patched out offline LAN play.
So when I can get enough people together about once a year to have a LAN party and we want to play AoE2 it's either everybody pays $35 each for the "definitive" edition, so we can play for just a couple hours, or else we just don't play it at all because not everybody even has a Steam account never mind their own gaming computer. And Steam also nuked the ability to buy multiple copies of a game when it's on sale and keep them to give as gifts later.
To compound this, because I only own the old edition (that nobody can buy anymore) and not the new one, I can't even leave a negative review (where it will actually be seen) warning people of Microsoft's shitty behavior.
Indie's great. It's what things should be. But the things that put bread on tables for the industry as a whole, that's just monetized to all hell at this point.
I'd argue that recreational products (which video games very much are) should remain unreasonably cheap. I get screwed on every other aspect of existence, the thing that I use for an escape shouldn't replicate this.
Is it though? IMO video gaming is fine, in a great spot, even. Consumer prices have stayed (unreasonably!) cheap for decades and especially the indie market is thriving right now. I remember paying more for games 15 years ago than I do now.
But I primarily play indie titles on Steam (currently Silksong), so that might warp my perspective.
Regarding commoditized nostalgia: I don't think pricing is that unreasonable. For instance, I'm pretty happy with the current state of Age of Empires 2.