As an indie dev, this article is fucking stupid.

Want to know why indie games are priced at $10 to $15? Becaue AAA has been putting everything they've made in the last decade on Steam and it's all going for $20 - $25.

Indies can't launch at that price point anymore because they're competing with AAA games from 10 years ago that have been discounted to death.

The Steam winter sale is the best example of this, where most people will buy RDR2 for $19 instead of the new mega hit indie that's $20. So indies have been lowering their price to actually get sales. That's why team cherry priced Silk Song at $20.

Basically, AAA is now just competing with the bottom part of the market they spent that last decade flooding.

They're complaining about people actually choosing where to spend their money wisely because that means they might actually have to make a good product if they want to sell a game for $70.

If you sell me a good game at a reasonable price. I will buy it. Otherwise, fuck off.

CEO and C-suite bonuses are the biggest budgetary fat that never gets cut and is fundamentally what the excessive costs are paying for. If you want better sales, cut the wage and bonuses to said roles who do the least work and reap the most reward.

Piracy is free. If you're charging 70usd for a game, then I'd rather just spend the time and pirate it. If it's 10 bucks, Im just lazy to do a Google search and pay you for it.

Almost all of the "Top 10 most replayable games" I have are Indie games, especially in the last 10 years.

They're games like Factorio or Project Zomboid which I keep getting back to a year or two after I last played so much of it that I got fed up.

Glitzy AAA open-world-ish games have beautiful visuals but their replayability is near zero, worse so for games which seem open-world but are in fact linear.

Mind you, some older AAA jewels in that style (such as Oblivion) do get me to come back eventually, but it takes something like 5+ or more as I basically have to forget most of the story before it's interesting to play such a game again.

If Price matched "Hours of Fun", almost all of the AAA stuff would be way cheaper whilst many Indie games would be far more expensive.

Charging anything is tricky.

I'm comparing it to what I could be getting for free, either with torrents or emulators.

Most games being released aren't even worth my time, let alone my money.

Buying power is down. If they want me to spend more, capital has to pay me more.

Always compare value and price.

More often than not, AA games seem to come with a AAA price tag.

I've got to be honest, the price of a game is probably the least important factor on whether I make a full price purchase.

I'm not going to rush out and buy something I've no real interest in. I can count on one hand the number I've made this generation. On PS2 I'd be grabbing something every week or two, but now I just can't get excited for the latest and greatest updates on old formulas. Half the time I buy just to encourage them to make more games like that, like I did with Talos Principle 2, Astro Bot and Split Fiction.

I might pick it up later if I feel inclined, or see it on a decent discount. Like Clair Obscur, that I picked up for £29 in a sale just because I remembered it existed and fancied something to play over the winter holiday.

I had to drop my “under 5 bucks” rule because games don’t drop that low anymore. 10-15 is where it’s at now, for better and for worse

Not only that, but charging full price for a game and then charging $15-20 for cosmetic DLC is fucking wild. If I've paid you $60+ for a title, I expect the full experience. If you want to add some shit a year down the line to lengthen the life, I'm on board, but day one DLC that costs more than the base game was played out the moment Bethesda graced us with horse armor. I've gotten more joy out of Vampire Survivors than I have out of any Ubisoft and EA games in the last 20 years combined.

Thing is, I can also NOT play games and spend my money on other hobbies.

The game must be a GOTY contender or I'm not gonna pick it up at full price. I have no issues paying up for a new, unique experience that sounds exciting. Games I know I like, but rehash an old formula land on the wishlist until they are 30% off. Games that look cool, are recommended, but I'm not sure I will like them land on the wishlist and need to be below $20 when I buy.

With these simple rules I still have too many unplayed and unfinished games in my library, so... yeah.. you gonna have to take some risks to win big.

And compared to the 10 year old titles on sale that actually work well and look great on 5 year old mid-range HW...