Games aren’t too cheap. Market size since the old days has grown astronomically. Execs appetites for 10’s of millions of bonuses are their problem, not the gamers. And that’s with current prices. The other problem is sheer availability and slop. Maybe also lack of being critical when consuming videogame content.
As per the article, the signs we’re seeing are that the market size has stopped growing, which is why something else has to give. Klima hopes that prices will be permitted to increase post GTA6 (I certainly don’t think so), but the situation is bleak for the industry if they can’t. Mathematically, executive bonuses are just not moving the needle, but cost of living in certain parts of the world is.
Bonuses certainly aren’t meaningless. CEOs (or at least one case) are trying to fake their employees out of bonuses. Billion value acquisitions aren’t helping either, these values all have to be recouped.
If market has stopped growing, it may also have to do with those living cost crisis.
Cash gravs from major companies aren’t working either (Sony and others). Those 400m holes again need to be recouped.
In the end I seriously hope that gamers won’t just swallow the expected increases. I know for a fact that I won’t. There’s plenty to play, I can wait years for the one game I wish for.
They’re not meaningless, but at a macro level, there are much bigger fish to fry. I know it’s ridiculous to see one person make tens of millions of dollars, but most of that is stock, and that person is typically responsible for multiple large teams. Even if it was all cash, a $10M bonus would instead pay for about 80 people in the US for one year, and it’s quite typical for a AAA game to have teams of hundreds. Meanwhile, your money will go twice as far in Asia or parts of Europe.
From what we’ve seen from other recent efforts to raise game prices, I don’t think we’re about to see one after Grand Theft Auto. The market expanded for years, in part, because prices rose so slowly relative to inflation. Sure, they found tens of thousands of people willing to pay $70 for an N64 game, but you might get hundreds of thousands willing to pay $40 for the equivalent game today. I think raising the price further at this point is going to end up cutting out the customer that this market expanded to, which is why prices aren’t going to go up, generally.
But then that’s still very bad news for the industry. One of the ways studios will survive in high cost of living areas is to scope their games down, but that’s going to make it tougher to compete with low cost of living areas and will result in job losses any way you slice it.
Sure, but that’s just natural in economy. There’s growth and then there’s decline. Constant development of games that are too large is not beneficial to anyone but few that actually have the time to play them. It will definitely be interesting to observe how this will play out.
Apparently there are lots of studies and calculations that indeed suggest games are overall way too cheap for the industry to be sustainable. I hear it from insiders again and again. From small indie studios to industry giants.
And many point their fingers at platforms like Steam to be the culprits. Steam in particular is pretty unpopular among developers overall. Looking at how competitive the market is and how many devs are pushed into burnouts in just a single production I tend to believe them. The current model does not seem to be sustainable for studios of any size.
That said, I think a lot of studios could try scaling down their productions too because I hear about feature creep from the same insiders just as much. They really need better planning.
Steam in particular is pretty unpopular among developers overall
Any hard data on this?
I’m doubtful there is like a ‘study’ on this but steam takes a 30% cut, which is absolutely massive considering its no secret plenty of developers say they really don’t justify it by having poor communication.
Unfortunately however, more importantly if you are a developer or create a project that is an easy target for bigotry you will see absolutely no help from the platform in protecting you. Which is crazy that you would be required to participate in the platform in order to succeed, then be abused on it and have the people profiting ignore you. (https://www.theguardian.com/games/2026/feb/16/bigotry-steam-pc-moderation-developers-speak-out)
Unfortunately however, more importantly if you are a developer or create a project that is an easy target for bigotry you will see absolutely no help from the platform in protecting you. Which is crazy that you would be required to participate in the platform in order to succeed, then be abused on it and have the people profiting ignore you. (https://www.theguardian.com/games/2026/feb/16/bigotry-steam-pc-moderation-developers-speak-out)
They could turn off the forums and run their own community, but they chose not to. That’s a conscious decision on their part.
I’m doubtful there is like a ‘study’ on this <…> its no secret plenty of developers say they really don’t justify it by having poor communication.
The claim parent was making is that the majority of devs feel that way. I doubt that, and would like to see some hard data else it’s just unsubstantiated claims.
I’m sure it stings to have Steam take a 30% cut (or whatever it is currently). I also think that developers have not fully factored the costs of keeping their own distribution infrastructure. They are free to do it, why don’t they? There are other platforms out there, why pick on Steam?
Because Steam is by far the biggest, with the longest reach. If you don’t chose Steam you will most likely automatically sell less.
So the cost of using Steam is worth it for the benefits of steam?
Apparently there are lots of studies and calculations that indeed suggest games are overall way too cheap for the industry to be sustainable
That’s really interesting. I guess it’s one of the few really competitive markets for digital goods in the world.
Do you have a link to one of these studies?
