In the shadow of Microsoft's announcement that some first-party games are going to be priced at $80 this holiday season, Jason Schreier tweeted a classical dunk-style joke on Bluesky.

As Xbox announces that it's raising game prices to $80, the three best-reviewed games of the year so far are $50, $30, and $50 image — Jason Schreier

I respect the joke. There is truth to it. I have become a Frenchman myself and love the fact it only cost me $50.

But the joke stirred up my feelings on review scores, game pricing, and the quality of games. Quite the time to stir the pot too. Current gen consoles are having their prices increased. Nintendo cannonballed right into the deep end when they announced Mario Kart World would be $80. Then Microsoft will be raising the price of some first-party games to $80 too. GTA VI will cost $7777.99.

When you throw in the astronomical budgets of games, ballooning development teams, cancelled games, studio acquisitions, studio shutdowns, and, you know, the rest of reality into the mix—feelings stirred become feelings boiled over.

It is no secret that I think games should be more expensive.

One look at inflation alone will tell you that games are priced fairly to what they were just eight years ago; if your definition of "fair" is maintaining the illusionary $60 price tag. I think games need to be more expensive! I've been saying this since 2017 when it dawned on me how much value and time I was getting out of the likes of The Witcher 3, Breath of the Wild, and Red Dead Redemption II.

Is Forza Horizon 5—a 92 on Metacritic—worth $60? What about its $80 and $100 versions? What about Diablo 4, which sits at a 91? What its "worth?" The MSRP has said $60 for a long time. GameStop would say $54.99, used. Steam in the summer would say $29.99. The dollar value drops the moment the cellophane is peeled off.

Is Hollow Knight worth $15? The indie darling sits at 90 on Metacritic with 40+ hours of content, give or take. Team Cherry should charge more!1 Is Nintendo Switch 2: Welcome Tour going to be worth $10? Probably not. Was Ocarina of Time worth the some hundred bucks I spent to get a copy with most of the cellophane still clinging to the box? According to inflation, yes? 🤷🏼‍♂️

Yet (as long as you can actually play the game) the experience remains the same. The potential playtime and enjoyment is the same at $60, $80, $100, $55, and $30.

The same applies to review scores themselves. Sure, the games in Jason's little tweet are inline with my personal taste. Those scores are probably accurate given I like the respective genres. But is Diablo 4 a 91 to me? No way. Flight Simulator? 91? Not a chance. DOOM: The Dark Ages? Get that outta here. There's no price for those is worth my money and time.2

Is Breath of the Wild still worth $60? Is it worth $70 for the Switch 2 Enhanced Edition? Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is sold at $59.99 and that game essentially came out in 2014? To me? I'd probably find a clean used copy at my local shop if I had to buy them today, but not far off—Mario Kart World notwithstanding.3

I think about the price range of the current console landscape. It's never been this wide; never this approachable; never this daunting. Adjusting my footnote from my PS5 Pro deep dive, here's the breadth of today's console pricing.45

Switch LiteSwitchSwitch OLEDXbox Series SSwitch 2PS5 DigitalPS5 DiscXbox Series X DigitalXbox Series X DiscPS5 ProXbox Series X 2TB
$199.99$299.99$349.99$379 .99$449.99$449.99$499.99$549.99$599.99$699.99$729.99

Games have a similar range; and have had so for a much longer time. The indies own the low end: the low end being $0 to $40 (There's probably a $40 indie, right? What does an "indie" mean these days anyway?) The "AA" market seems to be filled with games like FPMS (first-person magic shooters), French RPGs, and Italian mob sob stories. AAA continues to climb and be semi-variable. Donkey Kong: Bananza is $70. Mario Kart World is $80. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is $70, although they'd like you to buy the $80 deluxe edition. Then there is Game Pass with its alluring $20/m price point. Who knows what a AAAA will truly cost?

I'd be remiss to forget the free-to-play titans of the industry as well. Battle passes may not be included, but the cost to play is just time—our most valuable commodity. Throw in that cross-play is table stakes now, playing with friends is not necessarily barred by platform.

Ol' Nintendo of America President Doug Bowser talked about variable pricing in an interview with The Washington Post last month.

"What you see right there is variable pricing...We’ll look at each game, really look at the development that’s gone into the game, the breadth and depth of the gameplay, if you will, the durability over time and the repeatability of gameplay experiences.

Those are all factors, and there’s many more that go into consideration of what is the right price point for the game. So I think you can anticipate that there will be variable pricing, and we haven’t set a benchmark"

Sure, there's some trained interviewee, presidential, marketing, damage control strategy going on—the pricing reveal was not received well—but it does make sense. Microsoft saying some first-party titles. Nintendo is playing with it. If I was a betting man, Sony's next big Studios title will be priced higher.

My buddy Razbuten published a video titled The Best Games are Kinda Bad that uses Tears of the Kingdom as a launch tower into thinking about review scores, a game's scope and reception. Big-ish block quote coming up.

"Everyone has a different standard for which they rate things by, and without the context of those standards, a number doesn’t properly convey anything meaningful. Truly, it is useless if you don’t know about the person assigning it and what went into their rating.

This is why I find Metacritic scores, both critic reviews and user reviews, to be wildly unhelpful. You get out of context aggregates of out of context review numbers, and while I do enjoy seeing developers celebrate when their work gets high marks, it doesn’t really tell an accurate story of how the game is being received." — Razbuten

Numbers are meaningless without context. What is my 10/10 could be your 3/10 Context is crucial. Context is key. Context is king.

To riff off this scene from the 1982 film Diner—which is a meta thing to do given the quote itself—we have to consider the dev, the player, the year it was made, what games were copying each other, who was expanding upon that.6

The score is never just the game. It's never just the price. It's a messy amalgamation of countless factors, moods, decisions, ideas, vibes, and market research.

I think a lot about my review of Below at DualShockers, probably more than any other review I've written. It was my first committed shot at a rogue-lite (rogue-like?). I was not good at it. I became frustrated. The game had technical difficulties and obtuse design. I landed on a score of 6.5/10.7

But I was also in the thick of a socially draining holiday season. I was playing on an Xbox One. I got the game early and felt a pressure to deliver a review worthy of the hype surrounding Capybara Games' hot new game for the Winter of Arcade. I got sucked into the social machine. Urgency is not compatible with rogue design.

The further from Below that I get, the more fond of it I become. I suspect there is a rose tint to my thoughts. I was just not compatible with the game at the time. But, I'd argue that my review has value. It's a moment in time. It's a snapshot of Capy's design and direction. Just nine months later Capy released Grindstone on Apple Arcade. It's a tiny testament to my mood the Xbox One (why did I trade my entire PS3 collection for that VHS-player-sized monstrosity?)

My review/return to Death Stranding fits the bill too. I was frustrated by the early game and then heard discussion complaining about the slightly later game being more cumbersome. I checked waaaaaaayyyy out.

Then six months later, I came back, tweaked the game's settings along with my expectations. I approached delivering mail across America with a new mentality. I fell in love with the game. If I reviewed Death Stranding at launch, I would not have been kind. Perhaps forcing myself to slog through could have changed my tune, but I can't be sure. Coming back six months later changed my entire relationship with the game.

Death Stranding is a game where Shigeru Miyamoto’s love for exploring became fused with Kojima’s wacky narrative and dedication to intricacy. It’s not a game for everyone. It was the game for me at this point in my life though. It was worth the wait, even if I came to the party six months late.

We—consumers—give review scores too much power. Review scores give audiences the illusion of power; at least they give the vocal minority that illusion.

Review bombing is audiences flexing a limp noodle of a muscle to squeeze a developer. Sometimes the squeeze is enough though. It almost always causes a story.

Metacritic averages can dictate deals. They can shutter a studio. Mock reviews can influence design. That focus on scores and awards can be a blessing and a curse. I recall stories of Naughty Dog delaying TLOU to bring the mock score up or their absolute obsession with making Uncharted 2 a peak title worthy of all the awards.

They reduce an experience to a number; years of work to one number. We just look at numbers. What's the score? What's the price? If they overlap in the right way on our personal Venn Diagram, then we might proceed.

"And to be clear, that's not a judgement—I’m guilty of this too. It makes me fundamentally sad that in 2022 Stray won Indie Game of the Year over Tunic. And Neon White for that matter. And frankly, also Sifu. And, you know what, also Citizen Sleeper, which wasn’t even nominated for the award but that’s a different crime Geoff Keighley has to answer for." — Razbuten

Stray's win isn't Geoff's only crime. I went back in annals of Games of the Year. I looked for the "indies" that were nominated or that won. Geoff has quite the rap sheet.

YearSpike VGAs / TGAsDICEGameSpotIGN
2010Angry Birds HD
2011Portal 2
2012Journey and The Walking Dead, Season 1JourneyJourneyJourney
2013The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
2014
2015
2016InsideOri and the Blind Forest
2017Player Unknown's BattlegroundsInside
2018CelesteCuphead
2019ControlInto the Breach, Return of the Obra Dinn
2020HadesDisco Elysium, Outer Wilds, Untitled Goose Game
2021It Takes TwoHades
2022Stray (Indie Game of the Year, Not GotY)Inscryption
2023Alan Wake 2Stray, Vampire Survivors
2024BalatroCocoon
2025Balatro

Again I ask: What does an "indie" mean these days anyway? Are Control and Alan Wake 2 indies because Remedy does it themselves? What about PUBG? I threw Zelda on there because it was a $39.99 3DS game in a year with BioShock Infinite, The Last of Us, and Grand Theft Auto V. It Takes Two's studio Hazelight just put out Split Fiction, one of the games from Jason's tweet, and that now has a movie deal.

What does "indie" even mean?

Also...Where. Were. The. Outer. Wilds. Nominations?

This is retroactive outrage. I'm guilty of it too Raz.

Now that I've come back down to a simmer...good joke Jason.

We each have different gauges. "We are a world of different audiences."

Quality ≠ Price ≠ Score. Sometimes the perfect storm comes through like an Unreal Engine 5 French RPG that takes over the conversation and only costs $50 and has engaging systems and plot. Other times, two of the three are ticked. Sometimes none are ticked, but you love the dev team behind it and you play anyway.

We have to vote with our wallets and time, not the metacritic score. We have to find people whose opinion we value and trust. We need to explore and experiment. Go out on some whims.

I wouldn't have picked up Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 if it wasn't for the fervor that told me to take a closer look. I always go to Digital Foundry first and light up when John or Oliver are behind the review. I wouldn't have played Outer Wilds if it wasn't for the likes of Raz, Javed, and Wiz. Heck, dunkey has me curious about zoom DOOM.

The whole point is...find people with tastes and opinions you trust. They may not be the same as yours, but you trust them. Don't rush to the end of a review. Read it front to back. Watch it stem to stern.

And selfishly, I hope I can be one of those voices for you. ✌🏻🫡

Footnotes

  1. I am curious what Silksong will cost. ↩

  2. Okay. I'd dabble with DOOM: The Dark Ages at a steep discount. ↩

  3. Which I am buying physically at $80 instead of the bundle with the discount. ↩

  4. Those PS5 consoles may see a hike soon in North America. 😬 ↩

  5. Had to include the 2TB Series X pricing because it is still funny that it is now more expensive than a PS5 Pro. Must bask in the hilarity while one has time. ↩

  6. Does acknowledging the meta-ness negate said meta-ness or does it just create cringe? How cringe is this footnote? Too meta? ↩

  7. What even is a .5 in a review? Like, what does that accomplish expect convey an indecisive nature? ↩