Back in 1996, the in-house developers at Nintendo unveiled Super Mario 64 to the general public. The launch title of their ambitious new N64 games console, it was, at the time, the most graphically advanced and sophisticated game ever created. The team behind it numbered some 50 people, and it took around three years and the equivalent of $3.5 million to produce.
Fast forward to 2018, and we find Rockstar Games similarly bringing to completion what was widely considered to be the largest and most impressive game release in a generation. However, Red Dead Redemption 2 required 8 years of work by over 2000 people, and its development costs ran to over $200 million.
That’s a price increase of over 5000% in 22 years – or 255% a year. Naturally, while most games represent significantly smaller productions than these two landmark titles, it is broadly indicative of an undeniable fact – games are becoming more expensive, both to create and to purchase.
In fact, modern triple-A games are increasingly likely to retail for $70. Even when correcting for inflation, this is a sum that puts them out of reach of many prospective gamers. Fortunately, however, the games industry – which recently broke $300 billion in annual revenues – is not only bigger than ever but more diverse.
That means that in spite of the fact that major productions such as Cyberpunk 2077 are always going to demand a steep asking price at launch, there are many alternatives now available to gamers who don’t want to foot the bill for these productions. Some of these alternatives, as we will find, are both more lucrative for developers and substantially cheaper – or even free – for gamers.
Curated Promotions
One of the most reliable ways to save money on games is through affiliate offers and marketing promotions. It can be easy to assume that these are merely freebies in many cases, but in fact, they form the backbone of how certain sectors create discoverability for their products.
This is the case with the iGaming market, for example. Patrons of real money casino games are accustomed to seeking out platforms through reputable comparison directories that collate and review high-quality gaming providers operating in a given region. This is the case, for example, with CasinoBonusCA which strives to provide a competitive offering of quality platforms within Canada.
To this end, it and many directories like it offer a range of welcome bonuses and sign-up offers for consumers to benefit from. One can make meaningful savings on these titles by shopping around for specific offers that suit your individual requirements. This makes such platforms virtually indispensable to the budget-conscious gamer.
Free to Play
This refers to a monetization model that started life with Valve’s popular esport, Dota 2 which pioneered free-to-play back in 2012. Since then, it has become incredibly successful and commonplace, with many games – particularly those associated with the battle royale genre – adopting it.
With a free-to-play game, players can access all the basic features and mechanics of a game free of charge, as the name suggests. Developer funds are recouped instead through the sale of seasonal battle passes and through the sale of microtransactions focused on customizing your character and weapons.
Where these differ from so-called ‘play to win’ games and other freemium titles is that all purchasable items are purely aesthetic and do not confer gameplay advantages. This means you can pick up and play and reach the advanced stages of a game without ever having to spend a dime!
Cloud Gaming
Cloud gaming represents a sea-change in the way we play and purchase games. This is because rather than purchasing physical game discs or even downloading games, with cloud gaming, you stream them directly over the internet. This confers a number of advantages to gamers.
For one, it means you’re no longer restricted to the hardware you have on your end. Cloud-based games can be played on any internet-connected hardware, even an old smartphone or laptop.
This can result in meaningful savings as one needn’t buy a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X|S in order to play next-generation titles. What’s more, certain cloud gaming services, such as Xbox Cloud Gaming, offer a rotating selection of 200+ games for a single monthly subscription fee. This delivers incomparable value without having to sacrifice access to the latest triple-A games.
