Every once in a while, there is a point where you start questioning the number of game releases. Despite numerous layoffs, studio closures, and project cancellations, more games are releasing than ever before. Even more concerning – in a good or bad way, it’s up to you to decide – is how many are worth playing. For every Monster Hunter Wilds or Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, there may be a StarVaders, a Blue Prince, a Keep Driving. And that’s not accounting for that backlog you’ve been meaning to clear for a while now, even as you add on to it with every sale.
Having such a wide variety of releases isn’t all bad – gamers are a diverse breed, after all, and the more choice of quality titles, the better. And despite Mario Kart World serving as the frontrunner for “Most Abrupt Leap to the $80 Price Tag” this year, other companies have been hesitating to jump on the same train. Even Microsoft decided to dial things back and price The Outer Worlds 2 for $69.99. Microsoft, for crying out loud.
Regardless, there is a range of games worth playing, and the single-player genre is no exception. You can pick up rogue-lites, top-down 2D adventures, sandbox craft-a-thons, massive role-playing games, dice-based sci-fi narratives where choices matter or base management survival games where you’re your own best friend (and worst enemy). That’s before getting to the more “traditional” $60 segment, which offers acclaimed titles like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, and so on.
And yet, the year belongs to a peculiar price segment, one that would be considered double-A in previous years (with no small amount of disdain). $49.99 – It sounds so strange that such an arbitrary price could yield some of the best games this year. It started with Hazelight’s Split Fiction, which ironically was priced higher than the studio’s previous title, It Takes Two, by $10. Nevertheless, it sold more than four million copies in two months, becoming a much bigger success.
Things really kicked into gear with the launch of Clair Obscur: Expedition, Sandfall Interactive’s debut role-playing game. The combination of stellar art direction, a compelling story and characters, a fantastic turn-based combat system, and that soundtrack which has to be heard to be believed – all of this made for an experience that many already consider to be Game of the Year. Ironically, the story is on the shorter side for the genre – about 30 hours or so – compared to, say, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Yet, combined with the extra content, the price point felt even more attractive (and that’s keeping in mind that those who enjoyed Rebirth feel it’s absolutely worth the $70 asking price).
Then there was The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered. Granted, it launched with no small amount of technical issues, bugs and performance quandaries, especially on PC, but the remastered visuals, combined with the excellent value for money, helped it stand out. Consider that it’s available on Game Pass, and yet it still moved enough copies to become the top-selling title in the United States thus far. Maybe it was the perfect storm of hype, and the $49.99 price was simply the cherry on top.
Ready or Not launched on consoles for the same price point. Either due to the lack of squad-based tactical shooters, a craving for a proper SWAT successor, or because it’s a very good game with robust single-player and co-op, it became a success. Over two million sold in about two weeks – not bad at all.
Then you had Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, which garnered some good reviews despite performance problems on PC, and now, Mafia: The Old Country. For the former, the price point makes some sense – it doesn’t boast the highest production values, especially in the visual department (despite some solid art direction). It’s also Leenzee’s first action RPG – even if it offers about 40 to 60 hours of gameplay for the average player, the lower barrier to entry makes up for the lack of brand recognition.
In the case of Hangar 13’s prequel, a story that finally takes us to San Celeste, which we’ve only briefly visited in past titles, it’s somewhat more baffling. Mafia has some name value, and the presentation, from the cutscenes with their performance capture to the visual fidelity and music, screams “triple A.” Perhaps it’s because the team focused on a safer gameplay loop and didn’t attempt an open world like Mafia 3. It probably translated to a lower budget and thus, a lower price. You wouldn’t guess it from the level of quality on display, though.
Maybe there’s no particular rhyme or reason why certain titles retail for $49.99, or even why several of them turn out so well. Teams with more focused visions for their titles are definitely a big contributor, but that’s only one part of the equation. They still need to execute on that vision over a fairly long development period. Maybe that’s what makes the price so attractive for some developers, especially when they’re taking bigger risks compared to major publishers. As for the likes of Mafia: The Old Country, it could simply be some measure of caution on 2K’s part, given how long the franchise has been dormant and the mixed reactions to Mafia 3. The fact that it offers such an enjoyable experience for its price is a bonus.
Amid all this, Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter offered an interesting take to GamesRadar – that video game pricing right now is “a little Wild West” and there’s no clear standardization, as was commonplace in previous generations. Furthermore, the titles which are priced on the higher end are those with “super dedicated fan bases in general, where price sensitivity, particularly at launch, is very low, meaning that people want to play this game no matter what it costs.” That would certainly explain why, despite mixed reactions to Mario Kart World’s pricing, it still became a massive success with 5.63 million sold in its first month.
Perhaps the appeal of so many $49.99 titles is that they feel like they’re worth more than that price. That a developer could realistically demand more, and yet, they don’t, and even avoid shoving microtransactions, battle passes, and other nickel-and-diming to make up the difference. It’s not a guaranteed winning formula, and time will tell if Mafia: The Old Country is justified in pursuing that price when it could have sold for higher and arguably earned more revenue per copy sold. But the fact that it’s a trend is something worth celebrating.
Personally, it feels like the perfect middle ground between more experimental concepts, stories and ideas, while still offering the presentation, scale and fidelity that triple-A titles used to be renowned for. Value is subjective – that will always be the case, and there are plenty of $60 to $70 titles which have provided dozens of hours of entertainment for fans. Even the expectation that a title could offer that much is enough for some people – just look at the hype surrounding Battlefield 6.
However, with so many titles launching yearly, it’s nice to see some of them catering to my interests at such attractive prices. Maybe there won’t be dozens of new, similarly priced turn-based RPGs with incredible storylines, but the fact that we still got Clair Obscur means there’s hope for the future.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.
