EA had an investor's call yesterday and they mentioned the possibility that they would launch their Nextbox games for $70.

So, what is EA smoking and can I have some?

Well, I don't think I'll be getting anymore EA games. $60 is already a lot, but $70? Come on. Why are prices increasing? Is it because it's Nextbox? The only EA game I'd look at is Sims 4 (if they ever release/make it) but it's PC. Bad enough they pillage your pockets with microtransactions.

If only that were the only reason not to buy their sh*t.

There's plnety I could say... but I don't think I need ot rant anymore.

Nope. Nope nope nope. Nope. Nope.

I say nope, but it's still cheaper than games were in the 90s.

Maybe if EA wasn't one of the biggest offender of "buy an expensive game, comes with a super thin plastic case and a sheet of paper for an instruction manual."

But not near as good. Final Fantasy VI is still every bit worth the 80 dollar price tag when it first came out.

Exactly. And people are already pretty "eh" about paying $60 for new games. Games not by EA, like especially xSEED and otherwise oftentimes come with extras even for $40-60.

And every other electronic medium has been going down in price. EA is whack, yo.

Every other electronic medium, except handheld gaming. I may not remember game prices during the S/NES and early N64 days, but I definately remembering the average price tag of a Game Boy game being $30 at one point. After the GBA came around, the prices have went up.

True. I can't speak for that, but I doubt they're going to use any media more expensive than what Sony is using, and those are so far known to be $60 on PS4 games.

Also this:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/02 ... only-iaps/

Not a huge surprise, but ugh.

“We’re building into all of our games the ability to pay for things along the way, either to get to a higher level to buy a new character, to buy a truck, a gun, whatever it might be, and consumers are enjoying and embracing that way of the business.” -EA’s Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen

A by-product of voting with your wallet. This is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. Nobody actually LIKES this. And if they do buy anything, it's usually begrudgingly. But all EA sees is sales numbers. So they just assume this is what people like and want more of.

Someone get me a chainsaw, this club isn't working well enough on this dead horse anymore.

They're not smoking the green, but they're seeing a lot of another type of green.

Fact is, and we all pretty much know this, EA is going to keep doing what makes them profitable until it stops being profitable. Whether it be DLC or online passes. Vote with your wallet, I like that.

Paying $70 for a game is rediculous, I've bought $60 games and never completed them and in some instances never even opened them. That's on my part, but unless a nextgen game is part of a new IP or has enough content to back that price up, I'll avoid it like the plague. Just need to ask though, is this raise in price due to high development costs?

You know, the reason why SNES games were so expensive back then was because there was a full hardware development that went behind making carts. There were circuit boards and chips that needed to be soldered down. Lots of resources. Not to mention the actual casing.

These days developers just burn their games on discs that cost what? A few cents?

Depends on the game.

I know that GTA IV was developed for $100 million. And Star Wars: The Old Republic was even more, but I don't know the exact number (150 to 200 million from what I've heard).

I can't imagine any AAA game being too cheap either. I'm sure these are factors in raising the price.

Though we can just wait for price drops. I do that all ready. It's why I'm just now playing Mass Effect 3 and Borderlands 1.