CharlesGrey: Eh, I dare say you're generalizing a bit too much there.
Anamon: Of course, yes. But I'd say that it's still very slim pickings these days, compared to when I started PC gaming about 20 years ago. We had lots of bad, non-fun games back then for sure. But the incentive for developers was always making it at least
seem like it has a ton of great, fascinating content, so people would buy the expensive box, as there was no easy way of squeezing out more money later.
You're right about price/value. But that was also kind of my point: I bought many $1 to $5 mobile games that I definitely think were worth their money. But I also used to pay $80-$120 for a new PC game in the 90s, and those were
also worth their money. As you say, today even €35 seems like a very steep price for a game, and most people aren't likely to buy it unless it's at a 50% or more discount. What I miss are the games that
cost $120 and always convinced you that they were actually
worth $120. Because I would spend hours on the fat printed manual alone, and still be playing it years later. I can think of maybe a handful of games from after 2010 that had that potential for me.
I'd say full-price video games purchases have always been a hit-or-miss affair. I've been playing/buying video games since the late 80s/early 90s myself, and I remember many of the games I had back then were certainly not worth their purchase price. Of course we also had limited options to research the quality of a game, unless you were able to give it a test run at a friend's place or directly at a store.
Overall I'd say you're actually more likely to get your money's worth when you buy a brand new AAA game now, compared to the past, because they tend to be bigger and have much greater production values than older games. You just have to make sure you're not buying one of those stinkers, which only exist to fuel the sale of DLC, lootboxes, microtransactions/in-game auction houses and so on.
The bizarre thing is, many of my favorite PC games are actually games I bought at a steep discount, while some games I bought at full price turned out to be disappointing ( No Man's Sky, or the recent Call of Cthulhu game ). On the other hand I also bought some full price AAA games which were absolutely worth the money ( Witcher 3, Dark Souls 3 ). You just have to do your homework, and not fall for the hype surrounding the latest big name game releases. At least it's easier to research a game these days, thanks to online reviews, youtube videos etc., and Steam's refund policy adds another security layer.
I almost forgot one thing: You're right that older retail games, especially PC games, often delivered much better value compared to modern digital distribution. I remember my box of Ultima IX came with a cloth map of the game world, some tarot cards, a printed manual, and a bunch of other goodies. And some of the old SNES games also came with big game guides, or occasionally even soundtrack discs.
