The State of PC Gaming: Understanding the Shift in Prices and Business Models

You can shake a stick at now, lots of games are available for $59.99, which is a significant drop from their usual prices. However, I think it's a little bit harder to discover new games as a result of all of this. The abundance of options can be overwhelming, making it more challenging to find hidden gems. As a result, many people, including myself, are more willing to wait and look for deals on lower-priced games. I believe that many people probably agree with this sentiment, which is likely contributing to the increasing prices of full-price titles.

The rise in game prices can be attributed to the fact that less people are buying games at full price. When a smaller segment of the market is willing to pay top dollar, it forces those who do buy at full price to pay more. I don't really know what the exact dynamics are behind this shift, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic in the comments section below.

However, there's an alternative approach that game publishers are taking: offering subscription-based services. We've seen big announcements from Apple and Disney about their upcoming TV streaming services, but if you take a closer look, you'll notice that game publishers like EA, Microsoft (via Xbox Game Pass), and Ubisoft (with Ubisoft Play+), are also launching similar services. These plans offer a huge catalogue of games to play whenever and wherever you want, often at a lower cost than buying individual titles.

These subscription-based services seem to offer great value, with many users finding them cheaper than purchasing individual games every month. While I'm not sure whether they'll save people money in the long term, it's clear that these services are changing the way we consume games. With big pushes from companies like EA and Ubisoft, it wouldn't be surprising if this approach becomes more widespread in the coming years.

So, what makes PC gaming so expensive? Some argue that console gaming is cheaper because consoles are streamlined to focus on one thing: gaming. They do it incredibly well, with a single box containing all the necessary hardware. In contrast, PC gaming offers a much wider range of options, from custom-built systems to pre-assembled rigs and everything in between.

This variety comes at a cost, as manufacturers need to make money from each component. I call this the "PC gamer tax," which is an inherent aspect of the PC gaming ecosystem. While it's not something we like to acknowledge, it allows us to build systems that are tailored to our individual needs and preferences. We're willing to spend more on PC gaming because we love the platform, enjoy building our own rigs, and appreciate the flexibility and customization options.

One aspect that sets PC gaming apart is its community. The passion and dedication of PC gamers are unmatched, with many enthusiasts creating content, sharing tips, and collaborating on projects. This sense of community is a major draw for new players, who may not be aware of the depth and richness of PC gaming.

So, what do you think? Do you agree that PC gaming is getting more expensive but doesn't necessarily have to be? Or do you think I've got it all wrong? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. If you're new here, I hope you'll join us, as I believe you will too.

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"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enis PC gaming getting too expensive I've been having these thoughts over the last couple of months where I've sort of gone you know what this is getting a little bit out of hand I've been playing PC games for around about eight years or so and I swear it used to be cheaper so what's changed and is it really getting a bit too much in this video I'm gonna go through all of the current aspects of PC gaming see how they've changed over the last few years and show you some easy ways to save yourself some cash but first this video is proudly sponsored by surf shop VPN surf shop is the affordable VPN service that allows you to browse privately and encrypt your data to help protect you online with over 1,000 servers across 56 countries your unlimited device license will let you browse almost anywhere from anywhere use code centric at the link below to get 83 percent off your personal surf shop plan and even get one bonus month for free start surfing privately today with surf shark VPN there's definitely a few different ways you can look at this are we comparing PC gaming to console do we already have a kickass PC and you just need it install a graphics card or are we talking about the price of the games themselves when I started making videos all the way back in 2012 and yes this was me what of it I was working part-time in my local supermarket and I was comfortably able to afford a couple of triple-a titles each month and then I was able to save up and purchase my own gaming PC and I definitely had to cut quite a few corners and I now I recycle this story quite a lot but if you are in the market for a new gaming PC and it's a brand new build you haven't had one before then it is actually worth considering getting everything that you need without the graphics card and then maybe saving up another month and getting that a month later and the reason for this is because then you're not cutting back on any of those other components you're still getting a computer you can play with assemble get the way you want but then not lose out when it comes to gaming performance because you just get that graphics card slaughter in and enjoy all of that sweet performance all in all I think I paid around about 900 pounds my first computer and allowing for inflation I think I can get a fairly similar relative amount of performance these days for that same amount so a 1,000 pound gaming computer should be able to play the latest titles at 1080p and 1440p without too much hassle and if you want to see exactly how well some of these builds will perform maybe what the games all look like or the FPS you can find a playlist of all of my PC builds that I've put together in the top right corner of this screen as well as in the end screen so would say that really at the lower end of the market not too much has changed in the way of what you can actually get for your money if you want to play 1080p games then you can still do that for a relatively affordable price but as we move to the luxury end of the market I think this is definitely where we see the biggest difference and I know I used this story a lot but my second graphics card I ever purchased was the best gaming graphics card I saved up over a month because I was earning around about 400 pounds a month and the graphics card was 420 pounds and I bought a GTX 680 and it was fantastic it did everything and I felt really important but then if you try and do that now you're looking at well over 1,000 pounds for an RT X 2080 TI which there is no chance I was gonna save up for almost three months just for one piece of graphics card that would be absolutely ridiculous so why is this happened well the story will change depending on who you ask if you talk to the silicon manufacturers and wager that they'd probably explain it something like this GPUs and CPUs are getting harder and harder to make as the dye size is getting smaller and it requires more money to plan produce and then gain high yields from and the jump from 1080p to 4k gaming is absolutely huge with the amount of computational power actually required to meet 4k gamers needs it just requires better chips faster and high-capacity memory and then better cooling solutions but if you talk to someone a little bit more cynical maybe like myself a couple years ago then I would say that it is all about business and marketing realistically there are more and more PC gamers now and with hit games like fortnight dota pudgie all leading the PC charge there's just more people out there with higher incomes that are willing to spend more on the stuff they love so why not keep the baseline quite similar to keep the customer base happy and then bring out products that are more powerful than before and increase the price until people stop buying altogether hahahaha but I think that the truth is probably somewhere between the two of those things because yes things are getting harder and harder to produce throughout more desires for more powerful hardware but likewise if there aren't many people selling this stuff and people have the money to actually invest in it in the first place and people are willing to spend the money on these things then it sort of does go hand in hand you've got people that want the absolute best and a willing to spend whatever they have I guess on it and then you have people that are willing to actually sell there so when you combine the two together it's not really that surprising that things are getting more and more expensive my advice is just to be very careful about any crazy new features that you might get marketed out for PC parts of games as they can actually often be smoke without fire take Nvidia r-tx for instance I think this is pretty much the infamous example as we all know how good the reflections can look but a couple of these epic screenshots are actually hugely different to actually playing the game at a smooth FPS with a huge visual improvement it might look good sure but I wouldn't say that these features are actually worth the upgrade cost themselves although when you factor in maybe the raw performance of the GPU itself it is a different matter another thing that we actually do need to consider is just about all of these new peripherals that are coming out and once again there are more PC gamers so there are more people that are willing to buy these products and I think everything has been hugely influenced recently by three letters are G B or if you're gigabyte RGB W but that's yes that's not relevant this may well sound quite silly to you but just look at mechanical keyboards they seem to have gone from around about eighty to a hundred pounds for a flagship to nearing 200 and this is all stemmed from the fancy lighting and extra features that most people aren't probably even gonna use don't mistake me here I think they're great unless certainly worth the money if you want the best keyboard for gaming that not only looks incredible but is built to last but there just are other things out there that are probably worth you spending your money on first part of the thing that I really do love about PC gaming though is the flexibility when it comes to choosing a display as if you're on a console you're probably gonna go for a 16 by 9 1080p or 4k television whereas if you're going for a more desk orientated setup you can have whatever monitor or monitors you so please again this seems to me like an area that's just got silly expensive over the last 10 years the idea of having a really pricey TV in the living room and an epic super-duper gaming monitor in the study is something that I think most of us just don't want to stomach if you're wanting to play on a fairly basic 1080p monitor then the cost isn't actually too much for a problem as you're looking at just over 100 pounds but something that is surprisingly decent but if you really do want the latest and greatest g-sync HDR experience it's over 2 grand this is crazy I'd say that the sweet spot at the moment is probably quad HD 1440p 144 Hertz as this allows you to not only get the sharpness of higher resolutions but to unlock the console beating refresh rates that really does take PC gaming to the next level it won't come cheaper around about 400 pounds but it will give you a great balance while being easy enough to drive without needing one of those insanely expensive graphics cards unfortunately though I would say that the games themselves have got more expensive which is definitely a little bit of a shame this definitely arise in free-to-play games and in-game purchases that can bring the price down with Fortnight pub G and apex legends all being prime examples of this but when it comes to triple-a I think we are in a little bit of a weird place right now take civilization 6 is latest game expansion gathering storm I really wanted to buy this but I saw it was $34.99 for an expansion and I remember playing $29.99 for a full fat PC game there's also more software launches that you can shake a stick at now lots of games or sell for $59.99 and I think it is a little bit harder to discover new games as a result of all of this I'm just far more willing now to wait a little bit get games at a lower price and I think that a lot of people probably agree with this and this is maybe why the prices are going up because less people are paying full price so the people are paying full price have to pay more I don't really know I'd be really interested to hear your thoughts on this one down in the comment section below is there anything that you're looking forward to and have you pre-ordered a game recently so okay what you save on free-to-play you're probably gonna have to reinvest into that real hit triple a big release that you've been waiting for but I'd say that even this is likely to change quite soon you may have seen the big announcements from Apple and Disney this year with their upcoming TV streaming services but if you look a little bit closer you actually see that game's publishers are doing the exact same thing ea have origin access Microsoft the Xbox game pass and Ubisoft you play Plus these plans give you a huge catalogue of games to play whenever and wherever and they seem to offer great value as they're usually cheaper than buying a full-price title every month whether it will save you money in the long term frankly I don't know but the game is definitely changing and with the big pushes that these companies are placing on the services I really wouldn't be surprised to see this approach take over in the coming years it definitely is a really interesting space I find all of this quite fascinating I do have a little bit of an interest in business and how it all works but while things may seem like they're getting more expensive and that things are changing that shouldn't be I would actually argue that it's not as much as you think it's just that there is more choice out there I think that the easiest way for you to save yourself some money on PC gaming is to work out exactly what experience you're trying to achieve then only buy the items that are going to provide that I absolutely love RGB fans fancy keyboards luxury gaming chairs but the reason that consoles are so cheap and sell so many is because they're just incredibly streamlined they do one thing gaming really really well and because there aren't any options to choose from any fancy features everyone saves money on the single box then they give their money to so Microsoft a nintendo via a cut of the game sales rather than Hardware alone and on the PC we just don't really do that and as such every piece of the puzzle needs to make a manufacture some money and I call this the PC gamer tax which exists whether we like it or not but ultimately it's what allows us to make something that console gamers just can't ever get the choice to choose what we want the only reason we upgrade our pcs spend all of this money on frankly very unnecessary things it's not because we ever have to it's because we want to we absolutely love the platform we're so passionate about it and having something that you've built from something that you're proud of something that does everything you want and more something you can just tweet all other settings on your game sort of sit back and go wow this looks incredible it's so many things like this that really makes up PC gaming is the community there is so so many things I really could talk about it all day I absolutely love it and if you join us if you haven't already I think you will as well just be warned that in a few years time it does get very tempting to get that a little bit of RGB I really hope you've enjoyed this video let me know your thoughts on it down in the comment section below do you agree with me that PC gaming is getting more expensive but it doesn't necessarily have to be or do you think I've got it all wrong really interested to hear your thoughts on this one a massive thank you for you guys for watching please hit like button if you've enjoyed it get subscribed for more videos and of course a massive thank you to surf shop VPN for proudly sponsoring this video having a VPN is so important that keeping yourself safe and secure online and if you like me and you're always using free public Wi-Fi then it really is time to start protecting yourself it is so simple to get started remarkably affordable and very easy to use thanks to the clean and fluid smartphone and desktop applications you can even multi hop through two different VPN servers four times when you're working with super sensitive information hit the link down below and use code centric to get 83 percent off your personal surf shark VPN plan you'll even get one bonus month for free a massive thank you once again to you guys for watching this video and I'll see you in the next oneis PC gaming getting too expensive I've been having these thoughts over the last couple of months where I've sort of gone you know what this is getting a little bit out of hand I've been playing PC games for around about eight years or so and I swear it used to be cheaper so what's changed and is it really getting a bit too much in this video I'm gonna go through all of the current aspects of PC gaming see how they've changed over the last few years and show you some easy ways to save yourself some cash but first this video is proudly sponsored by surf shop VPN surf shop is the affordable VPN service that allows you to browse privately and encrypt your data to help protect you online with over 1,000 servers across 56 countries your unlimited device license will let you browse almost anywhere from anywhere use code centric at the link below to get 83 percent off your personal surf shop plan and even get one bonus month for free start surfing privately today with surf shark VPN there's definitely a few different ways you can look at this are we comparing PC gaming to console do we already have a kickass PC and you just need it install a graphics card or are we talking about the price of the games themselves when I started making videos all the way back in 2012 and yes this was me what of it I was working part-time in my local supermarket and I was comfortably able to afford a couple of triple-a titles each month and then I was able to save up and purchase my own gaming PC and I definitely had to cut quite a few corners and I now I recycle this story quite a lot but if you are in the market for a new gaming PC and it's a brand new build you haven't had one before then it is actually worth considering getting everything that you need without the graphics card and then maybe saving up another month and getting that a month later and the reason for this is because then you're not cutting back on any of those other components you're still getting a computer you can play with assemble get the way you want but then not lose out when it comes to gaming performance because you just get that graphics card slaughter in and enjoy all of that sweet performance all in all I think I paid around about 900 pounds my first computer and allowing for inflation I think I can get a fairly similar relative amount of performance these days for that same amount so a 1,000 pound gaming computer should be able to play the latest titles at 1080p and 1440p without too much hassle and if you want to see exactly how well some of these builds will perform maybe what the games all look like or the FPS you can find a playlist of all of my PC builds that I've put together in the top right corner of this screen as well as in the end screen so would say that really at the lower end of the market not too much has changed in the way of what you can actually get for your money if you want to play 1080p games then you can still do that for a relatively affordable price but as we move to the luxury end of the market I think this is definitely where we see the biggest difference and I know I used this story a lot but my second graphics card I ever purchased was the best gaming graphics card I saved up over a month because I was earning around about 400 pounds a month and the graphics card was 420 pounds and I bought a GTX 680 and it was fantastic it did everything and I felt really important but then if you try and do that now you're looking at well over 1,000 pounds for an RT X 2080 TI which there is no chance I was gonna save up for almost three months just for one piece of graphics card that would be absolutely ridiculous so why is this happened well the story will change depending on who you ask if you talk to the silicon manufacturers and wager that they'd probably explain it something like this GPUs and CPUs are getting harder and harder to make as the dye size is getting smaller and it requires more money to plan produce and then gain high yields from and the jump from 1080p to 4k gaming is absolutely huge with the amount of computational power actually required to meet 4k gamers needs it just requires better chips faster and high-capacity memory and then better cooling solutions but if you talk to someone a little bit more cynical maybe like myself a couple years ago then I would say that it is all about business and marketing realistically there are more and more PC gamers now and with hit games like fortnight dota pudgie all leading the PC charge there's just more people out there with higher incomes that are willing to spend more on the stuff they love so why not keep the baseline quite similar to keep the customer base happy and then bring out products that are more powerful than before and increase the price until people stop buying altogether hahahaha but I think that the truth is probably somewhere between the two of those things because yes things are getting harder and harder to produce throughout more desires for more powerful hardware but likewise if there aren't many people selling this stuff and people have the money to actually invest in it in the first place and people are willing to spend the money on these things then it sort of does go hand in hand you've got people that want the absolute best and a willing to spend whatever they have I guess on it and then you have people that are willing to actually sell there so when you combine the two together it's not really that surprising that things are getting more and more expensive my advice is just to be very careful about any crazy new features that you might get marketed out for PC parts of games as they can actually often be smoke without fire take Nvidia r-tx for instance I think this is pretty much the infamous example as we all know how good the reflections can look but a couple of these epic screenshots are actually hugely different to actually playing the game at a smooth FPS with a huge visual improvement it might look good sure but I wouldn't say that these features are actually worth the upgrade cost themselves although when you factor in maybe the raw performance of the GPU itself it is a different matter another thing that we actually do need to consider is just about all of these new peripherals that are coming out and once again there are more PC gamers so there are more people that are willing to buy these products and I think everything has been hugely influenced recently by three letters are G B or if you're gigabyte RGB W but that's yes that's not relevant this may well sound quite silly to you but just look at mechanical keyboards they seem to have gone from around about eighty to a hundred pounds for a flagship to nearing 200 and this is all stemmed from the fancy lighting and extra features that most people aren't probably even gonna use don't mistake me here I think they're great unless certainly worth the money if you want the best keyboard for gaming that not only looks incredible but is built to last but there just are other things out there that are probably worth you spending your money on first part of the thing that I really do love about PC gaming though is the flexibility when it comes to choosing a display as if you're on a console you're probably gonna go for a 16 by 9 1080p or 4k television whereas if you're going for a more desk orientated setup you can have whatever monitor or monitors you so please again this seems to me like an area that's just got silly expensive over the last 10 years the idea of having a really pricey TV in the living room and an epic super-duper gaming monitor in the study is something that I think most of us just don't want to stomach if you're wanting to play on a fairly basic 1080p monitor then the cost isn't actually too much for a problem as you're looking at just over 100 pounds but something that is surprisingly decent but if you really do want the latest and greatest g-sync HDR experience it's over 2 grand this is crazy I'd say that the sweet spot at the moment is probably quad HD 1440p 144 Hertz as this allows you to not only get the sharpness of higher resolutions but to unlock the console beating refresh rates that really does take PC gaming to the next level it won't come cheaper around about 400 pounds but it will give you a great balance while being easy enough to drive without needing one of those insanely expensive graphics cards unfortunately though I would say that the games themselves have got more expensive which is definitely a little bit of a shame this definitely arise in free-to-play games and in-game purchases that can bring the price down with Fortnight pub G and apex legends all being prime examples of this but when it comes to triple-a I think we are in a little bit of a weird place right now take civilization 6 is latest game expansion gathering storm I really wanted to buy this but I saw it was $34.99 for an expansion and I remember playing $29.99 for a full fat PC game there's also more software launches that you can shake a stick at now lots of games or sell for $59.99 and I think it is a little bit harder to discover new games as a result of all of this I'm just far more willing now to wait a little bit get games at a lower price and I think that a lot of people probably agree with this and this is maybe why the prices are going up because less people are paying full price so the people are paying full price have to pay more I don't really know I'd be really interested to hear your thoughts on this one down in the comment section below is there anything that you're looking forward to and have you pre-ordered a game recently so okay what you save on free-to-play you're probably gonna have to reinvest into that real hit triple a big release that you've been waiting for but I'd say that even this is likely to change quite soon you may have seen the big announcements from Apple and Disney this year with their upcoming TV streaming services but if you look a little bit closer you actually see that game's publishers are doing the exact same thing ea have origin access Microsoft the Xbox game pass and Ubisoft you play Plus these plans give you a huge catalogue of games to play whenever and wherever and they seem to offer great value as they're usually cheaper than buying a full-price title every month whether it will save you money in the long term frankly I don't know but the game is definitely changing and with the big pushes that these companies are placing on the services I really wouldn't be surprised to see this approach take over in the coming years it definitely is a really interesting space I find all of this quite fascinating I do have a little bit of an interest in business and how it all works but while things may seem like they're getting more expensive and that things are changing that shouldn't be I would actually argue that it's not as much as you think it's just that there is more choice out there I think that the easiest way for you to save yourself some money on PC gaming is to work out exactly what experience you're trying to achieve then only buy the items that are going to provide that I absolutely love RGB fans fancy keyboards luxury gaming chairs but the reason that consoles are so cheap and sell so many is because they're just incredibly streamlined they do one thing gaming really really well and because there aren't any options to choose from any fancy features everyone saves money on the single box then they give their money to so Microsoft a nintendo via a cut of the game sales rather than Hardware alone and on the PC we just don't really do that and as such every piece of the puzzle needs to make a manufacture some money and I call this the PC gamer tax which exists whether we like it or not but ultimately it's what allows us to make something that console gamers just can't ever get the choice to choose what we want the only reason we upgrade our pcs spend all of this money on frankly very unnecessary things it's not because we ever have to it's because we want to we absolutely love the platform we're so passionate about it and having something that you've built from something that you're proud of something that does everything you want and more something you can just tweet all other settings on your game sort of sit back and go wow this looks incredible it's so many things like this that really makes up PC gaming is the community there is so so many things I really could talk about it all day I absolutely love it and if you join us if you haven't already I think you will as well just be warned that in a few years time it does get very tempting to get that a little bit of RGB I really hope you've enjoyed this video let me know your thoughts on it down in the comment section below do you agree with me that PC gaming is getting more expensive but it doesn't necessarily have to be or do you think I've got it all wrong really interested to hear your thoughts on this one a massive thank you for you guys for watching please hit like button if you've enjoyed it get subscribed for more videos and of course a massive thank you to surf shop VPN for proudly sponsoring this video having a VPN is so important that keeping yourself safe and secure online and if you like me and you're always using free public Wi-Fi then it really is time to start protecting yourself it is so simple to get started remarkably affordable and very easy to use thanks to the clean and fluid smartphone and desktop applications you can even multi hop through two different VPN servers four times when you're working with super sensitive information hit the link down below and use code centric to get 83 percent off your personal surf shark VPN plan you'll even get one bonus month for free a massive thank you once again to you guys for watching this video and I'll see you in the next one\n"