Inflationproof
No matter what’s going on in the world today, I just gotta say: we picked a great hobby.
Inflation approaching (or hitting) double-digits? Gas prices through the roof? Games got your back. EVE raised subscription prices to $20 and a few developers are testing $70 price-points, but budget options abound in nearly every gaming genre. Supply chain slow-downs hit graphics cards and PS5 pretty hard, of course – I waited 1-2 more years than I had originally planned to upgrade my PC. It wasn’t like I was starving for options in the meantime though.
Just think about it. Prices in gaming go down over time. Outside of a few edge cases in live-service games, there is effectively an infinite supply of whatever you want to play. Between insane marketing giveaways and F2P options, there are scenarios in which your average monthly cost to engage with the hobby is between fifteen and zero dollars. You can’t even paint for that cheap. I have some friends that love to go to conventions and they are not having a fun time in this environment, let alone when COVID shut things down. Meanwhile: “Oh, I should be staying indoors? Way ahead of you, buddy.”
I was going to title this post “Futureproof” instead, as there’s nothing stopping gamers from using renewably energy to power our PC/consoles… but perhaps that’s whistling a bit too loudly past the graveyard. Some kind of collapse in the internet infrastructure would end the past-time for anyone not stockpiling emulators and ROMs. On the other hand, if there’s no internet, things have truly gone to shit and most everyone’s hobbies are probably over too. Unless you’re a gardener or psychopath, I suppose.
Hmm. Perhaps all these survival games will come in handy after all…
Posted on June 13, 2022, in Miscellany and tagged Future of Gaming, Hobby, Inflation, Price, Whistle Past the Graveyard. Bookmark the permalink. 3 Comments.
In An Age 
Corollary: being a game developer, particularly one of the indie persuasion, is probably getting worse. Glut is one thing; glut plus rising cost of living, though…
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True. Game development is a weird profession in that you are basically worse off than if you just did regular software development anywhere else. For every Stardew Valley and RimWorld and Minecraft, there are… about a million other nameless games. And an endless stream of competitors right behind you waiting for their turn to roll the dice.
On the flip side, most of the tools are available for just about anyone. The biggest expense is probably opportunity cost.
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Indie game dev, if you are doing it for money vs just for the joy of it, is like going into acting for the money. It’s likely not going to work out for you, unless you get lucky and/or are supremely talented.
That said thanks to Steam and such, at least getting your foot in the door is far easier today than it was back in the brick-and-mortar days, and as Azuriel mentioned, with all of the free and cheap dev tools out, the cost of entry is also lower today than before.
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