Counterpoint: I used to feel the same way about the entitlement. Then I stopped and thought about how many "hours worked" the average game costs for a person on minimum wage. While the minimum wage has risen dramatically in my area, to at least $12/hr, with games costing upwards of $80 now, that's still almost 2 full days, after taxes. It's easy to forget when people on this board are probably all making at least low 6 figures. It doesn't forgive being a wanker about it, but it does help explain the angst over wanting every purchase to be a 10/10 game.
That same economic analysis plays unfavorably the other direction: games right now are among the cheapest $/entertainment-hour value of any "modern" entertainment industry right now. Even if you only got 60 hours out of that $80 game, which is still the "entitled minimum" in many gamers' minds, that still $1.33 per entertainment-hour. You aren't going to find that at the movie theaters or on Blu-Ray. Maybe you can find better deals in streaming: if you only pay the $20/month for Netflix and maybe get 20-30 entertainment-hours per month you can beat that. If on the other hand you like so many others are paying for more than one streaming service you probably aren't anywhere near that in your spend on entertainment-hours.
That $80 videogame can still feed (entertainment to) a family of four for months.
I don't think economics have anything measurable to do with this.
I've seen entitled rants from gamers yelling at the developer while also publicly admitting that they pirated the game.
People pay money for clothes and food too and you don't see them posting thirty-minute screeds on YouTube about how they don't like the pattern of this shirt they just got.
Yes they do, but maybe not on YouTube, since that's for older people. TikTok, Instagram, twitch, etc all target niche groups all have gamer like thinking but with less autism
Food screeds though are very different depending on gender.
I've watched my husband be able to watch a streamer dissect "Mr beast" chocolate for 90 mins.
I just watch Instagram reviews, and they can get pretty mean spirited.
Compelling argument. Still, let me attempt a counter-counterpoint: $80 games tend to give 40+ hours of play, or $2/hour and the chance to play again. A movie in the theater is upwards of $20 and yields maybe 2 hours of entertainment, or $10/hour, and no ownership.
Plus in both cases you can wait a while for reviews to come in.
Movies aren’t the right comparison; they’re efficient.
Video games operate more like TV — with lots of filler that you don’t want but can put up with, and can’t really skip because there’s probably something notable interspersed (intentionally, to make it unskippable).
Honestly I’ve found that I can extract the vast majority of value from most single player games in a few hours (core mechanics and their interrelationships, anything interesting from the setting/world building/themes, aesthetic design, etc); some games can keep on trucking… but most of them are far longer than they are valuable.
All games don't cost $80. The indie game being developed definitely isn't going to cost $80. I can't think of many games that cost $80 other than AAA titles on release week and exploitative "collector's edition" items.
If $80 is a significant purchase, then there are many, many ways to reduce the cost or mitigate the risk. You can wait for a sale, wait for the initial reviews to come in, wait for a friend to buy it and try it at their house, etc. The way you're phrasing it sounds like the buyer is forced at gunpoint to buy an $80 game every month, after being forced at gunpoint to buy a console that costs hundreds of dollars or a gaming PC that costs thousands.
If someone I knew purchased expensive items and was unhappy with them, yet continued to make the same poor purchases and was continually unhappy, I'm not sure the purchaser is blameless.
