A hugely popular factory-building sim, Factorio joins a wave of much larger game franchises such as Call of Duty, Star Wars Jedi, and Final Fantasy that are seeing prices rise due to inflation. But unlike the huge AAA audiences of these other games, much of Factorio’s community finds the idea surprisingly cool. Not all.
While companies prefer ubisoft, take 2, XboxWhen Sony While the past year has effectively set a new standard in pricing for all games, Factorio is a bit different as it’s a fairly small game. Its developer, Wube Software, is a much smaller studio than any other company that has announced a price increase, and Factorio itself has seen him increase prices from $30 to $35 instead of $60 to $70. is rising to
It’s also worth noting that Factorio isn’t a new game that sets the trend for the franchise moving forward, but a much older game that’s up from its previous pricing. Factorio was first released in early access in 2016 before a full release in 2020. There hasn’t been a single microtransaction since then, and the only additional content you can buy on Steam is the $7 soundtrack. The developer explained in 2016 (as discovered by Kotaku) as a way to respect players who have already purchased the game.
“I’m not going to reward people who hesitate to buy the game. The game is reasonably priced and this is the deal. If you think the price is too high, choose not to buy it. , enough time and We hope that the additional development will convince you of its value.”
Factorio price increase announced on twitter On January 20th, six days before it went into effect, community reaction has been surprisingly positive so far. Sure, most of the respondents seem to own the game already, but they’re also asking for more ways to support Factorio. Many others have shared anecdotes about their long playing hours compared to the amount of money they spent. You can see that there are far more people out there.
That said, a handful of people seem unhappy with the change. Looking at the overall trend of user reviews for Factorio, there are very few negative reviews, with two exceptions. One was last year when he was back in July and (based on reviews) a regional pricing issue in Russia seems to have made the game double the price of his for those users. . And another period of negative reviews began on his January 20th, with a surge of “not recommended” accusing Wube of being greedy and questioning the adequacy of inflation as an excuse for price increases. As you can imagine. Unlike many other review bombing situations, most of the negative reviews have been logged for quite a few hours, so I’m sure at least some segment of the community is unhappy about this (even if , even if they had already purchased the game). .
Factorio is one of the first major independent games to respond to inflation by raising prices in such a visible and public way, but it may not be the last. As we assessed earlier this month, AAA studios will likely continue to push $70 as a pricing bar for AAA games, but there’s also growing debate among the indie community about charging more. As the years go by, it’s likely that more games will follow in Factorio’s footsteps.
Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. you can find her on her twitter @duck valentine.
