Maybe it's time you stopped paying upwards of $100 for AAA games

Gaming is an expensive hobby, especially with most AAA games now costing upwards of $100 when you factor in the special, deluxe, and premium editions. And even when you simply want to pick up the base game, with no additional bonuses, you're still going to have to pay at least $70 for a current-gen AAA title.

However, despite AAA games now costing more than they ever have, most titles, especially on PC, are released in an incomplete and unpolished state. More often than not, players who pay extra to get early access or bonus perks as part of their pre-order incentive, end up having to play an unfinished and unpolished game.

The most recent example of this phenomenon is Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League, which, despite promising early access to players who purchased the $100 Deluxe Edition, did not make good on the promises. This got me thinking that it's probably time we stopped paying upwards of $100 for incomplete and rushed AAA games.

Note: This article is subjective and reflects the author's opinions.

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Why paying $100 for AAA games don't make any sense in 2024?

Why do I resent $100+ premium editions of AAA games?

While I mentioned Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League as the game that got me to finally pen down this article, I don't want to place all the blame on that game alone. I began seeing this trend of publishers releasing unfinished and broken AAA games while also charging more than the usual $60 admission fee back in 2020, with Assassin's Creed Valhalla.

As much as I now hate the sight of that game, I still look back at the time when I used to be hyped for every single new Assassin's Creed game. Assassin's Creed Valhalla was no exception to this. In fact, it probably was my most anticipated game of 2020 (after Cyberpunk 2077, obviously).

And to fuel my excitement, I ended up grabbing the Ultimate Edition of the game for no less than $120. However, come release day, I was in for a rude awakening. I had the game pre-loaded on my PS4, but despite that, I had to wait for roughly an hour, thanks to the Ubisoft Connect shenanigans, before I could even start playing the damn thing.

Even after I got into the game, it was far from an ideal experience. On launch day, Assassin's Creed Valhalla crashed on my PS4 more than twice, within just a couple of hours. This was further compounded by the myriad of bugs and technical hiccups that I had to pave through just to play and, dare I say, "enjoy" a game that I paid $120 for.

This is something that genuinely made me resent the game despite it being a fairly decent open-world experience. My point of mentioning all this is to give you a context on where I'm coming from and why I genuinely despise the modern trend of publishers releasing $100+ versions of AAA games, that they very well know aren't going to be functional on day one.

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Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League and its $99.99 Deluxe Edition

Coming back to Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League, it was more or less the same story as Assassin's Creed Valhalla. Much like the latter, I got the $99.99 Deluxe Edition of Rocksteady Studios' latest title in hopes of getting the 72-hour early access. However, it also ended up being mostly non-functional during the advertised early access release date.

Most players who paid the full $100 to get access to Rocksteady's latest open-world extravaganza three days before its official release date did not get to enjoy the game during the early access period. This was due to the servers being taken offline for extended periods and the game requiring a constant internet connection, even for its single-player campaign.

While I was one of the lucky ones who did get to play the game on my PC, my enjoyment was short-lived due to a rather peculiar bug that rendered the game unplayable after quitting it. To get it working, I had to manually delete the shader cache from the game's directory.

Imagine paying $99.99 and then being forced to do manual troubleshooting, instead of, you know, enjoying the game you paid your hard-earned cash for. This is the case in the majority of AAA games that come out touting their premium, deluxe, ultimate, yadda yadda yadda editions, which just seem to be trying to squeeze a bit extra out of unsuspecting players.

Most of the time, paying the additional $10, $20, or $30 doesn't even make much sense, especially if all you're getting in return is a few exclusive cosmetics that, more often than not, get overshadowed by other in-game unlocks. And as we've seen time and time again, these $100+ bundles usually end up losing their value quite soon, after release.

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Why you shouldn't spend more than the standard $60 or $70 on AAA games in 2024?

Take a look at AAA games like Need for Speed Unbound, Dying Light 2, or even Assassin's Creed Valhalla. All of these titles offered a $100+ edition as a pre-order option, which now readily goes for less than the base game's price during sales. My point is that there's honestly no reason why you should spend more than the base game's price.

This is especially true in 2024 where storefronts like Steam and even the PlayStation Store hold regular sales, offering AAA games, even ones that are released quite recently, at a steep discount. All you need to do is not pre-order these $100+ editions and wait for a few months to get the same thing at a much, much lower price.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to dictate how you spend your money. However, as someone who has been burned time and time again by the AAA industry and their ridiculously over-the-top ways to nickel and dime their players, my intentions are only to inform you of why you shouldn't be spending more than you need to.

I recently took a gander at my PS5 backlog and found several games that I should've played but never did so due to me mostly being on the lookout for the next big AAA release. This is how I found Dead Space (remake), a game that I abandoned in favor of other big releases last year, but I've been playing it regularly and having a great time.

The next time you feel like spending upwards of $100 on a pre-order, you should consider taking a look at your backlog. You might just find your new favorite game or genre... you never know.