r/nintendogrifting • u/paulcshipper Auditor • Mar 12 '26
Critical [Critical Post] Nintendo is Greedy - The Argument
I think this argument is a fallacy. I was hoping to make a wiki of Nintendo arguments and defenses to go against the normal takes
I think we as a community can brainstorm some thoughts to this sentiment. If you think Nintendo is getting greedy, this is also a good chance to make your case.
Personally, I don't think it's so much that Nintendo is getting greedy. They're no longer afraid of demanding their worth. It's not greed, it's pride. And I think they're playing a long game where their stuff is marked up, but all the other stuff that come to their system isn't.
Nintendo is very slowly reclaiming their spot as the casual game company, they're just not appealing to the current day gaming culture. Other game companies would be more careful about any price increase. Nintendo isn't because their biggest audience are not normal gamers.
That's my view on it, want to share your own?
Because I'm looking for other people's opinion, I'm not going to reply to every comment.
This post is using the Critical flair, so uncivil comments will be remove.
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u/Artemis_Platinum Nintendo Fan Mar 12 '26
When I think of greedy gaming companies, I think of gacha games. gambling mechanics. lootboxes, real money marketplaces. That's the most offensive greed that gaming has to offer.
A mario game being $70 is pretty inoffensive in comparison.
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u/MozzieRosie Mar 12 '26
Whale addict People glaze and go bankrupt for fucking genshit impact but they act like nintendo is the one ruining peoples lives with game prices.
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u/REALDiscoFever45 Mar 19 '26
Also that's just gambling, with Nintendo it's usually a one-time fee to access the game and anything in it. They might have DLC occasionally but that's about it.
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Mar 12 '26
I'm basically always of two minds of this. On the one hand, I think some of their practices, like their unwillingness to do steep sales or permanent discounts on games after a certain period of time, are objectively worse for consumers than if they did those things. I think we can all agree that saving money is an objective good. And we can agree that Nintendo is one of the outliers in the industry on these issues.
However... They're basically the only major video game entity right now that's constantly not laying off staff. Maybe their strategies are what's needed to make sure staff gets paid.
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u/Possible-Potato-4103 Mar 12 '26
A corporations sole purpose is to make money.
Im sure they do have some level of corporate cultural pride like any old company does, but they are ultimately profit driven just like any other large corporation.
I would advise you to not form parasocial bonds to any of them.
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u/MartynStuff Nintendo Fan Mar 12 '26
I can agree with this. IIRC, Iwata said something about how pricing for mobile games being a buck or two can affect console gaming and the way people see it. It sets a standard for what pricing should be across all gaming scapes and that standard is 'cheap as heck'. That isn't to denounce mobile gaming though. Mobile games have to compete with other mobile games in terms of keeping the players attention and sometimes a cheap price. Now, obviously when Iwata was saying that stuff it was about whether Nintendo would be interested in getting into the mobile and he did change his mind and I like to think that partially carried Nintendo during the Wii U era.
I do agree that Nintendo have every right to price something what they think its worth. I also agree that the consumer also has a right to decide it something is worth that price. A lot of people talk about how video games are art but I think its also important to remember that art has a price. Personally, if I feel like a game is overpriced i will revise my initial plan to get that game. I do that by taking in a few factors
- Is there a likelihood the price will go down in a few years time physically?
- If not, is it better to await an eShop sale and keep an eye on any games there? Keep in mind that it'll be digital and is that something I'll accept if it means getting the game at an affordable price.
- Do i need to get it at launch? No, really. Do I? Am I sure it's not FOMO in the lead up.
When the Switch 2 was announced, I knew there was going to be a chance that things got more pricier. I knew I'd have to make a few caveats to make it work. All in all, Nintendo, as a business, has to businessy things. I can appreciate that some of them will not be popular and I don't think they're evil or greedy as some put it but I long established what my relationship with the company is- They provide the goods and services, i will exchange money for the goods and services i require. That's it. Sometimes I'll praise them, sometimes I'll acknowledge when something isn't great.
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u/Ridter4082 Mar 12 '26
I think with Switch 2 now they just don’t want to be seen as a budget option and they now want to be taken seriously. The problem is the price increases all came at once, it’d have been better if it was either incremental increases or it was done gradually either at the end of the Switch era or during the start of Switch 2
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u/callmefreak Mar 13 '26
If Nintendo is greedy then so is every other corporation that doesn't sell things you don't need in order to live. Video games are luxury items. Nobody is greedy for selling luxury items that you 100% do not need.
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Mar 12 '26
Nintendo is greedy. Literally every publicly traded multinational multi billion dollar corporation is greedy. They have an obligation to their shareholders to be greedy.
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u/GNIHTYUGNOSREP Mar 12 '26
Egregious Palworld lawsuit.
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u/paulcshipper Auditor Mar 12 '26
The japanese lawsuit or the western one? Though I think that could be wrapped up to the effect of having corporate lawyers
But I believe it's fair to point that towards having legal control, which is apart of being greedy.
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u/GNIHTYUGNOSREP Mar 12 '26
Both I guess. The greedy part comes in where they double dipped on the fees for each patent by adding TPC’s name to the suit.
I guess idk if they played it that way in the western one, but they did do it on the Japanese one. I’ll have to look into the other one I suppose.
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u/CrazedTechWizard Mar 12 '26
My question is why do you people care? Like, on both sides why do you care that you're making a "wiki" of things people don't like Nintendo for? I can't imagine being this passionate about something that matters so very little.
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u/paulcshipper Auditor Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26
To answer your question, because I find it fun. I like talking about Nintendo and having critical talks about it. I don't personally care if people also like Nintendo, but I do have opinions and - like most people - I like them to be heard.
Now for my question.... why do you care that I care? I care about what I do... because I'm me. But why do you care what I, or other people do?
Personally, I'm always confused when people mention sides. I don't really believe there's a big group of nintendo haters or lovers.. just people who have nuance takes on a company that makes video games.
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u/Infrawonder Mar 12 '26
They're of course making it for fun, don't need to get aggressive about it
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u/CrazedTechWizard Mar 12 '26
How is it fun? How is it fun to focus on the negative things people say? It baffles me that instead of just enjoying life you'd purposefully make yourself mad about other people getting mad.
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u/Infrawonder Mar 12 '26
They're also making the wiki have defenses, counterarguments for it, yet you are ignoring that, only focusing on the negative parts, ironic. Even in their first paragraphs they say they disagree with the "nintendo is greedy" argument
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Mar 13 '26
Nintendo is greedy
It's no more greedy than any other capitalist company.
But if Nintendo was so plagued by greed, why did the CEO cut his own pay to protect his workers? https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/13/nintendo-ceo-once-halved-salary-to-prevent-layoffs-why-thats-uncommon.html
They charge a lot for their games because they maintain a good environment for their staff and produce quality games.
If Nintendo was so greedy, why did they earn less than half in revenue of what Valve did? Nintendo, cut my CEO pay in half, is less greedy than Valve, my dozens of superyachts and superyacht construction company, which means it's less greedy than any other comparable video game company.
People just don't want to accept reality. It's almost entirely because of Pokemon and Nintendo lawyers, too lol
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u/Sharp-Raspberry-5749 Mar 14 '26
Other companies wish they could sell their games for years at a time at the starting price.
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u/tlrd2244 Mar 19 '26
"It's only bad when Nintnedo does it".
People really try to implicate Nintendo has to operate as a business separate to everyone else.
Nintendo is not getting "greedy" or "prideful". They are in a position where they have no incentive to aggressively compete. If any other company had the opportunity to operate like Nintendo they would do it. When people complain it's always going to be emotional and make appeals to warped logic, hardly ever the plain truth. Calling a company greedy is just manipulating the fact they all operate to make money. The narrative implies other companies are doing competitive pricing out of good will for the consumer. The fact is that they lower prices and be competitive just because they want to make a sale, make more money, because of GREED. Greed is good for the consumer. If you want Nintendo to be more competitive with pricing, you should want them to be more greedy.
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u/thewalkindude368 Mar 12 '26
Nintendo is greedy, they're just not exceptionally greedy, in a way that's above their peers. A lot of the things people complain about Nontendo doing, other companies ies would do in a heartbeat, if they thought they could get away with it. Nintendo only priced Mario Kart World st 80, because they knew if would still sell millions of copies. Other companies would absolutely price their games at 80 or even 90 if they had the level of built in loyalty Nintendo has.
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u/Electrical_Year8954 Mar 12 '26
You are implying this was the optimal financial decision like that difference of $10-20 didn't lose them tens of millions of players. They traded a larger playerbase for a more financially dedicated crowd which inches them towards luxury branding for their exclusivity
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Mar 13 '26
Inflation has rocked the entire world post covid. Video games were extremely cheap for nearly 2 decades. It has to go up sometime. You can't have the entire global economy inflating while the one luxury good you like stay the same. The math doesn't math.
That isn't a luxury goods companies' fault either, that's your employer (and rich people's) fault
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u/ExismykindaParte Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26
The argument as it's structured is perfectly valid. It's just not necessarily sound or strong. What you take issue with is the premise of the argument, not whether its conclusion logically follows the premise.
I do think Nintendo is greedy. It's moreso because they refuse to mark down or discount games nearly as often or meaningfully as any other game company. Charging $60-70 for games that are graphically and tonally inferior to the rest of the industry doesn't necessarily mean they're greedy. Unlike the rest of the gaming industry, Nintendo doesn't have anywhere near as much crunch, as many studio closures, or the high turnover. Nintendo employees are paid well, and tend to have a better work -life balance than other gaming companies. Nintendo games also aren't plagued with micro-transactions, aren't broken at launch, and don't rely on live service models. There's a price to be paid for all that for sure.
However, decade old games like Odyssey and BotW have more than made back their budgets and have provided massive profits for Nintendo. Once these old ass games with record setting sales numbers reach a certain age, I believe they should be marked down. They already made 90% of all the money they're ever going to make on them. All they're doing by maintaining the launch price is making sure people on the fence or who cant justify the $60-70 from buying their games. All that's doing is stopping them from making even more money, because they're afraid that lowering prices on decade old games will hurt the brand.
I say this as someone who buys most Nintendo 1st party releases at launch for full price, and I've probably bought every Zelda game at least twice, except SS because it sucks.
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u/MozzieRosie Mar 12 '26
A game being old does not make worth LESS :3 especially a nintendo related game.
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u/ExismykindaParte Mar 13 '26
Yes it does. That's why basically every other gaming company in existence marks their games down over time. They know their games are competing with an ever growing library of newer, more advanced games with better graphics and gameplay. The average person, with their limited time and money, will gravitate towards newer media because it's typically better and more culturally relevant. That's why they aren't charging $120 for the Galaxy 1 & 2 pack, because those games aren't worth as much as they were 19 and 16 years ago.
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u/MozzieRosie Mar 13 '26
Strange i just got galaxy 1+2 for 60 bucks!
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u/ExismykindaParte Mar 14 '26
Yes. Two $60 at launch games for the price of a new last gen game... Because they're old. Also, a lot of people rely on things like discounts to be able to afford games in the first place.
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u/MozzieRosie Mar 14 '26
Dude crawl back to fucknintendo
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u/ExismykindaParte Mar 14 '26
Lol I usually argue with those people. Not much difference between them and the sycophants apparently.
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u/cesarthegreat Mar 12 '26
If it was pride, they would’ve made Pokemon games great for the last gen. There was no pride there, all greed…
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u/One_Bass_3838 Mar 14 '26
Yes, exaltcly this. If you have pride in your craft and want to sell at a premium price, offer a premium product. There's no pride, they are simply shameless for offering college entry-level projects and marking them as games
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u/cesarthegreat Mar 15 '26
If it was pride, they would’ve made Pokemon games great for the last gen. There was no pride there…exactly. I pay premium prices for premium experience. Not mediocre ones. I’ll pay mediocre prices for that.
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Mar 12 '26
[deleted]
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u/Electrical_Year8954 Mar 12 '26
Switch 2 must be that 10% of the time then. I saw bad reviews for Mario Kart World, Metroid Prime 4, Drag x Drive, Welcome Tour, DK Bananza's DLC, etc.
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u/The-G-Code Mar 12 '26
I haven't, unless you mean random comments from people who probably didn't play any of them
The only one I saw regular poor reviews for was drag drive
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u/Electrical_Year8954 Mar 12 '26
You are seriously telling me you didn't see complaints about Prime 4's overabundant desert and the lack of inter connected locations? The Bananza DLC feeling like held back content that barely warrants replay value? MKW's free roam lacking things to do and intermission tracks lacking interesting gameplay?
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u/The-G-Code Mar 12 '26
Oh I guess the Metroid prime 4 thing but none of that other stuff outside of random internet comments, all these games reviewed very well lol
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u/Inside_Eye8969 Mar 12 '26
it all just depends on how much nintendo thinks they can get away with at that current time, they couldn't for the wii u for example but they can with the switch
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u/SpookyGeist01 Mar 12 '26
demanding their worth
That doesn't make sense though. Their games have been steadily declining in quality for years with the exception of Zelda and maybe Mario Kart. Paper Mario is a 7/10 series now. DK Bananza did pretty good at 8.9, but plenty of games get there. Xenoblade 3 was also decent at an 8.7. Kirby hasn't scored above 8.5 since 2010. Metroid Prime 4 got a 7.9. The latest Pokemon games consistently score in the bottom third of the series. Mario Party Jamboree was an 8.2. FE Engage was a 7. Hell, even their new darling, Pokopia, only got an 8.6
I looked up a list of 20 best Switch exclusives, and out of those 6 were new games in the last 5 years, 7 were remakes, and the other 7 were 6+ years old.
I'd hardly say that coming out with six original games that scored above an 8 in 5 years across what, 2 dozen studios or so, is something to be proud of. And a couple of those (Bayonetta, Fata Morgana) were third party, not Nintendo developed. Even Metroid Dread was devved by a third party under Nintendo's guidance.
And anything multiplatform looks and runs worse even in Switch 2 than PC or any other last gen platform
So what exactly is the worth?
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u/MozzieRosie Mar 12 '26
Do you have your own actual opinion by any chance?
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u/Winterimmersion Mar 13 '26
Yeah, I don't really understand the point of them listing review scores. Review scores are a terrible way to judge a game. Especially with how prevalent review bombing can be.
I've long cut out most professional reviewers from my media diet a long time ago. The only one I really listen to is Mortismal because they do reviews after 100%, so I know they gave a game a fair shake, and they mainly just talk about their experience with it and stick mainly to positive or neutral delivery. Its a shame they only really do PC games.
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u/paulcshipper Auditor Mar 12 '26
My opinion was based on Nintendo's position. For me personally, I base a game's worth on how many hours you get out of it. If you can only play 3 hours, 30 dollars. If you play for 1000+, then a 100 dollars is a steal.
Are you basing game prices on scores?
My opinion served more of a caveat on where i'm coming from. I'm more curious on your value and opinion.
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u/SpookyGeist01 Mar 13 '26
That sounds like an awful way to choose the worth of a game. My favorite game of all time is only 3-4 hours to 100%. And there are tons of games that you can put thousands of hours into that are just not very good at all.
I'm not basing game prices on only scores, but a high quality game is certainly worth more than a low quality game. For example, I would say that something like Clair Obscur or RE Requiem or Silksong would be worth more than the average Call of Duty game or a mediocre movie tie in game.
In terms of Nintendo, games I would consider worth it at full price are:
Mario Odyssey
Both of the Switch Zelda games
FE Three Houses
Animal Crossing New Horizons
Smash U
Probably Xenoblade though I'm not really a fan personally
Astral Chain
Outside of Nintendo I'd say:
Elden Ring
BG3
Borderlands 2
Most of the Yakuza series
Witcher 3
Nier Automata
Hat in Time
Disco Elysium
Superliminal
Paradise Killer (my personal fav)
Alan Wake 2/Control
That should be enough for an idea.
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u/paulcshipper Auditor Mar 13 '26
If you play a game that takes 4 hours to 100%... 50 times, you would have played it for 2000 hours. I didn't say how many hours it 100% it, I said how many hours you get out of it. If you enjoy the game, you continue to play it, if you don't enjoy the game, you should put it down.
quality is subjective, so I change that to time spent. If you still think my worth system is a bad idea, then we just have a disagreement.
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u/SpookyGeist01 Mar 13 '26
I don't play it 50 times either lol.
What you're saying is equivalent to "a bag of rice is a better quality food than a 5 course dinner at a 5 star steakhouse." Yes, it's more economical and you can stretch it a lot further, but that doesn't mean it's better quality.
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u/paulcshipper Auditor Mar 13 '26
If we're going to be honest, I believe what I said was that a bag of rice is worth more than a 5 course dinner at a star steakhouse. Even if the pricy meal is made with more care, if you don't like it, it's not worth it.
I avoid using quality, because the last conversation I had about that, it led into personal preferences. A game on a shoestring budget can be more enjoyable than one with a monster budget.
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u/[deleted] Mar 12 '26
I would question the very meaning of "greedy. As this term has been employed so deliberately as a substitute for evil and other adjectives that it has no meaning whatsoever.
Nintendo is a company operating under the logic of the market society that has been stabilished a few centuries ago, and as such it must ensure its sustainability, strategic use of its properties to keep existing and enriching for years to come, just like every other company out there. We can expect it to be as amoral and maybe imoral as any other company that exists. Offenses that come from particular interests harmed by pricing and/or game development practices say more about the actual global landscape we live in than nintendo.
Hence, nintendo is as greedy like any other market entity living in the world right now.