Random: It's Zelda, Not Beyoncé, Who's Apparently Contributing To UK Inflation

Btw, what is the connection with Beyonce?
I only know her from Single Ladies.

cough...Brexit...cough

Anyone else irritated by the phrase ‘computer games’ when no referring to console games or is it just me? It’s probably just me.

publications like this need to stop conflating inflation with price gouging. when you do, its a smoke screen that allows companies cover to continue raising their prices.

TLDR raising prices because beyonce is in town is NOT inflation, it's price gouging. 👍

Wow, I don't think it's one particular thing that influences inflation rates. What causes the most inflation is inducing fear into people that a shortage of X is coming, or even just mentioning that something will become more expensive is enough to drive up prices. Take gas prices for instance. A lot of it is artificial and psychological, but the effects are all too real.

“strength in computer games prices might have been partly due to release of - aptly titled - "Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom"”

My bro just claimed that there is connection between a price of console games and computer games

Being an economist in late stage capitalism is like being a sports commentator for a dumpster fire.

@ComfyAko @Mattock1987 That 's what people call "videogames" in the UK.

aptly titled indeed, lmao 🤣

What a silly tweet.

Blaming videogames is an old standard for many. But this is a new low.

I question the methodology here. Not an economist, but I don’t see the release of Tears of the Kingdom having a significant and enduring effect on the price of games in general. A short-term effect on the amount of money people spent on video games in the specific sales interval of this game, perhaps. But I don’t think that can legitimately be referred to as “inflation”. It’s spending on one thing, once. TOTK being £60 has not resulted in any change in retail price for the other big-selling games. It hasn’t changed the price if, I don’t know, fuel, groceries, heating your hot water. This is questionable journalism as far as I’m concerned, although not surprising comig from the country that invented questionable journalism

Edit: I mean from the BBC Economics Editor, not Nintendo Life, which is obvs a shining pinnacle of journalistic integrity ✌️

@-wc- Yeah, that's a simple supply/demand story. I don't even see how they relate that to inflation as if it's a fact.

Isn’t it just the maths? TotK has sold lots in the past month in the UK, and its RRP will be higher than the average RRP of games from before then (selling at full price when most games don’t). So when looking at the numbers, it’s helped to drive up the average price of video games during that period.

And if videogames have helped contribute to the overall inflation figure for this period, then technically yes, it’s helped drive up inflation.

I think it’s really funny that he saw the subtitle “Tears of the Kingdom” and went “this is so true”

I'm staying out of this discussion, but games are the best value for money you can get, and yes even $70 TOTK is good value.

@RainbowGazelle Wait, we do? I always called them videogames and so has most of my family.

@RainbowGazelle I live in the UK, and no we don’t if we’re under 50.

@JohnnyMind These... stories are a massive waste of time. I'm going to do something useful now to feel better LOL.

I assume the real reason for inflation is the same as it is here in my US home. Money over-supply during covid and out of control government subsidies. The countries with nagging +5% inflation haven't done anything about it in terms of their central banks - while the US - the world's largest economy - has put the squeeze on the rest of the world with their much higher federal funds rate.

Here is the good news. We yanks used to be told all of time how dumb we were compared to Europeans. It is good to know the people of Europe are just as stupid as we are if they believe Beyonce and Zelda are responsible for 10% yoy inflation.

The Random tag is certainly warranted with this one. Zelda = inflation? Oooookay....

@-wc-
Which leads to a change in inflation. Inflation is a measure, an indicator of prices. If all prices rise due to price gauging, then inflation will rise.
Diesel was kept artificially high in the UK until recently, and this contributed to inflation

Just as people were coming around to the idea that video games can be good for mental health...

Such stupid comments like this from economists just shows what a 'sh** show' they have created.

Er, but you would have to go out of your way to get ToTk for £60. It's for sale nearly everywhere nearly all the time.

Maybe computer games are now part of the basket of goods?
Edit: yes they are. Computer games are used to help calculate inflation

@Mattock1987 @TeaCatherine Well we used to, I guess. I still do.

BotW launched at £60 in 2016
TotK launched at £60 in 2023
I see 0% inflation in 7 years

@Anti-Matter Sweden blamed Beyonce for their inflation.

@Pachrisu I was just about to post exactly this, Nintendo/TotK are massively inflation busting given the RRP is identical to it's predecessor so 6 years ago.

Video game prices are massively below what they were in the 90s, inflation adjusted.

Y'all make fun of this but Americans would eat this ***** up. I mean people here believed that we just went through two years of insanely bad inflation while businesses continued to announce record profits. A third of this country would be more than happy to blame it all on a black woman and foreign video games.

@RBRTMNZ goofy post. would you like me to explain how inflation works - and why it can help drive profits on quarterlies or would you rather be ignorant about it?

@Cashews Dude for two years economist here used this same belittling tone you're using now, to tell people that greed causing higher prices is a silly concept. Now that it has slowed down prominent economist are all admitting that yes most of the inflation went to corporate profits not increased costs.

This is not a theory. Corporate profits and balance sheets are public information. We can literally look at their finances and see that +70% of increased prices paid for increased profits NOT increased costs. Additionally, dozens of CEOs are on record telling investors that they are raising prices to take advantage of the perception of inflation. They are openly robbing us and goofy marks like you are carrying water for them.

@Rambler

yes, see how in your example, the gouging LEADS to inflation. as in, they are two separate things.

Greedy shareholders and banks are to blame.
Discuss

@-wc-
Ah yes, I've re-read the article, and it isn't clear at all what is being said - inflation and price gauging do indeed appear to be conflated.

@Mattock1987

its really a problem with us being conditioned to calling PCs and ONLY PCs "computers," and calling all other computers something else. of course console games are "computer games," though 😋

@Rambler

thanks for coming back! ✌️ this conflation is a real problem, and its not limited to this site by far.

And people wonder why the piracy subreddits are so popular...

@Mattock1987 Consoles are computers. Just not in the traditional sense. Like how your either Team PC or team Mac even though PC stands for Personal Computer and a macintosh is very much a Personal Computer, but its the branding.

Consoles are just pcs that are dedicated solely to playing video games.

So it technically is correct for him to say that new "zelda computer game" as weird as it sounds lol The switch is a computer technically.

Zelda has been £50 on Amazon and Argos since launch, you'd have to go put of your way to pay £60 for it

If it's anything similar to professional athletes getting larger and larger contracts, that in turn raise the ceiling more and more, then things like these are not that hard to believe. That's capitalism for you.

I love how everyone seems to be trying to distract people by blaming anything on inflation other than the government printing and handing out more money. You would have thought we would have learned this lesson after Germany in World War I.

People still refer to videogames as "computer games"? And since when are good sales a bad thing? If only these stuff made more sense...

The thing about Zelda is it launched for a pricier and more expensive price than usual for a Switch game so it might contribute a little bit, but for games as a whole i think the increase of games occured much earlier in 2020 when prices of PS5 games got a higher price tag than prices for PS4 games.

Zelda is just one game too, and it should not affect prices so much.

Unless other games get a higher price tag too. But Zelda has the same price as most ps5 games i think. So people probably did not spend more on it than on the latest harry potter game or star wars game or resident evil game.

@stache13 wow, i think you are way off with your comment. The situation in Germany in 1922 and 1923 was hyper inflation, a completely different thing.

Governments are not printing out a lot of money, they try to restrain the economy.

And nowadays, the federal reserve and other national banks are independent when they decide on the interest rates. Higher interest rates could reduce inflation.

Also, nowadays banks create new money into the system when they allow people to loan money.

Your comment about governments printing more money seems kind of inaccurate.

@Arcata yeah "PC" is usuall used as a reference to a PC running some kind of Windows OS. At least it used to be.

Nowadays and since quite a few years, it is not just Windows and Mac. Google and Linux have taken a few pieces of the market share for computer Operating systems too.

But for a stranger, it is weird but for people with some general knowledge i think most people get how when someone says "PC" they are actually refering to a Windows PC. (Like the one i use right now when writing the post)

But technically, a macintosh is a personal computer and an xbox is a kind of gaming computer just for games (well, mostly for games). I mean, in a technical sense, an xbox is just another kind of computer. But in more practical terms, i think people expect a computer to be able to do a lot of things which an xbox is not able to like using image editing software, word writing software... (Xbox is actually able to do some of it if you use the built in web browser Microsoft Edge for Xbox and use web based software like the office programs "office 365" and Xbox is also compatible with a keyboard.)

Also, "video games" is a term which sort of implies you play on a tv, not a computer screen. But some video game consoles are usable with a computer type screen as well.

In sweden we do not say video games. We say tv games instead. For some reason. The term video game is usually used in sweden by people who do not play or know much about gaming and directly translated something they read in english about video games. But anyone who actually plays video games in Sweden would say tv games. Or "tv-spel", which is the swedish phrase in swedish.

Switch and game boy does also count as "tv games" despite the fact they are not played on a tv. (Well, in Switch s case, they could be played on both a tv and on the switch screen..)

@Enigk i live in sweden and i have not heard about "The Beyonce Effect" but maybe i just missed it.

High prices on food has been a huge topic. As well as how a weak swedish currency (swedish krona, SEK) contributes to price increases on goods imported to sweden from other countries.

If someone imports an item to sweden then they need to exchange more swedish krona to pay for the item in dollars or euro or yen or pounds if the swedish currency krona is weak. and so they pass on the increased cost to the swedish consumers who might need to pay for example 4495 swedish krona for an LED Switch console instead of 4195 swedish krona.

Some people think Sweden should join the Euro currency. But staying out of the Euro was a benefit during the time when the economy crashed in especially greece, italy, spain and portugal.

the inflation in Sweden is also affected a bit from high prices on electricity i guess. But it was worse during the winter. Now the electric prices are on a more normal level. (Maybe someone used Pikachu and it was super effective or something.)

But as a whole, swedish inflation is still quite a lot higher than in some other countries. I think swedish inflation (year to year) is at 6 or 7 % still. And 2 % is the goal.

@Nintendencies nah i feel like games are and were always kind of overpriced. You pay like 2-3 times as much for a game compared to a movie and in most cases the movie had a higher budget than the game.

gaming subscriptions give very nice value for money though.

@S83 yeah i agree with you about what you say but the thing is inflation is actually not measured long term, it is measured one month compared to the same month a year earlier. So when you look at inflation on a year to year-basis, you compare may 2022 to may 2023 and april 2022 to april 2023 and so on.

I guess it is to get rid of seasonal changes (like prices soaring in december and lowering in january, or things related to weather like heating costs).

Even so, i think you are spot on in your comment. It is hard to see how a single game would affect the economy as a whole. Expecially considering how Zelda for Switch is not more expensive than other big sellers like Hogwarts Legacy for example.

If Zelda was like 80 pounds and made other gaming companies raise their prices of their games to 80 pounds, then it could perhaps be a more significant effect. But this is clearly not happening.

@Simon97
Fair enough, I think they were priced worse back in the day than they are now. Worth every penny to me though.

@PtM to be fair, I think changes in average price for the top-selling titles will show change in price in general, that seems fair enough. And I think I read that there was a larger than usual number of people who bought the special edition so amount spent is possibly affected by that. But saying that a single game is responsible for “inflation” seems to wilfully ignore the other 100-odd items whose prices are tracked. I guess RRP for Tears is 20% higher than most releases, not that that’s a new thing or affecting the RRP of other first-party upcoming titles. So yeah it’s still bad journalism.

Everything else has increased in price by more, anyway! Everything has increased except my salary 😭

@Simon97 thanks for all your well-argued comments! And for putting me right on inflation. I’m glad you’re here bringing the knowledge 💕

I will however refer you to Sakurai re the price of games. In London, if I take my partner out to lunch it costs more than a game. A movie might cost more to make than a game - though I think that’s arguable - but a movie is done in a couple of hours, a game sticks with you longer (usually! Unless it’s Kirby’s Dream World!). People have different priorities for what they spend their money on and that’s fair enough, but for me games are very reasonably priced for the main part.

@Simon97 Yes very true.