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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dire Bare" data-source="post: 7828603" data-attributes="member: 18182">You make a lot of good points. It's arguable whether we should create a society that mitigates risk for artists excessively, so they can pursue art full time without starving. I'd argue for it actually, but I don't think my POV is "obvious" or "right".However, there is a difference in saying, "I can't afford your product, therefore I'm not going to buy it" and saying, "Charging that much is unfair, because I cannot afford it". Or as others have argued recently, "Charging that much is unfair because teenagers can't afford it."Like you, I've had to drastically reduce my "fun" budget and I purchase much less gaming products than I used to. I also always take price into account, if something looks amazing and I wants it, it still might be priced out of my affordable range. Oh well. But I'll never complain about high, but reasonable, pricing on gaming products just because my financial circumstances don't allow for me to indulge.I didn't purchase the fairly recent Conan board game (from a Kickstarter) that was jam-packed with Conan miniature goodness, because even the basic package was really expensive. I really wanted that game too, and every once and a while I stumble across a good review of the game and I sigh wistfully. Their pricing was very high, but very fair for what you got. I couldn't afford it anyway. Oh well. Should the publisher have created a version of the game that included less toys and be more affordable? Should the publisher paid the various artists involved less so that my pocket book could be more happy? Or taken a smaller profit margin? No. They created a luxury product for a high price that was none the less fair, knowing not every body would be able to purchase the game. And that's okay.Gaming companies (and other creative industries) NEED to pay their staff and artists fair and livable wages so these folks can at least hope they don't end up an aging creative with a Go Fund Me page to pay for their cancer treatments. There's a lot more to it than that, of course, but it starts there.Should artists be able to expect to work creatively full time and meet their overall financial and health needs? Or pursue their art as a side-gig next to their more traditional well-paying jobs? Should our society manipulate things so they can? (Universal Basic Income, Universal Education, Universal Healthcare, etc). I think this doesn't really have a "right" answer and it comes down to what kind of society do we want to have. I'm on the progressive side of things where I WANT a society where we take care of everyone at a basic level, regardless of how much they "contribute" back to society and what their contributions are "worth" (artistic vs trades).</blockquote>

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