Sidebar: Don't video games have ever growing competition with existing games?

I decided not to buy games until I beat the ones I already have. I am now stuck on NES games and will probably be stuck for the rest of my life.

What’s important is total profits. Video game prices fell because distribution costs tanked and there’s vastly more people playing video games so cutting 20% on the price upfront means far more than 20% extra profit.

That's what paid day one DLC, micro-transactions, and loot boxes are for. Ways of raising the price without raising the headline price.

For videogames I don’t think it really makes sense to try and compare against 90’s prices. It’s gotten so much easier to just make “a game” (in the sense that computers are enormously more powerful, third-party engines and assets exist, generally all tooling is much better, and so on). Expectations in terms of polish and graphics quality are much higher. Distribution is much easier. Videogames are a massive cultural thing these days, so the market is huge, and so is the pool of potential enthusiastic employees.

I mean the arrows are pointing in every direction, I have no idea if prices should have gone up or down or even how to make a comparison. Like we could get into details and talk about comparing a modern AAA game cost to a 90’s AAA games cost… except, even if you adjust for graphics quality generally improving, just the scope of modern AAA games is massive in a way that there doesn’t exist a 90’s equivalent.

That seems like it'll change over the next few years. Lots of people seem to be making video games with AI. Greater supply, same demand, lower prices.

On the other hand, Silksong.

Video games are just another example where the pricing is mostly greed. The market is massively larger than it was in the 90s, digital distribution has massively cut the cost of goods sold, new games are sold with tiered pricing, recuring revenue is now a huge part of a games viability. Game sales aren't the primary income anymore, it's all about keeping whales buying in game items, discounts are only offered when there needs to be a new influx of players to keep whales happy.