this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023
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The 'games prices have increased below inflation' is flawed comparison. The size of the market and number of sales has far out scaled inflation so a game sold at the same price now as 10 years ago would be expected to make a lot more money even after adjusting for inflation. Plus the large reduction in physical media cost and the risks associated.
If we were talking about a physical product, maybe, though not always as production efficiency improvements can sometimes offset inflationary costs. However games don't have a production related unit sales limit anymore.
There could be arguments mares along increasing production cost lines, but they still don't scale with the past growth rate of the industry. And when you look at recent games like starfields budget and compare with better titles, the main take away seems to be some studios are just pissing money up the wall through incompetence and dumping that bill on the customer.
The number of sales don't matter for the buyer. The games got cheaper. MUCH cheaper.
Yeah, the costs has risen way faster.
There is also much more competition. While it's hard to get a singular number that encompasses all platforms, if we assume that Steam has had a relatively constant proportion of the user base over the past 10 years, according to Statista, the number of titles released has nearly grown exponentially.
Furthermore, the average price of a game in 2023 is just $15. I don't ever recall paying $8.50 on average in the year 2000 for video games; back then even the cheapest games went for $25, which would be equivalent to $45 today.
Exactly! The games have never been cheaper, even if you disregard inflation, which is just plain wrong.