I can actually legitimately understand the price rise I’ve been a gamer for decades and I’ve consistently paid about the same price for games since the PS2 era. Also as a side note I am a gamer in Australia and pay a higher RRP for my games overall normally.
I’m a engineer and my wage has grown over the the past 10 years so it’s only natural that the devs wages have also grown to. Combine this with the fact that games take double to tripple the amount of time to make now compared to the PS2 generation. For example San Andreas was a 2 year cycle from vice city with the same team but GTA v was a 5 year cycle and rdr2 was a 8 year cycle. During that time you need to pay wages and support a business.
Even for faster releasing games like sports titles which release year on year the cycle is increasing there is often an a team and a b team
The Xbox 360 generation did result in higher priced games EB Games often sold new titles for $120 this was more towards launch but I remember paying $120 for GTA IV, gears of war and halo 3. They did drop to around the $100 price point after that but then the retail space heated up and this generation resulted in $69 to $79 new release titles.
Competition in the retail space eventually resulted in retailers trying to cut loses on new games and undercut the competition with games like tlou remaster launching for $59 at some shops.
I’m expecting to pay $100 again for games at launch given the global economy is weaker compared to 2013 after covid and were heading into a recession. But ultimately I think the market and competitive nature of sales and retail will drive these prices down over time again.
But if they don’t increase to cover the cost of the Dev team when run into issues where publishers need to recoup the cost other ways which unfortunately includes forced multiplayer or online world’s where mts rule cod MW for example
