Madden should not be 70$

Games should not follow inflation at all?

N64 games were 50$ in the 90s, more limited releases (Ogre Battle 64 for example) were 60$.

Games pricing has stagnated, that's good for the consumers but bad for smaller developers...

Surely the difference in overheads involved in physical vs digital would mean profits are increasing at a higher rate then sale price
- Maybe, development cost hasn't gone down though, not one bit!
- Not really.
  
  Optical discs are dirt cheap. This old answer from Quora says physical media (disc, case, artwork, inserts, etc) accounted for $2-$5 of the cost of a game.
  
  And selling on steam costs 30%
  
  IIRC 30% was also the standard box store cut. Steam just carried it on.
  
  So that's like a 2.5 - 7% margin on a $70 game.. an extra 7% profit margin at the high end is pretty significant
  
  Yes, if you're selling millions of units. But if you're buying just one, $2-$5 probably isn't going to matter to you. Not many people would buy a game at $68 they wouldn't buy at $70.
The medium games came in were more expensive

The gaming audience was much smaller

Games were only sold in stores

If you add all the season passes you're paying the same or even more with further microtransactions

Games in general now have a longer shelf life

AAA games in my country have been 69,99€ since the PS3 launch and now they're asking 79,99€. It's true development costs have ballooned, but I just don't think that's a good price/time ratio and rarely do I buy games over 15€. I really don't mind waiting a couple years.
- Bad price/time ratio? I don't know many hobbies where you'll spend that kind of money for 100h+ of enjoyment...
  
  You can buy musical instruments for that price software or hardware synthesisers, for example.
  
  But that's exactly the point, I'd rather pay double, triple, quadruple for something I know I'll use for hundreds of hours (a monitor, a new keyboard, a Steam Deck) than 80€ for a game that will last me 12 to 30 hours (I only play offline story-based games).
  
  Even if I considered game X, there are decades worth of games availabe for under 10€ that I would rather get now or buy a Humble Bundle while waiting for a sale.
  
  The issue becomes of all publishers start to follow Nintendo's model and not dropping the prices much.
If you're going to count in inflation then I'm going to count in the poor quality of those games
- Rose tinted glasses.
  
  K
Do you want to know my opinion on inflation? Specially on "inflation" in an industry that offers less and less over time for a higher price?

Tears of the Kingdom was $70, and I honestly feel like it was worth it because it’s quite an entertaining and enthralling experience.

“Pro football video game v. 34” is probably not in the same caliber though.

TofK could be the best game ever made (and I don't think it's too far fetched given how good it is) and I still wouldn't justify anything bigger than 50€, 60€ being generous.

New releases used to be £40 when I was a kid (twenty years ago), given inflation, £70 sounds not too bad.

That $40 included plastic packaging and a disc both of which largely don't exist anymore.
- And a complete game!
- Those cost pennies. They were never part of the cost.
  
  Absolutely agree with you. However it's what's been said to people for years to justify the cost
  
  I guess I just have never heard that before. 🤷
- Never was a significant cost. So complaining, you are never going to get you 50c of plastic to burn down the planet to spite publishers.
40? I remember when they were 20. Hell, I remember when you could get slightly older titles for 10. I used to go to Egghead and buy slightly older games with my allowance.
- No you don't. You are just imagining. At no point ever was $20 typical for a new game.
  
  It absolutely was in the 1980s.
  
  Edit: Here. Even cheaper than I claimed.
  
  Permanently Deleted
more importantly they sell way more units now. It takes virtually no more effort or cost for gaming companies to sell 20 million units vs 1 million.
- If they're selling 20 million more units than they used to, then $70 clearly is not too much and outs this post as nothing more than a moan.

I dunno. Baldurs Gate 3 has a truly unbelievable amount of content in it. $70 for it is almost unfair when you consider how far $70 gets you in almost any other hobby.

Someone told me something similar about Tears of the Kingdom and my answer is the same: BG3 could be the greatest game ever made with content from here to eternity, but 70$ is still too much for a game. Specially considering who ends up benefitting the most from the sales.
- That makes zero sense. Explain why BG3 is not worth $70. Give me real data showing that. How much should it cost considering how many people worked on it and how much was spent developing it?
  
  It takes 75 - 100 hours to beat the game, and that's just one play through and that one play through can take even longer depending on play style. This is the kind of game people can get several hundred or thousands of hours out of. Show me any other hobby where you can spend $70 one time and get hundreds of hours of enjoyment.
  
  Hell, even if you sped through the game as fast as possible and spent 50 hours (made up number, not sure what a speedy play through takes), that's still a LOT of time for the money spent. Take an uber out to a movie with friends, then go to a restaurant, then uber back home and you'll have bought at least two copies of BG3, yet you got a few hours of entertainment.
  
  There are next to no other forms of entertainment that give give you that many hours for your money.

Depends on the playtime you get out of it. 140hrs+? Great value.

I have devoted that amount of hours or even more to some games and still think the 40-50€ that costed me each one of them when I bought them is too much.

Entertainment shouldn't be that expensive. Period.
- If you were fine paying $50 15 years ago then I don't see why you would complain about paying $70 now. That's just inflation.
- I don't agree. Development costs money and I'm willing to pay for it. I usually compare it to other daily things, such as nice restaurant visits or such. Things costs money.
  
  Just because I'm curious, what would you feel to be a fair price for one of those games?
  
  Except most of the revenues from the sales of the games don't go to those who actually develop the games. We all know gamedevs aren't paid enough and sometimes do a lot of crunch, specially in big studios. We can't ignore that fact.
  
  Imo I could excuse a maximum of 50€ (or dollars in this particular case), and the ideal would be something between 30 and 40.
  
  Depends on the studio of course, but I bet in the general case they wouldn't be payed more if the price was lowered. It'd be fun to investigate the margins but I don't care enough to do so.
  
  The games I play the most are actually from reputable studios and/or indie devs whom I don't mind supporting. Except football manager, but I don't buy new revisions and have clocked enough hours to feel ok with the price.