Video games have always cost the same, even back in the 90s big budget games cost $60. But $60 in 1990 is $148.73 today. So video games have in fact only gotten cheaper over the years.
Has the average industry wage gone up 250%? If not, its not really inflation, just greed.
Not to mention that the audience for games is MUCH MUCH MUCH larger and the distribution costs in a mostly digital world, where it is difficult to actually own a game, are MUCH MUCH MUCH lower.
Add to that if you’re playing on PC the hardware is significantly more expensive.
WE DON’T HAVE THE DAMN MONEY TO PAY FOR A FUCKING $90 MARIO KART GAME
And the prices back then were to offset the costs of physical distribution. Today, digital distribution costs publishers NOTHING.
These prices are not due to inflation, they are GREED.
I just went and checked on the cost of Mario Kart World out of curiosity. $110CAD for a digital download game for a mobile console. Holy shit. That is absolutely criminal.
Yeah the inflation argument doesn’t hold water for this since as others have mentioned, proces were largely based off of physical media distribution, but also the fact that many cartridge based systems relied on the cartridges themselves to supply vital parts of hardware, like with the SNES having carts that added extra sound capabilities
I dont think this really holds water either as those cartridges couldnt have cost more than a few dollars to make, and while things aren’t distributed physically as much anymore, there are still costs associated with distributing games digitally too.
So jump ahead a bit. In 2004 disks were in use, but $60 then is $102.90 now.
Yeah but i got the whole game back then publishers increase the price already invisibly with DLC, cosmetics, Battlepasses. micro transactions, etc. Now they want both sell you half a game at an inflated price in comparison to the avg consumer wage and paywall the other half with casino style tactics.
Oh look. Physical distribution.
It’s the inflation of everything else that contributes to this frustration. Food prices have risen over the same period at higher rates.
Fair, but cartridges cost real money to produce. Disks cost pennies. Publishers used to do much cheaper “collection edition” when a popular game was reprinted after the initial run, but that doesn’t seem to be a thing anymore.
Digital distribution is free, but there are frequent sales at least (except Nintendo)
The game you go in the 90s had more content then nowadays and didn’t get completed with 3-5 €20 dlcs.
Older games did have less content.
But that’s not a bad thing. It just meant they usually weren’t filled with dozens of hours of busywork, grind, and pointless padding.
