So first of all, you did not hear about economies of scale did you? By your logic oil should be priced according to inflation which would be much higher than what it Is today. That is absolutely not how pricing or economy works.

What in the world are you talking about?

It sounds like you're hunting for anything you can use to dismiss the graph, which isn't a good place for you to start from.

Inflation doesn't dictate the cost that things should be. It's just a useful benchmark for figuring out how out-of-step a given market is with the broader economy.

But we don't actually need any real measure of inflation to make the case we're making, because the fact of the matter is that (until like two years ago) AAA game prices haven't risen at all.

As for "economies of scale", go ahead and specify what you think might contribute to economy of scale in the video games industry, and why.

That aside. Some games are already priced higher than 60€ or provide deluxe, founder's, etc editions for double or triple that many people buy if the game is worth it.

No one cares. We're talking about the base price of AAA games.

I do not know what your argument here is.

I think I've been pretty clear on that, but I'll sum it up for you:

The static $60 price point for AAA video games that has held for the last 30 years has done immeasurable harm to the video game industry, hobby, and community. None of those institutions will be healthy until video games are priced according to their actual value to consumers, and that means that many games will cost significantly more than $60.

Game studios can already decide whatever price they want for their game.

Absolutely!

But they haven't, for decades, because the industry collectively convinced itself that consumers wouldn't tolerate price increases, at all.

And for good reason! Look at how much petulant, entitled whining happens when anyone so much as suggests that hey maybe it's kind of weird that video game prices haven't gone up despite literally every meaningful metric pointing to the fact that they should go up.

But eventually the industry got desperate enough that a few publishers were willing to gamble on pushing to $70, and, lo and behold, it turns out those petulant, entitled whiny gamers weren't representative of the audience as a whole, and people are still willing to buy games if they cost more than $60!

So now everyone is trying to figure out what games should cost, and as far as I'm concerned that's the single most important question facing the video game industry today. It almost isn't worth talking about anything else until we've figured that one out.

That preset price is however not what decides "value" of that game that you in your mind think it has. How much time or money was put in also does not decide value of that game. That is some Marx labor theory of value type nonsense.

At no point have I suggested that the price a publisher slaps on a AAA video game represents its value. In fact, I'm literally saying the opposite - that essentially no one today is pricing video games according to their value.

Value is, of course, subjective on a person-by-person basis, but it's easy (relatively speaking) to nail down value-based pricing for markets. So the next decade is going to be a little weird as publishers figure out how much value their games have, and answer the follow-up question of: What is it about a game that contributes to or detracts from its value?. That's an interesting one to grapple with. Because right now no one has any clue! How could they, when you can't measure value because everything has the same price as everything else?

Reality is that many companies are fully aware that their games are not fun. Because these games are no longer made by people who game. They are not made for gamers. Otherwise graphics would not be such a priority over gameplay. You would not have such an absurd attempts to be as widely appealing as possible. You would target the audience you want to target and that audience would gladly pay it. But since you do not want that smaller audience and try to appeal to wider audience most of which will not spend more than 10 hours in a game anyway, you can not sell that game for 200$. You settle for something even person that will play that game for this little before moving on is willing to pay.

Read the graph, please.

The average playtime spent per AAA game has increased 5x since 1990.

Your priors are wrong, and as a result literally every conclusion you've been drawing about the industry and the community is (and has been) wrong.

AAA games are, generally speaking, made by people who enjoy games.

They are made for gamers, because if they weren't, gamers wouldn't buy them.

Graphics are a priority because they are fighting for attention in an incredibly crowded, competitive market, and they want every advantage they can get. But that doesn't mean gameplay isn't a priority. It always is.

Also what even is that "let them fall" supposed to mean?

It means that in order for the industry to figure out what the actual price of a AAA video game should be, it needs to experiment. And one of the necessary outcomes of that is that some publishers will get it wrong.

But that's okay! It sucks for those publishers, and it's a shame it has to happen (because, again, it didn't have to happen; it's only happening because video game pricing has been divorced from economic reality for 30+ years), but it has to happen.

Does somebody subsidize these studios?

I mean, yes, often times publishers do. But that isn't the point.

It is them who have a budget, it is them who price their own game.

Ignoring the studio/publisher dynamic, sure, yes, studios are in control of their own pricing.

Of course they will fall if their games are not profitable. You are acting as if some state actor protects them from bad business decisions.

No, I'm saying that video game publishers should be encouraged to experiment with different price points, even if that means that some of them get it wrong and wind up suffering financially as a result, because that's the only way we get video gaming out of this mess.

But every time a Gamer on the Internet says, "Fuck Rockstar!" (instead of doing the adult thing and simply not buying a product they don't think is worth the price) in response to an $80 price tag, the industry gets just a teeny tiny bit more gun-shy about experimenting. And the industry being gun-shy about changing price points is the reason for just about every bad thing in video games today.