[GVIrish]

> Something that's not brought up often with this argument - the sales scope for modern games. Super Mario World was doing well if it broke 10,000 or 100,000 sales. In contrast a major game these days will break 100,000,000 sales.

Your numbers are way off. Super Mario World sold over 20 million copies worldwide. Every full Super Mario release has sold millions of copies.

Conversely, even the most popular franchises sell in the tens of millions range. GTA V is one of the few approaching the 100 million mark.

Back in the day games were in fact more expensive, but a lot of the cost was in the cartridge. Games were certainly much less expensive in development costs. Modern console game prices have been locked at around $60 for well over a decade. These games are hideously expensive to develop so publishers have resorted to gaining revenue via DLC, microtransactions and loot boxes.

Naturally, publishers have become greedy in this environment and are using these deceptive revenue streams to pad their profits. And really, these practices probably would've arisen even if the price of games kept pace with inflation.

[falcolas]

You're right, I should have worded it differently. Companies went from a market of a few million of potential customers to hundreds of millions (more if you count mobile gamers who are subjected to even more microtransactions) of potential customers.