[karahime]

Nobody wants to look at it, but I think this is a lot of it. The original Prince of Persia PC/Amiga version retailed at $39.95, or roughly $100 in today's money. In fact, roughly $100 in 2026 dollars was actually quite a stable price point for a very long time.

A $60 game in 2006 is also roughly $100 in 2026 dollars. I think what happened is that around then, people generally decided that "$60 is the price of a AAA game, and anything more is a sham". If I had to bet, I'd guess that that was around when a lot of the public got into gaming as something that wasn't just "for nerds".

I think that if people were willing to drop $100 up front, base price for a game, you would not find the microtransaction, ultimate edition, day 1 DLC shenanigans that you see. Companies would find it easy to say "But of course all skins are unlockable in game!"

[jemmyw]

It makes sense though for the price to fall (in relation to inflation) when the general public got into gaming though. The cost of development is unchanged whether you sell 10,000 or 1 million. Which is my argument against the microtransaction shit being driven by a price fall.

[TulliusCicero]

The gaming audience increased, but budgets also massively went up. You weren't spending $100m+ on Super Mario World.