No Stupid Questions

According to a post I found on that shitty alien site, An AAA game has to sell 10 million copies to break even around 6 months ago. That means at $70 dollars each. They can cost $700 million to make, market and distribute. The money has to typically be recouped within a certain time frame to keep the lights on and invest in the next 700 mil project. The successful games also have to carry the weight of the failures too, so you probably aren't getting that bad a deal.

I'm not saying the price isn't inflated, just that it can cost a lot more than you might think to make this stuff, and it's all on a gamble that it will sell.

I remember buying mortal kombat ii on the megadrive/genesis with saved up pocket money for £45 ($58). That was in 1994, I think I maxed out at about 10 games. I'm seeing assassins creed shadows on the xbox at £56.99 ($74) today (ignoring online digital shops because they didn't exist in 1994.) So in 31 years inflation on the price of a premium video game has been 0.75% annually vs 2.5% for all goods and that has resulted in a small 20% increase in the price over 30 years.

Closest link I could find to back up the inflation rate. If games increased in price Inline with inflation, they'd cost about £96 ($123) today.

Games have always been expensive, but less so now than 30 years ago.

P.s. If I don't ignore online digital shops, I can actually get it cheaper the that 1994 price. Only £40 ($51). I mean come on its not like suddenly we have a bad deal on video games. Also if it really bothers you stop buying games at launch. I rarely spend more than a third of those prices now just by waiting a year or two.

Considering Nintendo has an eShop, I doubt it is tariffs. Hopefully they don't try to tax digital goods next as it appears they have everything else.

The Taxer-in-Cheif can be a moron at the same time that corporations rape our wallets without either of them excusing the other.

Prices are set by graphing a demand schedule and the supply. You graph how many sales you will get at each price point (sales go up as price goes down). Then you graph how many a company will produce at each price point (the more it costs, the less they will be willing to make/risk). The point where those two graphs intersect is the equilibrium. Which is the best price to charge. Taxes shift the cost, increase the price where they intersect.

Digital is weird. Iirc, the risk is more in pirating. The more copies that exist, or the easier they are to access, the more pirated content will be out there. Don't forget to include shareholder profits in cost, and the cost of other parts of the business (like a beloved endeavor that doesn't turn a profit, Costco hot dogs for example).

I'm not an economist and welcome any better explanations or corrections to this. It's been a while since I took that class. But I love the topic.

Either way it's still caused by the tariffs

Nothing to do with tariffs, just a reflection of higher development cost and, and that's perfectly fine to an extent, the very core principle of capitalism.

Let's please not discuss if capitalism is good. It's just the way it is.