I think quite simply because as much as people think gamings a rip off, its really not. I was thinking about this the other day.

Im surprised nobody said Xbox Live.

MS said the reason why it went up $10 was cause of inflation.

That's what I said! ^_^

Practically Everthing has been affected by inflation. 

This. Also the fact that we're now on Euros has effectively doubled the price of games in NL.

I'd say arguments for lack of inflation would be market expansion, cost reduction of materials used (discs instead of cartridges, digital booklets etc) DLC, and the fact that full games can be downloaded (at places) now.

Basically, like nearly all consumer goods (household appliances, bed, furnishing, TVs, cell phone ect) the price is actually lower because of higher demand and robotisation. Then you also have the fact that in most cases less physical ressources is used, which result in less durable goods but inflation proof.

Costs of technology has gone down, but you also have to figure game developer wages don't really sky rocket.

edit: As an example one of my former co-workers was looking for a QA job (He's a programmer, normally worked as a QA) and Capcom Toronto was offering 12 bucks an hour.  That job is the lowest of the low, but in general game developers are under paid.

one of the reasons besides the higher sales numbers is because some gamers act like fools if they hear about an increase of game prices for let's say 10€. so they get their extra money from dlc's and then you have the same people complaining that they want all the dlc's in the retail version included in the price. maybe they could, if they would pay more for the retail version.

i have no clue how this shall work for the next 50 years. in 50 years gamers are still like "i don't pay more than 50 bucks" with a hourly salary of 200€ for a cleaner or taxi driver lol (this was an exaggeration).

i mean, every week you see a a thread on the interent in one of the gaming forums with people talking about higher prices and how these developers would be assholes if they really would increase the prices after 20 years...

nowadays i have to pay more for 30 litres petrol than i have to pay for a videogame. and two cinema visits aren't cheaper as well nowadays with a little bit coke and popcorn....

This.

Nintendo created this during the mid 80's.  The invincibility effect.  Only the games industry has this.

it did psone games were often at 40$ then 50$ for ps2 games and now you still pay 50$ for most ps3 games but you get 75% of the product the rest need to be bought later via dlc

I bought Killer Instinct for the N64 for $80.