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Generally speaking I would say that the increase in game prices from $60 to $70 back in 2020 was justified. Before that point, new games had spent about 15 years at $60, and $60 to $70 was only a 16% increase, during the same time frame from 2005-2020 the average price for other forms of entertainment increased substantially more, average movie ticket prices in the US increased from $6.41 to $9.18 (43% increase), MP3's increased from $0.99 to $1.29 (30% increase), Netflix pricing increased from $8 a month to $13 (a 62% increase), so really a 16% increase after 15 years for games wasn't that bad.
However, it hasn't even been 5 full years since game prices started to increase to $70, feels too soon to jump to $80 or more imo. Consumers are really hurting as pay hasn't really increased enough to match the rising inflation since Covid in many places around the world, and gaming is ultimately a luxury, consumers are more likely to cut buying full priced games from their budget than other items. This is not the right time for publishers to worry quite so much about their bottom line as to rise game prices, they'd be much better off if they stopped chasing cutting edge graphics for awhile, moved studios to lower cost of living areas so that developer pay won't keep sky-rocketing and bringing up game budgets alongside it, cut some of the AAA bloat such as the oversized middle-management that many studios have, etc.
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