Nor should it happen. Those huge budget games have a degree of spectacle and scale that I'm sure plenty love, myself included. Its all about diversity, more developers need to diversify their portfolio as opposed to trying make every game a AAA 10m selling blockbuster, but there will always be demand for bank breaking titles. They're the titles that often make waves in the industry, ala The Last of Us.

Sorry, but this is a myth. Inflation doesn't factor into it. Gaming was cheaper, both to create and to buy, back in the 80s. Gaming HAS gotten more expensive, as it's gotten more mainstream, as that audience has grown, as gaming budgets have ballooned, and it won't stop until it bursts, and people start making smaller, more intimate VIDEO GAMES again, instead of trying to compete with big budget Hollywood films, which has always been a short-sighted, retarded approach.

I know this, I remember this, because I could afford gaming more as a kid, than I can now as a working adult.

who is this warren guy and what does he know about video games. I surprised games don't cost more.

but thats just it though, you wont see more diversity, not if they continue the way, they do. Hell it seems that big publishers are trying to make everything a damn AAA game.

Its not a myth, but developers do need to watch their budgets. Both so some games can come in at lower entry price, but also so $60 titles can sell 1m and still make a profit. Many games nowadays need 2m+

Something I grabbed from 2010: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2010/10/an-inconvenient-truth-game-prices-have-come-down-with-time/

"some N64 games retailed for as high as $80, but it was also the high end of a 60 to 80 dollar range..... Adjusted for inflation, we're generally paying less now than we have historically. But to be fair, DLC isn't factored in."

"It goes back further than N64 generation, however. You can find scans of Sears catalogs that put the price of NES games around $30 to $50 each. At current prices that's $50 to $80. This was in 1990, well into the system's life."

No, I'm sorry, it is a myth. Both myself and my childhood best friend grew up in relatively poor, working class households. Yet our families were able to afford to buy NES consoles, games, even a Game Boy later on, SNES, etc.

As a working adult, I have more trouble affording the ever-rising cost of gaming than my family ever did when I was a kid. Inflation has an effect, sure, but being able to have an NES and a whole slew of games didn't set us back THAT much back then. Buying a $400+ console and $60 games certainly does now.

I dont' think it was you could afford more as a kid, but just that you were able to buy everything you wanted as a kid, versus now there are more games on more systems that you want.

I mean back when you were young there was only a couple systems, and games good games didn't come out as frequently.  Now you have 5-6 systems worth of games that have a crap load of publishers pushing out games all at same time.  Come christmas time for example there may be 15 games worth buying now, when back when you were a kid there was only 2-3 games worth getting.

Thus you could affor $150 back then for eveyr game when now it would cost like $900 to buy all the games during the holiday.

The whole macroeconomic excuse devs use to justify costs is a load of shit.

If you're really going to be technical about it, that argument is invalid in the States where wages have stayed pretty much flat for 90% of the country since the 70s. Adjusted for inflation, people don't have much more to spend on video games than they did back in the NES days. Family incomes have thus been buttressed by other factors, like women entering the workforce and people relying more on credit.

Beyond that, the economic trends in the country are no excuse for out of control AAA budgets. Very few games deserve to be budgeted around sales of millions of copies just to break even. And yet publishers keep chugging along anyway, regardless of how many disappointing financial quarters or fiscal year results they get when their lofty goals slam into reality.

Even Iwata was whining about how threatened they feel about people only spending 99 cents on a game, saying that it "devalues" gaming as a whole. I, for one, feel that if stuff like Angry Birds is able to turn people away from spending $60 on a console game, then console games clearly weren't that valuable to begin with. It would be better to bring costs down as a safeguard rather than complain about consumers wanting the best deal--something that's been true for every industry as long as commerce has existed.

Spector is right, the problem with the gaming industry is that it's a small industry that generates money well above it's weight and this has gone to publisher's heads thinking that the game they're working on can stand next to blockbuster movies like Avatar and Dark Knight. The whole AAA fiasco has blinded the industry in seeking these over the top budgets regardless of if the game is up to scratch in quality, people only stick to high quality titles like Last of Us, Zelda and so on as a result because you know you're getting your money's worth.

As things go it doesn't matter if the game is garbage, mediocre or fairly decent these publishers seem to think consumers owe them something because they spent a big budget on it, no wonder this industry has crashed twice before it seems to always be on self destruct.

it's already imoral to charge the same price for a digital game, since the download version doesn't feature disc, box and other lesser costs. so at minimum, digital sales should be $10 less than phisical copies.