But, prices here have already increased by $12 .

My solution is budget control for the big publishers. The prices are already ridiculous, and the DLC/microtransaction thing got out of hand way too many years ago already.

What's the minimum wage and average wage in australia? That's the most important wages and cost of life.

I really don't think the DLC is an issue. If you don't want it, you still got (at least in 99.9% of cases) a full game just like you got before, so just don't buy it.

But you also need to look at how an increase in prices would even affect development. One would assume it would allow for a larger budget for the game, but when you see higher budget games, do you really see a more complete and longer game? I don't think so. I think the larger budgets have a lot more of an impact on how precise certain parts of the storyline are (better graphics, better voice casting).

Nope, £40 is my limit. Even then I haven't bought a game for more than £25 in over a year. I'd just prefer they stop wasting their money on developing DLC and put effort into the next game to get it out sooner, if they can do that and sell it at £40 again, they might make more money. See Tomb Raider in the 90s, it had a game every year for 4/5 years.

It would be abused anyway. They raise the price and people accept it. Then they just make more DLC. Repeat.

At this point larger budgets seem to indicate better resolution, more voice acting, and increased marketing.  The length and style of the games is more of a vision than budget thing.  Budget just helps that vision become reality.  If games cost more and the budget got larger, I think we would actually see longer periods between releases from studios spending that money to spend more time polishing the title not innovating.

The industry will never be satisfied. You can raise the price of a game to 300 bucks and it still wouldn't be enough. That is just the nature of capitalism. There is no ceiling.

Hell no. Post-game DLC that actually adds to the game, yea, I'm fine with. Because it is actually "additional content" (like Left Behind for TLOU, Broken Steel for Fallout 3, or The Signal/The Writer for Alan Wake or maybe additional songs in Guitar Hero/Rock Band). But maps packs that I can only believe are purposefully omitted from the game (I mean...they advertise them before the game is even released) or content that is actually on the disc that you have to pay to get access to (fuck you Capcom), that can go straight to hell.

I don't care about microtransactions or skins. They add nothing to the game and are just there to make your character prettier. Completely optional.

Pretty much this!