Developers and publishers are facing more and more difficulty to make a profit from games, leading the industry into the path of very questionable practices like in-disk DLC, microtransactions, in game ads and etc.

But, I think there`s another way to work this problem. Allowing publishers to sell games with a higher initial selling price may lead the industry back to the way it was some years ago, the games being full experiences by themselves and DLC really adding worth content and not just selling chapters that were cut off the main game.

Actually the 60 USD price tag is relatively new and exclusive to NA. Europe has games being priced at 70 EUR for big releases and in Japan hot releases may sell for the equivalent of  100 USD. And even in NA it wasnt always like that, back in cartridge era it was common for games to be priced 80 USD or more depending on popularity. 

I thought they already were allowed to sell at a higher price than that? Atlus has the infamous "Atlus tax". I think it's just that they know that if they increase the price, that they're going to have a harder time selling their games.

Nope, don't give a single shit about how hard it is to be profitable. It's usually the fault of the developers or publishers for making projects too big for their own good or too graphically impressive, etc etc. A 60$ game with no bullshit practices should be the *minimum*.

In theory, I don't mind publishers and devs selling their games for whatever price they wish. I can decide if I'm willing to pay that price. However, I can't agree with the scenario in the OP. The reality is that microtransactions and the like have already come about. They're not going away. So, if the standard initial cost becomes $80, were just going to have games with all of the same BS selling for $20 more. No thanks.

Sell for whatever you want. Your competition might get those dollars instead though. Then once yours is in the bargain bin, people might pick it up.

Wait for the games to go on sale, second hand sales or end up in discount bins. 6 months after release you will get a cheaper game. 12 months after the release of the top sellers there is usually a GOTY edition that has all of the downloadable content. I never pay full price for any games. I wait for the games to go down to affordable prices and I am willing to wait for the GOTY edition with all of the extra content.

i'd be happy if they released expansion like they used to back in the day as physical copies.

So have the vanilla game then a cheaper expansion pack for the DLC.

Not a game of year edition crap that basically turns me away from buying a game day one. They can keep their game of year editions etc but for the early adopter sell me the DLC as an expansion or whatever.

I disagree fundamentally with your point of view. A developer shooting for quality and state of art development is too be encouraged.

I bought killer instinct n64 for like $80 back in 1997.

Quality and art development =/= bloated projects, "bigger for the sake of it" development philosophy, photorealistic graphics