I don't have an opening to this thread so...

Didn't Horizon Zero Dawn only cost ~50 million USD?
I am not sure if that includes marketing, but lets say it does not.
Add another $50 million USD to that figure, to reach $100 USD.

Any game that is decent, looks like $50 million dollars and has $50 million is marketing, is pretty much guaranteed to sell over three million units.

Lets assume that the publisher (taking out platform fees later) gets three quarters of the opening price ($60 USD) for each unit sold so $40.
We are taking into account retail's cut and price drops, but remember there are special editions too.
Digital distribution has a higher margin, so there is that too.
The way I got this number (mostly guess work) is due to the fact that a game sees a decent chunk of its sales in the first week or so.

3 million * $40USD = 120 million USD.
Take away 30% for platform fees.
Leaving 84 million USD to cover the $100 million USD development + marketing budget.
There is basically no way for a game to fail if it is handled sensibly.

Remember these numbers are Way off, most AAA games will sell one or two million units within three months, and before any price drops.
Hell even Mass Effect Andromeda will hit two million sold before 12 weeks(if it hasn't already).
Though it is likely they have dropped the price at least once to trick people into buying the game.

Rise of the Tomb Raider (Which was for one year a XOne, X360, PC Exclusive):
X360 = 0.35 million units.
Rise of the Tomb Raider (Xbox 360) - Sales, Wiki, Cheats, Walkthrough, Release Date, Gameplay, ROM on VGChartz

XOne = 1.54 million units
Rise of the Tomb Raider (Xbox One) - Sales, Wiki, Cheats, Walkthrough, Release Date, Gameplay, ROM on VGChartz

PS4 = 1.73 million units
(And was released one year after the other versions)
Rise of the Tomb Raider (PlayStation 4) - Sales, Wiki, Cheats, Walkthrough, Release Date, Gameplay, ROM on VGChartz

PC, Steam = 1.81 million units
(Remember this is not the only place to get the game on PC)
http://steamspy.com/app/391220

This equals about 5.43 million units sold.
5.43 million units * $40USD average sale price
= 217.2 million dollars
Now reduce that by 30%
152 million USD remains.

Remember that selling games directly is not the only way that a publisher can make money (Besides Lootboxes and DLC).
Merchandise, exclusivity deals, the licensing of tech, cross promotion deals (Assassins Creed X Final Fantasy), movies, marketing deals (Destiny 2 and Playsation, Assassin's Creed (the new one) and Xbox), In game advertisement / Product placement.

DLC, like expansions and added campains (which do not take anywhere near the effort of making a full game) are a decent way of making a game profitable.

AAA landmark titles should be treated as loss-leaders.
You should use a high quality title to attract people to your brand.
While you use the tech, assets, ect to profit off a job well done.

Spinoff titles, standalone DLC and dumb stuff like Nintendo's free Mercades Mario Kart 8 DLC are the way to go for consumer friendly money making.

Trying to force every part of a game to be profitable is not sustainable.
I hope you enjoyed the read.

So what you're telling me is that people automatically sympathetic to the "expand price" idea due to the "help the industry" fallacy should look at actual profits, buisness models, and that most triple A games are successful?

Who wpuld've thought!

I am saying that we are looking at game monetisation the wrong way.

Publishers should expect to lose money making and selling games, and make the profit elsewhere.

Meh, somewhat agree somewhat disagree.

I think it is better than jamming DLC and lootboxes into every game that comes along.

I seriously doubt that the average AAA game sale returns $40 to the publisher.  That's probably about the average retail price at which a game is sold.  Maybe $50 for games that stay at full price for a long time.  

Then the retailer has to get a big chunk - at least 25%.  In some cases there is a distributor who takes a chunk, but let's leave that out for now.  We still have distribution costs, manufacturing costs, the publisher, and the developer who have to get paid out if that remaining 75%. 

Gamestop is rolling in the cash.
Pretty sure it is about 10 - 15 USD for retail's cut, shipping and production.

The platform holder's cut is ~30%.
Remember special editions exist and help to boot the average back up.
Also digital is big.

I agree that the math is flawed, but is ultimately not the point of the thread anyway.

Yeah, but cranking the price up doesn't automatically mean the game will be of premium polished quality. We've seen that happen so many times over the past two decades alone. If they are to increase the price of said AAA games, then they have to increase the quality of polish and make it feature complete, rather than shoddy and hollow.

The way things are currently gives us games lacking polish with all the MT/Season pass trimmings, and games with an increased price and all the former added on top.

Publishers don't really make money. You're close to right about costs of development. Even if they get a small profit, they need an equal amount to make the next title. So if a game after marketing costs let's say, 70million, they'd need 140 million just to fund the next game and cover costs. Then you need to profit and you're looking at needing to sell over 140 million just for a company to be profitable. It's an endless cycle. It's also why most larger publishers are becoming few games with many ways of milking said title.

The point of the thread is basically to point out that we can keep the price of games at or lower than $60 USD, whilst bringing record breaking profits.
And not have lootboxes.