Somehow I am not surprised. After all, the amount of money you would pay for a game is the exact same as everyone else should and Nintendo's games are objectively worth more despite having very small budgets.

But it doesn't make sense to apply one rule to everything. Price is correlated to perceived value. If I value X game more than Y game, then I want ot pay more for X and less for Y.

Games are getting more expensive to make and microtransactions is a way to make sure that you will profit from the game even if it doesn't hit a specific sale number to break even. But most microtransactions are cosmetic so I don't understand why people whine so much about this.

Taking a 3D model from something around the PS3/Switch level and improving it to the 4K PC/XB1X level easily takes four times as long. And that's with a talented 3D modeler, texture artist, and animator. 3D assets are art and nobody becomes a Corradini over night. Just like learning to paint or draw takes years of practice, learning to make good 3D assets takes years of practice. Especially with organic models. 

Yup, I regret it now.

I think I have said this before..... but the only people to blame here are the consumers. Publishers will do what makes them money, and when they see consumers are willing to pay for maps, DLC, loot boxes or whatever other microtransactions there are then be rest assured they will do it.

And all this talk about what it cost to put a game to a store, or digital or royalty fees...... its all nonsense. There is a lot of money being made period. If there wasn't the system wouldn't work for as long as it has. And there are so many back door dealings going on that ensures everyone stays happy that no one knows about or talks about. Like you really think sony takes the same amount as royalties from activition for destiny or COD as they would take from say ubisoft with assassins creed? Thats where all those exclusivity deals comes into play.

Or the pre-order bonuses that you see are tailor made to certain stores, why do you think that is? Thats because those stores offer to take less from the game sale if the publisher does something to make people buy from them as opposed to from someone else.

At the end of the day, if people want these things to stop.... they should talk with their wallets.

It really seems like you are quantifying the value of a game by the cost of its "assets" as opposed to the experience or content of the game.

And this is one of those times whenyour bias takes point over the usually reasonable things you have to say. Eg... its common sense and a no brainer why games on a PC cost less than games on consoles. With consoles, there are simply just more hands in the pot. With PC, a publisher only has to worry about steam (and thats if the publisher doesn't have their own online store. On consoles, you worry about the platform holder and the store.

Well, those get already made for the PC market, so the extra cost is nil, but it would be partially true if that wasn't the case. Partially, because the 3D models don't change much anymore these days unless you add some tesselation. To save in texels what's normally done nowadays is a reduction in vegetation, not model quality, as these need a lot more triangles to calculate than the character models now. The animation gets transplanted 1:1, so if you have it on one model you can reuse it on the other models as well, limiting the extra time by a lot. The textures however would be true... if those had more RAM to fit higher resolution or otherwise better textures. It's partially true for the XBox ONE, but the Pro just can't afford these.

I think more and more people do, and it's certainly one of the reasons why the Indie market is booming. But at the same time there a so many new customers arriving each year that the number doesn't decrease, at least not yet. Maybe with the outcry around lootboxes this might shift a bit, but I doubt the change will be very big, sadly

We were talking about Nintendo games though, so those assets don't exist for PC. But yeah, if the game is already on PC, then it's just a matter of using the already existing PC assets for a 4K version on consoles. Could you elaborate on the bolded? I didn't realize that 4k was so advanced that saving texels was required. But what's this about cutting down on vegetation? The animation gets planted 1:1, but rigging the model can be a bigger hassle the more complicated the model is. And as we both know, without rigging no animation will work. 

Games can get expensive, if you keep building engines for each game.

Look at what EA are doing, they are spending big on DICE and Frostbite, so they can consolidate their studios, by using unified tools.

Now all we need is for Valve (or someone else) to do the same, but with Source 2+, and for the rest of the industry.