Prices should be going down, not up. Digital distribution has made it possible to sell games at $45 on launch day, and still make massive amounts of profit. Instead we get digital prices that are a joke like a game still being $60 three years after release.

Do you think this is only Take 2 doing the price increase or do you think it is industry wide?  The most influential company industry wide is Sony.  If this price becomes the standard on their system then they are definitely responsible.  It's their system.  They are responsible for what happens on their system.

We've been paying 69.99 euro here in Europe which has gobe up and down in conversion but stands now at 78 Dollars. If it goes up for us anymore I'm done gaming, it's already too expensive and I love seeing those 59.99 price tags when they drop like The Witcher 3 and REmake 2. I wish that was the standard, they'd probably make more money fro. More people buying in but sure what do I know, I'm not a suit with currency signs for eyeballs.

"System (year) Game cost in USD at system launch year Adjusted for inflation as of December 2010
NES (1986) 29.99-49.99 59.79-99.65
SNES (1991) 49.99-59.99 80.17-96.21
N64 (1996) 49.99 69.60
PS2 (2000) 49.99 63.41"

$70 game would be the same as N64 game back in the day, adjusted for inflation, and still cheaper than SNES and most NES games also adjusted for inflation. We've been spoiled for decades now. My thought? Games are more expensive to develop now, and they are making less money off each one sold than the use to, proportionally. Therefore, we should all get over ourselves and AT LEAST be willing to pay $70.

So $35 instead of $30 at the first "50%-sale"? I can live with that.

Additionally, the trend also shows an increasingly rapid decline in the price of games, so the first "50%-sale" for a nextgen-game will probably be earlier than for a currentgen-game. The first "70 - 75%-sale" will probably be earlier than for a currentgen-game.

With the immense oversupply of good games, the "full price window" will get shorter and shorter, especially with BC to PS4 / XBO games. GamePass and PS Now will also be a catalyst for that trend.

I almost never buy games at launch, so, I'm quite indifferent to this.

Its expected due to inflation and to be honest its something I was already expecting at the start of this generation. Historically games today are much cheaper than the nes/snes era.
Also for people who buys on launch day I think they are mostly people with an inelastic demand so it should not impact sales.
It may also be a sign that companies are losing the control on the promotion side, and this 10 increase will allow them to market a game with a 50% discount while still maibtaining an increase of 5 in final price

Watch Jim Sterling's video on it. Pretty much sums it up.

The reason 60 dollar games stayed 60 so long (allegedly) was due to micro transactions making up for losses. So people always said, and this makes sense, raise games to 70 or even 80 dollars, but give us complete experiences not designed to nickel and dime us that are riddled with microtransactions with artificial grind. And if this were the case, I would welcome to change.

But this isn't the case, publishers known for nickel and diming will keep doing so, and just see the price hike as a chance to make more money rather than to make up for increased dev costs. And if you think they would trade that micro profit for increased "entry cost", you are lying to yourself.

Inflation is reality and I’m very surprised gamers don’t know what it is. Game development gets more expensive every gen and yet prices stayed the same for at least 2 decades. I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner

If there is a game that does NOT deserve the 70$ price tag, it's the yearly copypaste release drowning in microtransactions and lootboxes.