"Games this gen are also selling far better now then they were in the year 2000."

Nowadays games are also far more expensive to develop than games in the 2000s. PS2 games only had a budget of a few millions. You'd need at least a million or two in extra sales to break even on 7th and 8th gen games. For EVERY SINGLE game.

"COD franchise is more popular than ever"

Where did you get that from? The best selling CoD games were from the PS3/360 era.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/321374/global-all-time-unit-sales-call-of-duty-games/
NPD source: https://www.shacknews.com/article/115860/call-of-duty-games-were-10-of-the-top-15-best-selling-titles-of-the-decade

"Many other franchises like Uncharted, Witcher 3, NBA 2K and more are selling better than ever this gen"

I can list several franchises that are in decline: Just Dance, Gran Turismo, Battlefield etc. What's your point again?

"The gaming industry has also grown exponentially since the PS2 era and will only keep growing."

The gaming industry as a whole - yes, but the console market has NOT grown exponentially.

50% of the revenue comes from smartphone-, tablet- and casual browser games. How does that help the devs and publishers of console and PC games again?

"also there's DLC, Microt-transactions, digital distribution that cuts out the middle man, making more money for these developers."

Which was exactly the reason why the $10 raise didn't come earlier.

I'm not happy about spending more money but it makes sense, money is worth less than it was in 2005 when $60 games became a standard. It was only a matter of time, and to be honest it has most likely been at least partly a factor in publishers increasing the amounts of DLC and other micro-purchases in games because they're not pulling in as much profit from a single game purchase like they used to.

This video is about 3 years old, but is still very relevant.  I sure as hell will not be paying $70 for games.  I'll be waiting for sales until they hit a reasonable price point.

I think the increase to $69.99 MSRP was overdue. I rarely buy games at launch or at full price thought. You have to take 15 years of inflation into account. I expect many publishers will follow suit and yes the DLC and Microstransactions will continue.

I would like to see games be reviewed much harsher and Micro payments/DLC reduced then.

Too much bloat in games and too much reliance on expensive celebrities as an ego trip. I don’t really care about Norman Reedus or Keanu Reeves. And we were told incomplete games with MTX out the aaa were keeping game prices down. 

With the exception of rare RPGs with good collectors editions, will not be buying games at $70.

Game prices for the most part have been silently increased this gen already, even during the 7th gen. With nickle and diming customers with microtransactions such as skins that used to be unlockable or cut content that is sold as add-on "DLC". There are a few exceptions of course, such as the Witcher 3 for example, but the most egregious example is the likes of EA with FIFA / Battlefront or WB with Shadow of War. The inflation argument doesn't really tell the true picture, as games never used to have this type of monetisation during their respective generations. Once a customer had purchased a particular game, that was all the money a developer was getting. Apples to oranges really.

I didn't read every post on this thread, so this might have been mentioned. One reason N64 games and some SNES games were so expensive was the fact the carts alone cost a lot of money. N64 carts cost $30 per cart to manufacture while CDs cost around a dollar. I'm not sure how much it costs per blu ray or just to have it downloaded but I'm guessing its not too much. If the 69.99 price eliminates some of these loot boxes and lowers costs of dlc's I'm fine with it, but we all know that isn't going to happen. At 69.99 there is no way I will buy a game on a whim at those prices. I rarely buy games at $59.99 outside of Nintendo games that don't go on sale often. I pay full price for games like God of War and Naughty Dog games, but wait for price drops on games like Resident Evil 2 remake and Tales of games until they drop to 39.99 or less.

I'm curious, do you think base prices rising will stimulate free to pay, game pass, gaas, and streaming?

This is what happened to the movie market:

And this is what happened to Trackmania...



Rising prices only drive people away as is evident in this thread alone. The market hasn't been growing much anymore for console games (even slightly shrinking nowadays), while the number of competing releases still seem to go up.

Revenues shrinking is also partly due to many sales, EA access, Game pass, etc driving revenue down.

Together with the economic recession, full new game sales might be on the verge to follow DVD sales from '08 down. At least for now the further move to digital puts more money into publisher's pockets making it less of a necessity to raise prices while still putting in the development budgets gamers expect nowadays.

I think we're entering a downward spiral. Increase new game price -> more people wait for sales or getting it through a subscription -> Overall revenue keeps going down -> Increase game prices.

On the other hand, Tlou2 set records at the full price.

I don't mind a little price hike as I don't tend to buy many new games at release. I bought maybe 7 - 8 games at full price this whole generation with the rest of them being discounted/on sale.