Game pricing hasn’t changed much, sure. I paid $70 for n64 games in 1996. But volume sure has
FFVIII sold 6 million copies in its first year, a huge commercial success, and has sold 9.6 million lifetime
Ever juggernaut games like Mario 64 - 12 million copies.
FFVII - 12.6 million
Pokemon red blue green combined - 30 million
Madden 2007 - 7.7 million (interestingly EA does not release sales figures for modern madden games, probably because sports games seem to make far more money from micro transactions than sales. NBA 2k for example sells around 7m units a year but is one of the highest grossing franchises in gaming)
More recent games:
baldurs gate 3 sold 15 million copies
Elden ring 20 million
Pokémon sword and shield - 27 million
Diablo 3 30 million
The Witcher 3 50 million
Skyrim 60 million
Rdr2 70 million
GTA 5 200 million
So when people cry “wahh, videogame prices need to rise because inflation” remember that they are stupid and overlook the very basic fact that 20-30 years ago gaming was a niche activity that got nowhere near the volume it gets today. Any single game selling 50 million copies in the 90s or early 2000s, let alone 200 fucking million, was an insane pipe dream
Game pricing hasn’t changed much, sure. I paid $70 for n64 games in 1996. But volume sure has
FFVIII sold 6 million copies in its first year, a huge commercial success, and has sold 9.6 million lifetime Ever juggernaut games like Mario 64 - 12 million copies. FFVII - 12.6 million Pokemon red blue green combined - 30 million Madden 2007 - 7.7 million (interestingly EA does not release sales figures for modern madden games, probably because sports games seem to make far more money from micro transactions than sales. NBA 2k for example sells around 7m units a year but is one of the highest grossing franchises in gaming)
More recent games:
baldurs gate 3 sold 15 million copies Elden ring 20 million Pokémon sword and shield - 27 million Diablo 3 30 million The Witcher 3 50 million Skyrim 60 million Rdr2 70 million GTA 5 200 million
So when people cry “wahh, videogame prices need to rise because inflation” remember that they are stupid and overlook the very basic fact that 20-30 years ago gaming was a niche activity that got nowhere near the volume it gets today. Any single game selling 50 million copies in the 90s or early 2000s, let alone 200 fucking million, was an insane pipe dream
What you’re saying clearly makes sense and I hadn’t thought about the fact that the videogames market had grown so much.
Still I also think it’s important to take into account that 80$ in 1999 isn’t 80$ in 2025.
I’m clearly not rooting to get more expensive games, but I want everything to be taken into account.
Anyway, I ain’t gonna buy any Nintendo console when how little my kids have used the Switch compared with the Playstation.