According to a post I found on that shitty alien site, An AAA game has to sell 10 million copies to break even around 6 months ago. That means at $70 dollars each. They can cost $700 million to make, market and distribute. The money has to typically be recouped within a certain time frame to keep the lights on and invest in the next 700 mil project. The successful games also have to carry the weight of the failures too, so you probably aren’t getting that bad a deal.
I’m not saying the price isn’t inflated, just that it can cost a lot more than you might think to make this stuff, and it’s all on a gamble that it will sell.
I remember buying mortal kombat ii on the megadrive/genesis with saved up pocket money for £45 ($58). That was in 1994, I think I maxed out at about 10 games. I’m seeing assassins creed shadows on the xbox at £56.99 ($74) today (ignoring online digital shops because they didn’t exist in 1994.) So in 31 years inflation on the price of a premium video game has been 0.75% annually vs 2.5% for all goods and that has resulted in a small 20% increase in the price over 30 years.
Closest link I could find to back up the inflation rate. If games increased in price Inline with inflation, they’d cost about £96 ($123) today.
Games have always been expensive, but less so now than 30 years ago.
P.s. If I don’t ignore online digital shops, I can actually get it cheaper the that 1994 price. Only £40 ($51). I mean come on its not like suddenly we have a bad deal on video games. Also if it really bothers you stop buying games at launch. I rarely spend more than a third of those prices now just by waiting a year or two.
Trump has said that other countries are ripping off the USA which creates the impression that foreign companies are selling goods far higher than they are worth. That means that people who believe Trump likely think that the foreign companies have enough margin to soak up the tariff, I.e. Pay it themselves, in order to keep doing business. Then the ripping off stops and those foreign countries just grumble that their gravy train is over.
In reality, they are not and never were ripping off the USA in the way that is being suggested. Republicans seem to have forgotten that the market forces they used to talk about being so important have put a downward pressure on prices to some extent have prevented price gouging wherever there is competition and no collusion. Even when the goods come from overseas.
Now due to the tariffs, the cost of doing business with the USA went up. So if they want to keep selling products in the USA, they need to cover the cost of the tariff, and the only way to do that and stay in business is to pass the tariff on by increasing their price to the customer. They can still sell that product outside the USA at its original price but they may choose to increase those due to reduced volume sold over all since the USA will likely buy less.
By labelling the surcharge for the tariff they are simply highlighting the reason for the increase in price. As they should. I fear though that posts like this show that even when the reason for increased pricing is made clear, people will still choose their reality and not believe or understand the causes and motivations.