In case you're not chronically online (I envy you), there has been a lot of talk about the economics of video games recently, spurred on by Microsoft's recent round of layoffs and comments from Double Fine's Tim Schafer saying he no longer "understands the economics" of the industry, essentially bemused at the idea that a game can't just be profitable anymore, but has to make a bazillion dollars.
That comment riled up quite a lot of the Twitter unfaithfuls, arguing that Schafer is an idiot and that games have to make more money than their development costs to succeed, even though there have been numerous examples showing us that this isn't the case. Battlefield 6 is a prime example, making a bunch of money for EA, only for the devs to be canned for their efforts.
Despite examples like that, you still have some people holding the belief that even more money and making things even more expensive will fix everything (despite everything already rising in price), such as Wardogs lead Joe Brammer (thanks GamesRadar).
Brammer explained on Twitter that the whole argument is easily solved by making games more expensive, claiming that Rockstar "had a chance to raise the bar" with GTA 6. There were fears that Rockstar could set a new $100 precedent with the title, but Brammer now seems to be lamenting the fact that the studio went with the already kind of extortionate $69.99 price tag.
99 for a video game. The Blood of Dawnwalker cost $40 million to make , and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 cost less than that.
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