Switching to cheaper media and then digital distribution has reduced costs for distribution, but that’s been eaten entirely and then some by the other problem you call out, which is how much larger the team is and how long the game takes to develop. In order for prices to decrease, that second problem needs to be solved. And sure enough, games made by smaller teams with fewer bells and whistles are cheaper, and there are plenty of those. I’ve played plenty of great ones just this year. By comparison to how many person months go into something like Baldur’s Gate 3 compared to something like Conscript, it’s amazing and perhaps even absurd that it only costs me three times as much as Conscript.
Switching to cheaper media and then digital distribution has reduced costs for distribution, but that’s been eaten entirely and then some by the other problem you call out, which is how much larger the team is and how long the game takes to develop. In order for prices to decrease, that second problem needs to be solved. And sure enough, games made by smaller teams with fewer bells and whistles are cheaper, and there are plenty of those. I’ve played plenty of great ones just this year. By comparison to how many person months go into something like Baldur’s Gate 3 compared to something like Conscript, it’s amazing and perhaps even absurd that it only costs me three times as much as Conscript.