this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2024
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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.
There's a bigger factor at play which I think is barrier to entry. Now you got individuals or small team of devs being able to publish games themselves on places like Steam, and add to the already huge amount of products that are competing with each other for sales. Used to be in the past when barrier was high these large publishers could gate keep, but now they can't. And they have to fight ants too instead of just other few whales.
And these small ants have games that catch hype despite being lower budget and worse graphics. It's a different landscape now. Even reviewers aren't just some few large outlets they can control anymore, but individuals spread across sharing their opinions and discoveries on social media and places like Steam reviews. Much harder now to control products like in the past.