@upperechelongamers one thing I'm not seeing discussed when it comes to game costs is: marketing. This is where I think the bulk of "development costs" comes from, after all, if you are releasing an unfinished buggy mess, the only way you will keep your head above water is to bait people into buying before they have a full description of the product. IMO, this all began with pre-order bonuses. More specifically, when pre-order in-game exclusives became commonplace. I think an argument can be made that the cost to develop games started going down recently. Hardware is leveling off, you have game engines like Unity and UE4 providing easy entry into the market, and you have anti-worker market forces like fanboi syndrome and a surplus of applicants driving down salaries. I've gone from using advertisements to find new products, to being scared when I see lots of advertisements for something, because all I can think is: "What are they trying to hide?" The final nail in the coffin for me was when game reviewers started getting review copies way to close to launch, so full reviews are impossible (because games started releasing betas after paid betas were so successful, but that's another rant). At that point, I had no faith in launch quality. The interesting side effect was giving prominence to youtubers who were no-longer disadvantaged, because major games journalists weren't getting advanced copies.<br><br>I am not surprised in the slightest by what I am seeing, its what happens in an unregulated (no gaming-specific regulations) free-market. A large reason for this lack of regulation is probably the age of our government, I'd say 90% of current representatives either never played or never seriously played video games. They've finally opened their eyes to companies peddling casino-tactics brain rot, now that EA was nice enough to throw Disney/Star Wars under the bus with BF2. When there are no minimum standards or iron-clad consumer protection, and hefty fines for violating them, you can count on businesses doing the minimum work for the maximum profit, because they would be stupid not to. What you want is a market full of businesses that are scared they are breaking rules, so they purposefully stay far away from the line, instead of jumping back and fourth over it, like we see these days. The new standard is rush development, launch a MVP (previously considered  the "Alpha client"), market the living hell out of it, launch with MTX, sell a season pass, and then do another round of DLC after the season pass is over. Minimize the cost, maximize the monetization. <br><br>Businessmen are not artists. The best artist places quality above quantity, the best businessmen are all about quantity of schmeckles. A business takes a great artist, and pays them tons of money to make a quick buck mass-producing their artwork, until the mass production kills the value, and the artist's reputation is destroyed, and the business moves to the next artist. <br><br>I think i've succeed in repeating myself 3 times, so... /rant.