You make a lot of really good points.  One thing that is important not to overlook, though, is that retail game prices have not risen in much in the last 30 years.  Original NES games often cost $60US or more back in the late 80s and there has been an expectation from modern gamers (in the US, anyway) that the price for new games will stay at $60.  Big games are usually selling far more units than they did back then, which helps, but it's still unreasonable to expect the cost of making games to go up, while the purchase price stays flat for decades.  Either the retail price of the game goes up, or the development cost has to come down.<br><br>All that said, companies have definitely made a lot of greedy and short-sighted moves in recent years.  I understand they are legally obligated to always be making more money for their share holders,  but, really, wtf is going on with with this predatory micro-transaction nonsense and locking basic game features behind paywalls ($10 character slots for MG Survive?  Seriously?).<br><br>Again, great essay.  You're dead right that game companies need to knock this off ASAP.