The cost of developing games should have gone down.<br>The marketing budget has increased substantialy, a publisher will spend millions on advertising alone. <br>Many games today will sell based purley on the amount of hype that is generated before it is released.<br><br>The cost of making games should have decreased (in some areas) considering the rate of technological advancement we have seen in the last few years. Think about it, rendering a cutscene would sometimes take days , now they can be done in hours or is often done in real time in game. <br>You only need to look at the release dates of many AAA games to see how much work can be done in such a short space of time. They are pushed out very quickly today usually in a  2-3year dev cycle often re-using assets.<br><br>One more thing, these companies <b>choose</b> to spend outrageous sums of money on developement and marketing. We know this is not necessary as there are plenty of inde titles out there that put AAA companies to shame, some of them  are done on a `shoe string` and in other cases is just one or two people doing it for fun. <br><br>In conclusion, I believe that the cost of developing games today is overinflated and is used as an excuse to squeeze more money out of the customer, and you certainly are right when you say we are paying more for less. Games today either feel plastic and unsatisfying or are unfinished and broken.