I don't believe costs are up as you state.  It's more of a spike when a game is being developed followed by a sharp decline when it's released. Meanwhile all of the extended monetization means they get 50.00 from the gamer right away and approximately 10x that over the next year and a half from microtransactions,  subscriptions,  dlcs, and selling of personal usage data.<br><br>Imagine selling your product to the same person 5 times - why wouldn't you?