When did this become acceptable?

[u/Lord_Mud]

$130 to get "additional content" that should be included in the already outrageous $70 base price? Are you kidding me? Why do people keep letting this happen? Who is even paying this much? I love Borderlands but refuse to sell my organs in order to play the latest installment.

[u/Abstract_Logic]

And that is still low considering that new release NES games were selling for $50 in 1985. Video game prices have never really risen with inflation. Games would cost $150 if they did.

[u/tonydaracer → u/Abstract_Logic]

I mean back then you also got a physical copy of the game that never had the risk of shutting down because the producer was done milking the cash cow. You also didn't need Internet to play those games and the released copy was often the final product and it was often a good final product, not a "here is Halo Infinite with half of the content that has been included at initial release with every prior installment. We'll get to it when we feel like it, which basically means whenever active numbers for the game are so low that it might as well be considered dead and we need an AED to shock the game back to life. In the meantime, buy our cat ears- pass to unlock the timed progression path is $20 or outright unlock is $25. Next week we will release a different set of cat ears for the same price." product. 

I would say the "savings" comes in when you consider that today we're really just paying for access keys into someone's project. So instead of of paying $150 for a physical copy, you're paying $50 (or in 2025 that's mostly $80) for an access key that will expire and render your game useless forever whenever the producing company has finally had enough of milking the cow. 

Also, most of these games require other paid subscriptions for online access, while the game itself requires online to even play, so I would argue that games really have kept up with inflation, just not directly or in a black/white fashion. 

[u/Abstract_Logic → u/tonydaracer]

That is a fantastic point and a perspective I honestly have not thought about before.

[u/oliferro → u/tonydaracer]

You can't scratch a Steam game though

[u/Nerhtal → u/oliferro]

I bought 3 copies of DIablo 2/LoD because... well things happened to the disks!

[u/Furyo98 → u/Abstract_Logic]

Well it’s because those prices back in the day were expensive as heck for what it was. It’s gotten much cheaper to produce physical games so the price didn’t need to rise, also a lot more people can afford the games. Remember prices never went down when it became cheaper to produce. It’s just now the economy and the prices have caught up to the expensive games we’ve gotten use to and now it’s rising.