I would like to refer to this image which is probably more than a decade old now

https://frankkliewer.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/shareholder-value.jpg

Check back in on Devolver, Paradox, and TinyBuild in 10 years. They're scaling up to cover the market that Ubisoft, Activision, EA, and Take Two abandoned.

50 dollars were console games. On PC you'd often find the same game at 30 dollars (disk) or 20 dollars (steam) on release. The difference was due to console makers taking a standard fee cut from every sale.

The first AAA games back then to be released at 40 and 50 dollars on PC were COD MW1 and BF3, which set the trend for all other games since then. This was pure profit for the publishers, since there was no cut for console makers on PC. And before you say it, no, the Steam cut back then wasn't even comparable (much less since it was a % cut and not a standard fee). In fact Steam hiked their cut because of the price hike triggered by EA and Activision, which is what then made EA pull their games off Steam and create Origin.

But even rolling from there, a 300% hike in base prices would mean games cost $200, and that’s just not true.

if you consider that nowadays (almost) all games ship incomplete and demand DLCs... yeah, it's true

Digital is not the problem. Lack of true ownership is the problem. GoG is DRM free. Steam isn't great on this, but it's better than other alternatives for now. Sailing the high seas is the best option in many cases.

It's not all or nothing, you can take small steps to stop supporting the worst offenses. First step, don't use any game streaming services where you just subscribe to a rolling catalogue each month/year. PlayStation Plus and Xbox Game Pass are examples of this.

Nintendo is awful too, their games should be ripped from physical media if possible and emulated, or otherwise aquired on the seven seas and emulated. It's a great way to play their games without supporting their evil practices.

Support FOSS games and FOSS-friendly companies. Valve is a good example. Although not perfect by any means, they have proven to be far friendlier to FOSS apps, games, and platforms than most other companies. If you have to get DRM-locked games, get them through Steam. At least they have offline mode and allow full access to all your game files so you can save them to a separate location for archives/backups.

It starts with small things, but if lots of people start doing this, it will have a noticable effect.

Nintendo Switch carts have actual content on them - they're more than just fancy unlock keys.

The horse testicle physics are the heart of the game, and we should be boycotting any game that doesn't have them!

... As someone who hasn't played RDR2, or really paid attention to it... What? There are seriously shrinking horse testicles?

The budget is also a marketing ploy. The average person hears about a game costing hundreds of millions to make and they think "well then, it MUST be good". It's more or a pissing contest among publishers. Most of that budget does indeed go to marketing and executive wages/bonuses.

And from the publisher's perspectives, that's really a good investment of the budget, because it doesn't just drive up sales. It also cultivates customer loyalty and fanboyism (e.g. "we are spending all that money because we believe in the game, and we want to give our loyal fans the best experience possible" is a very common line in pre-release interviews).

For example, there's a false equivalency among gamers, propagated by this kind of propaganda: "I have to pay the high prices and engage in microtransactions/DLC, because that supports the game developers and their high budgets". In reality, the people who actually make the game see very little of that money. Their wages, in most instances, are shit and do not reflect the hours they put in. However, gamers rarely want to understand that, and instead extend the publisher pissing contest among themselves ("the game I'm playing now spent more money than the game you are playing, therefore it's the superior product").

Even if it does, thats still too much money. How much money did Hollow Knight spend on marketing? Or what about Terraria? Or Minecraft pre-buyout? How much was spent on marketing for games like Deep Rock Galactic? I can guess probably less than $100 million each. Maybe even less than $10 million.

AAA video game budgets have surpassed Hollywood years ago.