Wild because games in the $20-$40 range have been killing it the last couple years.
Maybe instead of charging more, big developers could spend less on overhead and bureaucracy. Palworld is made by 4 guys and has sold more in a few weeks than most AAA releases last year. Hifi Rush, cyberfunk bomb rush, subnautica if you want examples out of early access.
Maybe instead of gamers getting used to higher prices, game publishers should get used to lower sales until they wise the fuck up.
Everybody is obsessed with with copying Reddit here.
Nobody wants to put in the work to build it organically like Reddit was, they just want to press a button and have a bot “seed” content until poof! There’s a community!
It just doesn’t, and won’t ever, work that way.