But what do you value? You mention 30 hours for a Witcher expack. So you value hours played? Well I got news for you, Returnal if done right, is going to give you potentially many more hours than 30. Hell, there's been plenty of games that I have, and I'm sure you have, paid full price for and got 8 hours out of.
No other game in the genre that Returnal is in looks like Returnal. Returnal isn't a $25 rogue-lite. Could the price have been lower? OF course, but I guess Sony is sticking to their guns and saying that their exclusives are worth $70 instead of $60.
And I get it, people think it's bullshit, but I also guess that people never grew up with an NES or early 90's. Plenty of games were $70 or more. $70 in 1994 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $124.23 today. THAT was bullshit. Games were not multi year, multi million dollar projects with hundreds of developers working on them. Of course the gaming population is massive today as well, so that can help even things out but there are lots more people involved with the developing and publishing who all need to be paid as well.